This is presented as if it is a statement of actual facts, when in fact it is nothing but your own simple opinion.
People should stop presenting their opinions as if they are facts...
/QUOTE]
Does he have to add an imo after everything? No one praising the game has done that. It's pretty understood that it's his opinion.
and in my opinion it's the right opinion.
It's a pretty bad game. Kind of a soul crushing disappointment for me. I remember watching every trailer with so much excitment and getting a PS3 right when MGS4 came out. I gut the MGS4 bundle as my Graduation Gift. i then locked myself into my room to sit down and experince what would be the end of my favortie gaming series ever. The series that got my into games.
It did'nt hit me at first. I beat the game and thought to myself "that was ok right?"
It wasn't it was probably the most disappointing game of all time.
- Worst boss fights in the series (by a large margin)
- Least interesting bosses
One of the most obvious flaws is the fact that the bosses in the game are terrible. How do you go from the bossess in MGS1-3 to these? While sure the Cobras don't have much to do in the story as Foxhound or SoL, every MGS boss has had a prescene in the series. Something that makes them a bit enduring and memorable. Some aspect of character. I don't remember a single thing about the Beauty and the Beast Corp. Thier names, what they were about, nothing. I can remember certain lines Fatman said or Sniper Wolf's mannerisms. There was nothing enduring about the BnBs. Dosen't help that thier entire story was told through Drebin's phone calls that all amount to "war was bad and she had a hard life". Talk about lazy and pathetic.
Yet it dosen't stop there. Bosses's having a presence makes them memorable, but making the battle's unique makes them almost godlike. No, not every MGS boss has been unique. At least they've hahd something. Most of the BnB battles are so uninteresting that I try to rush through them. No the BnB sniper battle is not fun, so I just run up to her and shoot her. No I'm not impressed by this building falling apart in Act 3. Was that the gimmick for this one? I have no idea because all I do is shoot her. I guess the one changing into other things in Act 1 is neat. I'll never be surprised and it's kind of boring after the first, but ok. It still just comes down to me running around and shooting at her. The bosses aren't fun and they aren't memorable. I don't even remember what act 5's bnb did.
Solid Snake is a depressing aged piece of jerky instead of a wisecracking and angry aged piece of jerky
My big problem. Snake in MGS1 one goes from this down in out guy, with no resolve to a dude who has a reason for living. In MGS2 we see a completly sure of himself guy who is possibly the most inspiratinal character evrr. In MGS4 all we get is a sad sack who i wouldn't care if he died. You can argue that this is because he's facing his mortality straight in his face and of course he would be down. I don't buy it and that's not intersting to me. The Solid Snake I like is the one who was trying to make a better world for the next generation, the one that told raiden Grey Fox's credo, the one who kept fighting for his ideals. A dude who was super awesome in MGS2 because he already went though his arc in MGS1 where he felt he was nothing but a hired gun. No, he was fighting for his beliefs now and he was awesome. I wanted that Snake from MGS2. Except all we get is a sad sack Snake and it sucks. The constant reminding of how old and worn down he is not emotional. It's tired. It's unintersting. Old Snake from MGS2 would have constantly been fighting through the pain and not had his game wallow in self piety. Which is all that terrible Microwave scene does. It's an excericse in self-pitty and it makes me just dislike Snake all the more. Pretty much every scene in the game is "feel bad for Snake because he's old". It gets tiring after awhile and thats not what I saw happening to Snake after MGS2.
Naomi's character arc is fucking lame and dumb to the tenth degree
Made even worse by the cringe worthy Otocon sex stuff. Then the strange "ima rub your chest" thing with Vamp. Her character really sucks in MGS4. Then again, so does almost every returning character. Mei Ling is just cute girl fanservice. Meryel is just made into an annoying butch lady. The Campel and Rose thing is just strange. They took a lot of bite out of Eva when i guess actually she didn't disappear out of the series. I kind of wish none of these character's returned.
Humor is lacking and is a lot more forced
Johnny is the poster child for this. It's the same 5 year old level joke over and over. No that dosen't make him a fun character. No, the constant poop jokes at the wrong time make me dislike him immensely. Yet, he is kind of a major character.
