380°

Metal Gear Solid 4's first hours are the worst of the franchise

After replaying MGS 1-3 I hopped into MGS 4 for an exciting conclusion but was hit with the worst opening hours of the series so far. Overwritten, lacking tension, and struggling to modernize the series gameplay we would see refined in MGS V

PhoenixUp2235d ago

The first two levels are the best part of MGS4 as well as the franchise

SourtreeDing2235d ago

MGS4 is one of my top games of all time

Nitrowolf22235d ago (Edited 2235d ago )

I think it's my favorite opening of the series. Something about that Grimm dark war-torn setting that fits so perfectly with the music, and that Solid Snake is nearing his end just gets to me so much on an emotional level.

naruga2235d ago (Edited 2235d ago )

mGS4 tried to depict so many realistic elements of a real war that are not even visible to the eye of a casual uneducated gamer ...afer so many years i replay mGS4 and i mfinding myself speechless how well informed and dedicated Kojima was about military tactics ,strategies, life and routine htat included in the game ....the article is simple BS

NecrumOddBoy2235d ago

MGS4 is the ultimate love letter to the franchise. It is a perfect 10 for veterans of the series,. It is not an entry point though. You need to be a MGS player but thankfully it he PS3 had a wiki app for MGS.

morganfell2234d ago (Edited 2234d ago )

Remarkable title.

A landmark achievement in storytelling.

Best Metal Gear game I ever played and I played them all from launch. Also this was the game that unveiled the biggest reveal ever and one that was 20 years in the making. Nothing in the history of gaming possessed a bomb drop equal to discovering the truth related to you at the end of the game. It literally changed the nature of every Metal Gear game you played previously as well as the truth about almost every single mini and major boss battle encountered to that point.

Do yourself a favor and just block a90skidmark because anyone unable to comprehend what MGS4 offers isn't a site which you should ever visit.

_-EDMIX-_2233d ago (Edited 2233d ago )

lol I was waiting for Morganfell tof comment!

dat ending doe! I would say the only thing that stops Metal Gear Solid 4 from reaching absolute epicness would be Konami very much probably trying to stop Solid Snake from killing himself. The way the game was headed it was very clear that Kojima likely wanted to just have snakes character die to let the series move on on an extremely high note.

So even with a special edition on Metal Gear Solid 4 I would very much buy a remaster in a heartbeat.

Babadook72233d ago

/metal-gear-solid-4s-first-hou rs-are-the-worst-of-the-franchi se

Um.

A. This is a very old game.
B. You sir are wrong.

mikeslemonade2233d ago

4 is the 2nd worst game.

The main series is ranked like this

2 1 3 4 5

morganfell2233d ago

Ha ha. Actually Kojima had several ideas for the ending including the one that was eventually in the game. He had an idea for Otacon and Snake to turn themselves in but Kojima's own team voted him down on that one. He laughed about that in an interview. So no, it wasn't Konami. After all, Snake has very little time left in the MGS4 ending created by Kojima and Konami let that go through. Had they wanted to extend matters they would have had Naomi discover some way to reverse the aging.

For me, Big Boss was the most tragic of characters in the series and since that ending I instantly liked and to this day prefer Richard Doyle's voice work.

Spoilers. HUGE SPOILERS:

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

_-EDMIX-_2233d ago

Morgan fell - because of their numerous non-disclosure agreements was hideo Kojima ever even going to tell us if it was Konami that did it? I mean you're talking about they're all star character I just don't see them wanting to have that end by having the character kill himself as this sounds more so like a corporate move.

Consider it is after all that Konami owns the intellectual property.

RevXM2233d ago

NecrumOddBoy

the wiki is nice, but there is a catalogue in the game about the entire franchise, story and characters or was that in something else? I believe it was attached to a mgs game on the ps3.

