Metal Gear Solid 4 -- "a bang-up swan song" that "will blow fans away"
Variety writer Leigh Alexander has a review of "Metal Gear Solid 4" that just posted on Variety.com. It's a rave but also does a deft job (in this editor's opinion) of explaining the dense and complex world of the story and what it all means.
As Leigh explains, not only are the production values literally ridiculously awesome, but "the storyline, gameplay and imagery all blend together in seamless, often stunning metaphor and allegory."
Yes, there are some really long cutscenes. As Leigh writes, "'Metal Gear Solid 4' is arguably closer to a "movie experience" than any videogame yet. Its numerous pre-animated cinematics are frequent and can run as long as half an hour -- the experience of 'playing' the game is actually about 40% watching.These cutscenes look phenomenal and have some interactive elements, such as optional flashbacks from previous games, but it's undeniable that fully immersing oneself requires huge amounts of concentration."
And for those wondering about the rumors, yes it takes a while to install. Beyond the long install at the beginning, Leigh notes (not in the actual review) that it takes a few minutes to install between each act. But it's worth it, she says, for absolutely unparalleled visuals and audio.
Here's the first paragraph from Leigh's review:
Renowned game director Hideo Kojima delivers a bang-up swan song for the "Metal Gear Solid" franchise in his hallmark style, wrapping up the series' intricately detailed loose ends in a cinematic coup that will blow fans away. Dabblers and newbies will find the convoluted, metaphor-driven storyline as baffling as ever, but the tight controls and unparalleled production values should draw enough of them to make this Playstation 3 exclusive not just a big hit, but a system seller.
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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For anyone complaining about lengthy cutscenes...just shut up. If you want a game with a lot of action go play ninja gaiden 2 or even Halo. MGS is about the story, and I would gladly sit through a 2 hour cutscene to see Kojima's finished vision of the most epic and involving series the gaming industry has ever seen.
Posted by: gaofrygar | June 12, 2008 at 10:28 AM
Heh, so I think we've come full circle to the haydays of '96 CD-ROM craze. We have film directors and other film folk (again) jumping on board the game industry, we have games that (again) are emulating movies and replacing gameplay with full-motion video/scripted gameplay.
"the experience of 'playing' the game is actually about 40% watching."
I can't just put to words how disappointing that sentence is to me. Have we really learned nothing?
I really dug the first Metal Gear Solid, but I think the series has gone down the drain seriously. From the 2nd onwards, it felt more like a badly written movie with bits of gameplay here and there. I was bored to death. Even though we're up in our elbows with film folk and game writing, 99% of that is just utter crap. Honestly. Even GTA4's praised writing was good in the beginning and went down to the safe and mediocre path pretty fast.
If you want to make stories, bundle a book with the game. I'll read and hopefully enjoy that. Video games aren't the right medium for that, so just stick to making actual gameplay during the actual development.
Posted by: Frank | June 11, 2008 at 10:12 PM