Video game review: Metal Gear Solid 4 (PlayStation 3)
If you read the review teasers on Metacritic.com, or even go so far as to click through to the actual reviews themselves, you may be inclined to think that Metal Gear Solid 4 is the greatest game in the history of gaming. Don’t be fooled. Like Halo 3, this title that has been described by some as Hideo Kojima’s magnum opus is a beneficiary of exaggerated, and for the most part undeserved, hype.
Or maybe it’s a victim of that hype. It’s hard to tell when such games enjoy remarkable sales based on the undying dedication of its most diehard fans, the impressive reach of monster marketing campaigns and grandiose declarations by raving critics eager to be the first to recognize the coming of the “best game ev-ah.” It’s a bit telling when you can put any number of the overblown hype nuggets used to describe either game’s supposed greatness next to each other and really not be able to tell which ones go with which game.
Meanwhile, the new breed of mainstream gamer who isn’t a video game geek and doesn’t have any deep emotional or nostalgic investment in these video game series is shrugging their shoulders and wondering what the big deal is. If you went into this game without any clue as to who Solid Snake was, you would within an hour of starting the game likely find yourself asking a) how some old fart is supposed to be a bad ass special operative, b) who would design robots that looked like giant metal chickens missing their upper halves, c) why everyone talks so much that they might as well be reciting a Shakespearean soliloquy, and d) who the hell are the two dozen characters you’ve already met?
Metal Gear Solid 4 is creatively a giant mess. The Metal Gear series is notorious for having bloated, overly complex stories that tend to be heavy handed in their moral preaching and verbose in their delivery. Like many other Japanese game designers, Kojima relies very much on lengthy and sometimes over-the-top cinematic cutscenes to drive the story forward but he takes things a step further by producing some of the longest cutscenes in the history of gaming – some have estimated that Metal Gear Solid 4’s non-interactive interludes make up about 50% of an average playthrough’s time!
This wouldn’t be so bad if there was a clear narrative that made sense, but this game’s story involves so many characters (basically, anyone from all the previous games who represents any sort of loose end to be wrapped up) and plot twists that it becomes even more convoluted than its already confusing predecessors. In fact, Metal Gear Solid 4’s plot makes the previous games’ look like Aesop’s Fables. One of the biggest complaints about Spider-Man 3 was that the story had too many villains such that the filmmakers couldn’t really focus on and develop them – imagine multiplying that number of characters several times! It’s like X-Men: The Last Stand where it seems you’re introduced to a new significant character in every other scene.
To make matters worse, there are so many strange story elements involved that it becomes a chore to keep track of and understand all of them. On top of the war that you’re dropped into in the beginning of the game whose details – such as who’s fighting in the conflict and why the war even started in the first place – are not clearly revealed to you, you have to wrap your mind around the main character’s genetic engineering (as well as the back story which explains why this changed him from Solid Snake to Old Snake), the admittedly compelling story behind the heavily promoted and ridiculously named “Beauty and the Beast Corps”, and the multitude of subplots involving the leadership behind the enemy organization. Oh, and a vampire. Sort of.
There’s way too much exposition in the game – “Let me explain what just happened in this ten-minute speech” – and there are way too many lame plot twists that are there just for the sake of having plot twists – “I was only pretending to do this so you wouldn’t know what I was really up to.” And do any of us really need to see someone hiding out in an oil barrel because they have a wicked case of diarrhea from the local food? I sure didn’t.
At least the game is decent during the parts where you’re actually playing. There isn’t anything that special about the run of the mill missions where you’re just trying to avoid (or stealthily take out) foot soldiers, but a level where you’re trying to tail a suspect through a European city in the middle of the night is kind of cool and most of the boss battles are really well done – I’d even go so far as to say that all except one of the “Beauty and the Beast Corps” stages (especially one that takes place in a snowbound environment in which you are both the hunter and the hunted) are some of the best designed boss battles of this generation. On the other hand, the final battle is not only rudimentary and boring but easy as well, which is somewhat of a letdown considering it’s supposed to be Solid Snake’s last hurrah.
The graphics are pretty good as well although at times the visual design leaves something to be desired. The artists obviously poured a lot of effort into designing Solid Snake and the major characters, but many of the “foot soldier” types that you most often fight are decidedly less detailed. And some of the environments are pretty drab despite having the advantage of higher resolution textures than most console games. Overall, though, the visual experience is one of the stronger aspects of the game.
“Good but not great” is the phrase of the day when talking about Metal Gear Solid 4. With the exception of the mostly asinine narrative, pretty much every aspect of the game is good but nowhere near the exaggerated level of quality that most reviewers have lavished upon the title. It also succeeds where Halo 3 didn’t: it’s a solid “current generation” entry in the platform’s flagship series that doesn’t seem like it could have been done with little compromise on the previous generation of hardware.
While it’s not God’s gift to video games, Metal Gear Solid 4 at least works its tail off to earn the right to enjoy a little bit of that crazy hype.
Final score: 4 out of 5
Parent to parent
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not a game for children despite some of the cutscenes seeming like they were scripted by children. There is a lot of killing (by both the good guys and the bad guys), and the enemy organization makes no bones about being willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goal. Plus, the story line is so complex that a kid’s head would probably spin trying to make heads or tails of it. Most importantly, the Beauty and the Beast Corps’ back stories, which involve such themes as cannibalism and mass murder, are definitely too disturbing for younger players.
Experience this for yourself!
(Amazon)
(Amazon)
(Amazon)