Metal Gear Solid 4 Previews, Metal Gear Online and Bundles+Editions.

[Bolivar]

Well in response to Bolivar who asked what sucked about MGS4 :



***MAJOR SPOILERS***






I don't know why would anyone who has been paying attention to the previous titles of the game, would even think that MGS4 is brilliant or even has great story, because it's one huge self-contradiction to rest of the MGS titles.








1. Big Boss is blatant fan service - I don't care what anyone says...it's fan service. Unfortunately, it was catered to those fans who would rather piss all over his great character just so there could be one last father/son bonding scene. He's been in a coma for 15 years, comes back, explains stuff, then dies. An unnecessary, and flat-out stupid retcon. For some reason, Big Boss just had to be yet another "I'm a good guy that turned into a bad guy but I was really a good guy all along" character. He died in MG2:SS, why couldn't Kojima leave it there? We will never know.

2. The "explanation" for Liquid Ocelot is a cop out AND a retcon. We clearly saw that it was Liquid controlling Ocelot's body in MGS2, period. Kojima didn't intend to explain how Liquid did it, he was just going to leave it like that. It was supposed to be the last MGS game. The arm is now a mechanical one in MGS4 (just like he wanted it to be before MGS2 development) and Ocelot went under "Psychotherapy". Flat out COP OUT!

3. Vamp's immortality through nanomachines is as well. I don't care how fast he can heal, a bullet to the head will kill you instantly. Another slap to the face by Kojima. It's seems his answer to everything is "NANOMACHINEZ":
"He was dead!"
"Nanomachines."

"He's immortal!"
"Nanomachines."

"That man just became a platypus!"
"Nanomachines."

But to be honest, he screwed up in MGS2 to begin with by making him seem immortal.

4. Ninja Raiden is another fan service as well. He may have been gay MGS2, but his character was no longer needed in MGS. He was done at the end of MGS2, just remember what Snake told him. But no, Kojima felt that there was some need to bring him back, but in order to please fans he changed him completely into a ninja, now idiot fanboys want to play this loser, and his character was pissed all over as well with his emo "I have nothing to live for" attitude... And it was supposed to be Snake finding Sunny, but this was retconned as well as badass Raiden found her and left her under Otacon & Snake. And most of all, Kojima provided no info on why he went from a loser to an "extreme badass".

5. GW was destroyed in MGS2, but then retconned to only be destroyed into pieces in MGS4 (BS)...so all of Emma's efforts were for . And it seems JFK has suddenly disappeared in MGS4, and now there's JD.

Colonel : Raiden, are you receiving? We're still here.

Raiden : How's that possible!? The AI was destroyed!

Colonel : Only GW...

Raiden : Who are you?

6. Vamp's ability to read people's muscles in MGS2 was changed, and now he can no longer read Snake's in MGS4...which in MGS2, Raiden was the only one he was able to read and had Snake pinned down after he slaughtered Seal Team 10.

Vamp : Hahaha... I thought so. Human muscles are quite eloquent. They
speak-out clearly what the person's next movement will be. They
even tell me which way a gun will be pointed before the trigger
is pulled. But your muscles -- they're different. This should be
fun...well worth the wait.

Raiden : You knew I was coming?

Vamp : You think I'm going to lose -- I can't let you interfere with
Arsenal Gear.

So from this quote, if this was a Snake vs. Vamp fight, Snake would have never stood a chance.

7. The codec was absolutely useless. Like I previously said, they decided to focus more on cinematics & fan-wanks then actually story or gameplay. If you were to skip all cut-scenes, you will only get like...maybe 3 hours of gameplay compared to 8 hours of cut-scenes, and they were boring as hell; crappy dialogue, poor voice acting.

8. Naomi's death was so sudden and ty "uh..I have cancer" *dies*.

9. The whole REX vs. RAY is yet another fan-wank. After so many times on take on and destroying a Metal Gear, they just keep coming back (REX), and everything works too. I guess this was also catered to those who would actually want to see a REX vs. RAY fight...well they got, and they just made the Shadow Moses act look like one huge smurfing joke.

10. Last but not least...MGS Database, which is possibly the dumbest thing. It contradicted MGS4, while MGS4 contradicted the other installments, so basically they went all ape- with MGS4. The game has only been out for a week and they are already retconning everything in MGS4 by adding more useless garbage like Area 51 etc. This is why I don't take MGS4 as canon, it has now become something you see on the Sci-Fi channel a smurfing cheap fantasy game...which brings me to my last and final point...:



So in conclusion, IMHO, MGS4 is the worst of the series...an complete fan-wanked game...It's cool if you like the game, I respect your opinion...but I'm trying to defend my opinion (before anyone pulls out " fuk u...ms4 iss epik!).

