Why people hate Metal Gear Solid 4?

Back then I used to hear that it's a revolutionary game and no platform can run it because it has power of blue ray etc. But now seems like a lot of people, even MGS fans say that MGS 4 was worst in the series. I don't understand. Is it because the game has too many cutscenes? But previous MGS games have those too. Is it because of the writing? Previous games don't have the best writing either.

In my opinion, I think original MGS remains best in the series. For some reason, I find MGS 3's writing cheesier than MGS 4 but gameplay is definitely superior imo. I loved survival elements in the game and the game had some epic moments too. After playing MGS 3, The Boss became my favorite character in MGS series. The scene where Big Boss is shot in the eye, still gets to me. I think it was second best game in the series...

On topic: What you think? Do you think that MGS 4 was worst in the series? And why do you think that? And if it is worst then why it is rated so high both by users and critics? Was it just hype or well deserved score? Discuss.

Gonna lazy out here, and let Conan answer. I've read his thoughts on it before, and they're very close to what I think about the game.

I still like it though. It's just my least favorite MGS game.

It has too many bullshit parts. The Paris section was awful, the bosses were not memorable or good, old snake sucks, the gameplay is still complete shit when you compare it to better stealth games like Splinter Cell. Its still a good game with amazing moments but for a MGS game its probably the worst

2>1>3>4

NO. lol. I'm too lazy to go through it again myself. The story, the gameplay, the characters, the retcons... man I just can't do it.

Maybe @Wiimotefan can drop a few walls of text on this thread haha.

You can't trust SW for answers on a specific exclusive for any platform.

You'll get the majority of fanboy answers mixed with a tiny few genuine answers sprinkled on top that you have to dig around to find.

I enjoyed the hell out of (I beat it probably 4 time-ish) MGS4, the gameplay was fantastic. I've spoken on it since 2008, I'm just done with talking to the same people about a game they don't like. When you get too real in this place, you invite trolling...meh. While there were elements of the story I didn't dig, I still enjoyed the gameplay and overall package. I just don't feel like arguing or defending personal viewpoints of mine that aren't going to change, oftentimes challenged by users that have no interest in the discussion or even the game, but rather just engaging and trolling users. Some people don't even play the games they troll. You would do well to ask this in an MGS union, but GS did away with those, or go to a MGS website. At GS, just ask the PS forum but even then you'll have to sift through the answers.

My one rule is to play these games early before they age and other development studios steal innovative game play ideas. That way I am not playing a 2008 game in 2015 and thinking, "This isn't that innovative, fresh, or good, I've dun this b4 last year's new game, hurdurrr." If someone played the game late and that paints a negative picture of their experience, it's not an experience I enjoy reading. Just like some bozo playing Super Mario 64 for the first time in 2005 and telling me it's hogwash. It's okay, I'm good. I don't care about that bozo and his "way late to the party and now it's closing time" lolpinions on the experience. He missed the show, he was late the party, and he's still telling me what sucked. It's clearly tainted. Same for those that choose to hate a game because of HYPE by others or whatever. They also went into the game ready to critique the hell out of it in spite picking the game up used years later for $5. That's the wrong mindset...but they will readily post their opinion for you to read about. Then there is those that don't own the machine to play the exclusive, they borrowed or rented it, and really have a very little time with said product. Again, posting about how much they hate it and that's a way to justify why they don't own said product. Then there are those that don't like the game at all, but tell you it was great because they love the platform. You can't win here.

That is not to say there aren't some people that I respect and have contrasting BUT WELL INFORMED opinions to my own. That's fantastic, but they are few and far between in this place.

You'll also notice another pattern emerge when talking about exclusives and multiplats. If the game series has a title that appears on various platforms, it's typically the one the majority of this forum will prefer. You might imagine what that means for MGS1-4. MGS3 would be the most popular. That said, I enjoyed MGS3 and the entire main Kojima directed series actually. Great game series as far as I'm concerned.

This applies for any major exclusive really. The bigger the HYPE, the same pattern emerges.