Overly depressing and drab characterization
Yep. It's already a shame what they did to Snake. This is after Big Boss' game. Which is a tragedy and serious at times, yet they were still able to give him a fun personality. I'm not sure why Snake had to become a sad sack and it really seems to be because Kojima is a hack and had to write a new character arc for the character. "he's old so of course he's sad now". Never mind that the guy has made it his life's mission to put his life on the line just for his ideals. Raiden is also terrible. At the end of MGS2 he's also on the way to finding his reason to fight. Except I guess he did'nt and he became even more emo. People accuse Raiden of being lame in MGS2, but his drama in MGS4 is worse. He didn't go around saying emotionally contrived things like "JACK IS DEAD" and "I JUST DONT FEAR DEATH". Like making the character angsty and a ninja dosen't automatically make the character better. His drama with Rose and being apparently so sad that he gave up his humanity not only confuses me, it also makes me dislike him. This was not the path from MGS2. This was Kojima's thinking that everything needs to be dark and serious. See also MGS5.
- No mystery or intrigue when it comes to technology or what seems to be the supernatural
well no because the fans had to know everything and Kojima has to answer them. People in MGS just have powers. It's a thing. It didn't need to be explained. MGS is military fantasy. Answering them would'nt be satisfying and it's not when the answer is the catch all nanomacheines. Which just opens up the plothole of why aren't they using them in any situation where they clearly could help.
- No clear or recognizable themes in the story
Yep. I don't know what this game was about.
MGS1 was about Snake finding a resolve, a reason to fight. Contending with a villain who seemed to have a twisted resolve and an inferiority complex about the whole thing.
MGS2 is about manipulation and control. The Patriots are trying to control the new era of digital information. Raiden is being manipulated. The player himself is being manipulated. The villain is at least trying to fight this.
MGS3 is about loyalty at the core and its amazing.
I don't know what MGS4 is about other then being the end.
Yet these are not the only things that make MGS4 a disappointing game.
The entire Ocelot twist is stupid. It's like Kojima saw the reaction to the Boss's story in MGS3 and felt the need to copy it. So he took a character that was awesome as a villain and added a very flimsy twist that makes him this super self sacrificial hero. Even though it's now very stupid and makes no sense. You can say he laid the ground work in MGS3. Sure he idolizes Big Boss and that's a good element of his character, but he still works far better as a villain who just now has this amusing humanity to him. his actions now thanks to the twist are even stupider.
Not only that, but honestly MGS4 should have actually been the fight between Liquid and Snake. This series has been about the legacies of the boss fighting each other in the aftermath. Having Liquid actually be the villain would have been better thematically. I also already bought into the arm thing. MGS has powers and a crazy idea about how genes work. They also already gave a reason as to why this could be happening with Ocelot. He's got latent psychic powers thanks to him being the Sorrow's child. It already could make sense in MGS logic. It's far better then whatever actually happen.
The entire Patriots reveal is also unsatisfying. Making the entire MGS series actually an ideological battle between Big Boss and Zero is not what I call a good thing. Your support team from 3 were fun characters and now they are heinous villains. What? And what the heck did Zero have a stake in any of this? I guess Kojima wrote himself into a wall with the Patriots, but how about making them new characters? Not trashing old characters for no reason.
Beyond the story, it's the gameplay thats also terrible. MGS2 perfected MG-MGS's gameplay. MGS3 decides to do something new and takes you to the jungle and builds it's gameplay all around that setting. MGS4 was supposed to do this with the battlefield. No place to hide remember? Kojima dosen't and this is half assed and then dropped. The battlefield never really factors into the game. There's plenty of places to hide. About the only real thing that MGS4 does with it's stealth is make octocomo which fixes the menu complaints from MGS3. Cool, but everything else is lame. There's maybe one or two set pieces that do anything with the whole Battlefield setting. The assault on the Villa in act Two and act one's follow the convey. That's about it. The setting dosen't factor into the gameplay and no the one sided PMC trust thing dosen't count. You can only side with the rebels and you do it almost automatically. It might as well not even be in the game. it's just disappointing after seeing what MGS3 did with the jungle. Having this lively battlefield would have been awesome for a stealth game and MGS4 drops the ball. Then it runs away to act three where you just slowly follow someone. Awful on replays. Act 4 has annoying stealth against robots which is'nt fun. Act 5 has what one room of stealth and then you just run in a straight line? Not cool.
I mean I guess I can see why people like this game, but for me it's just a colossal disappointment.