02-09-2009

It has been a long time since a true update (the last post I made I started writing a while ago and only just published). I haven't had much time nor desire to game so I've been occupying myself with my other hobbies (www.flickr.com/photos/joncook).
But I have played a little bit of a game I've been meaning to get around to for some time.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - This game was released sometime in June 2008 and I had started it around then. I had put it down after the first 3 acts and decided with all the GOTY 2008 buzz the game was getting that I would pick it up again and try and finish it. I had left off in the middle of Act 3 where I was to follow a target through an old time European city. It took me a little bit to figure out who I was looking for and what I had to do but once I did I jumped right back in. It felt like typical old school Metal Gear sneaking around...at first. Then I decided that it would be much easier to tranq the guards and then pop them once in the head while they were taking a nap. This definitely made tracking my target easier but when I first started doing this I didn't remember who I was looking for. So I ended up tranquing and killing my target. Not good. Eventually I got through it and it led to an exciting motorcycle chase which was definitely the highlight of the Act. Great camera angles, great action, great graphics and okay controls made this section fun. You take the role of the shooter while your temporary AI companion drives. Right before this and right after this are of course the usual MGS 1/2 hour long cut scenes which look gorgeous but at times I just lost interest. That's probably due to my short attention span but I think I'm also getting tired of the laughable dialogue and lame characters. Okay, it's not that bad but it gets to the point where the game looks so good that it's hard to take it seriously when Snake is admiring the cleavage of a 60+ year old woman or a soldier shits his pants or the corny dialogue exchanged between said soldier and his commanding officer. At least the game doesn't take itself too seriously but when it looks that good I expect the rest of the product to come together.
I also made it through Act 4 which was also a good time but nothing entirely ground breaking. Just great solid gameplay and level design. The boss fights at the end of Act 3 and Act 4 have been good but not as innovative (or gimmicky) as the battles in the original MGS. Beating Psycho Mantis by plugging the PS1 controller into the 2nd player control port so he could not read your movements was genius. MGS4 pretty much boils down to shooting the boss when you see it. It gets a little more complex than that but I found myself searching for the boss and when finding her just shooting her with the biggest weapon I had. Not that it isn't fun but just a little plain.
The one boss fight that was a slight exception to this was the fight against Vamp. That fight had a little bit more to it than just running around and shooting.
I turned off the game at the beginning of Act 5 so I have one more to go before I finish. I'm looking forward to the final act and I'm going to try and play through it again, this time without the long lag between sessions.