So, Metal Gear Solid 4 is officially over a year old now. I figured I’d spend some time looking back and reflecting on it a little bit. This retrospective will be broken up into two parts. In the first part I’ll take look at simply the game itself, its design. Part 2 will focus mainly on the story. And yes, there are massive spoilers within, read at your own risk if you haven't beaten it yet. Anyway, ultimately I found myself coming to a startling conclusion in regards to the gameplay aspect of this game for this first part of this piece.
Metal Gear Solid 4 just really isn’t that fun to play.
There, I said it. Believe me, I don’t hate Metal Gear Solid 4 and believe me I really wanted to just fall in love with this game and call it the greatest game of all time. But unfortunately, looking back on it after a year I have to come to this inevitable conclusion. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the game. Honestly, the fact that MGS4 was going to be a PS3 exclusive is one of the reasons I finally ran out and bought a PS3 over the other next gen consoles. And truth be told, initially the game lived up to every one of my expectations. The game boasts one of the most heart pounding openings to any videogame in history as you’re instantly tossed into the middle of the battlefield frantically trying to find a hiding spot and evade a constant slew of enemy Gekkos. The brand new control scheme is a perfect refinement of the previous games, taking the things that worked and excising the things that didn’t. Despite the lengthy cutscenes, the game managed to avoid the problem that many of the other Metal Gear Solid games before it had; namely the somewhat imbalance between plot revelations and gameplay, with Metal Gear Solid 2 being easily the worst offender. Kojima finally got wise and eschewed what could have been some very lengthy codec conversations by providing much of the back story for the missions in the form of little (well not exactly little considering some of them are well over 30 minutes long) briefing videos detailing the operation in lieu of watching two animated avatars move their mouths while plain text scrolls at the bottom. The game’s pace never seems to slow down and there is always a fresh objective and something new to do…
……for the first two chapters.
And so now do we come to the point of this portion of the article, where exactly MGS4 went wrong and why it’s overall a disappointment. See, the first two chapters get everything right. The second chapter is easily the apex of the awesomeness of the game and at its conclusion it seemed that this game could do no wrong. Then along comes along the utterly soul crushing third act that seemed to reverse all of the good from first two chapters. We go from liberating captured soldiers to then storming an enemy camp with said soldiers, to a wilderness rescue operation, to an epic chase scene that finally culminates with a Gekko showdown in a crowded marketplace in Act 2. The means to achieve this end are often open ended as well. Sure, you can opt to go for the sneaking route but I tend to prefer to utilize run and gun type tactics, systematically assassinating my enemies with ruthless precision. Stealth?! Bah, real men face their enemy head on. All that seems to disappear in Act 3 as the bulk of the stage has you following a person from screen to screen while making sure you stay well hidden when he decides to randomly turn around and take a break from his incessant, downright annoying whistling. Yay. Honestly, after all of that sheer coolness from the first two stages it’s just such a massive letdown to realize that we get to do the same thing we’ve already done way back in Metal Gear 2 (the original, not Solid) only this time stretched out to four times the length. God forbid you mess it up or you’ll have to follow him all over again. There were so many differing ways you could solve a problem or approach a situation in the first two chapters, once the game begins the shift to Act 3; it offers less freedom at which the player can approach situations. The level designs are more restrictive and branching paths become fewer and farther between.
From Act 3, the gameplay just seems to be one letdown after the next in general. The fourth act looks to be the coolest one initially, but it’s ultimately a disappointment as really all you do is infiltrate a broken down building and power up a few elevators while avoiding some very irritating drones from attempting to smother you constantly. There isn’t a single enemy soldier to be had in sight. The fifth and final act doesn’t fare much better as an infiltration aboard an enemy vessel a la “Under Siege” is teased yet never delivered. Great job making your way past Screaming Mantis Snake! Now you must battle through Liquid Ocelot’s most elite guard to get to him…….or not. How about you just mash the hell out of the “X” button till the damn thing near falls out of its socket and crawl your way there. You may argue that a ship infiltration was already done in Metal Gear Solid 2, but rehashing things already done in previous didn’t stop them in the infamous Act 3 either. Wasn’t that motorcycle segment essentially the end of Snake Eater with bomb dropping birds? No doubt that the final confrontation in the end was epic and lived up to the hype, but once the credits finally began to roll ultimately I just didn’t find it to be a very satisfying gameplay experience. I’ve only played and beaten the game twice, less than any other Metal Gear Solid game. But let’s put things into perspective here. I’m not saying that the game sucks or that it’s not a good game. I mean, let’s be honest, Metal Gear Solid 4 is a fantastic game when looked at comparatively. Graphically the game is a work of art and game design wise, it’s easily the best Metal Gear from a technical standpoint, and that ultimately is what is so disappointing about the game. You simply just don’t seem to get many opportunities to use it as much as I would have liked. Upon the completion of the first two chapters, which does a nice job of setting up the story, the game increasingly seems to focus less on creating memorable gameplay experiences and more on memorable cutscenes. Exciting game design takes a backseat to fleshing out the story. Many of the game’s most amazing moments are contained within the cutscenes. The most irritating example of which is being forced to watch Raiden have an exciting sword fight with Vamp on top of the destroyed Metal Gear Rex, only you can’t even get the satisfaction of even that as while they battle in a letterbox on the screen, you’re given the much more boring task of keeping the Gekkos at bay with a rail gun. That isn’t to say that there aren’t any nuggets of goodness to be found (the Metal Gear fight in particular was just plain epic), but overall I can’t just help but feel let down by the unrealized potential of the game. Call me a nitpicker, but dammit, Metal Gear Solid 4 just didn’t give me enough.
Thus do we conclude part one of this Metal Gear Solid 4 retrospective. In the final part, I will discuss the plot. How well did it fare? Did Snake receive a proper send off? These answers and more discussed thoroughly in Part 2.
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