Metal Gear Solid 4: Cutscenes of the Patriots
Posted by Y in Metal Gear Solid 4, video games, Y
So I got a PS3 during the holidays. I started playing Metal Gear Solid 4. And then I stopped.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is an awesome game. The graphics are pretty much the best I've ever seen on a console. The story is engaging, twisting, and pretty interesting, with its focus on private military corporations and the "war economy." The gameplay is solid, with a mix of stealth and action, letting you choose whether you want to go full stealth, guns blazing, or mix it up between the two.
But there's one other thing going on. Cutscenes. A lot of cutscenes. A lot of LONG cutscenes. And when I say long, I mean 10-15 minutes apiece, with some going even longer (and I've read one of them runs upwards of 45 minutes).
Now, I don't really mind cutscenes per se in a game. They help further the plot, provide you a break from playing the game, and can really graphically show off what a console can do.
But I honestly couldn't deal with them in this game anymore. I have a limited amount of time to play video games, and when I sit down to play for an hour, I want to actually play a video game, not play a video game for 15-20 minutes and watch 45 minutes of cutscenes. I have back episodes of Chuck and Firefly to watch, and I would rather commit 45 minutes of viewing time to those endeavors than to watching a video game.
While I said this story is good, this story isn't good enough for me to continue to hold my attention through all of these cutscenes. Maybe it's because I haven't played a MGS game before now, and if I got all of the past references I would be way more engaged. But I didn't, and I'm not.
I really wanted to like this game, and I do, but I don't want to play this game anymore because I feel like all I do is watch cutscenes. And at this point, they just piss me off. And when I get pissed off at a video game (see: Assassin's Creed), I turn it off.
But if you don't think you'll mind them, by all means get this game. Everything else is pretty awesome.