Overall I would give the game a 1.8/10...yes it was that disappointing to me. And now they want to piss all over Big Boss again, with a prequel (MGS5)...R.I.P. MGS Series.

Outer Heaven, I totally respect you for coming in here after being called out and explaining your reasoning in full. It's hard these days to find an angry fan of a video game on the internet who can actually explain his logic. I would disagree on a few things:

1) Yes, (SPOILER)Big Boss at the end was nothing but unashamed fanservice, but: a) I am a fan, and b) I enjoy being serviced. It was an amazing moment, and the perfect end to the series, in my opinion, obviously not yours. But it was obvious (SPOILER)he was going to be in the game as evidenced by the infamous Shinkawa promotional illustration and the fact that it had been announced that the japanese had hired a voice actor for him.

2) (SPOILER)Big Boss was suggested in many ways to be a "good guy all along" character - (SPOILER)They showed it in MGS3, Portable Ops, even Snake himself sounded like he held no grudges against him in MGS1

3) I don't think (SPOILER)Liquid Ocelot's revealed nature was a cop out, because if you download the promotional wallpapers for (SPOILER)Liquid Ocelot and blow it up, look underneath the name and it starts to spell "REVOLVER". Not to mention him being responsible for it himself is the most Ocelot-esque direction Kojima could have possibly taken it. I even speculated it myself before the game was released, so don't say it's an out-of-the-blue cop-out.

Other than that, I enjoyed reading your posts and you have a very valid opinion.

However, I can't call these changes "retcons". These plot twists have become so synonymous for "Metal Gear Solid" that I would have been surprised and disappointed if the game wasn't full of them. Each game has countless ones within them, even across installments, changing the context of previous games. When I think of Metal Gear Solid I think of: 1) Tactical Espionage Action gameplay 2) a cinematic experience on par with films 3) central issues relevant to today and 4) lots and lots of plot twists.

[Roto13]

(SPOILER)Vamp not actually being a Vampire and Ocelot not actually being controlled by a transplanted arm were both fixing horrible mistakes made in Metal Gear Solid 2, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, come on. Someone's mind and personality and memories all being stored in their hand? A guy who drank his family's blood and turned immortal? Those are both incredibly stupid within the context of Metal Gear Solid. The MGS world has a lot of weird stuff in it, but magic is a stretch.

[Fonzie]

(SPOILER)Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that Meryl ended up marrying the soldier with diarrhea from MGS1? xD Actually, that whole proposal scene was the coolest part of the game. xD

That was actually the cheesiest part for me. The act itself was great, but I could have done without the "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" theatrics. I do like how Johnny was developed over the series history, culminating in this game. It even explains why he couldn't control himself :P (SPOILER)He also looks a lot like a really young Snake.Which could be part of Meryl's attraction.

Yeah I also thought he looked alot like him.

[Karellen]

[spoilers]In the next game they'll explain that The Sorrow's soul didn't actually appear in MGS3 but rather it was a natural phenomenon where subatomic particles nanomachines patriotswerwer dsfnbowryne qteqrhgtpierqgqg.[/spoilers]

[Croyles]

anyone know of a way to hihglight spoilers in the ps3 browser? a little offtopic but oh well

[Shattered Dreamer]

It was hinted in MGS3 that Ocelot was the son of The Boss & The Sorrow or didnt some of you notice. This explains why a dead Liquid Snake can get into his head. Ocelot is a medium just like his father was.

Big Boss was always portray as the "good guy all along character" that was kinda the whole point of MGS3. Big Boss comes to realise when he sees how the US shafted The Boss that good & evil are not objective but subjective. The Boss' speak to Big Boss before you fight her in MGS3 explains my point.

However I do think that Kojima is guilty of 3rd degree retconning & should probably be kicked really hard in the groin for it. Maybe he should play through all his old games again before he makes MGS5.

Just to warn you all The Les Enfrant Terribles project include 7 or 8 clones of Big Boss so don't get get too pissed if you all see Liquidus Snake or In Need Of Defrosting Snake in the future. If memory serves me right Liquid was full sure in MGS1 that he and Snake were Big Boss' only surviving clones but then we got Solidus.

[Roto13]

Didn't Solidus come after, though?

[Woodinator]

There were a lot of the points in the game (especially in the ending cinematic) where I just kept thinking "Come on is that really necessary?" and groaned because the characters basically repeated themselves 10 times. Aside from this I thought the game enjoyable and the story to be pretty good despite being overly complex.

