In the Nomad briefings, there is no player control over what Snake is wearing since he's always wearing the same long sleeved shirt, desert camo cargo pants and OD jungle boots.

There is that cut scene near the end where it doesn't matter what you're wearing (web gear, face camo, etc.) presumably for continuity purposes and because they probably didn't want to have to render "damaged Snake" with variable gear. Plus he can't very well be wearing face camo in the final scenes of the game; really can't convey any pain or emotions that are integral to the story.

I actually had Snake wearing the face camo for the majority of the game, so it was apparent when a given scene required his face to be shown as it would magically disappear.

As for the weapons, depending upon what weapon Snake is carrying would result in a different animation during a cut scene, hence the decision to mandate he's either carrying a long arm (M4) or hand gun (M1911). If you had him carrying a Javelin or a Stinger SAM, the animation script would not match at best. At worst you'd probably see the weapon flying through objects or other characters since Snake would still be using the same animation script with a missile launcher as he would with a hand gun.

Those I've seen I would say are rendered using gsme engine although there might be some FMV.

I was being sarcastic as I think there are some (not all) posters simply trying to score points on a game based on how the custscenes are produced - which is pretty silly IMHO and possible a new low for fanboyism at its worst.

I don't even own the game but I've seen enough on friend's PS3s to see this is a great game graphically.  No doubt there are some glitches here and there.  I've never seen a high end graphical game without glitches however so who cares?

Also I'd argue there's more value in studying bacteria (interesting or not) than arguing about PS3 vs 360 (which is what lies behind many comments on this thread) based on MGS 4 cutscenes.

Does it make much sense to have one prerendered video running while another in-game rendered display is running? I'm not one of those Cell advocates that think the PS3 can do everything. Do you honestly think the PS3 has enough memory and power to run both a prerendered HD video and render the same in-game video at the same time?

Wouldn't it make more sense to render everything in the same plane and have one display crystal clear and the other one camera like? I think they'd have more trouble displaying both a prerendered video and an in-game one at the same time rather than just having it all in-game.

Each class of weapon has different animation scripts. Big difference between a Stinger SAM launcher and a M1911 hand gun. My guess regarding the Mk II is that if it were visible in the Nomad's monitoring system, it would look just as awkward as the hand gun animation for a shoulder mounted rocket launcher in hand as it would if the player were ramming Otacon and Snake with the Mk II in an effort to get an onscreen reaction even though their animation scripts don't respond to player input since they're on rails.

That and the MkII is effectively invisible for like 99% of the game. It's like Jack from GoW. It just magically uncloaks whenever the plot dictates.

It's entirely possible that Kojima removed the Mark II for aesthetic reasons. But if those scenes are in-game, it would appear unless it had intentionally been removed. That's my point. I still don't understand why he would have removed the little robot, though. Oh well, I just wanted to find out if anyone knew the real reasoning behind this.

I'm with everyone else who's saying that the cutscene at the end of Act 3 is prerendered. Not sure about the other cutscenes, but that one really stood out in my mind. I'll take a closer look at the other cutscenes when I play through the game again. I mean a dead giveaway is the fact that you can't zoom in on the cutscene.

As for the mission briefings, I never took a close look. But it probably would be easier to display a pre-rendered video, and have just 1 rendering screen (the MK II/III), then have to have to render 2 different views. Or it could just be that the MK II isn't actually in the screen. Meaning that the model isn't there, and it's just an invisible viewpoint that the player can control. After all, you can't go into third person mode when using the MK II during the briefings, so there technically isn't any proof that the MK II is there.

I considered that until I thought about the tentacle. It appears on the Mark II screen but not the other.

I actually forgot about that.  But doesn't it show that the MK II is in stealth mode?  So it would make sense to cut it out of the main briefing scene.  Assuming that was their intention.

When you're an invisible robot, you're invisible to everything but yourself apparently.

I actually played through the entire game without using the Mk II at all. It's one of many play mechanics added to the game that add options to the player, but are not actually necessary to play.

Technically, only a very select few weapons are really necessary to play as well. They just add a lot of extra play options and dimension to the game.

I have only used the mark2 during the latter half of act 2 (and found it to be very useful) but other than that....it seems like a gimmick, but not as much as the whole drebin points thing