And the controls in MGS4 is really good, I find the earlier games a little cumbersome, but the gameplay in mgs4 is both deep and quite intuitive and easy to learn and get the basics and then a lot to learn fully to master the game, so much so I was a tiny bit letdown for MGS5 gameplay where you dont have the entire moveset and some other things that were present in 4, still really great gameplay in 5 though which introduced some new things in of itself. 4 is my favourite.

+ Show (7) more repliesLast reply 2233d ago
Vandamme212234d ago

The 1st act, 2nd act, 3rd act, and 4th act were all epic to me. What really disappoint me is the 5th act. They really force with the cutscenes in the 5th act.

Movefasta19932234d ago

Facts bruh , I think the first act in general was the strongest. And at the start when you are in the battlefield and then the cowmechs appear that was intense!

-Foxtrot2234d ago

I agree

I mean at least this felt like a MGS game unlike MGSV which was just a boring open world, reptitive game with a lacking, forced in story

2234d ago
_-EDMIX-_2233d ago

I don't even understand what this individuals talking about when they say lack of detail I would argue Metal Gear Solid 4 continues the series tradition of ridiculous detail everywhere.

GameHead852233d ago

The whole damn game is amazing.

rainslacker2233d ago

Dunno about that, but the first section was pretty tense. IMO, one of the best ways to do a tutorial there is, because you could still die. When you hear those Gekkos and they show up and start stalking you, it was a showcase for what MGS was all about.

I think it was my favorite MGS game because it was so well executed, and didn't have a lot of oddities to the game play mechanics which could break the immersion like the other games. While I never thought the older games were bad in any way, I felt MGS4 really put it all together perfectly. MGS5 had better game play, but it was lacking in execution at times, and the story wasn't all that great, otherwise it would have been my favorite.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 2233d ago
JKSimmons2235d ago

You mean an opening that includes Old Snake's unbelievably, well-crafted monologue for MGS4? Okay, mate. LOL.

PhoenixUp2235d ago

After a decade after that monologue, just replace “war” with “Konami” in that speech and it becomes even more relevant

Steveoreno12233d ago

Ikr. I feel like I just stepped out of a time machine with this article.

UCForce2235d ago

Really ? MGS4 is my personal favorite.

Chaos_Order2234d ago

For me it's basically a tie between MGS 3 and 4. (Although I would say 4 should absolutely be played on hard mode for a better experience) Both are pretty different games in terms of pacing, environment, general gameplay, story... 3 has the best standalone story but 4 managed to take an entire complex series and give it an actual fitting ending that fully explained many mysteries. (Something that's rare these days, just look at series like Lost which just kept piling mysteries to BS their viewers to keep watching for answers) 3 was slower paced, 4 had more OMG moments, but both worked well given their tone. 3 had more interesting boss characters but 4 had improved gameplay mechanics. Honestly, it's down to the wire for me. Both are incredible, as are MGS 1 and 2. Peace Walker was great too.

I didn't care at all for Phantom Pain... Perfect name for it as it still hurts to this day, lol.

robtion2233d ago

Mine too. Though I realise it's subjective MGS4 is easily my favourite entry in the series.

The perfect game for a PS4 remaster too as technical limitations(2 installations, frequent loading) were it's main flaw and can now be remedied.

Knushwood Butt2234d ago

So far?

Well, whatever, but the tiresome, scripted hospital sequence at the start of V is easily the worst of the lot.

I had to force myself to play through that.

Chaos_Order2234d ago

I was thinking the same thing! MGSV as a whole was a big disappointment but the opening hour was by far the worst part. I was honestly cringing at how bad it was. After Ground Zeroes managed such a heart-rending climax I was baffled with how badly MGSV carried on from that.

When Boss pretends to be dead by OBVIOUSLY BREATHING AND FLUTTERING HIS EYELIDS AND DOING NOTHING TO GET AWAY so the guards who were mercilessly shooting corpses stand there and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING dear God, it's such a joke.
Also the bit where Boss is in the middle of a bunch of people in a corridor and is not only the only survivor, but gets out without a scratch. Even Michael Bay could've done better.

goldwyncq2233d ago

Worst? Lol, it was one of the only engaging parts in the game storywise.

