lux

Well, forty-six, I assumed everyone knew that MGS was a Konami brand (now Kojima Productions) and FF XIII a Square Enix brand. It's obvious that the responsibility for certain games on PS3 ultimately falls indirectly on Sony. MICHOOS WHAT, don’t dig your own grave :-D A stealth game that on normal difficulty plays like Die Hard Trilogy seems a bit of a joke, come on :-P Let’s just say the difficulty could have been better calibrated... sure, I won’t make my life harder by forcing myself to hide just to look like someone who's playing a stealth game; if the game allows you to complete it simply by shooting, the problem is with those who created it, not with me :-) And I couldn't care less about the infamous BIG BOSS EMBLEM... (that would open up a whole discussion about extras and trophies to unlock in games in general... practices that seem childish to me). I agree about the old games; maybe a retro gaming review would help reveal the utter emptiness of this generation, at least on PS3 (I’m not sure how much more interesting Xbox 360 games might be, to be honest). I wouldn't make jokes about the Wii if I were you... at least they are games and not B-movies passed off as gaming masterpieces ;-D Now I’m off, bye everyone :-)

What a show the links are... has the cicciabomba played too much Mario Bros? Anyway, I'm no longer of the age for exhausting debates on Deb, everyone can play whatever they want :-)

Sellami, even the hardest mode allows you to minimize stealth tactics to a minimum. I understand the various easy, normal, hard... I'm not criticizing that, I'm criticizing the ability to reduce the tactical component to a minimum even on the hardest levels.

"Solid Snake is now a myth, and Guns of the Patriots is his swan song, his epitaph. Superlative graphics, with gameplay that has been solidified and expanded compared to its predecessors, and a plot that has nothing to envy from many cinematic productions" rating 8.5... from the Everyeye site. These three lines are enough for me. But do you see that it's a common trend to spin tales? "Consolidated gameplay"?? Perhaps obsolete would be the right term. "A plot that has nothing to envy from many cinematic productions"... yes maybe if we compare it to Avatar it wouldn’t have anything to envy.. but then judging a film or a game based on the plot is bewildering, for heaven's sake. Rather, the sense of the narrative can be judged, and even that is childish in MGS4.

Then, a little note on the control system: it's no longer possible for me to crouch and peek over the wall, WHY? Because you take away my typical and functional Snake pose? In fact, there is something similar in 4, but the camera doesn't follow the line of sight to the other side of the wall... anyone who has played can understand what I mean. Then... why does Snake turn 180 degrees away from the enemy as soon as I aim (L1)? WHY? In those seconds, I'm food for the guards. Shameful. Finally, about the cinematic aspect: if that had at least been convincing, my score wouldn't have been much higher anyway, because I judge based on gameplay (after all, we are talking about a game, so I assume the playful part is fundamental). But since the game's narrative is lacking too (endless video sections of a complicated storyline for nerds eager for increasingly forced plot twists), I decided to mention this aspect as well. An aspect that, by the way, is claimed to be splendid by the fans themselves, but it doesn't seem so splendid to me.

Then, the maps can also be linear (I wrote in the review "they wouldn't even represent a bad thing in itself," in fact), but the gameplay structure is seriously outdated. Force me to perform non-trivial actions, don't give me 786 weapons with the ability to kill everyone without considering stealth: it doesn't make sense otherwise. Zero puzzles, zero cognitive-logical hurdles, zero everything! It's true that in theory I can complete the game without killing anyone, hiding and treating the game like a stealth mission, but aside from the fact that the gameplay sections are objectively FEW and don't justify its existence, you can't just let me treat Snake like, I don't know, Chris from RE5; it's mind-blowing. I SHOULD NOT HAVE the opportunity to commit a massacre until the end of the game because in that case, the gaming experience will be disarming in how flat it is. Why hide when I can shoot everyone without worry? (a flaw I'm also finding in the hardest game mode...). The old MGS didn't allow such a travesty because as soon as guards spotted you, they would mess you up, and you had to hide again immediately to survive.

Let's start from the end. Regarding specialized magazines, I would leave them alone for reasons that range from incompetence (they often judge in a-historical and a-critical ways, use criteria from fanboys, and seem to have to please the audience to whom the game is addressed, just to convince them to buy it) to some other much sadder reason that I’ll let you imagine. Just look at the absurdly high and surreal ratings (are all these games masterpieces??), and if someone dares to give a 95/100 to MGS4 instead of a 100/100, it’s taken as a harsh criticism (???)... if I got a 9.5 in high school, I would have entered a coma from joy, rather than consider it a harsh critique. But it’s known, the target audience is the otaku, and for them either you reach the maximum in a performance, or you're trash (a typical Japanese mentality, I would dare say... but let's move on). As for the rest: in the review, I compared MGS4 to the first and third games a couple of times because it's historically right to do so. I also hinted at Mission Impossible for PSX, for provocation (but to a certain extent), because the gameplay of the European map (where you have to follow the rebel without being detected) is embarrassing, to say the least, due to how it’s developed. So the comparisons you demand have been made, and it's for the old and trivial dynamics that I rejected MGS4. You can't keep recycling the same stuff chapter after chapter, with just a slight variant: it remains a cliché.

Wait, some scenes can also be quite amusing for a video game (like the one with the boats where Liquid Ocelot blocks the soldiers' bullets because he can dominate a large part of the System, and thus the weapons), but the endless, expressively almost null segments (e.g., the drawn-out finale between Big Boss and Snake in the cemetery... how sad!) are just useless as far as I'm concerned!

"4-5 different locations where you haven't even settled in, and you already have to leave," good, this was another point I wanted to emphasize but then I lost track. "Kojima, turn to cinema," no, not that, please! Kubrick and Kurosawa would be turning in their graves! :-P

Your point of view would be perfect, dear Silvaplana, if it weren't for the fact that rock (in its highest and most expressive manifestation) almost entirely disregards forced technical competence: with 4 chords and the right attitude, one can create not only a rock masterpiece but a masterpiece of music as a whole. Just take a look at alternative rock, for example. This is because Classical and Rock have totally different, indeed opposing, criteria for evaluating themselves. Moreover, you underestimate the greater ability of rock to narrate its century (the 20th) more than, for instance, Bach can with the Goldberg Variations. But here we venture into more strictly cultural and sociological fields... and at this hour, I really don’t feel like it! Nevertheless, despite your snobbery towards popular and rock music (which I adore), your review is objectively rich in insights and written in a personal manner.