So, a bit of backstory, around the 16th of this month, a student protest happened. It's a terrible ordeal, and as much as I want to grieve for the lives lost, I spend the majority of my time playing with this Xbox 360 I bought from a friend before the whole thing.
Weird choice of a game to play considering the current situation, the entire country's internet was cut off from the 18th for 5 days. I missed a lot of games years back when I had one, and I know MGS4 isn't in this platform. The Only Metal Gear games I played before were MGS1 and Phantom Pain. Thankfully, I got the HD collection for the definitive titles.
And I got to say, this game is mechanically dated, and a bit janky now. But coming a few short years after the first, it was a big transition to the next-generation system (PS2). Games these days just can't really match its caliber of engagement.
One of the most endearing things I always remember this series does, even the characters are aware to some degree it's a video game. They give you literally instructions on buttons to press, and functions to use in certain places. In case you forget, the manual is also of help.
I think what makes this series really standout is how it differentiates from your standard action game. I have to press 3 different inputs to shoot a gun, and it's always trying to make you second guess doing so. Repelling the impulse of nonsensical killing that usually any players do in a military game. Hence, how it terms itself as a tactical espionage title.
And the other being it's the same ceiling viewed angle inspired by early arcade games, that just annoys me. The radar only shows visibility when I'm in the close vicinity. I have to use first person to look around, and it's really not snappy. There's delay, my fingers hurt going first person view, using the analog to look around, leaning left and right isn't always perfect, and dear god, I have to press the right analog to aim my gun.
I kid you not when I say, the aiming sensitivity here is close to being bad as Driv3r aiming was. Also, I made the grave mistake of choosing normal difficulty, I did play MGS1, but that was like 2 decades ago when I was a kid. It's different here.
Man, it tests how fast you can press a button on the controller without forgetting how it works. I got so angry being spotted, and there's no freaking main menu. I can't load the game, I have to restart it entirely while going through loadscreens, and all that. Utterly time-consuming, and seeing some guy on the internet finish it with half my playtime is embarrasing even.
But why do I play it? If I don't really enjoy playing the game? I mean, Snake Eater exists, and it mostly fixed all the issues by transitioning to third-person instead. The story man, why else? Also, the game gets easier when I get assault rifles, pistol auto-aiming sucks so bad.
Adding more to the complain pile, is the fact that the map when playing as Raiden needs to be synced. But I never have the option to fully view it, and it sucks because I have to react based on line of sight, and using isometric view then switching to first-person does not help like at all. It doesn't feel smooth, doesn't mean I can't rely on other tools to compensate.
Because what is a Metal Gear game without using all the tools and weapons at my disposal, there are mines ahead not visible. But with thermal vision googles, they are present. Too many enemies in a room, or drones surveilling an area? Use a Chaff grenade and radio goes silent, I can either run away or take them out single-handedly without alarm. I can approach different playstyles without trying to kill enemies, or just do what needs to be done.
It's choke full of interesting mechanics, most I had to discover on my own. I can hold an enemy at gunpoint and tell them to freeze, they will, long as I hold the gun. But aiming it infront of them makes them shake like a jelly, they drop items and dog tags for achievements. No other games matched it like this did. Too bad it plays like a PS1 title.
It's so funny thinking about the story, characters, and setting. This game takes almost everything from the prior games and just puts so many expositions to reel in. You're thrust into this grand conspiracy about power and who wields it, what does it mean to make history and justifying every action, even the most horrible, to make it happen.
Politicians are corrupt, yet are puppets to their masters, military projects gone wrong, groups vying to control power instruments to change course, and only the masses are caught up in it. What's right, what's wrong, what is freedom without the means to choose it?
Dialogues are so well written that Hideo Kojima literally plays all kinds of deceptions on you or makes you think so much while reading the stuff, the brain hurts and your middle school reading level comes back. Yet, still taps into the cultural zeitgeist. I swear, this game has me all in because of a mini-civil war going on in my country, and anti-government sentiment. Maybe I'll be a revolutionary after this...oh wait, am disabled.
No other game developers put everything they've worked on before and create something that has so much soul, with the lessons it teaches the older and younger generations before. Sam Fisher might be semi-dead, but Snake will live on forever.
Look, outside the stuff no one wants to tackle with, I still think any people being an MGS fan will go through the title. That's because this is still one of the best games out there, even if it's just for nostalgia, as the later games would vastly improve and change almost on everything.
