Guys, CQC is just the best. I somehow never got a handle on it when I was playing MGS3, nor my first few playthroughs of MGS4, but when I was doing all the grinding for the Chicken Emblem playthrough it really clicked with me. I've been playing a bit of MGS3 and using CQC more than anything else because I find it so hard to go back to left-thumb aiming and pressure sensitive buttons.
It's just such a cool mechanic in the game. The thing I love about MGS4's controls is that all of the more complicated manoeuvres you can have Snake do branch out from a really simple third-person shooter setup. You can lie down, roll onto your back and throw a grenade over your head if you want to, but you can also just shoot dudes like any other game. CQC is all done with one button, and different moves just use different timing, or tapping or holding. It's such an elegant design, so far from something like Assassin's Creed where the controls are so needlessly complicated that they need a display of what all your controller buttons do on screen at all times.
It does bug me a little that Cutscene Snake has so many more moves than Gameplay Snake, though. They don't let you CQC when you're holding an assault rifle, but in Act 3 Snake does that sweet move where he locks the guy's arm up behind his back and lays the rifle over his shoulder, which could easily just replace the normal grab animation in gameplay. I also wish the enemies would be more agreeable when it came to CQC; as it stands they either back away out of range or come in close and do the unblockable knife slash that knocks you down and ruins all your fun. I found out, by complete accident, that if you hit the Triangle button at just the right time Snake will roll back up to his feet, but I wish they'd give you a timing-based counter against those moves like you could do to The Boss at the end of MGS3.
I don't want Metal Gear turning into Batman's freeflow combat or anything, but there are ways to expand the system while keeping it grounded and technical. Peace Walker's greatest innovation was letting you throw an enemy any direction you wanted to knock other dudes off their feet, but then they addressed the group combat stuff by just having you press R as the prompt came up and that was no fun. Ideally I'd love to see them expand the system enough that we could have a full CQC bossfight without needing a whole new control scheme like the end of MGS4.
