1. My wife was out of town this weekend, which gave me full reign over the living room and all the creature comforts therein, and so I had my first real gaming marathon in quite some time. It was as good an opportunity as any to milk the Fable II Pub Games exploit for all it's worth before it got fixed (and, honestly, after several hours with it, that's pretty much all it's good for), and I finally got to finish Braid. (I did end up using a walkthrough for 2 or 3 puzzle pieces, mostly to confirm that I was on the right track - only one puzzle really, truly stumped me.)
But the bulk of my time was actually spent reminding my PS3 that it can play games, and thus taking care of some unfinished business with respect to Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction; and by "unfinished business", I mean I'd barely started it before I put it down in lieu of... oh, I don't know, it was so long ago -probably MGS4.
Having never played an R&C title before (aside from a few minutes with the PSP iteration), I was pretty well satisfied with the whole experience; it's actually genuinely amusing in places (although it does try awfully hard), and the gameplay is pretty solid. I do recall, when I'd put it down the first time, being a bit overwhelmed with all the weapons and gadgets - I think most of my initial combat time was simply spent hitting enemies with my wrench, which shows you how little I know. But soon I was getting the hang of it, and the game was easy enough that I eventually just concentrated on upgrading and levelling up 3 or 4 main weapons, and throwing out a disco ball every so often. Graphically, it's pretty fantastic, although it's still obviously a first-generation PS3 game; I am very curious to try out the new downloadable episode to see if there's a discernable difference. And I may even continue through a second playthrough in the Challenge Mode, just to see if I can get to some of the places I was unable to get to earlier.
2. In an earlier post, I talked a bit about the Oddworld series and how it got me back into console gaming. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention my extreme love of Duke Nukem 3D, which I was obsessed with whenever I was home from college and I could get my younger brother's computer to work. My brother had gotten the shareware version of DN3D from our brother-in-law-to-be, so I'm not even sure I've seen the whole single-player game, but what I have seen, I've seen A LOT. Anyway, it looks like it's arriving on XBLA a lot sooner than I'd anticipated, and I'm very, very, very excited.
3. Tiger Woods 09 comes out today, and after playing the demo, I'm fully on board this time around. The franchise peaked for me with either '03 or '04, and every game since then has been more and more depressingly mediocre. Tiger 08 was incredibly annoying, with glitchy controls and the same goddamned courses I've already played a zillion times, and I swore I'd stay away from the franchise forever, but the improvements that are featured in the demo specifically address all the things that drove me crazy in the past. You no longer enhance your attributes by arbitrary clothing choices; you get better by getting better, which is an innovation that maybe should've been picked up on a little sooner than this. For experienced Tiger players (like me), you are only as good as you actually are, so you can start the game without having gimped stats as in years past. The challenge, then, is not to max up your stats, but to keep them maxed by playing at a consistently excellent level, which is (1) a well-intentioned shift in philosophy, and (2) a great incentive to keep playing. Even better is the club tuner feature, which (hopefully) will correct the problems in last year's game with respect to the controls; you can auto-correct problems in your swing with reasonable trade-offs in performance (i.e., you can increase the size of the sweet spot at the expense of distance). I was waiting for reviews to come in before picking this up, but I already have over $100 in credit at Gamestop and so I might as well take the plunge.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Best Achievement / Release Calendar
Up until last night, the Achievement I was most proud of was finding the last of 500 Agility Orbs in Crackdown; last night, however, I got the Wax Off Achievement in Geometry Wars 2, and even though it's a substantially less Point increase, it was a HUGE monkey off my back. I like GeoWars2 a lot, even though I'm near the bottom of almost every leaderboard in the game, and Pacifism is my favorite of the game modes. The problem was, I was so obsessed with getting the Wax Off achievement that I wasn't actually playing the mode - I was simply trying to get the achievement, and that led to lots and lots of frustration, and I often wondered how I would ever get back to the sheer joy of the actual mode without getting the Achievement. After another 10-15 tries, somehow everything lined up and I was able to unlock it, and now (1) I don't have to worry about it anymore, and (2) I can go back to playing the mode the way it was meant to be played. That said, Wax Off - and a lot of the other Achievements in GeoWars2, for that matter - does a great job of teaching you how to avoid the enemies and how to strategically steer through gates.
