I have to agree about the 23 minutes of cutscene till an enemy fight being god awful...
But do you remember kingdom hearts 2? I recieved as a gift from my ex... played it for a hour, thinking that I was allready playing kingdom hearts 2. When all of sudden the game decided to announce the title and cast. An hour into the game!?! I dont know why this caused my ex and I to start cursing out the gods. Thankfully playing MGS4 didnt cause that to happen again.

So, who noticed the URL at the end of the video in the rush to post a comment? :)

lol. Great review as always. I don't agree with it (MGS is the best story based game ever made) but it was still a funny review because some of it is true. :D

I personaly think that this was his best review so far! I pissed myself at the "Shit=Bananas"!

About sequels, let me ask something: Did start to see Godfather from part III? Was Rambo IV the first Rambo moview for you?! Harry Potter Prisioner of Askaban was the first Harry Potter book for you (I don't like Potter, but I used as example anyway)?!

Yatzee lost an oportunity of making fun of MGS fans (like me) by been sooooo short in the review and not mocking more on mgs story line.

MGS2 is by far the crappiest of the bunch. 3 is still probably the best of the series but 4 is better than any game released on current gen games.

Also in before shit storm.

Anyway, I agree with this review. Also worth noting is the install times on this game.

"MGS4 Deus Ex Machina Count: 9"

You took that from Spoony Experiments and Noah's Fuse Box count, didn't you?
You summed up everything I pretty much wanted to say about the series.

Finally, someone else who isn't a huge MGS fan. I have to agree with Yahtzee on Hideo Kojima letting storytelling get in the way of actual gameplay way too often.

klc0100:

conqueror Kenny:

klc0100:

conqueror Kenny:
Is it me or are the long cut scenes skippable? Alot of moaning about something fixed easily.

x2 still entertaining never the less

You want to talk to me about spelling. You have started a war my friend a war you have no chance of winning.

It had to be done and don't go off topic now or you may get banned..again =D

The war is on.

Fantastic review Yahtzee. If this is one of the few games the PS3 has going for it then thank holy fucking jesus that I havn't wasted my money on one.

My "Mailbox showdown" sense is tingerling.

YES!! I actually laughed out loud while watching this review. I for one say that he's getting his edge back, this one was a lot funnier than a couple previous ones.

Great review, although I haven't played the game or any of its predecessors I heard about how long the damned cutscenes were. Sounds to me like it's more of a movie where you get to control the characters in the least decisive bits of the story so you don't cock it up. I might be a bit off here, but that's the impression I got.

It was a good review, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the last one, though that might be because I've never played any of the metal gear games so may have missed out on some jokes.

Unfortunately there wasn't as much for him to pick out and joke on as Haze.

ShwStppnActr:
He's right about the whole, "Things become less funny when they become commonplace," thing. No offense or anything, but Yahtzee's reviews never make me laugh as much as they did when I first started watching them. The first review I saw, I nearly cried because of how funny it was. Now, I just chuckle.

I'll agree with that. Despite his reviews no longer being laugh-out-loud funny, they're still quite on point. Finally, somebody else who doesn't think that Hideo Kojima is the second coming of Shigero Miyamoto. I made an honest attempt to like Metal Gear Solid, I really did. The first one had me bored to tears after 5 minutes, the second one had me frustrated by crappy controls after 5 minutes, and the third one had me dozing off after 5 minutes because I hadn't even made it through the opening credits yet. Most people don't particularly feel like sitting through mountains of dialogue that provide little to no exposition in between short and clunky parts of actual gameplay. This is where the Half-Life series shines because even during scripted events you never have that feeling of losing control, which makes it impossible to skip essential parts of story out of sheer annoyance.

There's something seriously wrong with a game dev when they automatically assume that their set fanbase will provide all the income they need without having to bother drawing in new fans. I can appreciate that a fairly significant fanbase has formed around the Metal Gear Solid series, which never skimps on the tiny details in graphics and story, but by leaving the basic formula unchanged they're not going to do much for the first-timer that doesn't have the time to work through the first three games. Maybe now that Kojima is done getting the military maniac out of his system he can get back to making the Zone of the Enders games.

Awesome review as always, I quite agree about the endless dialog issue.

Search for traps Pooky.

Perhaps the Unforgotten Realms guys should have written MGS4. ;)

well i don't know, i think his arguments were legitimate, except for being bored because only one cutscene really bored me, the rest seemed very interesting and engaging to watch. this isn't the first game ive disagreed with, but the review was still very funny. and yes i know he's a critic so im not always going to agree... and also i wasn't a fan of mgs games before i knew this one was coming out and i played the first 3 and found them amazing, and then played 4 and found that even more amazing.

