Westwalker:
Explain to me how this makes sense: first Yahtzee says quite plainly that he didn't understand the story, then he calls it bad. Is that hypocrisy or simply contradicting himself?

Neither. He said that the story was complicated and that the writing was bad. Those are two separate assertions.

If MGS4 is anything like MGS1-3, then he's absolutely bang on. MGS has a complex narrative, which appeals to some but not others; the dialogue, at least in my experience, has generally been pretty bad.

I've got MGS4 and I'm expecting to enjoy it -- I'm just calling a spade a spade.

drawthreecards:
It's exactly as I feared.

Some people are so heavily influenced by modern passive media (TV, movies, music) that they expect video games to convey the same types of stories.

It's okay for a game to have a long story, and it's okay for that story to be full of japanese cultural convention (mechs, deus ex machina and the like). However, it is NOT okay for people to say that video games like this are the pinnacle of the medium, because then the point behind it all, interactivity, is lost. Video games represent an exciting new way to tell stories, but MGS4 doesn't really tap into that potential. At the end of the day, it's similar to a JRPG in that it's story -> gameplay -> story -> gameplay -> end.

The gameplay and cutscenes merge together beautifully in MGS4, so I'm not knocking on its presentation. Rather, I'm asking why there are cutscenes at all. They are passive. They are skippable story bits that don't enhance the gameplay, they only enhance each other. When a person says "The story made the game great for me.", what they're really saying is "That was a good book."

MGS4 is a good action game, and it's utterly beautiful. However, everthing in it has been done. Not this beautifully, but its been done.

Some of us want games to keep getting better. MGS4 does nothing for us.

Well maybe some people want their games to be more like books. It doesn't defeat the purpose of the media, it just happens to be a diffrent segment of it. Frankly I think more people would do well to start getting the patience to appreciate more story-oriented games, in fact I think in most any game the story is the KEY feature.

Escapistmag=Nazis:
This site bans people for the dumbest shit. Fuck you all. Fuck your moms. Fuck your dads. Fuck your pets. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Truly yours,
FUCK

*waves*

Bye!

Escapistmag=Nazis:
This site bans people for the dumbest shit. Fuck you all. Fuck your moms. Fuck your dads. Fuck your pets. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Truly yours,
FUCK

I have 733 Posts and I've never even been put on probation, it can't be that hard to avoid the banhammer. Usually they ban people for stupid things like posting "first" for no reason, or filling an entire post with random gibberish.

Also, enjoy your second dance with said ban-hammer, I'm sure it'll hit like a ton of bricks very shortly.

Great review... basically everything I thought would be wrong with MGS4 (or at least could be better).

Now about the Ninja Gaiden 2 trailer, did they *really* use that fucking CCHHJJJJUUURRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!! scream you hear in every cheesy B-movie, shitty game, and horror movie trailer ever created??

MSG was always good...bearly..the main problem with it is play control and the way they set it up, it feels like a cumbersome mess half the time.

The game industry is trying to hard to make media and not games IE well made,polished interactive entertainment play control,options for play control and button mapping are big issues no one is wanting to deal with.

Another excellent and articulate review MSG4 bored the pants of me, something I wish my girl friend would do more often. How about a dive in to the dark world of copyright infringement with a review of Limbo of the Lost?

I definately agreed with him on the fact that it takes aprox. half a second too long to aim, usually getting you shot first.

the Tranq Gun does run out of ammo though? but yea i agree about trailers being to long and could of used a trimming, also the snake otacon bit does almost cease to be gay when he has some 18 rated fun in the back of a chopper alothugh the sneeking suspision that otacon is gay does still remain

Otacon isn't gay, he just kinda doesn't date after the whole sleeping with his stepmom causing his dads suicide ext thing.

LeWiggster:
I haven't played any of the Metal Gears due to complete and utter lack of interest in the stealth (I typed steakth originally; I think my subconscious is telling me something) genre, and with the constant praise flying around for MGS4 I was worried I was missing out on something beautiful. Glad to know that it probably wouldn't appeal to me anyway.

You still are missing out on something beautiful. You have to remember that Yahtzee is harsher than most people are about just about every game. He has a habit of exagerating every flaw, and he really did it on this one.

It seems to be a Western European/North American thing, the whole "remember children, there's no such thing as a close friendship between men, you're either emotionally distant, with the occasional punch in the arm, any emotion or closeness displayed and suddenly you're queerer than Elton John."