The Olympics are killing my CivRev buzz; my wife keeps wanting to watch the Olympics on our HDTV. Good thing, then, that the upcoming release calendar is somewhat bland and uninspired; I'll probably still have a lot of open hours with it before the Next Big Thing hits.
I was going to do a Release Calendar, but there's really no need; there's no week-to-week insanity like there was last year. Some big titles are coming out, to be sure, though...
MUST HAVE / ALREADY PRE-ORDERED
RENTING / MILD-to-VERY CURIOUS
The Olympics are killing my CivRev buzz; my wife keeps wanting to watch the Olympics on our HDTV. Good thing, then, that the upcoming release calendar is somewhat bland and uninspired; I'll probably still have a lot of open hours with it before the Next Big Thing hits.
I was going to do a Release Calendar, but there's really no need; there's no week-to-week insanity like there was last year. Some big titles are coming out, to be sure, though...
MUST HAVE / ALREADY PRE-ORDERED
- Mercenaries 2
- Star Wars: Force Unleashed
- Little Big Planet
- Fable 2
- Fallout 3
- Saints Row 2
- Gears of War 2
- Resistance 2
RENTING / MILD-to-VERY CURIOUS
- Too Human
- Tales of Vesperia
- Infinite Undiscovery
- Viva Pinata
- Harvest Moon (DS)
- Harvest Moon (Wii)
- Rise of the Argonauts
- Silent Hill: Homecoming
- Far Cry 2
- Midnight Club: LA
- Dead Space
- Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
- Mirror's Edge
- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
- Left 4 Dead
- Prince of Persia
- Tomb Raider Underworld
- Last Remnant
- Brutal Legend
Monday, August 11, 2008
And we're back
Back in a big way, actually. The summer gaming doldrums have hit us here at SFTC HQ quite hard, and not even Braid, Eden or GeoWars2 - all of which are excellent in their own unique ways - could do anything to relieve them.
But then I decided to rent Civilization Revolution for the 360, and now I'm afraid I've gone and unleashed some feral nightmare into my brain. After deciding to purchase my GameFly copy Friday night, I was (kinda) exiled from my living room on Saturday, so I ended up downloading Civ 4 - and its 2 expansions - over Steam; and then, to top it all off, I traded in some old 360 games on the way back from Pineapple Express (meh) on Sunday towards preorders of Fable 2 and LittleBigPlanet, and also CivRev for the DS.
And here's the funny part - I suck at Civ. I suck at strategy games in general, and I normally don't even bother, but I was playing Pirates! the other day and I realized how much I'd missed it, and being that Sid Meier has such an impressive pedigree I figured it couldn't hurt to give CivRev a shot, especially considering how little else there is to do these days. And the truth is, it really is fun. As with Pirates, SM has a great interface and the gameplay is simplified enough for the console so that everything makes sense, once you understand how the concepts work. I can't say the concepts have fully taken hold for me just yet - it took about 4 hours on the PC, 2 hours on the 360 and a multiplayer session with a friend and about 15 minutes on the DS for me to figure out that I've been playing Civ as if it were SimCity, which it most definitely is NOT.
I wonder if this is going to get me into strategy games; I suspect that it will not, if only because I tooled around with C&C and the LOTR strategy games on the 360 and couldn't make heads or tails of them at all, and gave up after about 30 minutes or so. But then, those games kinda missed the point a little bit - so much fuss was made about how those games were dramatically retooled in order to be workable on a controller, when instead the retooling should have been about how to make those games approachable to a strategy neophyte; after all is said and done, they're still hard-core strategy games and having a simplified control scheme didn't change the fact that I had no fucking idea what I was doing or why. CivRev on the 360, on the other hand, is incredibly simple to control - it's as intuitive as it can be - and so instead the focus is very much about showing you what you're supposed to do, and why you're supposed to do it. (Granted, a lot of it is still lost on me, but that's only because I haven't had enough time to even finish 1 game on the 360.)