I realy wish the escapist would stop adding 2 minutes of adds behind each zp. Yahtzee's own shorts were ok because they were his videos but if this continues he will have less screen time then all the boring shir we aren't interested in.

I'm usually not one for posting on internet forums. I know whatever I say will be wrong and at least 5 people will rush to 'flame the lamer'. However I must make a plee for sanity here, anyone else see the massive console/hate vs love war that transpired on gametrailers.com after they had the audacity to give MGS4 a mere 8. Do we really wanna get into that here not 20 minuates after it has been posted? It was a fair review at the end of the day and that's really all that matters.

Asehujiko:
I realy wish the escapist would stop adding 2 minutes of adds behind each zp. Yahtzee's own shorts were ok because they were his videos but if this continues he will have less screen time then all the boring shir we aren't interested in.

Bah, they're interesting and a far better ad idea than having to click an X during the opening music was.

Hehe, I think I can agree about the plot, I've only ever watched my younger brother play this, even he can't explain it to me.

You can skip cutscenes.
Triangle enters FPS mode. You do not need to hold it.

The inability to stand without getting shot is something I had thought games had grown beyond.
Lay down, crouch, stand. Lay down is more accurate, crouch fires behind cover, stand runs fast.
Simple rules!

I am a self proclaimed fan boy of the metal gear solid series and a fan of hideo kojimas style and humour but i have to agree with Yahtzee, the cutscenes are way too long and Kojima seems to assume that we know alot of the stuff anyway for the entire game i wondered what the hell does PMC mean and i still don't know.
Anyway good review and funny as hell

I have no PS3 and have never played a Metal Gear game, and I still find myself bored with this review because, surprise surprise, the vast majority of it was Yahtzee whining about his dialogue phobias.

Good lord, we know. Dialogue = bad, shooting = good. Can we get over it? I mean even the BioShock review whined about dialogue WHEN NONE OF IT WAS ACTUALLY INTERRUPTING THE GAMEPLAY. And yet the guy still claims to be a huge fan of Earthbound, which I still find doubtful considering the game has tons of dialogue, random encounters, and other JRPG goodness that should have had the man in an apoplectic fit within the first five minutes.

Then again, most of my bitterness is less from Yahtzee himself and more from the mewling masses that feel the need to parade around the internet and flame the crap out of anyone who dares have tastes different from their god. Needless to say, two pages of Yahtzee wanking within minutes of the review being posted does not surprise me. The fact that he actively discourages this and clearly loathes the hive-mind of idiocy that hangs on his every word is entirely lost on them.

This is an amazing game (although you should play the originals before attempting to play this). You have to remember that Yahtzee is a critic (although in the title he says its a review even though he's said himself that he's a critic) and a critic is the noun of a person who criticises it

I like it when you review a game I've only heard of, but I love it when you challenge my beliefs in what is a "good game" and what isn't. I also like reading the comments as I snigger silently to myself at all the people who forget they aren't english and say things like "bloody hell" or "bugger." And then I remember these are the same people I share a country with and I kill myself.

Anyway, awesome job.

He's right about the cutscenes and all, but to my mind misses the biggest problem with this game.

It is NOT a stealth game.

I have played MGS and MGS2. I wanted to love them, I really did. But they just weren't what they were meant to be. The old Splinter Cell games (not so much recently, though) were stealth games because they were about more than just dodging enemies. There was some complexity there. Likewise with Thief. You could play Deus Ex like that as well.

But MGS is, and always will be, Pacman with fancy graphics. Sure, it looks great, but in the end all you are doing is moving around a mostly linear level avoiding roaming bad guys. There's no real 'stealth' involved here, just timing. And I hate that.

If you want a true stealth game, go back and buy Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and play the hell out of that instead.

PS - "PMC" means "Private Military Contractor". PMCs are part of companies like Blackwater who are hired by the government to aid in peace-keeping and VIP protection, that sort of thing. It's a 'topical' issue because there are loads in Iraq right now, and because some of them have a reputation for not adhering to the rules that enlisted soldiers have to stick to.

If Yahtzee hates games with stupid story lines and next to no gameplay, I bet he'd hate 5 Days a Stranger and the other games in the series.

ShwStppnActr:
He's right about the whole, "Things become less funny when they become commonplace," thing. No offense or anything, but Yahtzee's reviews never make me laugh as much as they did when I first started watching them. The first review I saw, I nearly cried because of how funny it was. Now, I just chuckle.

Same.