I've never bothered with the MGS series for several reasons. I read the back of the boxes and the plot gave me a migrane. It's way too complicated. Yes, it's good when games have a reasonable plot that can draw you in and give you enough motivation to actually care about what you do in the game as opposed to just playing because you like seeing heads flying in the opposite direction of their designated bodies. Thats not to say that super happy fun time murder is a BAD thing, it's just when that's my only motivation for slaughtering armies of poorly armed bad guys as well as their wives and small children I feel that the protagonist would be better off buying some ice cream and seeing a movie. But the MGS story is comicated enough to require several days of repeating it to yourself to understand, it manages to simultaneously tell you nothing of importance. It's like the worlds worst fanfic brought to life, rambling on and on with ridiculous plot twists and poorly developed ideas. I also was never into the whole mingling of stealth and macho shooting. I feel that games that try to juggle a bunch of different aspects while at the same time maintaining the FPS genre end up doing poorly all around. FPS's should stick to one or maybe two major concepts. Assasins Creed stuck to sneaking around and assasinating dudes, and it did well enough. Thief, as you might guess, stuck mostly to stealing shit. The only types of games that can mingle concepts without tripping up are RPGs, like Oblivion and Everquest and the like. But even then you tend to pick a few areas that you specialize in and stick to for most of the game. MGS ends up trying to be action heavy while simultaneously sticking in stealth elements that sort of threw me off when I played it. I didn't play the full game, I only played it at my friends house, so maybe I didn't get the full expereince. Of course, the main reason I never really played the games is because I have a deeply romantic relationship with Gordon Freeman and whenever I wander away from HL I feel insanely guilty and instantly return home to coo soft, loving reassurances to my computer while eviscerating combines.

Good grief, paragraphs are your friend man.

As for the review... I think the biggest draw for me to the MSG games is that they are unlike anything else I've ever played. That's where it surprises me how harsh this review is. Maybe because it's the 4th installment, and isn't fresh. I loved Okami, and Psychonauts, and No More Heroes for how unique they were. They took gaming someplace it had never gone. The MSG series does the same. It's a true interactive movie that you are playing... albeit an esoteric Japanese movie. Everything that comes out of Japan does require a plot interpreter.

I'm still trying to understand the story of the Ghost in the Shell series... but just because I didn't understand it all didn't make me like it any less. You don't have to be a fanboy to like MSG, just have a desire to play something different.

As for the gay bit... who would date a Japanese otako so freaky he built his own giant robot... or an aging guy, covered in scars, with the personality and voice of gravel? I'd expect them to be single.

TerraMGP:
[...]This is like saying the Silmarillion is bad writing because its too dry for some people to follow.[...]

But the Silmarillion IS bad writing, for f***'s sake, get it into your skull. Just because YOU liked it doesn't mean it is good from ANY objective standpoint. And even though you like to ignore this, there ARE universally accepted guidelines for writing. You liking bad writing don't mean it's good, it just means you don't have a clue and wouldn't recognize bad writing if it made a naked handstand in front of you. And again: One has to differentiate between STORYLINE and STORYTELLING.
That's why Tolkien never intended it to be released in the form it was. The Silmarillion was a good story that was being told in a bad way. His son, however, thought otherwise. And it should tell you something if the friggin' AUTHOR thinks something ain't fit for release... It is finished storywise, but not storytelling-wise.

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.

this guy's right- i mean, th 1st yahtze vid i saw was SSBB, and i iterally cried with laughter, but now it seems tht hes rippin into games for the sake of it, i think hes gettin lazy tbh. plus i thinkwot he sed about mgs4 is unfair, as it is, in my opinion one of th best games ever; a fitting conclusion to the best series ever

I have to agree. Hearing about all this hype made me think I might as well try a game from the series. Since I didn't have a PS3, I got MGS3 for the PS2. While the game is enjoyable, there are also times where I find myself cursing at the controls in an enraged manner. The need to aim using (and not pressed down all the way) square button, plus having to hold R1 for first person mode, AND having to press L2/R2 to peek around the corner is rather frustrating. It should NOT be so damn hard to fire from cover. It's easier to take cover and fire in HALO than it is in that game. But what I must say is that the boss battles are AWSOME! Killing The Pain (or bee guy as I call him) was a rather fun experience. So while the game does have MAJOR problems in control, there are also redeeming qualites. Over all, I suggest if you want a more stealth like game, stick with Sam Fisher's Splinter Cell series. (although not needing to look out for damn cameras everywhere is a plus to MGS)

I have played all the Metal Gear Solid games and loved them, its a fun break from the run-and-gun type shooter. I still think the story is absolutely round the bend, but all in all great review yahtzee! PS I now own a Pants-on-Head Retarded t shirt. go me.

