I never used the Mark II for anything productive (dicked around with it a bit though) and after Act II, I never dropped below 50k worth of Drebin points (and by the end of Act III, I never dropped below 150k). I finished with ~250k points.

Really, they're both pretty gimmicky but at least the Mark II actually did something now and then and was available for players to use if they desired... Drebin, on the other hand, can take his points and shove 'em. I didn't like the concept of the points or the character himself.

I'm a big fan of the hairless chimp, though.

Gah...I'm on Act 5 now...Everybody on Outer Haven is on your tail as soon as you get on it...I keep on dieing! >_

What difficulty level are you on? I died once in the very beginning but after that, I breezed through the entire Act.

I'm on the default setting, Solid Normal I believe...which is probably stupid since I've only played Ops and both the Ac!d's. I haven't experienced much of the MGS series. Anyway, I don't have any Rations, Regains, or Noodles...so that's a big part of the reason why I'm dieing so much.

Ouch. When I started that level, I had 3-4 Noodles (never used them once the entire game), 8-9 rations, and 2 regains.

Major ouch...but I find a way to get by. I've done pretty much all the boss battles with no recovery items whatsoever (took me a ton of trys just to get vamp down). I've mainly been using them when I'm going from point A to point B where a lot of soldiers might be on me.

Take it slow and easy.  Use octocam and the M14 EBR w/ silencer to take out the initial FROG patrols and snipers.  Assuming that you aren't going for a no-kill completion that is.  Since you have no rations/regains/noodles, I think it's safe to say you've been pretty liberal about shooting people so far.  At certain points there are FROG soldiers that will drop down so watch out for them.  As long as you are crawling on the ground, they shouldn't get the drop on you.  Watch out for snipers on the catwalk and roving FROG patrols.  Use your SolidEye to keep an eye out for any targets you might not see.  When you get to the end of the ship, don't engage the Geckos.  You'll have to go through a door that's in plain sight (need time to open the door), but you should find a gap in their patrol.  I stuck to the left side of the ship and slowly went along until I got to the end, then made my way towards the middle door on the back wall until it was clear to open the door.

I rushed through the first part but slowed down and really took my time in the big Gecko area.

FYI, I didn't bother killing the geckos. Too much effort and ammo. I waited out the waves of troops and sniped them one-by-one until they were all gone. Then I waited until the Geckos had their backs turned (I think there are two of them, right?) and rushed the door into the next area.

There are 4 I think...cause I killed 2 and saw 2 more before I got to the door and started opening it...started...got killed by a gecko.

Ok, finished the game ! (best game i ever played as expected).

Now i can confirm that we have 4 pre-rendered cutscenes - Act 3 ending (2 cutscenes), Raiden VS Vamp fight on top of Rex (1 cutscene), Uploading the virus in Act 5 (1 cutscene).
That's it, the rest are realtime.