The PC version, on the other hand, is vastly more complex, but it's still very approachable, and you can automate a lot of menial tasks so that you can better concentrate on the bigger picture. It's a little surprising to me that of all 3 versions I now own, I've only finished a game on the PC.
I wonder if I should start getting excited for Starcraft 2.
But then I decided to rent Civilization Revolution for the 360, and now I'm afraid I've gone and unleashed some feral nightmare into my brain. After deciding to purchase my GameFly copy Friday night, I was (kinda) exiled from my living room on Saturday, so I ended up downloading Civ 4 - and its 2 expansions - over Steam; and then, to top it all off, I traded in some old 360 games on the way back from Pineapple Express (meh) on Sunday towards preorders of Fable 2 and LittleBigPlanet, and also CivRev for the DS.
And here's the funny part - I suck at Civ. I suck at strategy games in general, and I normally don't even bother, but I was playing Pirates! the other day and I realized how much I'd missed it, and being that Sid Meier has such an impressive pedigree I figured it couldn't hurt to give CivRev a shot, especially considering how little else there is to do these days. And the truth is, it really is fun. As with Pirates, SM has a great interface and the gameplay is simplified enough for the console so that everything makes sense, once you understand how the concepts work. I can't say the concepts have fully taken hold for me just yet - it took about 4 hours on the PC, 2 hours on the 360 and a multiplayer session with a friend and about 15 minutes on the DS for me to figure out that I've been playing Civ as if it were SimCity, which it most definitely is NOT.
I wonder if this is going to get me into strategy games; I suspect that it will not, if only because I tooled around with C&C and the LOTR strategy games on the 360 and couldn't make heads or tails of them at all, and gave up after about 30 minutes or so. But then, those games kinda missed the point a little bit - so much fuss was made about how those games were dramatically retooled in order to be workable on a controller, when instead the retooling should have been about how to make those games approachable to a strategy neophyte; after all is said and done, they're still hard-core strategy games and having a simplified control scheme didn't change the fact that I had no fucking idea what I was doing or why. CivRev on the 360, on the other hand, is incredibly simple to control - it's as intuitive as it can be - and so instead the focus is very much about showing you what you're supposed to do, and why you're supposed to do it. (Granted, a lot of it is still lost on me, but that's only because I haven't had enough time to even finish 1 game on the 360.)
The PC version, on the other hand, is vastly more complex, but it's still very approachable, and you can automate a lot of menial tasks so that you can better concentrate on the bigger picture. It's a little surprising to me that of all 3 versions I now own, I've only finished a game on the PC.
I wonder if I should start getting excited for Starcraft 2.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
E308 presser gut reactions
All I've seen of E3 are Kotaku's liveblogs of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony's press conferences; there's been little time to actually see any video. That said, here's my ranking:
1. Sony
2. Microsoft
3. Nintendo
I could have gone either way between 1 and 2, but it was a new and exciting feeling to have a rooting interest in Sony for once, and even in spite of losing FFXIII exclusivity to Microsoft they still had a solid showing, and - most importantly - they clearly get it now, they were aggressive and focused on the most important stuff - the software. Until I see the footage myself I can't really comment on quality. I think Microsoft gets the edge in software to come out in 2008, but Sony's future looks very, very bright.
That said, it's not even close, as far as 3rd place is concerned - Nintendo's presser today was depressing, almost completely devoid of exciting news ( GTA:DS notwithstanding) and, ultimately, it made me wonder why I tried so hard to acquire a Wii in the first place. It's as if they're not even trying anymore. They're selling millions of consoles to people who don't necessarily need a big new title every week - and that's great, for those people - but I'm a hard core gamer, and they've done pretty much everything they can to alienate me and my demographic.
Now that the press conferences are done, we can get on to the real meat of the show. Here's hoping I have enough time this week to pay attention.