Agreed soooo much with this review. I'd never played an MGS game before, despite having wanted to, and MSG 4 was fun, but... come on, there were so many simply crazy features that it's incredible. Yahtzee is spot on about the long cutscenes, which are decent at setting the mood but horrible when it comes to actually, you know, inotroducing. But my main gripe is that MSG 4 is that it's apparently gone to the actions dogs and jumped on the current "omg games **** if you can't be an 1337 Rambo and mow down enemies by the thousands!!11" bandwagon started by the six-year olds demanding the games to be as dumbed-down as possible to be "fun" (pronounce "fun" in a sweet light voice while munching cotton candy and playing with your LEGO bricks while stifling a wail because someone mentioned the horrible no-no-words "realism", "teamwork", and "challenge"). MSG 4 is the first stealth game I've ever seen where your character not only can take a gazillion hits before dying and regenerate lost hit points fully and instantly, but also carries around a whole arsenal of heavy weapons ranging from assault rifles to freaking Javelins, and has the absurd ability to call up an arms dealer at any time to order even more, which are then magically and instantly teleported to him (shut up about the MKII/MKIII "getting them for him"). And why on Earth does the game pause while I access the menu to call people or ready weapons, a task which should not really be instantaneous gameplay-wise (in a stealth game, at least)? While the game is still awesome when you use stealth, there's no reason to actually use it to complete levels, which makes as much sense as a racing game that you can win by driving at a snail's pace and finishing dead last. If MSG 4 is a stealth game, then I'd hate to see the devs try to make an action shooter.

The third person camera is OK except from the fact that you can't switch from it and that it allows you to cheat by looking around corners without exposing your character (I'd favor listening for footprints or something else that actually involved a kind of... skill). Then there's the stress and alert levels which take an eternity to cool down if you actually do sit back and hide as you're meant to, making me feel like I'm being punished if I play the game like it's meant to be played.

There's so many more things I could rant about, such as how immersion is killed whenever someone calls you and the screen switches to a bizarre web cam screen, but I digress. Writing about all the faults of the game would take me ages. Go play it instead, trying to pretend it's the stealth game it's meant to be. That's what I do, and when I do, it's actually quite fun.

Sorry about this. Needed to rant :/ .

I agree on the point that it is not possible for people who have never played an MGS game (actually, at least all the solid games) to enjoy MGS4.
However, that would be like complaining that the star wars sequels were not understandble for people who never watched the previous ones. (characters being introduced, story being build etc.) It is called 'developing a story'.

Even though the 'developed story' of MGS4 is large enough to wrap all spheres and/or dimensions of existence, does not mean it is 'badly written'.

A person can not say something is badly written, especially by claiming it is "objective" to say so.
"I don't like the story" Agreed, you dont have to.
"I like the story" Agreed, you can like it.
"I think it's unlikeable, because "this shit is bananas"" Disagreed! Who are you to judge what shit is... bananas?

All I am trying to say is this:
Noone is a fanboy because he likes a game that has been ripped on by yatzhee. (Because he pretty much rips on any game) You are a fanboy if you vigorisly try to defend it and try to 'force' or 'convince' people to like it, by using 'Arguements'. However, something as subjective as taste can rarely be changed by using arguments. And that whole behavior is rather psychotic.

However, trying to force people NOT to like it is as psychotic. I dont think Yatzhee has done that, but the community around him vigorisly does that (both).

Yahtzee described very accurately my own experience of Metal Gear Solid 2. But since this was a review of the 4th installment, I have no desire to play(Or rather watch) it now. So the cut scenes are even longer than before (and more melodramatic?) and there's less actual game play in it? Dang! Worst fears confirmed. And I was kinda looking forward to MGS4. Oh well. It's still great to have some one review a game and really explain what the actual gaming experience is like.

Anyway, It would be great to have a proper review of Alone in the Dark. Another game I've been interested about.

RAGEHATER:
. Making a reference that Snake and Otacon are gay and they "adopt" a child... what if that were true?

Two straight men do not live together and adopt a child together. EVER. That is gay, they are two gay men living a wonderful little gay life since someone crashed the gay train into gay town

*I'd like to note, I have no problem with homosexual, in fact my older brother and his life partner are just awesome guys to hang with. They know some of the best tips to impress a woman*

But ANY of you who see Otacon and Solid Snake adopting a kid TOGETHER ( as in it's not a fanfic, it's in the official game) and not clue to you into the fact they are homosexual, you are HOPELESSLY naieve

Triffid:
But ANY of you who see Otacon and Solid Snake adopting a kid TOGETHER ( as in it's not a fanfic, it's in the official game) and not clue to you into the fact they are homosexual, you are HOPELESSLY naieve

Actually...
Her mother died, her father died. Snake promised her mother (olga) to take care of her. That's what he does. That does not make him gay, that makes him a trustworthy guy who keeps his promises.

