OrtizGames

I would be writing about Monster Hunter right now, if for the fact that the game is too long and I have simply not even reached Hunter Level 3 yet because I’ve been too busy playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. All week there’s been a regular storm of controversy wrapped around the so-called last episode of Solid Snake’s life and series. It seems that either our sneaky protagonist has gotten either a great deal of love or a great deal of hate with few in-betweens. I’ve heard any broad number of both ecstatic and disgusted takes on the game, so I decided to share my own observation and try to be what I seldom end up being: a median.

I loved MGS4. Let’s start out honest. I adored it. It was gorgeous, and exactly the kind of thing I want to see in a game. At the same time, I understand exactly why some people were more than disattisfied with acclaims from all over calling this a “Near Perfect” game, not to mention IGN’s PK Rockin’ Omega score of 10/10.

For a great number of people, MGS4 felt like a huge cutscene: a very pretty, very lovely cutscene sometimes lousily voice-acted with occasionally very tacky dialogue. The actual gameplay takes up maybe half of the game, while the other half is comprised of immovable cutscenes that pull you through a gargantuan action story that drags on and on. Were you to be able to compile Metal Gear as a movie you would easily have an 8 hour action adventure epic that would be very difficult for the average moviegoer to understand.

That makes a lot of people turn their noses up at the new Metal Gear, insinuating that it feels a lot less like a game and more like a big movie story you seem to have no hand in. However, what I realized as I was playing and feeling more or less the same along those lines was that there’s nothing really dictating what a game should or should not be comprised of. It was at that moment that I saw MGS4 as something quite different than what I had picked it up as–not as an intricate stealth game but an entire interactive experience, immersing me in the world of Metal Gear so deeply that when the cutscenes rolled around, I still felt like I was experiencing the action. Not to mention that occasionally the movie aspect was enhanced by gameplay aids, like the opportunity to “flashback” every now and then during cutscenes and change the camera’s POV in order to get different takes on the action and foreshadowing for future events.

The actual sneaking gameplay outside of the cutscenes is just as exciting and challenging as ever, with an even more fresh look and feel thanks to a great deal of Western adoptions by Eastern developers. The over the shoulder view, the ability to play through the entire game as Rambo as you like; all those things add a new flavor and style of playing the game that I couldn’t have expected. I’ve watched people barely using the OctoCamo, Snake’s brand-new, nifty equipment which lets him hide out and blend into his surroundings, and instead avoid enemies like mad by hotfooting their way behind obstacles and diving into cardboard boxes and drum cans. I’ve watched people take out enemies one by one, silently, using snipers and knives and a great deal of patience. My buddy Squall is trying to go through the entire game without killing anyone or being spotted once in under 5 hours on Extreme Mode, and after having ripped through most of the game with guns blazing and seeing his careful, precise art of sneaking, I decided to attempt to emulate his dedication. You can play this game in three dozen ways, and that’s just beautiful design to me.

To counter Tycho’s somewhat aloof stance on the game, I believe MGS4 can be just as much, if not more, a game about remaining undetected as any Splinter Cell or Assassin’s Creed, if not more so. You can even remain undetected to bosses if you’ve got your wits about you. The thing is, Metal Gear does not demand you play a certain way. It does not demand you kill or knock out–it encourages you to stick to Snake’s roots, but does not reprimand you for not doing so. You can actually unlock a few interesting bonuses if you go on a few killing frenzies. I think Metal Gear’s openess for gameplay and intricacy in its execution is spectacular. (Note: Tycho recanted a little earlier this week, so he’s been grudgingly let off the hook.)

But to go back a few steps, I have to agree with a few things being put out there. There’s nothing wrong with Metal Gear being over the top in story, but when it seems like the entire story is a gargantuan plot twist, the player ends up feeling a little bit alienated and confused, as if he or she has been led on a massive wild goose chase. Not to mention the fact that a lot of it is tackily written, which I tend to blame on localization. It also doesn’t help that we have some great English voice actors who are incapable of displaying certain emotions.

