In Defence of Metal Gear Solid 4

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on a surface level Metal Gear Solid 4 isn't a game I should like as much as they do it's this gaudy hyper-charged continuation and climax to the Metal Gear series that is constantly pulling shit out of its ass ruining and D legitimizing past titles with weird retcons and answers to questions that didn't really need answering it's self-indulgent mayhem to the fullest extent and while there are moments in mgs4 that made me wonder what he was thinking zero the founder of the Patriots found her when did this happen like I could probably make a video just about the things I don't like about it usually what dumb shit goes down is then followed up by like the greatest moment in videogame history time and time again it's unrelentingly legendary the game takes the series established cast of classic characters and places them into the most OnPoint satisfying beast mode struggles you've ever seen them have to work their way out of the oh shit spur moments are off the charts here from its large breadth of mechanics to the absolute breakneck series of events and situations you use them in it's a goddamn anarchic ride that is doing everything it can to celebrate Metal Gear well ending it in style even if it's tripping up over itself occasionally to do so to start with the premise of this game is pretty much perfect 10 years after the last canonical game where Solid Snake was the undisputed protagonist after years of waiting fans finally get their main character back but as a weaker tired version of himself subverting expectations by having players confront the fact that in reality if you want the best for a character sometimes it's better not to know what happens to them because there's a good chance they may end up as a shadow of their former self this was back in 2008 by the way when writer director Hideo Kojima seemed to have a bit of self-awareness about how long as bloody series have been going before he decided to go back and quickly make up some more stuff big boss did to pad out a bunch more games while undermining the players expectations and not exactly giving them what they think they want the choice to make Solid Snake an old man just also makes mgs 4 million times more legendary because now instead of being another game where Solid Snake does his usual shtick and saves the day week aged legend who despite having everything against him including his own body rises to the fucking challenge and still goes out swinging the cutscene at the opening that introduces us to this new old snake it's one of the best scenes in the series it's incredibly well directed and sets up snakes returned with the new premise that he's struggling to fight in this world where his enemies outrank him but somehow he manages to pull it off and survive by the skin of his teeth there's this weird sort of assumption a lot of people make that Hideo Kojima doesn't like Solid Snake because he made him an old man and generally likes to talk as if his dad is way deeper now which he may have indeed been for a few seconds there before we got all the newer games with the redone version of his backstory that taks like four more betrayals on to it but how does Kojima hate Solid Snake when he makes his final chapter and struggle this mythical instead of just giving players solid snake back and telling them to have fun Thor is like okay you wanted him back while he's old now so if you want him to survive and come out on top you have to overcome the odds as the weary drained individual he's become of course in conjunction with a weaker protagonist to make us question if we can actually stomach seeing the thing we wanted back mgs4 takes the struggle a step further with a completely fucked-up world warped by war and conflicts illustrated with like 30 minutes of live-action commercials you can watch at the start of the game this is the first time we've honestly seen a lot of regular people in the middle gig universe and you can tell here that the world changing events of past entries hasn't been kinds of this culture do you even want to save this weird shitty world will you find something or someone to fight for something to hold on to while the world goes to shit an ideology itself disappears it's no longer about nations ideologies preservation it's an endless series of proxy battles fought by mercenaries machines it's not just that snake has aged for every returning character in this game is worse off than they were before everybody involved in the incident at shadow moses either lost their job and status or in the case of Merrill and mei-ling got brushed aside and I can only imagine how much snake himself just wants to pack it all in Crail protagonist and grim world accounted for the game rounds things off by introducing the next level of super soldier boss cybernetically enhanced psychotic victims of war who used their superhuman powers to murder and maim with glee The Beauty and the Beast Corps get a lot of flack for being a group of bosses with no real discernible goals or personalities like the charismatic foes of previous titles but here in this game they work brilliantly in this world the charismatic soldiers with personalities with goals and motivations you're Age of Heroes finally over they don't fit in anymore into this kind of war where conflict sounds ideals thrives and war itself is the basis of the world's economy of course the villains here are solace an insane almost creature like individuals torn apart and ruined by the very kind of conflicts they now fight for but guess who beats them the old charismatic idealistic hero of old who without a mech suit or even a fully functioning human body kicks their fucking arses proving that the human spirit is still the ultimate trump card football and all of this while you're in the driver's seat the camera spins around from cutscene to gameplay and it's on you to take them to task Kojima also uses the VMB caused an opportunity to revamp the concepts of his bosses in the previous games and bring out their full potential with the new power the ps3 brought to the table at the time all of them adopting the motifs of the bosses from Metal Gear Solid 1 but now taken to their logical extremes the sniper wolf fight in mgs one was this simple confrontation where you stay on one side of the level and then shoot this woman's head a bit when it pops out on the horizon in mgs for crying wolf is this big epic war game when you're moving all over a map sneaking up on each other through a haze of snow trying to literally hunt one another as a blizzard engulfs everything decoy octopus a man with the ability to camouflage himself as other people didn't get to the Avastin mgs1 but taking on laughing obstacles and mgs4 feels like what a fight against someone like decoy octopus would have been like the boss pulling loads of crafty tricks on you hiding in plain sight etc these allusions to previous games of core playing for the largest scope of mgs4 which is trying to pull an encore to the theory's in a spectacular fashion as possible now not every attempt to call back to a previous title works there are some duds some serious cut-down duds and stuff that feels completely unneeded gotta love snake going undercover as a more accurate version of himself and Psycho Mantis is go showing up to yuk it up put some MGS memes is a bit much yeah I get the sense that Kojima felt like you could include him without much justification because of just how iconic mantis is the one tug at our memories that fear was a bit contrived but I think it's way too dismissive to just say that fanservice in any form is super inane and puerile and takes no effort to execute because the amount of care mgs4 puts into delivering on the potential each elements of this universe had to excite as commendable as all hell when it's not missing the mark the people the themes the iconography is all back here to be used in interesting ways building up to a level that takes those emotions those feelings of being with these characters again and turns them into a bittersweet sensation that no other series has really done as well as this because while there's a lot of cool hype stuff going