There's been so much hype about this game and so many perfect reviews, and having already seen some of the amazing trailers, I did not hesitate for a moment to think that this game was going to be absolutely fantastic.

But I was terribly wrong, and these are the reasons why.

The gameplay is horrible. The motions of Snake are stiff and rigid, which is not at all what you'll expect of a stealth character. He moves in a rather clunky and slow manner, he cannot jump and he's not very adept at moving while shooting. There's little fluidity in his transition from one action to another. This problem becomes particularly accentuated when you find your cover compromised and you are forced into close combat with several enemies. You will find Snake to be an awkward and clumsy combatant, unable to switch from melee to guns quickly, unable to recover from being knocked down with any agility, and very slow in response time. Thank goodness however that the enemies' combat AI are on the very low side, so you should still be able to prevail despite Snake's limitations. Essentially, as a shooter, the game engine is light years behind.

But wait, you say MGS4 is not a shooter? Really? Playing the game, it seems to me that Hideo has designed this instalment such that you have the option to play it Stealth or Rambo style, because it certainly is possible to blaze your way through each play scene to get to the next cut scene (more on that later). If so, one would expect a whole lot more effort into the level of sophistication of the shooter mechanics in the game.

But assuming that's true that MGS4 is not a shooter. Let's examine the stealth aspects. The enemy AI on the stealth detection front is just about as woeful as on the combat front. They walk in short fixed paths, doing practically the same thing each round. They can be waiting there to ambush you around the corner and you're standing up in plain sight but they do not detect you. Or you can simply crawl (a long and torturous process though)right under the feet of a group of stationed guards and get past them. It is that easy. Erratically, at other times, the enemies will detect you no matter what your level of camouflage is. But when they do detect you, there's always a long pause before they take action, allowing you to take them out before the place goes into alert. And so what even if the alarm is set off? Just go to a corner and put your suit on auto-camo, it is that easy. There is absolutely no real sense of danger or challenge in the stealth game, and no real consequences even if your cover has been compromised. Again, a very unsophisticated system that has quite clearly been overshadowed by Splinter Cell.

Unsophistication is not just confined to gameplay mechanics because it rears its ugly head in various other aspects of the game too. I hate the Drebin game element in particular. Effectively, it allows you to instantaneously transform excess weapons picked up from enemies into money AND it allows you to instantaneously, at any point in time of gameplay, use that money to purchase weapons and ammo. For all practical purposes, there is absolutely no need to worry about running out of ammo or gear. And worse, Hideo introduces this game element through a Drebin character clothed with an awkwardly elaborate and unconvincing background and a silly monkey wearing pampers, as if all that would mitigate how backward and unrealistic the whole concept is.

Ironically, it is obvious that Hideo wanted to make this game a highly sophisticated one. The presentation is Sony slick no doubt, the music is beautiful, and the cinematic action sequences are artfully done. But in other respects, Hideo has faltered terribly even with the cinematics. The most apparent are the horribly contrived scripting of dialogue, the convoluted contents of the dialogue, and the long-windedness of it all. The length of the cut-scenes are already a problem in itself, and is compounded by the fact that a lot of the cut-scenes are comprised of uninteresting or unintelligible and poorly executed dialogue.

And let's draw a line here. This is supposed to be a game. Hideo has plainly overdone it with the gratuitous and self-indulgent cut-scenes. Playing MGS4 is like playing mini game segments to get to a long cut-scene. And there are parts where it is one long cut-scene following another, following another before you get to play Snake again. This cannot be anything other than ridiculous.

And is the game really such a technical wonder? Every segment of the game requires substantial load time. Every Act requires at least a few minutes of installation followed by load time. If you played up till Act 3 and wanted to go back to Act 2, installation is required again. This game has more load times than any other that I have encountered so far. You might as well switch discs...

So I ask myself, what really is so good about MGS4? It is neither a good shooter nor a good stealth game. The remaining outstanding feature about it are the cut-scenes. But while the cut-scenes are excellent in parts, most are dull or even irksome.

People will insist I'm either biased or I just don't get MGS4. Well, really now, tell me what it is I do not get about MGS4, because I'd really like to hear it being articulated in the context of what has been said above.