Sulphur on 30/6/2009 at 17:39
Where are you in it? The initial few hours are the more talky 'getting to know you' part of the game. Then you're pretty much on your own, free to do your thing. There's plenty of game in there.
There's plenty of movie too of course, but I found that past the 2-3 hour mark, MGS3 was much better paced in terms of the gameplay-codec-movie rhythm than MGS2 (or 4, for that matter).
MGS3 also features the finest story ever in the series once it gets going (moralising/philosophising aside), so really, it's the best of both worlds.
JohnnyTheWolf on 30/6/2009 at 23:25
The whole argument "MGS is too much of a movie" is getting tiresome, to say the least. It's like complaining about Mario games featuring two ambiguously gay plumbers trying to save a princess. Or Castlevania being about an arthritic vampire hunter going after the same foes again and again and again. Or that point & click games have you clicking on characters and things.
What personally sucked me in Metal Gear Solid is avant tout the story. I remember playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and I couldn't wait for the next cutscene. Maybe it was because I wasn't that good with the game to start with, although I admit the gameplay was fun, if not a bit frustrating sometimes (frustrating in a good Castlevania way, mind you), and not quite as repetitive as, say, most Mario games. I also remember playing the old Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake on a MSX2 emulator. While the game was pretty good on its own despite extremely stiff controls (pressing both punch and another button to crouch), I found it a bit boring because there wasn't that much of a story and most characters were paper thin.
I guess I'm in a minority here but I do think that good storytelling is the key to make a game compelling.
Aerothorn on 30/6/2009 at 23:47
So I did a lot of examining of narratives in video games this year, and one of my fundamental conclusions was: variety is good.
MGS fails at taking advantage of the full interactivity of the medium. It's highly linear, the cutscenes take control away from the player, etc. This is not a "progressive" game.
But the fact is, I really enjoy it. Just as not every movie needs to be art-house experimental, not every game needs to revolutionize the player experience. And MGS managed to innovate in the content of its story, rather than its presentation. Love it or hate it, essentially no games tackled politics before MGS came alone, certainly no mainstream ones.
Also, IMHO, MGS4 is easily the best of the series. Though unfortunately it really shouldn't be played without playing the first three, so I can't just outright recommend it to people.
june gloom on 1/7/2009 at 00:11
I still need to play MGS4, but MGS3 remains my favourite in terms of gameplay. MGS1 is king when it comes to story, though.
MGS2? That stands by itself as basically one big "FUCK YOU" to gamers and the industry at large. Kojima has some stones and I admire that.
Aja on 1/7/2009 at 00:17
I never once felt like MGS2 was saying FUCK YOU to me. To everyone else, maybe, but I totally got it.
Andarthiel on 1/7/2009 at 00:39
Quote Posted by dethtoll
I still need to play MGS4, but MGS3 remains my favourite in terms of gameplay. MGS1 is king when it comes to story, though.
MGS2? That stands by itself as basically one big "FUCK YOU" to gamers and the industry at large. Kojima has some
stones and I admire that.
I agree with you on that except for the MGS2 thing. It was just a bit different since it took the story in a new direction. But in a way it mirrored MGS's story.
As for MGS3, I only have the original so yes I've got the terrible camera and all that but I've learned to live with it. Sadly I've only passed it once, it takes me more time to actually finish it mostly because of the limited tech in the game(without a Soliton radar I'm not that great, usually I get spotted heaps of times in one area before proceeding not to mention constantly dying).
But that's not to say that I don't like it, indeed I find it challenging and the story was fun(the EVA and Snake bits were quite funny) and with all the documentary footage it's almost like a hsitory lesson. I really don't think that there are too many cutscenes, most of them serve their purpose well.Metal Gear Solid wouldn't be what it is today without the cutscenes, it's the style of the game(the deep story and characters are part of what makes the series great).
What I found to be odd is that despite the fact that I don't do too well at MGS3, I'm pretty good at MGS:Portable Ops, which I'm currently playing on the PSP.
Sadly, I haven't played MGS4 yet because for some annoying reason they haven't released it on PC and I don't have the small fortune required to buy a PS3(face it people, they're ripping us off because of that Blu-Ray drive which is probably cheaper by itself).
june gloom on 1/7/2009 at 00:45
I am proud to say that I have gotten through MGS3 without being spotted once before the finale. It's just much, much harder, and requires a good deal more strategy and patience. It reminds me of Thief, in a way; you don't always have the advantage of knowing exactly where the enemy is.
JohnnyTheWolf on 1/7/2009 at 02:21
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
MGS fails at taking advantage of the full interactivity of the medium. It's highly linear, the cutscenes take control away from the player, etc. This is not a "progressive" game.
MGS would fail... *if* there was such thing as a fully interactive, fully voiced and COMPLETELY open game. As far as I know, no game has achieved that (yet), because it would take too long and cost too freaking much to make such game.
These days, many games offer options such as "go left" or "go right", but unfortunately, the results are either minimal and simplistic. Besides, these alternate paths are most of the time linear themselves, ironically enough.
Of course, I'd be happy to stand corrected.
242 on 1/7/2009 at 11:22
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Where are you in it? The initial few hours are the more talky 'getting to know you' part of the game. Then you're pretty much on your own, free to do your thing. There's
plenty of game in there.
At the very beginning. BUT, I spent like 3-4 hrs in the game already practicing CQC, hunting for flora/fauna, chattering with advisors.
Liked CQC by the way, many ways for rendering enemy innocuous. My favourite is to hold them up on the ground, this way they stay "disabled" until I leave the area, and being a thief player I hate to kill them by breaking their neck or sliting throat. Also, "knock-out throw" works very well, even better than the tranquilizer gun, because the first make them unconscious for just 3 minutes, and the latter for 5 (Hard difficulty).
Mr.Duck on 2/7/2009 at 07:50
Oh, I thought that there was enough gameplay in MGS3 (at least compared to the rest), 'twas actually my overall favorite MGS console game :)
Can't wait to play the original MSX Metal Gear games, huzzah!
:)