1. Sony
2. Microsoft
3. Nintendo
I could have gone either way between 1 and 2, but it was a new and exciting feeling to have a rooting interest in Sony for once, and even in spite of losing FFXIII exclusivity to Microsoft they still had a solid showing, and - most importantly - they clearly get it now, they were aggressive and focused on the most important stuff - the software. Until I see the footage myself I can't really comment on quality. I think Microsoft gets the edge in software to come out in 2008, but Sony's future looks very, very bright.
That said, it's not even close, as far as 3rd place is concerned - Nintendo's presser today was depressing, almost completely devoid of exciting news ( GTA:DS notwithstanding) and, ultimately, it made me wonder why I tried so hard to acquire a Wii in the first place. It's as if they're not even trying anymore. They're selling millions of consoles to people who don't necessarily need a big new title every week - and that's great, for those people - but I'm a hard core gamer, and they've done pretty much everything they can to alienate me and my demographic.
Now that the press conferences are done, we can get on to the real meat of the show. Here's hoping I have enough time this week to pay attention.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
E308 speculation
In years past, it was pretty easy for me to get excited about an upcoming E3. Being a one-console owner, my focus could be honed to a razor-sharp edge, and my primary source of information at the time had the best E3 coverage in the business.
Ah, how times have changed. In the past 6 months, I've acquired a PS3, a Wii and a PSP, so my focus now has to encompass a lot more information; and at the same time, the Gamespot controversy got me off my ass and got me motivated to switch to an RSS-feed state of constant information from multiple sources. Which is to say, I have too much info coming in and I have no idea what is going on.
That said, this year's E3 looks to be a little more subdued than, for example, last year. 2007 was one of the best years in terms of quality software ever, and it's practically impossible to expect that 2008 could compare. Not to mention the fact that a number of companies aren't even attending E3 this year, but instead are staging their own events nearby.
Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I'm not really sure what to expect next week, either in terms of what will be announced or what information I'll be able to retain. But here's a short list of titles I hope to see, and news I hope to be announced.
Multi-Platform Releases
As for the PS3, I'm mostly curious about Home. My understanding is that the upcoming release is essentially still only a beta, but on a larger scale. There are basically 2 ways that Home can go, from what I gather:
Microsoft's list of exclusives is pretty good - Gears and Fable are obviously going to be huge, and there are also rumors of some Halo-related announcements. That said, Microsoft is in somewhat of a strange position this year. Nintendo is selling Wiis and DSs faster than they can make them, and nobody seems to care that there aren't any games to go along with them. Sony has won the format war, so more and more people are going to be buying PS3s if only for the BluRay availability. The 360 needs killer apps in order to stay relevant, and while Gears and a Halo title are sure bets, Rare remains an unknown quantity. They need a really big show this year, and right now I'm not quite sure I see it.
I'm holding off on news predictions; other sites are doing much better jobs of that, and in any event I'm not really sure I'd know what to hope for. (Besides LucasArts releasing their classic adventure games as a downloadable package for the Wii, which, in light of recent LucasArts news, seems less and less likely with every passing day, even if it's a stupidly obvious thing to do.)
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In totally unrelated news, I announced the other day that a podcast was going to be coming shortly. Unfortunately, the technical troubles continue. I'm having a really tough time getting Skype calls to record properly (or at all) on my PC, which means that I'm basically shit out of luck. If anybody has any suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.
Ah, how times have changed. In the past 6 months, I've acquired a PS3, a Wii and a PSP, so my focus now has to encompass a lot more information; and at the same time, the Gamespot controversy got me off my ass and got me motivated to switch to an RSS-feed state of constant information from multiple sources. Which is to say, I have too much info coming in and I have no idea what is going on.
That said, this year's E3 looks to be a little more subdued than, for example, last year. 2007 was one of the best years in terms of quality software ever, and it's practically impossible to expect that 2008 could compare. Not to mention the fact that a number of companies aren't even attending E3 this year, but instead are staging their own events nearby.
Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I'm not really sure what to expect next week, either in terms of what will be announced or what information I'll be able to retain. But here's a short list of titles I hope to see, and news I hope to be announced.