I think 4 is worst in the series, but it wrapped up things nicely.

But as a Game it's actually quite terrible since there wasn't a whole lot of "game" in it.

Because of good taste.

As someone who, at the time, did not frequent internet forums WHATSOEVER, i thought it was an enjoyable game, absolutely blew my mind seeing the graphics in person.

My least favourite too.

At the time I was pretty amazed playing it, but replaying it...

Yet i can replay MGS 1-3 over and over and over

Fair enough. That man knows his MGS.

It just sucked dick. It was also held captive from other consoles and made many players salty.

The storyline is terrible, the nanomachine retcons were ridiculous, the whole forced Johnny/Meryl romance was bad (Meryl dying in MGS1 should have been canon, the story would have been so much better), the forced Naomi/Otacon romance was bad, there aren't many memorable boss fights except for the Ray/Rex showdown and the final boss fight, it has the worst cutscene:gameplay ratio in the series, the dialogue reaches a series low, and while the gameplay itself can be fun there is simply way, way too little of it. The first and second acts are the only real "stealth" acts in the game where Snake is fighting against human enemies.

This is also a personal opinion of mine, but I hate the "Old Snake" thing. The accelerated aging concept was a dumb idea and it reduced Solid Snake's character immensely. Not to mention that dorky-ass mustache. Some people like it because it makes Snake more of a tragic hero but come on, he's already been subject to a lot of shit and putting him through that feels like a disservice to the series' main protagonist.

Also people were disgusted seeing old man Snake avatars plastered all over the forum. Was fucking ugly. And then there was that guy who was obsessed with the series, and always winked at everyone, like this ;) forgot his user name.

It definitely blew my mind when I played it the first time. Just filled with "*** yeah!" moments. It doesn't bear replays very well though, because then you start to question how the game logic that makes no sense at all. Its basically an experience more than a game. It plays great and all that, but then the insaneness of the story starts to creep into the gameplay where you can't enjoy it as much.

Hahaha.

just the story behind it...went to out there for me....

I think it was Mozelleppeleoleoleoelleoleoeleo (however the **** you spell it) and the funny thing about him is that he wasn't really an MGS fan, he just gushed over MGS4 all the time.

To him it was more about "OMG 10/10 GOTY AAAAE on PS3 only!!!!!1111!1!!1"... and less about being a fan of the series.

Because it was shit.

lol that guy was super annoying as well, but not who I was thinking about. Drawing blanks here.

Huh.. Yeah that's weird. I can think of quite a few MGS fanatics from this board over the years, but most of them disliked or all out hated MGS4.

Because it was fucking crap.

Finally remembered his username. It was NAPK1NS.

Thanks for the shout out dudes, but the laziness is contagious.

I don't want to spend another hour of my life outlining why a shitty MGS game is a shitty MGS game. Our resident Youtube star, Sean Mcloughlin, bookmarked my most comprehensive posts for times like this. I don't remember which thread it was, all I know is that I was debating FinalFantasy94.

I'll try summoning Sean right now.

---

In all honesty I just don't care anymore. MGS4 was a game that Kojima never wanted to make. He purposefully sabotaged it on all levels and can you really blame him?

MGSV on the other hand is going to be a proper sequel in this franchise. Something to really look forward to. I say we forget about the nano-garbage that is MGS4, just sweep it under the rug and get ready to enjoy a much better game.

Thanks for taking your time to explain everything in detail. Was a good read.

It's like the Hobbit movies, Peter Jackson was given free rein to do whatever the **** he wanted, and what we ended up with was a self indulgent piece of shit in love with itself.

Masterpiece gamespot? More like, shitter-piece.

Because it's not good!

an argument could be made for 1. Either way, both 1 and 2 were way better than 3 and 4. Snake Eater is overrated as **** and was filled with annoying gameplay mechanics.

Great analogy.

Story was God awful, the levels weren't nearly as good as past games, and the boss fights were underwhelming.

