I did play all before, and I loved MGS1 and MGS3. The problem is Kojima doesn't have the capabilities to make more complex stories, so things get convoluted - that happened in MGS2 and again in MGS4.

It's not a matter of whether I understood things or not, because I did understand everything Kojima probably wanted to show, but I had little fun in viewing it. Some of my favorite games infact do have complex stories, rich in thematics but incredibly subtle (Deus Ex and Planescape Torment).

I made one big post some time ago, explaining why Kojima's storytelling method was flawed and why he's not able to make a good story with sublety and nuance. Here if you're interested:

MGS' philosophic cutscenes do not bare much mental stimulation: The writing gives you everything on a silver platter while the gameplay let's you experience little (and that little bit is mainly 1-pony-trick shallow experiences).

The best way to explain something is to experience it which is basic pathology, teachers always use exercises, after explaining the thesis to the students to demonstrate it. This would let the students better absorb the information given. It's same thing for games with complex stories - the gameplay should be the driving force to immerse, experience and explain whatever the authors' intentions. Kojima doesn't take advantage of that.


One perfect example of Kojima's design flaw is MGS2: The handling of control/freedom of information and it's implications. Basically, In MGS2, the player experienced mostly one type of one-dimensional situations of control of information throughout the game, which is fine. The problem was when Kojima simply abused them, as if he thought the player wouldn't be able to understand those experiences: Solid Snake's apathy in informing; Raiden tackling with forgotten past and Rosemary's duty; The revelation of the Patriots, Colonel and AI; and the only multi-dimensional experience from all (as small and indirect it was), the actions of an entity controlled by controlled by another entity, which is... The patriots being the highest order, having Ocelote running with controlled info, whom was having Solidus tackle with things on a controlled info, etc... pretty much just a cascade of the same types of experiences.

When you notice, for so many experiences they're basically just the same type of experience with a different coating, except Raiden's past which I thought was good in portraying culture growth in a 'controlled environment' (though it should've been more interactive, not only because there too many dialogue spent on a 'small' thing, but it would also allow the player's knowledge to correspond with Raiden's when tackling the situation).

Possibly the worst part is near the end, when we had a long 15min cutscene explaining everything we experienced in the game!!! I'm talking about Colonel, Raiden and Rosemary's triage. that scene only needed to be 2-3min long, only explaining about the GW and Rosemary's and stuff like that...why would Kojima need to explain everything again???? And there still was both Raiden and Snake, in the end, stating the same thing in their epilogues, that thing being something mentioned more than once in the game.

Basically, Kojima thinks the average player is an idiot. Kojima is no genious.

Also, most of the dialogues presented in the cutscenes could have easily been done in a more interactive way, through interactive dialogues since many of the scenes were based on a typical question/answer scheme, which is simply perfect for it. Raiden's backstory should have been done so, with a small obligatory dialogue from Solidus (the one who would initiate that part).

Action-centric games are the ones that use, and are more excused on using cutscenes exclusively, because they are usually light on story and do not need to utilize methods on incorporating it on gameplay as much, which would also help the action gameplay be completely by itself, which is OK. Story-Heavy or Story-centric games (such as RPGs and Adventures), those are the ones that really need to put the story inside the gameplay. That's why many of them use outlets such as:

- NPC Interaction, a great way for interactive dialogue scenes, and leaving the player in full control.
- Optional content, necessary to spread the story without losing any amount. It would also give the player the choice to how much he wants to play it. It's also a great way to increase replay value.
- Story-specific gameplay, which is about features that are very story-related, but it's not optional and impacts the gameplay heavily. One example is Planescape: Torment's main character, the Nameless One, an 'immortal' which loses his identity and memory every times he dies. When the player(in control of Nameless One) dies, he doesn't lose the game, but he re-awakens with his entire memory removed. What better way to explain death, rebirth and immortality than to actually experience it in the game.

 That's why Adventure games, the most story-centric genre, don't have many cutscenes, believe it or not. They instead use ALOT of NPC interaction to keep the story going. Perfect example: Grim Fandango, an 18hours Adventure and only has like 30min of cutscenes in the entire game. As for RPGs: Fallout 1&2 (everything optional, amazing stories), Planescape: Torment (best story ever), Baldur's Gate 2 (Bioware's finest).

MGS4 and JRPGs are the aberrations of the Story-Centric games since they support heavily cutscenes, and that directly contradicts the Industry norm. But they're from japanese developers, so it's not surprising.

The gameplay of 'Planescape: Torment' does explain immortality, it's implications, and goes into depth for it; only the developers tried to show it naturally, and not convoluted (which is what MGS2 was like). In the beginning it is explained roughly (or rather, naturally) the immortality of the Nameless One. the player then will experience death, rebirth, loss of identity, immortality; and he will see the impact of the Nameless One's past, who he was, what he did, the evidences he left. The sporadic gain of memories from past lifes will leave the player wondering more about him, without ever having his questions fully answered.

In Planescape: Torment, to let the player experience directly the Nameless One's Immortality strongly adheres to the atmosphere and cohesion of the Story; The recollection of his memories, and try to pick up those few pieces often leaving the player wondering about his origins (how old is he?.... what is his name?...) strengthens the bond between them; Giving the player first-hand seat on the evidences and clues his the Nameless One's past lifes as he encounters those who knew his past identities; Everyone's sins, thoughts, emotions, Morte's search for redemption, only being able to decrease his own torment if Nameless One (the player) forgives him. I could go on pointing more. .. most of it is optional, but all of it makes Planescape: Torment a surreal experience.

No matter how big the game's script is (btw, Planescape's writing is divine), if it's used through NPC Interaction then it's already inside the gameplay, more so when it's games that have choices/consequences. Planescape has almost all of it's story (well, most of it) inside the gameplay by default.

I'm not saying cutscenes is bad, far from that. What I wrote was that when cutscenes take a BIG amount of gametime, it hurts the game experience. Instead, Kojima should have found ways to disperse some of the more unnecessary parts of the story, if he couldn't remove it at all. Maybe MGS4's story is actually a good one, but having 1 third of the game non-interactive is not praise-worthy.

I knew Squilliam would be in this thread somewhere, he likes to be anti-sony.

for Squilliam, 360 is almighty, halo games is the greatest game that had ever made in human history.

why are people (squilliam & shilo ) dissing the game... use r taking about it as if its really crap... if use dont like it how come use r in my thread?

kyliedog, do you own a wii and ps3? : ]

You criticize the game for lacking stealth elements, but say Act 3 (the act that requries the most stealth) is nothing???

BTW try playing on the hardest difficulty level. Stealth keeps you alive.

Yeah it is a great game regardless if you are a MGS series veteran or its your first MGS game.

I agree with this.. it's one of the best games i've played this gen, maybe ever and i've never had a metal gear solid game before.

A totally disagree, the game is horrible, its short less than 5 hours, it features a complex control scheme without a tutorial and cinemas so long u can powernap through em without missing a moment of actual gameplay. In other words its a very expensive interactive movie

Thanks!

Actually the greatest game for me is Civilization 1. :)