Yeah, man! Solid!
Welcome to release day for Metal Gear Solid 4. Let’s keep this civil. Everybody behave!
Especially you crazy assholes. I don’t get that review at all. Read that thing and tell me if you get what the hell they’re talking about; the game appears to be — even moreso than the previous entries in the series — a long list of cutscenes briefly interrupted by disjointed gameplay elements that aren’t very well introduced and don’t seem consistent. That appears to be what they’re saying, yes? And they rated it 9.5/10. My favourite part, though, is this:
"MGS4’s final judgement won’t – or rather, can’t – be passed today, by knee-jerk critics or fans, but by history. When Hideo Kojima is no longer around to make games of this calibre, then this wilfully rambling, frustratingly piecemeal, lovingly crafted, rallying cry for ‘hardcore’ games, will receive the inspection, and potential reverence, it deserves."
Forgive me for arguing, Drs. Actually-Get-Paid-For-Their-Snotty-Video-Game-Site, but the final judgment both can and will be passed today. And by today I mean today, 12 June 2008, by millions of players who care a lot more about the quality of the game they’re playing right now than they do about the lasting soteriological qualities of Hideo Kojima vis-á-vis the Unwashed Masses who thought Super Mario Galaxy was way the shit more fun than watching "mammoth cutscenes" punctuated by minigames. If, as you say, the dialogue is the best thing about the game (I’ve played games that were basically carried by their dialogue before — hello, Portal, I’m talking to you), and if every good line of dialogue is surrounded, as you say, by "clumsy scripting [and] needless exposition," and if it "could be hours shorter, and be considerably better for it," and if, "by the end, it’s like Hideo Kojima is writing from his deathbed and insisting the notes be published unedited," then what you have there is not a legitimate candidate for "best game of all time." What you have there is a game that should have been great but got completely bogged down by lack of discipline at all levels during the design process.
The most telling line is this: "as MGS’s biggest fans, if we owe the series anything, it’s unburdening it from the weight of expectation and our own hype." You know what? As somebody who has fond memories of playing Metal Gear on the NES, who thought MGS and MGS2 were both good enough for 4/5 ratings, and who thought MGS3 sounded remarkably too tedious ever to bother playing, I don’t owe the series one goddamn thing. I certainly don’t owe the final game a massively high rating just because it finally got released. I personally don’t think I have any obligation to the games themselves; in contrast, I owe my readers some combination of a) the truth and 2) entertaining lies. Also iii) swearing.
But, hey, I haven’t played it. Maybe it really is great, and is just suffering the burden of a reviewer whose review of his favourite game ever still makes you think it sucks. Maybe I’ll check it out sometime. Wal-Mart will sell you an 80GB PS3 with a DS3 and a copy of MGS4 for $499 right now and give you a $100 gift card to use for Doritos and off-brand soda if you want, so now’s not a bad time to jump on the bandwagon and find out for yourself rather than trusting some asshole on the internet.
