Graduate Games Blog

Well, a huge ship crashing into Raiden didn’t kill him after all. He returns in Act 5 without arms to help out Snake once again. Act 5 is definitely the shortest (gameplay wise) and most disappointing act so far. Again, MGS4 misses its opportunity to create a “classic” sneaking mission on the arsenal gear ship. Basically if you tranq any Frog soldiers….caution mode insues… and if you get alert phase, it’s just an all out war. The act really only consists of sneaking to one door, fighting a bunch of Frogs, fighting Screaming Mantis, crawling to the GW AI, and a culminates in a Brawl with Liquid.

The boss fight with Screaming Mantis is original and different than other boss fights which is nice, and Metal Gear throws completely new gameplay at your with a one-on-one street fight boss with Liquid. I have to admit that as the game began to come to a close, I started recollecting on past Metal Gear Boss fights, story arcs, and gameplay. It’s a shame that this game starts with a bang and fizzles out. It doesn’t help that MGS3: Snake Eater has a better & more involved plot either. I’m not going to critique the use of cinematics, since I watched them all and have always liked the stories and movies in the Metal Gear games. It’s just surprising how drastically the gameplay in this game changes from locale to locale. That certainly wasn’t the case with Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, & 3. On the one hand, it’s really impressive that Kojima & friends spent the time to code this sections so expertly without feeling tacked on….on the other hand, I was left without a chapter that truly paid homage to the gameplay found in MGS1-3. So with Act 5, I am left with some disappointment…though I still have the Epilogue (probably all cinemas) to go. Look for a Review on Monday.