And by the way, both Otacon and Snake had love interesets in women in the earlier installments and actually even in MGS 4. So that makes them bisexual at 'best'. But I do not even think they are gay. Even tho I would not mind at all.

Escapistmag=Nazis:
This site bans people for the dumbest shit. Fuck you all. Fuck your moms. Fuck your dads. Fuck your pets. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Truly yours,
FUCK

Dude, that's hilarious.

Is it my imagination or does this seem to contradict what he said in earlier reviews about artisitc games?

I dunno, on some levels, I do agree with what has been said by some users that the story seems independent of the gameplay, but thats because I've never really seen any game where thats not the case, aside from an MMORPG. Story in all forms of media is linear - even in open world games a story will move from A to B in a set order, with only minor details shifting, and then barely. A player won't really change that. *SPOILERS* No matter what you do in Vice City, Lance is gonna die. No matter how hard you resist in Psychonauts, Raz will be reunited with his father and become a Psychonaut. Gordon Freeman will overthrow the Combine, Altair will end up in a bizarre fight with his master, Agent 47 will kill the guy in the wheelchair, and Duke Nukem will remain forever in deveopment. The player has no impact, beyond maybe a different cutscene at the end.

I welcome some examples to the contrary, but far as I can see, until we break down the procedural generation thing they're doing in Spore into making a living world smarter than us, the game will still be linear.

Beyond this, I reject all his criticisms as non-existent, based on my play experience. Play time to cutsene time is currently 4:1 at the very least in that order, all dialogue seems well written, and doesn't seem overtly long, play is innovative and original (how many other games give you a damn tranquilizer shotgun?) whikle still feeling familar enough that I'm not thrown off kilter, and the stealth is challenging, and the game is all the sweeter for it. The plot is easy to understand, provided you've played the games before, as Kojima announced in the press about a billion times that you should, and most, if not all of the abbreviations and codenames are explained if you just listen, or try turning on the subtitles.

Zirror:

Triffid:
But ANY of you who see Otacon and Solid Snake adopting a kid TOGETHER ( as in it's not a fanfic, it's in the official game) and not clue to you into the fact they are homosexual, you are HOPELESSLY naieve

Actually...
Her mother died, her father died. Snake promised her mother (olga) to take care of her. That's what he does. That does not make him gay, that makes him a trustworthy guy who keeps his promises.

And by the way, both Otacon and Snake had love interesets in women in the earlier installments and actually even in MGS 4. So that makes them bisexual at 'best'. But I do not even think they are gay. Even tho I would not mind at all.

When did we find out who Sunnys father was? I don't remember that...

Yeah, Otacon has had at least three women that we know of (how many Otaku can say that?) and no, I will not list them, as looking at it makes me feel dirty. Snake is, well, Snake. He spends his encounters with Naomi staring intently at her ass.

Oh, almost forgot. Yahtzee, you [insert fitting hilarious nouns here], as much as I love your reviews, you need to get better at "gluing the parts together". To illustrate, instead of saying, "The dog was pink. It rained.", you could connect the two sentences by saying, for example, "The dog was pink, and shivered in the rain."

What I'm trying to say here is that while you're very good at writing, you're not as good as connecting sections of your review. When you go from discussing one thing to the next (such as from discussing gameplay to storyline), you need to get better at making the new topic be a continuation of the previous.

[/shot at constructive criticism]

True art, pure genius. I seem to be late to post, but at least i have an awesome hat.

Safe-Keeper:
Oh, almost forgot. Yahtzee, you [insert fitting hilarious nouns here], as much as I love your reviews, you need to get better at "gluing the parts together". To illustrate, instead of saying, "The dog was pink. It rained.", you could connect the two sentences by saying, for example, "The dog was pink, and shivered in the rain."

What I'm trying to say here is that while you're very good at writing, you're not as good as connecting sections of your review. When you go from discussing one thing to the next (such as from discussing gameplay to storyline), you need to get better at making the new topic be a continuation of the previous.

[/shot at constructive criticism]

You mean he should segue better?

Now that I've looked up "segue", yes:p.

Indigo_Dingo:

When did we find out who Sunnys father was? I don't remember that...

I believe on the Tanker in MGS2? Wasn't it the black marine capt.?

Iam not quite sure, so I am probably mistaken. My point still stands since snake promised olga to take care of her.