Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

by gSathe

Beware! Here there be spoilers!

It’s finally, painfully, over. I’ve played all the Metal Gear Solid games to some degree or the other, though I hadn’t played the original Metal Gear games. But I never managed to sit through any one of them completely.

I like sneaking games, and one of my favourite games to date is Thief: Deadly Shadows. But I never quite got the thing about the Metal Gear games, this ephemeral, ineffable truth which makes them the cultish experience that they obviously are to so many people.

I played most of the first game, and a little of the second, though unlike many, Raiden was not the reason I couldn’t see it through.

It was, I suppose, the endless rambling which reduced the game to… well… more an event than a game. That killed it for me.

When I played Snake Eater, it was at a friend’s house, and after just an hour with the game I knew we had to put in something else. The game was still the same game, with all the convoluted moments which so define the series for those who love it, and all the painfully bad controls which define it for the rest of the human race.

Each Metal Gear Solid game though has been a milestone in gaming history, and served as a watershed moment for its console generation. Incredibly elaborate experiences which have continually pushed the hardware to its limits, with powerful, even moving storylines, there’s nothing else that you can really compare them to.

Metal Gear defined the tactical espionage genre, removed the fourth wall, and caused mild aneurisms. While there are many, including me, who feel that others have done stealth better over time, the game remains one of the most important landmarks, and so, when I got my copy of Guns of the Patriots, I knew that for once I would have to play a Metal Gear game all the way to the end.

The game has already recieved numerous reviews overflowing with praise, and when people gave it a 9.3, they were nearly lynched. Now aside from the fact that a numerical value to rate a game is a ridiculous idea, since most modern video games are such subjective experiences, it’s also amazing that fans of the series can’t bring themselves to admit that there might actually be a few problems with the game.The short review then — I like the game. I used to hate the series, and this game won’t change that. But I don’t hate the game. Even though it has Otacon.

The essential problems with the series are present in the game, even though modest changes have been made to accomodate non-believers like myself. But the pace remains dead slow, and much of it doesn’t even require Snake to sneak. Instead much of the early portion of the game, before the first Boss fight (which takes place at around the 6 hour mark) is made up of trekking Snake from one sandy locale to the next, dodging, or killing, the one lone guard standing with his back rigidly to you, so that you can start the next painful cutscene…

…which you can not skip, because then you’re totally lost. So essentially, the first six hours or so of the game consist of around three minutes of clunky play, and six minutes of cutscenes which are going to appeal to no one who is not already a fan of the series.

The game picks up soon after this though, with the enormous cutscene where we meet Raiden. It’s a fantastic sequence, better than what you can see in many movies, and all I could think about during the entire scene was, “If only they’d let me do stuff like that in the game!” And we know that it’s possible to do stuff like this in other games, something that Ninja Gaiden 2 demonstrated beautifully earlier this month.

The rest of the game picks up though, and the action gets more intense, though the last mission is a little disappointing again. In between though you get to revisit Shadow Moses and there’s the anti-climatic battle between Metal Gear REX and RAY as well, which has many shout outs to the earlier games, including one fantastic bit where Snake has “that dream again.” — the player is given a chance to return to the action of Metal Gear Solid, complete in all its pixellated glory, which was actually one of the most entertaining sequences in the game.

But that doesn’t mean that the problems don’t exist. For one thing, if you fail at sneaking, the game ceases to be Metal Gear. It changes into an incredibly clumsy action game. The boss battles are comprised almost entirely of this system, a system that was drawn up from the nether realms of hell, bathed in pain.

Another issue with the game incidentally, is that the game is broken into discreet areas, and requires an install after each chapter. Why this has to be so, when we were made to sit through a long install right at the beginning, is beyond me. In fact, is it easier to just get up for a minute and swap a disc, or would you rather wait for three minutes while the game installs instead?

The fact that it’s on Blu-Ray and therefore all hoarded on a single source doesn’t make it better. It becomes better when it actually makes life more convenient. It’s less complicated than changing discs, but still not the elegant solution it ought to have been.

This is particularly funny considering the segment where Otacon, in a typical Metal Gear moment, asks Snake to remove disc one and insert disc two, and Snake deadpans at him until Otacon “remembers” and goes on about how we’re playing on the PS3 system, with the Blu-Ray technology. And then marvels at the wonders of the modern world. Along with the insertion of a PSP in the game, and the fact that everyone seems to use Apple laptops and ipods, seems simaltaneously postmodern and highly mercenary. And of course, there are enough people who see it as an ultimate indication of brilliance, in a world shrouded in darkness.

Words fail me sometimes.

Getting back to the game though, it really does boil down to the one true phrase. If you like Metal Gear, you like Metal Gear. If you don’t care for Metal Gear or haven’t played it before, then just be warned. It’s not a game.

One can’t treat it in the same cavalier fashion, looking for something to actually enjoy. No. This is an experience, and your job as the gamer is to wallow in the brilliance of Hideo Kojima. And hey…. if you can stand being bored for around six hours, and sitting idle for around 15, then the remaining five hours or so of the game are actually pretty fun!