Saying MGS4 has too many cutscenes is like saying Halo has too much shooting. Its an MGS game, if you were'nt prepared for this, then you have no right to complain. And this is coming from someone who's first MGS game was MGS4. If it were different, I guarantee you you would get a a large number of people asking where the cutscenes went. And they're long for a reason. No one seems to realise that they have 3 games worth of plot and loose ends to tie up when they say they have too many details. Taking into consideration that MGS4 is supposed to be the end of a saga, they had better be as detailed as posssible. And even when people complain that there are too many cutscenes (already established as a stupid thing to do), they never recognize how well they're done. How good the graphics, lighting, music, detail, dialogue, and directing is. They dont try to examine if they try to get their point across. Is it trying to be funny? Is it trying to be informative? Is it trying to be dramatic? Is it trying to be actioned packed? If so: does it succeed? The vast majority of the time? Yes. And complaints about the gameplay. Its a stealth action game, sorry if you were expecting gears or halo (I know not everyone did, but I have seen someone who said it sucked because he couldnt shoot and throw grenades at the same time). And given its genre, over the shoulder shooting and the cover system work perfectly. The story isnt indescernable eaither. I'm a first time MGS player and understood perfectly.
IMO, MGS4 was fully deserving of its 10. It accomplished what it set out to do and thats the only way to judge a game.
TheGrat1
No.
Guess what? I actually have played Metal Gear Solid before. The quantity of cutscenes, and more importantly, the DENSITY of the cutscenes, is ridiculous, even in the context of the series. Cinematic sequences frequently extend past 20 minutes, more than once surpassing even the lengthiest points of earlier games. It does horrible things to the pacing of what is meant to be a game.
And while earlier Metal Gear Solid games, even the intensely post-modern MGS2, had a message and a focus from beginning to end in terms of story, MGS4's efforts to wrestle every plotline in the series to a close dash that all to pieces, forcing all of those thoughts to be saved for an ending cinematic that is literally film-length, as bombastic and clunky a close as there ever was.
You say that we should give the length and writing of the cutscenes a free pass if they 'get the point across'. I ask if they get the point across concisely. They never do. If you ask yourself, "What is the purpose of this sequence, or this dialogue?" it's frequently irrelevant or overblown.
Just take the (spoilerriffic) cutscene you posted earlier. You see an epic battle. I see a four-and-a-half minute sequence that uses an item in a way that it isn't meant to work solely for cinematic effect, a sequence that, for its length, hardly accomplishes anything that isn't accomplished in the gameplay that immediately follows it. Similar bloat occurs in and around the cutscene set in Europe that another poster mentioned.
Dialogues stretch on interminably, filled with exposition that is often irrelevant or redundant. Plot twists abound, stomping all over earlier canon to tie one thing to another. And the gameplay, the poor gameplay, that refined piece of art that takes center stage through the first two stellar acts, by the end, is forced so far into the backseat that the gameplay-cutscene ratio that starts out near an already-unusual 60-40 early on becomes something like 25-75 by the final act.
Don't get me wrong. I think MGS4 is a great game, and for all its faults, it's still probably one of the best titles this year. But despite the production values, I can't pretend the problems with the storytelling aren't there.
If you love it, and it's your favorite game ever, that's your choice. But I can't stand when someone tells me that I cannot disagree with them unless I have some kind of bias.
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