on it's still all tinged with a feeling of longing and emptiness knowing that you're seeing everyone go through hell and suffer to be here that when it's all over it might well be over for good for some of them and none of this would work if the game didn't absolutely nail hitting those fanservice sweet spots when it does first off the game brings back a huge majority of the original voice actors from previous Metal Gear games and mgs one specifically and that goes such a long way into making it feel like these characters are still the same people they were ten years prior no matter how much the graphics may change the consistent voices give the characters that authentic feel that you really are catching up with these people years later this isn't a training exercise our lives are riding on this there are no heroes or heroines if you lose your warmest abode yeah you're all grown up maybe it's because someone taught me well a certain legendary hero even if some of them aren't doing accents anymore the graveyards are full of indispensable man well you know all sorts of great quotes don't you a wise man once wrote the tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony where words are spent they are seldom spent in vain it's also cool how mgs4 respects the previous titles by depicting the events that happened in them in flashbacks or in photos in the same graphical style they were in in those previous games in other titles that can be cool to see prior events recreated in a later game with higher detail but to see that mgs4 views those previous games that's prime for showing off again in their original form makes me respect it a lot for something that is otherwise trying to blow your socks off with modern detail every character gets a new twist too there are can you see how the new world has changed them the title rewards your commitment to the series so much by even taking what basically amounts to an easter-egg character from previous games and then making them a VIP player who ends up being one of the three mains on the final mission and whose bumbling actions actually hold the key to defeating the enemy the game ramps up in quality all the classic touches of previous titles to make you feel like you're playing the next level of mgs the next gen return baby even the death screen has gone from a simple shout to this epic Attell flashback montage thing that pulls you into like overdrive after me please the game returns to us the old cast with new hardships and demons people can't remain in those glory days forever and then solidified outpoint mgs4 turns the clock back sending snake back to shadow moses where mgs1 was set but things have changed now it's falling apart time has moved on you spend all this time in the first three chapters reminiscing about the past connecting with old faces again but the core of the series what so much of this game is calling back to you has aged so has the Metal Gear series and maybe it's time to wrap this story up for good but not before giving those old stomping grounds one last hurrah [Music] after decades of waiting the series about giant ass mechs finally lets you pilot one old versus new Metal Gear RAY was built to defeat metal gears like Rex and we finally get to see if it can by being in the flight ourselves it's perfect here's the thing though I could list countless examples of moments where mgs4 delivers so hard on threads and ideas from previous games or devises new ones I didn't even know I wanted and just smashes it but I think it can all be summed up in the final boss fight - series legends fighting on top of outer Haven - the sound of every boss theme in the previous games if this is of one of the most loving climaxes to a series I don't know what is the balls to be so in love with the DNA of your series that you decide to do something like this to cap things off it's fucking amazing Metal Gear Solid 4 is self-absorbed - a cocky extent no not all games or even all sequels need to be like this but the fact that mgs4 is so dedicated to the core of its fans to deliver something for them to the people who care disregarding everybody else's while always be in it's coin no guess what it doesn't give a shit if you think there's too many cutscenes that are too long or it's too self-indulgent in its own world and stories it's here with its amazingly animated and directed hours of in-game cinematics to give the people who care about these characters in this world the right of their lives and guess what when these completely skippable sequences end mgs4 is as game as game can be oh yeah and also it used to have like this huge stealth multiplayer mode which Konami took down years ago that was basically just gameplay so just keep that in mind running over items to pick them up as they click into your inventory lightning fast animations that serve gameplay and not realistic movements no parts wait takes control away to walk you through and shove your face in every little detail the game developers came up with the only sequence anywhere near this is right at the end and it totally earns it like no other game even tries to when it slows down its characters for the sake of cinematic ambiance and just forgives you shit loads of mechanics to play around with so many tools to get out and mess with and since every scenario you're put in is really important key to the story like every main mgs made before fall I actually kind of want to mess around because unlike more recent Metal Gear titles that was what Metal Gear was about being in situations that matters not just doing a random inconsequential job for someone you'll never see being in the moment having the context for something epic and world-changing happening that's why Metal Gear Solid 1 as big as it did because it took action games and added this whole extra layer of epic context to what you were doing and presented it in a polished stylistic way little before it had really had the confidence to try to the same extent that makes 3d debut - not only were you partaking in something importance but for one of the first times it was being presented to you in a careful considered style giving weight to those events characters and emotions popped whether that's what you look for in games or not that's what made them just one spark what hooks players to it was this new step that digital entertainment took to putting you in a situation and making you really really feel like it was important again that it mattered the buttons you were about to press were connected to this legendary chain of events and that's what mgs4 is ramped up to the max mgs1 but with more freedom in both budget and technology to do what it wants and a final tribute to the characters most of us were introduced to in that old ps1 game but it puts a price on having them back and makes us fight for who and what we want to see again before giving us a chance to move on from the franchise it's the endpoint it's dark world and now tired characters are the price we have to pay distinguished people again that we've got invested in years ago but mgs4 gives you the chance to elevate them from that gloom one last time to earn the chance to see them be glorious again to fight through the pain and never going to work out for me and even blame that day I was polite you cut it along you were the lightning that rainy and can still shine through the darkness because in the end if we have something we love like these characters or the universe of this series worth fighting for no matter what the odds will do it just like snake and at the end of the day it's not some botched meta-narrative that makes us one with snake it's that Metal Gear Solid 4 may not always have the brains of a Metal Gear title but it definitely has the heart one of the biggest I've seen a game have [Music] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] after the message Shadow Moses mailing kind of got put out to pasture mm-hmm even so making captain at her age that's pretty impressive rumor has it she caught the eye of some lecherous old admiral who got her promoted she always did have a thing for older men maybe it's too early to retire after all thinking of taking a little training on an analog vessel snake