Multi-Platform Releases
- Fallout 3
- Mercenaries 2
- Tomb Raider: Underworld
- Saints Row 2
- Force Unleashed
- Resident Evil 5
- Mirror's Edge
- Fable 2
- Gears of War 2
- Viva Pinata 2
- Banjo-Kazooie
- Fez (XBLA title that was at the Indie Developers Conference last summer)
- LittleBigPlanet
- Resistance 2
- Killzone 2
- God of War 3
- Home
- Animal Crossing
- whatever the StrongBad game is called
- Chrono Trigger (DS)
As for the PS3, I'm mostly curious about Home. My understanding is that the upcoming release is essentially still only a beta, but on a larger scale. There are basically 2 ways that Home can go, from what I gather:
- A Second Life type of world, where you're inundated with marketing as you roam around virtual neighborhoods. As unappealing as that is, it still could be kinda cool, if they do interesting things with Trophies and in-game stats and leaderboards. It could also serve as a general lobby for online play, although the logistics of that are probably impossible. I was going to suggest that Sony could also do some interesting things in Home in terms of digital distribution of movies, similar to what Microsoft does with XBL Marketplace, but then it occurred to me that a push towards digital distribution is a pull against Blu-Ray sales, which would be bad.
- A buggy, visually uninteresting series of marketing displays, draped over an unpopulated virtual town, that serves no purpose whatsoever. This is, sadly, a pretty close description of what I've seen of Home thus far.
Microsoft's list of exclusives is pretty good - Gears and Fable are obviously going to be huge, and there are also rumors of some Halo-related announcements. That said, Microsoft is in somewhat of a strange position this year. Nintendo is selling Wiis and DSs faster than they can make them, and nobody seems to care that there aren't any games to go along with them. Sony has won the format war, so more and more people are going to be buying PS3s if only for the BluRay availability. The 360 needs killer apps in order to stay relevant, and while Gears and a Halo title are sure bets, Rare remains an unknown quantity. They need a really big show this year, and right now I'm not quite sure I see it.
I'm holding off on news predictions; other sites are doing much better jobs of that, and in any event I'm not really sure I'd know what to hope for. (Besides LucasArts releasing their classic adventure games as a downloadable package for the Wii, which, in light of recent LucasArts news, seems less and less likely with every passing day, even if it's a stupidly obvious thing to do.)
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In totally unrelated news, I announced the other day that a podcast was going to be coming shortly. Unfortunately, the technical troubles continue. I'm having a really tough time getting Skype calls to record properly (or at all) on my PC, which means that I'm basically shit out of luck. If anybody has any suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.
Monday, July 7, 2008
33333
Someone pointed out to me that my current Gamerscore is a pretty nifty 33333. Hadn't even noticed, to be honest - I've not really turned on my 360 recently.
Finished Uncharted - I liked it and look forward to a sequel where the enemies aren't so (a) bulletproof and (b) plentiful.
Traded in GRiD - it just wasn't doing anything for me, the way DiRT did. DiRT sucked me in from the moment I got started, whereas GRiD remained inaccessible and a little too unfocused. Also, the driving just wasn't as much fun - it's as if the game couldn't tell whether it wanted to be Burnout, PGR or DiRT on asphalt. DiRT, on the other hand, had an incredibly clear focus and you immediately knew what you wanted to do. Also also - and this is inexplicable - the instant replays, which were arguably the best feature in DiRT, had no option for slo-mo!
Also traded in MLB08, but not because it's a bad game - indeed, it's probably the best baseball game I've ever seen. It's just that, well, I totally suck at it. Even on the lowest difficulty, and with the pitch speed set to the minimum, I almost never made contact with the ball, and I never scored a single run.
Finally: some big news. There is supposedly a podcast in the works - I don't know if it'll be here, or somewhere else, but we're trying to get our shit together and as soon as we get our technology in place we're going to start pumping out a weekly show. If you have Skype, you are more than welcome to be a guest (once we figure out how to get you recorded).
