does anyone think kojima really needed to justify the original mgs trilogy? the chronology between the games is there, but the actual on-going narrative shifts significantly to suit the nature of each game. sewn together by thematic musings yet environmentally distinct, those games crafted their own internal worlds to convey the kinds of story they wanted to tell. video games have traditionally favored self-contained works given both the density of any given game and the need to make any entry a boarding point for new fans, which makes mgs4 all the more puzzling. in likely the only time kojima was truly convinced that he was ending the series, he attempted to string together literally every plot point leftover from prior games into a single nonsensical story as if that's what the series needed. as if some hackneyed sense of closure for each and every character could somehow weave its own web of meaning instead of stumbling so heavily over its own feet.
believe or not it's truly an "everyone is here" moment. meryl? back as a grizzled vet, far from the fresh recruit she was in the first game. olga gurlukovich's daughter kidnapped by the patriots? living with otacon aboard his plane/house/thing. EVA, last seen escaping with the philosopher's legacy in the mid '60s? she's here with her own resistance group and she has virtually no backstory as for why. the guard who shits himself in mgs1 and 2? he gets a name! so many characters from those first three games tumble back into view that it strangles the new additions to the franchise. weapon launderer drebin and his cola-swilling monkey companion rarely solidify their presence beyond justifying the new weapons system, and in particular drebin's suit coat and baggy camo pants locks this into being easily the most 00s mgs ever got. the other new players - the beauty and the beast unit - may be easily the least interesting boss set in the franchise (not that pw or V even really attempt one), especially with drebin's trauma porn backstory dumps for each one. virtually no agency beyond just fusing previous ideas together into some new package. a bit of a microcosm for the rest of the game!
indeed, mgs4's mechanics falter immediately from refusing to build on mgs3's foundation in favor of blending various bits from it and the various third-person shooters from its orbit. this was a post-gears world after all, and a post-modern warfare one as well. the core conceit of mgs4 lies in recreating perpetual war and placing the player as a third party within it, uninvolved in the conflict and attempting to remain unobtrusive. from the moment snake enters the bombed-out ruins of a middle-eastern city it becomes clear that the nature of the classic mgs stealth gameplay has changed. while some soldiers patrol previously-cleared areas, the vast majority of their forces press on towards the front against hostile militias. getting noticed has negative consequences per usual, but in the midst of already-heavy fire simply eliminating a guard and returning to the shadows rarely results in a reset or any major setbacks. in fact, assisting the militia from behind their lines will result in them viewing you as an alley and ignoring your trespassing. in this way the game pushes the player towards more traditional cover-TPS gameplay, with stealth more of a tool than a central gameplay mechanic. while avoiding detection may result overall safer gameplay, it is generally to your benefit to pick off enemy soldiers regardless, and in some instances the combatants are so distracted by the ongoing battle that sneaking past rarely poses an issues. this initial chapter does feature the most raw stealth sequences of the entire game, but juxtaposes this against a straight-forward combat encounter with the haven troopers (otherwise known as the FROGS), which kill the pacing just like similar segments such as the elevator fight from mgs1.
these latter warfare mechanics present themselves more heavily in the game's second chapter, which takes place in south america. should the player squint, they may be able to trick themselves that they're playing a gussied-up version of snake eater thanks to the similar methods of crawling through tall grass in the wetlands that seem particularly useful here. when not in combat, snake has a couple new options for tactical disposal of enemies. the one I found most useful was the metal gear mk ii; this petite cameo from snatcher can roll up on unsuspecting enemies and electrocute them for easy takedowns so long as you yourself aren't caught controlling it like a sitting duck. unfortunately as this chapter rolls on it leans even further into neglecting the stealth altogether, with setpieces such as the mansion really making it clear that getting caught simply doesn't matter in a warzone. at the same time this is the chapter where I really started enjoying the combat for what it was. via drebin snake can purchase weapons at will from a menu outside the purview of the patriots, and ammo refills are easy to buy as well. fooling around with weapons such as the automatic sniper rifle or the nonlethal air shotgun honestly made up for the lack of usual MGS-gameplay. it's evident that kojima was chasing trends with this style, but I can't say he didn't manage to make it work.