Info

Channel: TheGamingBritShow

Views: 397,481

Rating: 4.8511291 out of 5

Keywords: in defence, in defense, metal gear solid 4, mgs4, gun of the patriots, legendary, review, tgbs, gamingbrit, thegamingbritshow, gaming brit, charlie cade, mgsv, dissapointing, zero, snake, old, rex, ray, ocelot, liquid, cutscenes, long, gameplay, ps3, playstation 3, kojima, hideo

Id: jHcBWQZ90SA

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2017

Reddit Comments

The game is almost ten years old now? Jesus time flies.

What a legendary "finish" to a franchise. It's really a bummer in that respect that we got MGSV which ripped away that sense of closure and then delivered an experience without an ending (which will never be had since Kojima Productions was dissolved).

For real though, seeing Old Snake, Raiden, Otacon, and even characters like Drebin again gave me goosebumps. What a fantastic game - quantum leap in gameplay over the previous games, amazing fan service moments, and a satisfying conclusion to the series. On top of that we also get Metal Gear Online 2 which was a total blast (one of the few experiences that I feel would legitimately benefit from the "games preservation" movement).

It's sad to think that this title never made it to Xbox or PC, so while newcomers to the series might have been able to experience 2, 3, and Peacewalker (and later MGSV), they never got the opportunity to see the culmination of the series.

👍︎︎ 198 👤︎︎ u/PupperDogoDogoPupper 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

I swear, with the amount of shit given to The Phantom Pain everywhere like in this video and on Reddit one day we'll have an "In Defence of MGSV". Going to show that every MGS got flak at release and then praised.

👍︎︎ 97 👤︎︎ u/Scarfall 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

I wasn't aware MGS4 needed defending.

It was a phenomenal game. Excellent gameplay, strong (if slightly convoluted, but not more so than other MGS games) story, emotionally resonant, wonderful graphics and insanely high production values. One of my absolute favourite games of last gen

👍︎︎ 33 👤︎︎ u/Sputniki 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

The only parts of this game I really enjoyed were the pure stealth areas of Chapter 2 and near the end. Metal Gear Solid 5 was like those parts, but with much improved gameplay and spread out over 50+ hours.