Kross:
So, who noticed the URL at the end of the video in the rush to post a comment? :)

Oh my, now you've lost me, there were quite a few URLs to be had. Did you mean the tee shirt ads? I'll have to buy me one of those. ;)

To those that argue for the cutscenes being skippable, I just have to say that that rings a little bit oddly to me. A cutscene should not be something you have to trudge through with your finger twitching for the button to end your torture. If a cutscene makes you start wondering when you'll actually get to play the game, something has gone tragically wrong. Ideally, such a scene should be an engaging (usually brief) storytelling aspect that pulls you in and gets you interested in the characters and their motivations. Now if you really liked the Metal Gear Solid cutscenes, then the creator has done something right for you, but a game as a movie (oh god Dirge of Cerberus) is almost never a winning formula.

And I haven't played the game, but that storyline sounds batshit crazy. Maybe in a good way, but probably not.

fortedash:
You can skip cutscenes.
Triangle enters FPS mode. You do not need to hold it.

I was confused at why he said you needed to hold triangle :|

I don't think Yahtzee understood the controls very well, thus the complaints.

On the other hand, perhaps its the game's fault for not guiding your hand with a tutorial on how to play the game. I mean, honestly, this the best controlling MGS game in the entire series. Its an evolution of what MGS3 tried to do, and it perfected it. No longer are you holding down 3 buttons to try and shoot someone as you use a human shield. No longer are you holding down multiple buttons just to peek shoot. And for god's sake, you can actually move while shooting in first person.

Great review as always and having finshed the game once i can pretty much agree with all the points. After a hour pretty much 2 cutsences and 20-25 miuntes of playing i was brought back to the feeling i was playing zone of the enders. I love a good story and all but jeezus do we really need to know the story of the sotry of the story. There's just to much plot thats got nothing to do with the plot XD. And the action controls have to be the most annoying contorls ever and dont work for action there really for sleath...

Good To see Yathzee with his eye of trye melting away all fanboyism to get a soild A++ review ^^ keep them coming.

It really pains me to say this, but I agree with Yahtzee on just about everything.

I always called BS on Metal Gear being a '99% movie/1% game' series, but MGS4 is pretty much that. I didn't realize it until the very end of the game, but if you play through the whole thing while skipping each and every cutscene, each act will last you somewhere around twenty to thirty minutes, resulting in a game that will only take about 2-3 hours to complete.

I really wish I was kidding. I loved MGS1 and 3, and I'm playing through 2 right now and I'm very much enjoying it, but MGS4 is just completely unbalanced. You'll play the game for just a few minutes and then get cutscenes that last somewhere around fifteen minutes shoved down your throat. You'll be saving more often than not because once it's all over you just need to take a break from sitting down. I know! You actually have to take a break from a GAME! It honestly puts my balls into a twist.

Worst of all, the story. Normally, I love Metal Gear Solid stories, because it incorporates real world politics, character development, and interaction down to the nail. To me, it's just fun to see characters go from one standpoint to another in a very coherent fashion from beginning to end.

However, MGS4 is nothing but a celebration of the past games in the same vein as Umbrella Chronicles. You'll have more references to MGS1, 2, and 3 than you will actually have original plot details. Even then, the original plot is as uninspiring and dull as it can get. Characters barely develop, everything politically related in the game is entirely fictional instead of having actual facts with small fictional icing... it just goes against everything Metal Gear Solid was originally capable of doing.

And as I've said before, MGS4 does nothing for you in the gameplay department. Each gameplay segment is ungodly short, the controls are stiff as hell, and even though the team tried pathetically hard to make controls that rival TPS/FPS games of today, you rarely get to actually use them. Some segments peg you against enemies like the Geckos that are completely immune to just about everything you have as well as enemies that that travel in tight-knit groups, so killing one sets off everyone else. You'll just find yourself ducking in a corner waiting until you can just walk by everyone.

Lastly, the design results in 0 immersion. At one point, you're in the middle east. Then bam, you're in South America. Oh wait, now you're in Europe. Hold on, Alaska! Now we're in the ocean! The settings change with each passing minute, making you feel that instead of one definite plotline you're trying to conclude, you're just killing time. A new scenario is dropped on your head like an anvil on top of the Wile E. Coyote, allowing no immersion like the past Metal Gear games whatsoever.

I really wanted some playtime from my PS3... but it looks like MGS4 isn't that anymore. So far, I'm enjoying MGS2 more than 4, and I'm only about two hours into it.

brazuca:
Hey!!! MGS series is the Matrix of video games.

Overlong, filled with incomprehensible dialogue, some good tunes, very little humour, silly in the extreme, badly in need of someone to tell the creator/s that what they're doing makes no sense, looking for a good (and tough) editor, and the first one is far and away the best as they totally cocked up the sequels by taking themselves way way too seriously?