which makes the third chapter (and indeed, the rest of the game) all the more perplexing. the setting shifts to eastern europe, where snake must trail local revolutionaries back to their base through dimly lit cobblestone streets. a far cry from the earlier segments though certainly not as bad as it could be. the interesting twist here is that your targets are themselves sneaking around soldiers under the banner of the patriots, and occasionally snake needs to step in to tip the scales in the resistance's favor. discretely handling these close calls for the resistance makes what would otherwise be purely tedious at least somewhat interesting. the second half of this chapter is effectively a protracted light-gun sequence (there's one in the second chapter as I recall), which certainly is an mgs staple but perhaps could have been not been featured so prominently here. virtually no traditional mgs action happens in this chapter, portending the shift the rest of the game takes.
the fourth chapter features a return to shadow moses... at this point the game hits a particular low. the various gekko machines are your main foes for most of these chapters, making the actual "stealth" simply tossing chaff grenades and running like hell. other than plenty of winking otacon conversations about the events of the first game, I could not tell you really what the actual structure of this level is beyond these perfunctory sneaking sections and a deluge of boss fights towards the end. in this latter half of the game boss fights begin dominating the runtime, and overall I can't say most of them are particularly great. having replayed mgs2 and 3 recently I'll admit that a lot of "classic" mgs boss fights are not particularly interesting (notable exceptions include vulcan raven, fatman, the end, and the boss), and mgs4 really has no key fight to really claim as a standout. crying wolf and vamp in this chapter stand out as some of my least favorite fights in the game -- crying wolf may be the most tiresome sniper fight in the series -- while the penultimate fight of REX vs RAY at least gets major points on pure fun factor. it's more of a setpice than an actual fight, but the carnage is so enthralling and the following outer haven reveal so iconically silly that I can at least point to it as one of my favorite parts of the game.
the final chapter launches snake into the maw of outer haven in order to reach the patriot AIs at its core. the opening area here features one of the largest stealth areas in the whole game, and unfortunately it closes out the typical mgs gameplay for the entire game. my first steps here were fraught with danger however; the stark metallic ship deck features little natural cover or hidey-holes for snake to inhabit. thankfully kojima included a salve: the octocamo. in his attempt to rectify the tedious camo swapping of mgs3, snake here receives a high-tech suit that adapts to his environment like a chameleon (or uh, an octopus). on solid backdrops such as the cool gray of the ship, snake receives such a high camo index that enemy soldiers (the FROGS in this instance) will not be able to recognize him as an intruder even when directly examining him, allowing the player to headshot tranq them at point-blank range. abusing this mechanic while also disposing of the gekkos via the nerve bundle on the side of their organic knees makes this section a cakewalk, assuming that you can maintain your composure when said gekkos tip and spin around on the floor, mooing incessantly.
in the closing scenes snake proceeds to muddle through the screaming mantis fight and wade through hallway after hallway of the obnoxious dwarf gekkos until finally crawling towards the core. in the microwave corridor approaching the AI core, snake crawls on hands and knees basking in the radiation while scenes from his allies valiantly fighting play around him. this wonderful scene and the subsequent climatic battle with liquid ocelot manages to salvage some of the pain of the prior hours. as each subsequent classic mgs theme plays, you truly get the sense that in some ways this could have been a perfect "dream match" blend of mgs staples old and new had it not been burdened by simultaneously serving as the ultimate ending to everything the series had been leading towards.
the feature-length epilogue finally draws these threads to a close centered around a truly ridiculous data dump from a somehow-alive big boss regarding his long-term proxy war with major zero and cipher. while enjoyable in its own way ("snake lived a hard life" still hits really hard), it's clear that whatever rich thematic base that kojima intended for this game has been utterly smothered by too much explaining. too many events that happened off-screen that someone needs to relay to snake, too many double-crosses and twists, and far too many random old elements dragged out far past their expiration date. where are the stakes for snake's mutated FOXDIE virus housed within his cells when you know it won't amount to anything anyway, just like it did at the end of mgs1? why cry for raiden convulsing from needing dialysis for his synthetic blood when you know he'll just show up as a deus ex machina again later? does ocelot's endgame reveal about liquid's consciousness inside of him really enlighten us about his character or flesh out his flimsy rationale for anything he does over the course of this game?