On a side note, it just seems plain stupid to me to rip apart a game and denounce certain parts as "fan services" when the whole game is a fan service in essence. What's the point of making a game if you don't keep the fans desires in mind? I'll agree that (SPOILER)the return of Big Boss and the fact that Snake doesn't die in the end was a bit ridiculous, but honestly if the developers think the fans want it, why wouldn't they put it in?

Just a thought by me, I could be looking at it the completly wrong way...

[Bolivar]

However I do think that Kojima is guilty of 3rd degree retconning & should probably be kicked really hard in the groin for it. Maybe he should play through all his old games again before he makes MGS5.

if you joined him while he went to play through all his old games, you would see how such plot twists are integral to his games. Like I've already said, I would have been more surprised, and probably disappointed if MGS4 was simply about Old Snake trying to stop Liquid from carrying out an insurrection (SPOILER)well, it is, but kinda not really.

(SPOILER)the fact that Snake doesn't die in the end was a bit ridiculous,

When it got to that point, and the camera started backing out, I really thought it was going to be like MGS3 (SPOILER)where the player has to manually pull the trigger and I was dreading it. But overall, I think that the fact that this didn't happen made some of the footage in the trailers highly more appropriate.

Didn't Solidus come after, though?

Yeah, Naomi says in the Mission 3 briefing that after Liquid and Solid Snake were created, realizing that they weren't perfect clones of Big Boss, "they" decided (or needed) to create Solidus.

[Shattered Dreamer]

[quote=Bolivar;2527620]

However I do think that Kojima is guilty of 3rd degree retconning & should probably be kicked really hard in the groin for it. Maybe he should play through all his old games again before he makes MGS5.

if you joined him while he went to play through all his old games, you would see how such plot twists are integral to his games.

A retcon does not count as a plot twist. But then again Metal Gear Rex not being destroyed is not really a retcon anyway. For Meryl & Otacon to be in MGS4 neither of the endings in MGS1 can be what really happened

[Bolivar]

A retcon does not count as a plot twist.

In its actual meaning, a retcon is, by definition, a plot twist occuring amongst different stories.

Retcon

For Meryl & Otacon to be in MGS4 neither of the endings in MGS1 can be what really happened

(SPOILER)Otacon doesn't die in the Meryl ending, technically Meryl doesn't in Otacon's either, it's only assumed that she's dead. During the optional flashback in MGS4, I believe the last shot you see of her is her lying in a pool of blood after the Sniper Wolf incident, so i think the game might imply that either ending could have worked.

[Roto13]

(SPOILER)The Sniper Wolf incident isn't where she dies, anyway. She dies before/during the brawl with Liquid.

[Shattered Dreamer]

(SPOILER)In the Otacon ending,Snake checks to see if she is stil alive after the Liquid fight & she's not!There is even a codec conversation where Snakes tells Roy Campbell she is dead & Campbell tells Snake Meryl is his daughter.

In the Meryl ending, Snake & Meryl ride off into the sunset & Otacon escapes by himself.

The Otacon ending made more sense when you played the Tanker part of MGS2 because it was because they survived Shadow Moses together they started that anti metal gear group. But since Meryl is alive in MGS4, the Otacon ending cant of been what right because Meryl died!

Use spoiler tags, please.

~Void

[Wolf Kanno]

Just because they didn't leave together doesn't mean its a retcon. Kojima said after MGS2 that Meryl's ending was the correct one. If memory serves me correct, I thought Snake even mentions their breakup in a Codec conversation during the Tanker mission. I might be wrong though.

I just finished the game and overall I was pretty content. Its not the best in the series but its one of the better games. I do have a feeling I might enjoy it more the second time through as I had some technical issues and problems adjusting to the new control scheme. Overall I felt many of the control tweaks were unnecessary and I'm a bit sadden by combat being dumbed down abit for the sake of it being more fluid. Damn "run and gun" players

I may give a better response after I finish it a second time cause I'm borrowing a friends copy and another's PS3.

[Bolivar]

Yesterday I beat it for the second time and I was just as satisfied.

As far as it's ranking, right now I would say MGS3 is the best overall game in the series, but at the same time I have to proclaim that MGS4 had such a beautiful portrayal of life that almost transcends video games. The only shortcoming is that I myself prefer a long, continuous mission in one location to tell a story, rather than a set of 5 Virtuous Missions (that's not really fair, each Act is so much more). So I think it'll take some time before I can give it a proper ranking in relation to the other games.

I'll just say that any fan of MGS or any owner of a PS3 definately owes it to him/herself to play this game.