Finished Uncharted - I liked it and look forward to a sequel where the enemies aren't so (a) bulletproof and (b) plentiful.
Traded in GRiD - it just wasn't doing anything for me, the way DiRT did. DiRT sucked me in from the moment I got started, whereas GRiD remained inaccessible and a little too unfocused. Also, the driving just wasn't as much fun - it's as if the game couldn't tell whether it wanted to be Burnout, PGR or DiRT on asphalt. DiRT, on the other hand, had an incredibly clear focus and you immediately knew what you wanted to do. Also also - and this is inexplicable - the instant replays, which were arguably the best feature in DiRT, had no option for slo-mo!
Also traded in MLB08, but not because it's a bad game - indeed, it's probably the best baseball game I've ever seen. It's just that, well, I totally suck at it. Even on the lowest difficulty, and with the pitch speed set to the minimum, I almost never made contact with the ball, and I never scored a single run.
Finally: some big news. There is supposedly a podcast in the works - I don't know if it'll be here, or somewhere else, but we're trying to get our shit together and as soon as we get our technology in place we're going to start pumping out a weekly show. If you have Skype, you are more than welcome to be a guest (once we figure out how to get you recorded).
Monday, June 30, 2008
MGS4: conclusion
***MINOR MGS4 SPOILERS BELOW***
It's funny. I spent most of last week getting all bent out of shape about MGS4, mostly because Act III was so ridiculous; but then I plowed through the rest of the game on Saturday, and now I find I don't really have anything to say about it. Or, at least, there's nothing for me to rant about.
Which is not a bad thing; I mean, I didn't spend $60 so that I could actively hate something. And the more I think about it, the thing that would get me angry isn't even the game's fault - it's the gaming press at large for not having the balls to call it out on certain glaringly obvious problems. I listened to Joystiq's MGS4 podcast, and there was one dude in particular who did not have anything negative to say about the game at all. Now, I'm not saying that you have to say something negative about MGS4 in order to be validated in my book - I'm saying this dude played the game, and found everything about it to be perfect. This means he found nothing wrong with Act III, whose problems I covered in detail below. This even means he found nothing at all wrong with Meryl and Akiba/Johnny's scene in Act V, which may very well be the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen, in any medium, ever. It was so ridiculous, in fact, that my wife - who was in the other room - would periodically walk in and yell, "Jesus Christ, will you two shut the fuck up? Why have you not died?" This means he had no problems with Otacon's voice acting - and, lemme tell you, that guy should win the "Worst. Crier. Ever." award. Nor did he have any problem with the fact that at least 5 or 6 characters in this game ought to be dead, considering how much damage they take, and none of them do. Hell, Raiden himself should have died 2 or 3 times in this game alone; I consider this a bit of a cop-out on Kojima's part, but what do I know. I'm saying that if you are in any way a decent and honest journalist - not a fanboy, but a journalist whose primary responsibility should be the ability to remain objective - you can't ignore this shit and pretend it's not there. It may not have any impact on your enjoyment of the game, but considering how much of it there is here, it is a gross error in judgment to be willfully immune to it.
Anyway. I did eventually remember that the press wasn't the one playing the game this weekend - it was me. And, ultimately, here's what I can say about MGS4, and I think this could be said for both fans and haters: I've never had an experience like that before.
From a gameplay perspective, MGS4 is one of the best games I've ever played, and the more I think about it, the more I want to go back and try to play it better than I did before. I unlocked 3 trophies when I finished my first playthrough, and they all seemed to reflect that I killed everybody and stole all their weapons; I'd love to try it playing the way it's supposed to be played - silent and stealthily. The fact that the game is fun either way is absolutely a testament to its rock-solid design and mechanics. The game rewards exploration - I loved that there were so many nooks and crannies to check out, especially since so many of them yielded loot. The game can be difficult but it's almost never frustrating; any time I ran into trouble, I knew it was my fault - and in any event, I was able to play my way out of the problem most of the time. I maintain that the octocamo system is one of the coolest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen, just in terms of how it works in and of itself; the fact that it's actually effective is even cooler.