Knushwood Butt2233d ago

Maybe, but that's not saying much.

rainslacker2233d ago (Edited 2233d ago )

I didn't mind it the first time. The 2nd time though....that was too much. They could have had the story reveal without having to replay the whole damn thing. If you were somewhat perceptive at the beginning, you already would have known that story reveal anyways.

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140°

20 Saddest Video Game Moments of All Time

Cultured Vultures: If you’ve got some feelings you want to dredge up all over again, or if spending more than 15 minutes on Twitter has caused you to become completely numb, these are the saddest video game moments that we will never forget.

Read Full Story >>
culturedvultures.com
mandf79d ago

Kingdom hearts was really sad at the end. The darkness when Jenny dies was shocking and sad

shinoff218378d ago

Mine have to be last of us, Joel's daughter. Maybe it hits different when you have kids vs bot. I'll throw ff7 up there to. On the verge of looking like some sort of love triangle then bam, death

Christopher78d ago

The reveal trailer for Fast & Furious Crossroads

Knightofelemia78d ago

I think Dom's wife's death in Gears 2 was sadder then Dom. Dom's death in Gears 3 just felt rushed.

phoenixwing78d ago (Edited 78d ago )

John Marston dying and ff7

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510°

PS3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 was once ‘running beautifully’ on Xbox 360

The game's assistant producer says the number of discs was an issue.

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videogameschronicle.com
darthv72314d ago

Obviously they would had to remove all references to bluray in the game had they actually proceeded to make this happen. Id bet it would be something like at least 3-4 discs though.

Flawlessmic314d ago

The most interesting thing to hear is that there was no exclusivity deal, which we all assumed there was.

It was simply Sony's forward thinking and tech that put them in the position where there console was the only one that could do it the way Konami wanted.

This gives me hope mgs 4 will definitely be a part of the volume 2 collection

GhostScholar313d ago

The fact that mgs 4 hasn’t been on ps4 or 5 is a real head scratcher. Seems like a really dumb move. Also if it was such forward tech on the ps3 why wasn’t it put out on ps4? Doesn’t makes sense.

CobraKai313d ago

@Ghost
Forward move at the time. Plus the PS3 exclusives arent the easiest to port and Konami, especially with the fallout of MGS’ creator, probably won’t invest the time and money on it.

@Darth
They would also have to get rid of Apple products. The PS3 and PSP in the nomad. Rerecord the inside joke about swapping discs and mentioning the PS3.

TrueGamer79313d ago

MG4 is my personal favorite of the series. I’d def rebuy the remake to play the game again. I do wonder why they haven’t ported 4 to ps4 or ps5.

neomahi312d ago

@ Cobra Kai - I don't know, man, they've gone a while without making money since Kojima left, I think they're wanting to make money again and that's money, just not as might as they might think. They're better off letting Metal Gear lie in infamy and letting new aspiring developers that want to work on new games, like Silent Hill are their best bets

CobraKai312d ago

@Neo
They were invested in pachinko and soccer. Konami used to be one of my favorite game companies, then they just didn’t care about video games.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 312d ago
neutralgamer1992313d ago

Now that both Xbox and PlayStation use Blu-ray wouldn’t those jokes stay in and instead apply to Nintendo now

Computersaysno313d ago (Edited 313d ago )

MGS4 is about 32GB. Most of the big data files were merely uncompressed audio and high quality HD video used extensively in MGS4. The game used the space because it was available, not because it really needed to.

You could probably more than halve the space required settling for normal 360 compression codecs and say 720p compressed video files. Fit the whole game on two dual layer DVD discs.

Case in point was MGSV ended up only 25GB, despite that game having massively better visuals and big environments. Second case: FFXIII was 38GB on PS3 but only 18GB on X360, because compression.

I_am_Batman313d ago

The MGS franchise always had real-time cutscenes so those aren't compressible video files. The older games had some real-life video footage but they've stopped using these with MGS4, so I don't know what extensive usage of HD video you're talking about.