in a series coated in ruminations on legacy, mgs4 seems the most focused on the legacy of the series itself. snake's decaying body, unraveling from his imperfect artificial conception, may be the most evident symbol that metal gear's golden era had passed by. david hayter renders his voice in a particularly uncomfortable gravely tone over the course of the game to the point of smushing his capability to effect anything but a monotone. there's a particularly poignant moment where aboard the USS missouri snake drags on a cigarette, sending him into a heart-wrenching coughing fit that leaves him bent on the floor in near-syncope. his existence may truly be an affront to God (portrayed in the game as hideo kojima himself, unironically (or maybe with a tinge of irony)).
but beyond this seeming need to break out of the restrictions of metal gear, there is little to gleam from mgs4's text that isn't muddled by the overwrought web of plot points. the war economy is profitable but bad? very true, but pretty much on the level of mgs1's "nuclear annihilation is bad" moral. and much like the ultimate verdict on whether love can bloom on the battlefield -- snake intones during mgs2 that his whirlwind romance with meryl wasn't built to last -- mgs4 doesn't seem very intent on exploring anything it brings up. that worked for mgs1, but mgs4 has nearly 10 hours of cutscenes; twice as long as mgs2 or mgs3. I have a tolerance for metal gear's cheese, but mgs4 really strained me with just how much needless fluff, bug-eyed callbacks, and empty soliloquies it crammed into the chassis of a game that wasn't up to snuff to the series' earlier outings. for how bombastic of a finale this was supposed to be, it's easy to also see how the formerly-innovative mgs resorted to trend-chasing with this entry. shoving a pointless psyche meter in the game or the usual exclamation point guard reactions doesn't change the fact that mgs4 is just another third-person shooter. even when it succeeds at slotting into that classification, it spends the second half of the game grasping at other styles in an attempt to differentiate itself with poor results. there's so much love here, but it still disappoints.
that is, other than the saving grace that is johnny sasaki. what kojima intended to show with this character is redemption for those who have previously failed and embarassed themselves... [the essay continues on from here for another nine paragraphs]
believe or not it's truly an "everyone is here" moment. meryl? back as a grizzled vet, far from the fresh recruit she was in the first game. olga gurlukovich's daughter kidnapped by the patriots? living with otacon aboard his plane/house/thing. EVA, last seen escaping with the philosopher's legacy in the mid '60s? she's here with her own resistance group and she has virtually no backstory as for why. the guard who shits himself in mgs1 and 2? he gets a name! so many characters from those first three games tumble back into view that it strangles the new additions to the franchise. weapon launderer drebin and his cola-swilling monkey companion rarely solidify their presence beyond justifying the new weapons system, and in particular drebin's suit coat and baggy camo pants locks this into being easily the most 00s mgs ever got. the other new players - the beauty and the beast unit - may be easily the least interesting boss set in the franchise (not that pw or V even really attempt one), especially with drebin's trauma porn backstory dumps for each one. virtually no agency beyond just fusing previous ideas together into some new package. a bit of a microcosm for the rest of the game!
indeed, mgs4's mechanics falter immediately from refusing to build on mgs3's foundation in favor of blending various bits from it and the various third-person shooters from its orbit. this was a post-gears world after all, and a post-modern warfare one as well. the core conceit of mgs4 lies in recreating perpetual war and placing the player as a third party within it, uninvolved in the conflict and attempting to remain unobtrusive. from the moment snake enters the bombed-out ruins of a middle-eastern city it becomes clear that the nature of the classic mgs stealth gameplay has changed. while some soldiers patrol previously-cleared areas, the vast majority of their forces press on towards the front against hostile militias. getting noticed has negative consequences per usual, but in the midst of already-heavy fire simply eliminating a guard and returning to the shadows rarely results in a reset or any major setbacks. in fact, assisting the militia from behind their lines will result in them viewing you as an alley and ignoring your trespassing. in this way the game pushes the player towards more traditional cover-TPS gameplay, with stealth more of a tool than a central gameplay mechanic. while avoiding detection may result overall safer gameplay, it is generally to your benefit to pick off enemy soldiers regardless, and in some instances the combatants are so distracted by the ongoing battle that sneaking past rarely poses an issues. this initial chapter does feature the most raw stealth sequences of the entire game, but juxtaposes this against a straight-forward combat encounter with the haven troopers (otherwise known as the FROGS), which kill the pacing just like similar segments such as the elevator fight from mgs1.