👍︎︎ 39 👤︎︎ u/litewo 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

This was more balanced than I expected, so kudos to the guy who made it. Kojima is one of those directors who even at his most uneven produces moments that are stellar and exemplary. Better to accept misfires than want the guy to retreat from being challenging.

I'm still more critical tho. I loove MGS but MGS4 is imo a fucking dog of a game. The series' worst excesses metastasized and nearly swallowed the whole thing up. Like I cannot sit through it.

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/idk_whatthisis 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

It really needed a chapter select, so I could skip chapter 3 and that "follow the whistling dude". Coming off of the first 2 chapters doing some open world stealth and now having to follow some dude while not getting spotted killed any replay of the game for me. Which sucks because I really wanted to replay the Shadow Moses level. Also that last chapter with the dumb lady with Psycho Mantis powers was a real let down.

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/carrotstix 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

Haven't watched the video yet(obvs, it's only just been posted), won't be able to until after work. However, MGS4 shouldn't need defending, it should be evident from the work itself that it is great. It's easily the second best MGS game, and I find it hard to imagine anyone really believing that it isn't great, especially not enough people for the belief to need to be dispelled through a defense of the game.

👍︎︎ 52 👤︎︎ u/JNITA-LTJ 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

The microwave tunnel and final fight on top of Outer Haven are incredible but there are so many little things that dragged 4 down for me. All the weird product placement, Meryl x Johnny falling in love sequence, Ocelot finger banging, Otacon joking about how dank the PS3 was to not need multiple discs even though you had to sit through a ten minute installation every goddamn time you got to a new chapter of the game... Fuckin lmao

👍︎︎ 29 👤︎︎ u/2_Wycked 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies

So I'd like to chime in with why I believe MGS4, is perhaps the worst MGS game in my eyes. Yes, even worse than MGSV, and I'm a big fan of the series since the first MGS.

When I first played MGS4, I was blown away by it. Just hypnotized by the entire ride beginning to end, and I felt like it was the greatest game I ever played... But upon completing it, I decided to replay it immediately afterwards. And this was when I began to notice the flaws. The many, many flaws. Which I'll do my best to explain why the flaws make me damn near hate the game.

Too many cutscenes

It's the first and only time in an MGS series I ever felt the cutscenes were far too many, far too relentlessly boring. Much of this comes down to genuinely bad writing. But it's also the first time where cutscenes felt like they weren't letting me play the game, which leads me to my next point...

Not enough gameplay

Sure, cutscenes were plentiful before. But I never felt they actually got in the way of me playing the game. Until MGS4. The frequency coupled with the writing resulted in a constantly cramped feeling all throughout the game. As if the game wouldn't allow itself to adequately "breathe" before choking itself with more and more cutscenes.

Chapters

Every MGS game before this one had an organic feel to it. You'd be dropped into a compound, and spend many hours navigating its layout, learning what connects to what, and how to move from Point A to Point B.

MGS4 replaced this entirely by setting the game in different locations. This isn't bad on it's own, but the locations themselves weren't impressive. And were mostly a straight line until the end of the chapter. Combined with the previously mentioned problems. Too many cutscenes, not enough gameplay, and a linear trot until the ending cutscene, makes every chapter feel tiny and unsatisfying to play. And speaking of unsatisfying...

The Beauty and Beast Unit is the poorest antagonist in the group series by a huge margin.

And this is where I start getting frustrated. No matter how much you may personally like MGS4, I honestly can't see how anyone can argue against this. Compare them to Foxhound in MGS1, or Dead Cell in MGS2. Where we spent a lot of time getting to "know" each of the unit members, and even interacting with them before battling to the death. The BB Unit were all utterly lacking in personality, character, and history. And I can prove this simply:

Vamp in MGS2

This is the type of cutscene I loved in the MGS. Sure it may come off as longwinded, but this is exactly what made the villains and the story so fascinating to me. The fact that the protagonist can meet an antagonist, both of whom have every reason to kill each other on sight, and talk. It gave so much insight to the characters of the villains and the story.

Now... compare that to an MGS4 villain.

Laughing Octopus

Do you see what I mean? Every member of the BB were nothing but shrieking nutjobs, whom Snake silently glares at throughout their introduction before you fight them. No interaction, no development, and no history. It seems like Kojima realized his mistake and added in Drebin as a means of explaining to you why you should pity the BB, after you defeat them.

I could go on and on. Yes, there are some moments of greatness within it (Such as the final battle and REX vs RAY), but these are big reasons I find MGS4 to be so frustrating, and not entirely worth playing. Yes, MGSV has major flaws in it too and not even a complete game. Yet, I find MGSV to be far more worth playing because it actually lets you breathe and have fun with it.

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/Titanium_Machine 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2017 🗫︎ replies