Computersaysno310d ago (Edited 310d ago )

Actually Metal Gear Solid 4 had about thirteen minutes of of HD video at the very start of the game, but the point was the 7.1 soundtrack throughout was uncompressed. Eight channels. This was a massive chunk of the data on the disc. The game had 8 hours of cut scene audio alone. Plus music and dialogue codecs and everything else actually in game!

It wouldn't be very hard to compress all this down to far smaller file sizes with minimal quality loss. It certainly wasn't the visuals or texture assets that made the game file size 32GB! None of this was critical to the game actually working compressed and mixed for 6 channels which was far more common anyway.

I'm glad that I cleared that up for you.

sparky77314d ago

The good news from this means it should be possible to port to current gen consoles if they were able to get it to run without the CELL.

I do remember back then how everyone said it was only possible on the CELL reminds me of todays it's only possible on the PS5's SSD.

MrDead314d ago

A regurgitation of fanboy buzzwords with no understanding, context or meaning.

Aloymetal313d ago

That's their 20+ yrs side effects of sodium intake, delusions, hopes and dreams. also known as la la land syndrome...They all suffer from this.

RaidenBlack313d ago

Can't comment on the 'only possible on the CELL' part but if a game was made specifically utilizing CELL's complex architecture, then it was more difficult to port but not totally impossible.
Now if there exists a X360 port of MGS4, then it should be relatively feasible to port to x86 based systems.

XBManiac313d ago

PowerPC based CELL and Xbox 360 CPUs had little in common with x86.

KwietStorm_BLM313d ago

A smart person says a game made for the Cell makes it harder to port to other platforms. A sparky person says a game made for PS3 is only possible because of the Cell, or any other negative PlayStation derivative.

Magog314d ago

So porting it shouldn't be hard. A 360 is very similar to modern console and PC structure.

ChasterMies313d ago

Xbox 360 is not similar to modern consoles. Xbox 360 ran on a multi-core PowerPC processor. Apple had to write Rosetta to make PowerPC apps run on Intel processors when they switched from PowerPC to Intel. It’s why Xbox 360 backwards compatibility is on a game-by-game basis. Funny enough, the Cell Processor is a custom PowerPC processor.

XBManiac313d ago

Remember that CELL was also PowerPC based arquitecture...

shadowknight203313d ago

As much as I would love to play mgs4 again, and I still hope to, I know playing it will bring back my old school Metal Gear Online days, and I miss that part of the game so, so much. 😢

Shane Kim313d ago

Man MGO was so damn good. That and KZ2 are probably the best multiplayer games imo.

Chocoburger312d ago

The game is still online via fan servers, I think its even playable on PC these days. You can play MGO 2 right now if you wanted to, nothing is stopping you from doing so.

RedDeadLB313d ago (Edited 313d ago )

isnt this old news anyway? did they not say that Microsoft were generally more interested in Rising back in the old days?

From the mouth of Snake himself: https://youtu.be/vkdKNuzO1R...

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290°

Kojima talks about Metal Gear Solid 4 as the game celebrates its 15th anniversary

Hideo Kojima discussed some of the creative processes behind Metal Gear Solid 4 as the game celebrates its 15th anniversary.

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metalgearinformer.com
Nyxus322d ago

Hard to believe it's been 15 years already!

Silver_ShadoWolf322d ago

I loved the movie Metal Gear Solid 4.

atsugiT2322d ago

Thats crazy.. 15 years before that, starfox was brand new. It seems like ages between those two, but mgs4 feels like it just happened.

Nyxus322d ago

Yeah, it's also pretty crazy to think there's far more time between now and MGS4 (15 years) than between MGS4 and MGS1 (9 years).

autoglope322d ago

Still amazing looking and playing game ,.. about 5 hours too many cut-scenes) But still love it,..

Sniperwithacause321d ago

Well it has a story to tell, and it tells it perfectly with those cut-scenes.

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