The game is still very satisfying to me, but not everyone has the intense analysis and following of Metal Gear characters I do, and therefore they wouldn’t be able to understand as much of the plot. It’s why Kojima very cleverly released the downloadable Metal Gear Database. But even the Database doesn’t give everyone what they want out of a Metal Gear game, and unfortunately there’s a crowd out there who just doesn’t like movie experiences in games, like Yahtzee, for example. There’s people who want the game to be strictly that, a game. As someone who loves literature and film and graphic novels, I have a slightly different focus in what I try to achieve with games. But that’s fine–nobody’s saying anyone’s right or wrong, we just have different end goals. MGS4 just happens to be one of the things I want as an end goal, with a few tweaks.

If you have a PS3, just get Metal Gear. It’s a great PS3 exclusive and most people bought the damn console for the game. I mean, even if you don’t like it, Metal Gear Online is the multiplayer shooter of the moment aside from COD4. Just get Metal Gear. Skip the cutscenes, if you like. You don’t have to watch them. Do yourself a favor and don’t be the guy who has a PS3 and doesn’t have MGS4.

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My EVE Online: Trinity Game of the Week review is up. I took a while in getting to it this week, but I finished it eventually.

I probably should start writing the review a week in advance, but we all know that doesn’t work.

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I’ve started doing my Game of the Week Reviews, like I should be doing.

This week, Star Fox: Command.

I haven’t done the ones for all the old ones. If I get a chance, I’ll get around to them. If not, well… they’re still there so you can see what I’ve played.

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Yahtzee is perhaps one of the coolest, most clever comedians on his side of the universe in my eyes, and I love listening to his rants/reviews/rampages every Wednesday.

Because this week’s video was particularly hilarious and because I think Guitar Hero 3′s sudden drop in fun compared to 1 and 2 is a hint of what’s to come and because I think Rock Band has just officially destroyed amy chance Guitar Hero has of maintaining the popular support (which is why I believe it’s practically been declared a Madden/Tony Hawkish game that just keeps coming out with sequels because they know there’s the immortal fans out there who will buy them until the end of eternity) and because Yahtzee decided to review Guitar Hero in general this week I’ve decided to share it with everyone.

It has nothing to do with all the other websites doing it.

Viewer discretion advised–mature language and content.

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My brother recently acquired Mario Galaxy for Wii (and by acquired I mean my mother has purchased it for him) and I got the opportunity to sit down at his console and give the game a whirl. What I experience was the strangest sensation I’ve had playing a game in a long time. While most of the time I can tell you exactly how I feel while playing something (case in point, I can tell you Final Fantasy XII has me exhausted and jaded beyond belief and yet I play it stubbornly with the intent of seeing the story through all the way) I simply can’t pinpoint what I feel about Super Mario Galaxy.

It’s a pleasant, clean-looking game with graphics so colorful and bright I become somewhat disoriented during cutscenes. It’s got an intuitive control system I didn’t have to read the manual to figure out. Mario can ground-pound. Mario can triple jump. The camera ricochets from insane angle to insane angle, giving me an intense feeling of vertigo which I can only blame on the fact that I simply am not used to walking upside-down. All in all, the game really has no tender flaws or anything that turns me off from it (except, perhaps, Peach’s voice, which made me wonder why Mario would ever dedicate his life to saving her).

But as I’m playing, I come to realize that, while I’m engaged, and while I’m interested, and while I want to pick the controller up again and play the next level right after I write this blog, I can’t for the life of me say that I am having fun.

Of course, fun is relative, but in this instance the entire experience is bewildering. My brother expresses the same confusion. We like to play it, yes. It’s not a bad game, no. We haven’t gotten tired of it or frustrated with it. We haven’t been bored while playing. But we honestly can’t say with sincerity that the game is any fun. We can’t even say it’s not fun. It just… is, in some quasi-existential sort of way.

I will look up some reviews later, when I have time, to see if this reaction is a recurring phenomena, and not simply something that my family alone is suceptible to.

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