Overhyped and the fans of the series didn't help much.

it was terrible.

from the upskirts and bald smoking monkeys to the fantastic four villains and one shot kill tranq gun you start the game with it was just nothing but awful.

and it got a 10 here.

lulz.

life is funny.

As a general statement....I think ppl didn't like it as much b/c half the game was cutscenes.

I admit...it took me a couple of rebuys to get into it. I'd play it and think "this fucking game is awful"....trade it in...then hear someone say it was great....buy it again...and repeat.

The 3rd or 4th time I was just bound and determined to finish it. And it was a good game....it was a blend of game and cinematic experience. Not like The Order or Beyond 2 Souls.....but more like *there was a part where it was a MEtal Gear Solid game....then you'd have a cutscene*.

I liked it....but overall....the series is a bit too over dramatic....but it was good fun nonetheless.

-It's badly written and over written
-Nanomachines
-The plot has none of the clever meta stuff that MGS 2 did (also badly written and bullshit) or isn't as well structured as Snake Eater.
-Nanomachines
-The gameplay takes a massive nosedive from act 3 forward. The opening 2 acts are an evolution of what MGS3 did, and then the game becomes this linear bullshit tailing mission, has you sneaking against literal robots who aren't that interesting to fight or sneak around, and the final area is a joke.
-Nanomachines
-The boss fights are garbage outside of the final ocelot fight/Metal Gear throwdown
-Nanomachines
-Raiden became corny as ****
-Nanomachines
-Meryl/Johnny
-Nanomachines
-David Hayters over acting
-Nanomachines
-The post credits ending being a massive load of horse shit
-Mother fucking Nanomachines

Video game stories are shit, like way the **** below film, literature, and television. If you think otherwise you're an idiot or ignorant to those mediums. And Metal Gear Solid 4's plot is shit by video game standards, so put that into perspective. Metal Gear has always been badly written, but here and there it has its moments of being the right kind of pulp with 1 and 3, and on some level I at least get what everyone thinks is so cool about MGS2 (it's way too fucking stupid to hold under any scrutiny, but that's a different debate for another day), but 4? That's just bullshit from start to finish.

The Phantom Pain will be excellent though. That said I don't hate MGS4, it's a good game, and you can do way the **** worse. Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto 4 that year, and that game is a double stuffed shit barrel. With all that said Metal Gear Rising is the best use of the Metal Gear lore, due to that game treating Metal Gear lore with exactly the kind of respect it deserves: None what so ever.

The only thing I liked about it was returning to MGS1 for a little bit

I liked it. It isn't my favorite in the series but I liked it.

Great game. Maybe the most underrated game, by gamers, of last gen. Some of the best action stealth gameplay out there.

MGS4 is the only MGS game that really just feels like a movie. Once you get to ACT 3, most of the game is on auto pilot with cutscenes and scripted sequences.

Maybe, but I still find video game stories more impressive. The best gaming stories have managed to get a stronger emotional reaction from me compared to the best of movies and TV.

MGS4 is one of the best games of the last console generation. I had a great time with it, and I even liked the cutscenes except for some of the ones at the end where I still don`t know what was going on there. I haven't played it in a while, so maybe it's aged not so well, but at the time it was great, especially considering that when it came out the software on both HD consoles was weak.

10/10 is a fair score, as long as you don't define 10/10 as 'perfect' but instead as just a prime example of its genre. It was flawed, but had it where it counts. I can't think of a single person I know that I wouldn't recommend it to.

The whole game of MGS4 was just a tribute for all the long-time fans--no more no less. It was suppose to be the end of MGS series and send it off into the sunset. It did good by the series and fans wrapping up 10 years of the journey. Truth be told though, MGS4 by itself is pretty average at best. However, if you've played MGS1-3 from each respective release day, then MGS4 becomes a great game. No the game didn't suck, it just isn't that good as a stand alone product being that it's really just a tribute and/or "fanservice" game. I love the game and believe it's very worthy of a 10/10 if you've stuck played the series from 1-4 when it came out respectively in 1998, 2001, 2004, then 2008. The only thing I didn't like about the game was that Snaked lived and that the game didn't serve it's purpose of ending the "Solid" series (after the MGS5 announcement of course).