these latter warfare mechanics present themselves more heavily in the game's second chapter, which takes place in south america. should the player squint, they may be able to trick themselves that they're playing a gussied-up version of snake eater thanks to the similar methods of crawling through tall grass in the wetlands that seem particularly useful here. when not in combat, snake has a couple new options for tactical disposal of enemies. the one I found most useful was the metal gear mk ii; this petite cameo from snatcher can roll up on unsuspecting enemies and electrocute them for easy takedowns so long as you yourself aren't caught controlling it like a sitting duck. unfortunately as this chapter rolls on it leans even further into neglecting the stealth altogether, with setpieces such as the mansion really making it clear that getting caught simply doesn't matter in a warzone. at the same time this is the chapter where I really started enjoying the combat for what it was. via drebin snake can purchase weapons at will from a menu outside the purview of the patriots, and ammo refills are easy to buy as well. fooling around with weapons such as the automatic sniper rifle or the nonlethal air shotgun honestly made up for the lack of usual MGS-gameplay. it's evident that kojima was chasing trends with this style, but I can't say he didn't manage to make it work.
which makes the third chapter (and indeed, the rest of the game) all the more perplexing. the setting shifts to eastern europe, where snake must trail local revolutionaries back to their base through dimly lit cobblestone streets. a far cry from the earlier segments though certainly not as bad as it could be. the interesting twist here is that your targets are themselves sneaking around soldiers under the banner of the patriots, and occasionally snake needs to step in to tip the scales in the resistance's favor. discretely handling these close calls for the resistance makes what would otherwise be purely tedious at least somewhat interesting. the second half of this chapter is effectively a protracted light-gun sequence (there's one in the second chapter as I recall), which certainly is an mgs staple but perhaps could have been not been featured so prominently here. virtually no traditional mgs action happens in this chapter, portending the shift the rest of the game takes.
the fourth chapter features a return to shadow moses... at this point the game hits a particular low. the various gekko machines are your main foes for most of these chapters, making the actual "stealth" simply tossing chaff grenades and running like hell. other than plenty of winking otacon conversations about the events of the first game, I could not tell you really what the actual structure of this level is beyond these perfunctory sneaking sections and a deluge of boss fights towards the end. in this latter half of the game boss fights begin dominating the runtime, and overall I can't say most of them are particularly great. having replayed mgs2 and 3 recently I'll admit that a lot of "classic" mgs boss fights are not particularly interesting (notable exceptions include vulcan raven, fatman, the end, and the boss), and mgs4 really has no key fight to really claim as a standout. crying wolf and vamp in this chapter stand out as some of my least favorite fights in the game -- crying wolf may be the most tiresome sniper fight in the series -- while the penultimate fight of REX vs RAY at least gets major points on pure fun factor. it's more of a setpice than an actual fight, but the carnage is so enthralling and the following outer haven reveal so iconically silly that I can at least point to it as one of my favorite parts of the game.
the final chapter launches snake into the maw of outer haven in order to reach the patriot AIs at its core. the opening area here features one of the largest stealth areas in the whole game, and unfortunately it closes out the typical mgs gameplay for the entire game. my first steps here were fraught with danger however; the stark metallic ship deck features little natural cover or hidey-holes for snake to inhabit. thankfully kojima included a salve: the octocamo. in his attempt to rectify the tedious camo swapping of mgs3, snake here receives a high-tech suit that adapts to his environment like a chameleon (or uh, an octopus). on solid backdrops such as the cool gray of the ship, snake receives such a high camo index that enemy soldiers (the FROGS in this instance) will not be able to recognize him as an intruder even when directly examining him, allowing the player to headshot tranq them at point-blank range. abusing this mechanic while also disposing of the gekkos via the nerve bundle on the side of their organic knees makes this section a cakewalk, assuming that you can maintain your composure when said gekkos tip and spin around on the floor, mooing incessantly.
