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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Fun game, but too much cinematic Jan 06, 2009
Simple as that. Often times in-game you take a few steps only to watch a cinematic. Take a couple more, another cinematic.
Gameplay is fun, you are just inandated with long...long....long sequences of video. Between campaigns there is almost 30 mins of cinematic. At least you can skip through them. I get about 10-15 mins in, occasionally I've watched the entire thing, but I end up skipping. I bought the game to shoot stuff.
Overall, its a pretty good game despite its long videos. The fact that you can skip them and get to the makes up for that flaw, but keeps this review from 5 stars.
1 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 ...Not my cup of tea. Jan 01, 2009
I admit it, I've never played any of the previous Metal Gear games, so this review will be more for the first time agnostics than hardcore fans. I know the fans will skewer me, but I don't really care. In my opinion, a game sequel should be just as accessible for veterans of the franchise as it is for non-veterans. Suffice to say, I just didn't get it.
Right off the bat, the controls and inventory seemed overly complicated, and took a long time to get used to. A lot of it involved holding one or two buttons while rotating a joystick, then pressing another button, or other such nonsense. Checking items or swapping weapons required pausing/exiting the game often which took away from the immersion factor. It probably took me about an hour just to figure out how to play the game.
Basically, you have to sneak through various warzones without being spotted. You have all sorts of gizmos to help you do this (most of which I didn't even bother using) including a combat suit that allows you to blend into your surroundings like a chameleon. This was really fun at first, but after a while you realize how little impact it has on the actual gameplay. If an enemy gets too close, they'll spot you regardless. When that happens, your only option is to shoot it out with the enemies and take a ton of damage in the process. Once you kill all the enemies within your immediate vicinity, you just go back to blending in and sneaking toward the checkpoint. Rinse and repeat.
Since you can kill most enemies through stealth, I figured I'd kill everyone standing between me and the objective with them being none the wiser. This seemed like the most intuitive and funnest thing to do, but what I didn't realize is that after you kill enemies, fresh ones are spawned in, so your only choice is to rush to the next checkpoint with the least amount of resistance. There's really no reason to try anything other than this tactic.
When you finally reach a checkpoint you are treated to these ridiculously long cutscenes which can last up to an hour long! Some games are able to blend story and gameplay seemlessly, but this isn't one of them. It's the equivalent of someone pausing the game and showing you a movie (a bad movie) while it's paused. This game is clearly a throwback to the old Dragonslayer arcade game and CD-ROM games from the early nineties. Needless to say, I skipped all these cutscenes.
Overall, this game has decent graphics and decent sound, but that wasn't enough for me to keep playing. I quit in the middle of act 3. Thank goodness I only rented this.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Amazing Jan 01, 2009
I had never really played any of the MGS solid before (except for a few hours of MGS3), so I was totally new to the franchise. This is one of the deepest games I have ever played, with the best graphics on any console hands down.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
A top game but like other people say too many cut scenes. Jan 01, 2009
I love this gave but for some reason they wanted to make it a movie with video game action in between.
I'm not saying it shouldn't have cut scenes, they give you a break in between goals. They should have been shortened considerably and maybe added an extra level added. After I beat the game and played it again I fast forwarded to the game play and was able to enjoy the game more. The reason I think they had a ton of cut scenes was to try to mesh all of the different Metal Gear's story lines together which don't fit perfectly anyway, especially MGS1 and MGS2. I mean nobody can try to decipher all of the twists and turns this storyline has, it's impossible.
I do think this game was great but I want to see more game and less movie.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Uncontrollable Dec 30, 2008
Think twice before buying this game. I am a veteran gamer, and thoroughly enjoyed the original Metal Gear Solid for the PS1. I've been in the PC gaming world for several years, but recently purchased a PS3. My fondness for the original MGS combined with the Game of the Year awards garnered by MGS4 to convince me to go ahead and pick this one up.
Yes, it looks incredible. And while other reviewers have complained about the number and length of cut-scenes, I don't mind this a bit; it's part of the MGS franchise, is therefore to be expected, and is actually very well done. Sound quality in the game is also excellent.
Unfortunately, that's where the quality stops. I found this game to be completely impossible to control. The combination of controlling your character with one joystick and fighting with the camera with the other joystick is difficult enough.
But even more important is the run-versus-walk control. Stealth is obviously very important in a game like this, and the difference between running and walking is the difference between being noticed and sneaking by unheard. The only way to walk is to tip the left joystick ever so slightly in whatever direction you want to go. If you tip it even a touch more to any side, you're immediately running -- and immediately noticed. There's no way to get around this issue, or to set your controller's sensitivity to make it less likely to happen. Combine this with the checkpoint save system -- where you cannot save the game unless you've reached a new checkpoint -- and the occasional tip of the joystick means replaying the entire level, over and over and over.
I have spent several extremely frustrating hours trying to get the controls down, but haven't been able to make it to the second checkpoint in Act 1 yet. As much as I loved MGS1, and as promising as this game appeared to be, I'm now faced with returning it, barely played and down $60.
Caveat emptor. Be sure to rent this game first to see if you have the surgeon's hands required to play it before you purchase it.
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