From a story perspective... well, I don't know how much more I can say about it without repeating myself. The truth of the matter is, it's a sci-fi soap opera, and even if the storytelling is absurdly over-the-top and self-indulgent and just flat-out poor, there's something strangely compelling about it - even if it frequently warrants mocking, which it most assuredly does. I think this game - hell, the whole franchise - could have been 100 times better if a real scriptwriter had been brought on board; at the very least, the game needs an editor who has the balls to tell Kojima enough is enough. The story is convoluted enough as it is - it would have been appreciated if coherence and clarity were considered as well.
Now, the big question is - what do I play next?
It's funny. I spent most of last week getting all bent out of shape about MGS4, mostly because Act III was so ridiculous; but then I plowed through the rest of the game on Saturday, and now I find I don't really have anything to say about it. Or, at least, there's nothing for me to rant about.
Which is not a bad thing; I mean, I didn't spend $60 so that I could actively hate something. And the more I think about it, the thing that would get me angry isn't even the game's fault - it's the gaming press at large for not having the balls to call it out on certain glaringly obvious problems. I listened to Joystiq's MGS4 podcast, and there was one dude in particular who did not have anything negative to say about the game at all. Now, I'm not saying that you have to say something negative about MGS4 in order to be validated in my book - I'm saying this dude played the game, and found everything about it to be perfect. This means he found nothing wrong with Act III, whose problems I covered in detail below. This even means he found nothing at all wrong with Meryl and Akiba/Johnny's scene in Act V, which may very well be the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen, in any medium, ever. It was so ridiculous, in fact, that my wife - who was in the other room - would periodically walk in and yell, "Jesus Christ, will you two shut the fuck up? Why have you not died?" This means he had no problems with Otacon's voice acting - and, lemme tell you, that guy should win the "Worst. Crier. Ever." award. Nor did he have any problem with the fact that at least 5 or 6 characters in this game ought to be dead, considering how much damage they take, and none of them do. Hell, Raiden himself should have died 2 or 3 times in this game alone; I consider this a bit of a cop-out on Kojima's part, but what do I know. I'm saying that if you are in any way a decent and honest journalist - not a fanboy, but a journalist whose primary responsibility should be the ability to remain objective - you can't ignore this shit and pretend it's not there. It may not have any impact on your enjoyment of the game, but considering how much of it there is here, it is a gross error in judgment to be willfully immune to it.
Anyway. I did eventually remember that the press wasn't the one playing the game this weekend - it was me. And, ultimately, here's what I can say about MGS4, and I think this could be said for both fans and haters: I've never had an experience like that before.
From a gameplay perspective, MGS4 is one of the best games I've ever played, and the more I think about it, the more I want to go back and try to play it better than I did before. I unlocked 3 trophies when I finished my first playthrough, and they all seemed to reflect that I killed everybody and stole all their weapons; I'd love to try it playing the way it's supposed to be played - silent and stealthily. The fact that the game is fun either way is absolutely a testament to its rock-solid design and mechanics. The game rewards exploration - I loved that there were so many nooks and crannies to check out, especially since so many of them yielded loot. The game can be difficult but it's almost never frustrating; any time I ran into trouble, I knew it was my fault - and in any event, I was able to play my way out of the problem most of the time. I maintain that the octocamo system is one of the coolest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen, just in terms of how it works in and of itself; the fact that it's actually effective is even cooler.
From a story perspective... well, I don't know how much more I can say about it without repeating myself. The truth of the matter is, it's a sci-fi soap opera, and even if the storytelling is absurdly over-the-top and self-indulgent and just flat-out poor, there's something strangely compelling about it - even if it frequently warrants mocking, which it most assuredly does. I think this game - hell, the whole franchise - could have been 100 times better if a real scriptwriter had been brought on board; at the very least, the game needs an editor who has the balls to tell Kojima enough is enough. The story is convoluted enough as it is - it would have been appreciated if coherence and clarity were considered as well.
Now, the big question is - what do I play next?
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