in the closing scenes snake proceeds to muddle through the screaming mantis fight and wade through hallway after hallway of the obnoxious dwarf gekkos until finally crawling towards the core. in the microwave corridor approaching the AI core, snake crawls on hands and knees basking in the radiation while scenes from his allies valiantly fighting play around him. this wonderful scene and the subsequent climatic battle with liquid ocelot manages to salvage some of the pain of the prior hours. as each subsequent classic mgs theme plays, you truly get the sense that in some ways this could have been a perfect "dream match" blend of mgs staples old and new had it not been burdened by simultaneously serving as the ultimate ending to everything the series had been leading towards.
the feature-length epilogue finally draws these threads to a close centered around a truly ridiculous data dump from a somehow-alive big boss regarding his long-term proxy war with major zero and cipher. while enjoyable in its own way ("snake lived a hard life" still hits really hard), it's clear that whatever rich thematic base that kojima intended for this game has been utterly smothered by too much explaining. too many events that happened off-screen that someone needs to relay to snake, too many double-crosses and twists, and far too many random old elements dragged out far past their expiration date. where are the stakes for snake's mutated FOXDIE virus housed within his cells when you know it won't amount to anything anyway, just like it did at the end of mgs1? why cry for raiden convulsing from needing dialysis for his synthetic blood when you know he'll just show up as a deus ex machina again later? does ocelot's endgame reveal about liquid's consciousness inside of him really enlighten us about his character or flesh out his flimsy rationale for anything he does over the course of this game?
in a series coated in ruminations on legacy, mgs4 seems the most focused on the legacy of the series itself. snake's decaying body, unraveling from his imperfect artificial conception, may be the most evident symbol that metal gear's golden era had passed by. david hayter renders his voice in a particularly uncomfortable gravely tone over the course of the game to the point of smushing his capability to effect anything but a monotone. there's a particularly poignant moment where aboard the USS missouri snake drags on a cigarette, sending him into a heart-wrenching coughing fit that leaves him bent on the floor in near-syncope. his existence may truly be an affront to God (portrayed in the game as hideo kojima himself, unironically (or maybe with a tinge of irony)).
but beyond this seeming need to break out of the restrictions of metal gear, there is little to gleam from mgs4's text that isn't muddled by the overwrought web of plot points. the war economy is profitable but bad? very true, but pretty much on the level of mgs1's "nuclear annihilation is bad" moral. and much like the ultimate verdict on whether love can bloom on the battlefield -- snake intones during mgs2 that his whirlwind romance with meryl wasn't built to last -- mgs4 doesn't seem very intent on exploring anything it brings up. that worked for mgs1, but mgs4 has nearly 10 hours of cutscenes; twice as long as mgs2 or mgs3. I have a tolerance for metal gear's cheese, but mgs4 really strained me with just how much needless fluff, bug-eyed callbacks, and empty soliloquies it crammed into the chassis of a game that wasn't up to snuff to the series' earlier outings. for how bombastic of a finale this was supposed to be, it's easy to also see how the formerly-innovative mgs resorted to trend-chasing with this entry. shoving a pointless psyche meter in the game or the usual exclamation point guard reactions doesn't change the fact that mgs4 is just another third-person shooter. even when it succeeds at slotting into that classification, it spends the second half of the game grasping at other styles in an attempt to differentiate itself with poor results. there's so much love here, but it still disappoints.
that is, other than the saving grace that is johnny sasaki. what kojima intended to show with this character is redemption for those who have previously failed and embarassed themselves... [the essay continues on from here for another nine paragraphs]
4 Comments
@Archagent thank you so much! it's really a hard game to describe because it jumps all over the place in terms of scenario unlike the other entries, so I'm glad what i wrote is understandable even if you haven't played it!
@WildSheepChase yea I remember hearing jeremy parish talk about the draconian advance playing process (needing to play the game in a handful of giant sittings while being watched by a konami rep) and it seems like most reviewers just got too lost in the sauce with that method. plus the brand recognition, at some level a popular series gets an extremely generous scoring floor when a large gaming publication reviews it. a lot of people on this site have a soft spot for it regardless and I can see some other people's perspective on why it's good, but personally I was pretty miserable while playing this one.
Yeah, that MGS4 Konami press event stuff was a breaking point personally wrt ever giving a shit about professional reviews again. If game companies were gonna be that transparently gross about it and all the big mags/sites were gonna lap it up then I didn't see what use they were for me anymore.
Archagent
1 year ago