I believe it is a 10/10 and it is the only game in the series I've played. I've spoken to fans who say I should get MGS3, which I should probably get to at some point

@jg4xchamp: MGS Rising has Mexican Jar Jar Binks so its automatically way worse than any main MGS game.

The story was convoluted and game itself was overhyped crap. *pulls cardboard box out of ass and hides in corner

MGS3 is pretty much the best of the series from my perspective. If you enjoyed 4 even without playing the others, I would suggest you pick up the HD collection and play each game in order from 1-3. This way you can see how much each game improves upon the other progressing forward and wrapping it up in 4. That moment though, when MGS4 placed me back into Shadow Moses from MGS1 in full HD and the music plays. OMG, as a fan--it left me breathless to say the least, I can't fully describe how I felt but it was great--LOL unfortunately you will never have that feeling. Still remember being 10 when I played MGS1 and now 20 (2008) playing MGS4. Maybe it's why MGS4 will always be a 10/10 for me. I basically grew up with it in a sense--seeing where the "Solid" series started and how it ended with a bang with crazy fanservice. It was worth it being a fan for 10 years. That moment too when I got into REX!!!! Lmfao. I could go on all day.

Out of MGS4's 20-hour playtime, only 10 hour is actual "playing" time.

It's a great 10 hours, imo. Cutscenes are fucking shit though. Absolutely disgusting. In fact, MGS4 is almost certainly better in the second playthrough because you skip all the cutscenes. Thank god they at least had the courtesy to let us do that. Unlike some other games *cough* FFX *cough*

I don't think it's perfect as a game though. Just great. But it's been a while since I played it so yeah. I might not like it as much now.

Easy, the game was the second coming of Christ according to cows back then because they needed to have something to tout worth getting the system for and they largely succeeded at creating an Emperor's New Clothes social phenomenon around this game where everybody knew it was shit but refused to say so to save face, and at the time, the Sony camp needed any victory it could get. Critic's too were largely complicit in this farce, maybe for other reason, either to appease crying fanboys over accusations of bias (remember all the "I'm leaving this site for their horrible PS3 reviews and articles"), to appease paid advertisers, or maybe because they abode by contracts regarding reviews for early review copies, or to tow the line. I wouldn't go so far as to say this was the first time, I think Resistance Fall of Man positive reception was largely constructed to save the PS3 from one of the most abysmal critical launch line-up performances ever, one that could have seriously jeopardized its later success, so instead it was hailed as Sony's Gears equivalence on the PS3. I just don't think anybody could bare to put the nails in the coffin regarding the reverence held for Sony after two wonderful console generations prior. But I digress.

I feel the same way about MGS4 now as I did then, nothing has changed for me. It isn't a case of standards changing that some look back on it with disdain, I imagine people only speak up now because talking shit about the game wouldn't warrant an army of fanboys wanting to tear your head off like it would of years prior, provoking then the kind of reaction I'd expect someone to get if they were to travel to Iran or Saudi Arabia and shat on the Quran in broad daylight while dressed as the Prophet Mohammad; people would want blood. MGS4 was always overwhelmingly bad, and had horribly written cutscenes that went on forever, back to back, without any substantive gameplay to save it. However, it was certainly an impressive tech demo of the PS3's capabilities, but nothing more.

If people feel otherwise, that it's an exceptionally great game and all, well, there's like a million MGS4 videos on YouTube. Show us some of these utterly awesome 10/10 worthy gaming moments to make any skeptics of the series greatness change their minds.

Game was f****** amazing when I first played it, it was my very first MGS game so storywise I didn't understand much but the gameplay...I've completed it a total of 14 times, most I've ever done for any game. I have the mgs collection but didnt have time to play it last holidays. Hopefully I will be able to play it sometime soon before the release of mgs5.

The only MGS game that wasn't clunky and had some what decent controls compared to the prior games. I literally hated the all previous games, they play like total shit.

8 hr movie

/thread