First things first: I don't want anyone else's MGS4 experience to be swayed by my own opinion and I do honestly think it's a good game. But that won't stop me from tearing it to pieces. Note: This blog contains big spoilers about Metal Gear Solid 4. Don't read until you've completed the game from beginning to end.

First annoyance: Raiden. The only thing worse than a pretty boy in a game is a pretty boy in a game who everyone is making out to be badass. Every time the guy was off the screen, someone asked "where's Raiden", "how can we heal Raiden", "we can't do this without Raiden". When I first saw the trailer of Raiden destroying the Gekkos in the South American street, I was annoyed with it and it's only the revelation that the Gekkos aren't the new Metal Gears that have stopped me from being as annoyed now as I was then. Even so, I still find it absolutely ludicrous that early on in the game, Snake, legendary soldier that he is, can't destroy two of them with guns but Raiden, a full-grown man in high heels with the face of a little girl, destroys a whole street of them with a sharp piece of metal. Suspension of disbelief is one thing. Accepting garbage like that is quite another. Consistently, he's shown to be better than Snake. Giving Snake advice on tracking? That annoyed me. I felt the same way when it was shown that Raiden was quicker than Snake at freezing the bombs on the Big Shell in MGS2 (so it was Snake's fault Peter Stillman died, rather than Raiden's, the more inept of the two). On Shadow Moses island, during the genuinely excellent Metal Gear Rex sequence, why did Raiden leap from Rex halfway through the base-escaping segment? As far as I can tell, there was no reason for him to. Well, that's not quite true, there was one reason; when Raiden gets crushed at the base's exit, it allowed Snake to turn around and say "Raiden!". Of course, Japanese developers wouldn't be satisfied lest their androgynous pretty boy loser gets some acknowledgement. Not to mention his single-handedly holding back of Outer Haven, which he again survived (and ruined what could've been a good analogue to the Ninja's death in MGS1). And then he came back at the end to strike FROGS soldiers with lightning. Deus Ex Machina in MGS? Who'd have thought (*cough* Fortune *cough*)!? Lastly: Ninjas suck anyway. If there's a less mature archetype for a character, I've never seen it (except maybe the crappy loner angle, which Raiden shares with such terrible characters as FF's Cloud and Squall). Raiden genuinely ruined the game for me and honestly, the best thing for him would've been the announcement during the game that he had died and just let his legend live on. He's dead to me anyway.

Annoyance number two: Snake's underuse. Why does Snake say so little in MGS4? After the first two or three acts, he's reduced to one or two sentences in all of his appearances. It's tragic to see the character that showed his knowledge of Keglinec after Sniper Wolf's defeat in MGS1, made his thoughts on VR training and live exercises clear in MGS2, reduced to saying practically nothing throughout the game. Snake's dialogue consists of three things; 1) Telling other people the situation and taking advice. 2) Asking questions. 3) Joke lines. All three of these things put the spotlight on the other characters and the joke lines just make Snake look like a buffoon. This was not the Snake I wanted to see for his final outing. We don't see him pondering his imminent death, even though he surely knows his end is near. We don't see Snake react to Liquid as anything more than "the bad guy". We don't even see Snake get nostalgic upon his return to Shadow Moses island, as so many of us surely did.

Three: Nostalgia. MGS4 practically feeds on the stuff. Naturally, the plot stems from MGS2 and 3 but that's not what I mean. In some cases, the nostalgia is very welcome; Shadow Moses island is, without a doubt, the high point of the game. In other cases, it's not so welcome; why couldn't Konami learn from their mistakes and let Raiden die in a ditch? The weird thing about the nostalgia is that there's either too much of it or not enough. I would've loved to see the other bits of Shadow Moses island that I remember so fondly, such as Psycho Mantis' office, the room where we fought Vulcan Raven and the super-long elevator leading to it. And if we're going for nostalgia, why not more? As far as I can tell, the only reason there wasn't a visit to the ruins of Outer Heaven is that Kojima isn't a fan of the first two games (and perhaps it's not as recognisable). Other bits I could do without. Screaming Mantis' revelation of being Psycho Mantis upon her defeat. As funny as the fake Psycho Mantis trying to read the nonexistant memory card and vibrate the Sixaxis controller, it only reminded me of one thing: Psycho Mantis is gone. Which leads to:

Annoyance Four: The Beauty and the Beast unit. To be fair, these weren't too bad as boss fights (with the exception of Raging Raven, who I didn't like). As characters though, they might as well have not been there. Their only notable characterisation was a Codec call from Drebin after each Beauty's defeat. Considering each Beauty's defeat was also exactly the same, it's a disappointment. Not to mention there was practically nothing new about any of them, character-wise; they took their names from MGS1 characters and their emotions from the MGS3 Cobra unit. Their costumes were dull grey and unoriginal mech designs. They didn't hold much interest for me.

Number Five: Accents. I've mentioned this before but, while I pointed out that it was the English getting screwed over on accents, it turns out it's every nationality except America. The Middle-Eastern militia sound like all-American patriots. As do the South American rebels and the Eastern European freedom fighters. Come on . . . it's not like voice actress Jennifer Hale can't do an English accent (KOTOR's Bastila Shan is a flawless example) so why is Naomi clearly American? Not only a retcon but a disappointing one. I was excited when it looked like Major Zero was going to make an appearance. How did it feel to find he had no speaking lines? Frustrating isn't a strong enough word . . .

Sixth: Johnny. Johnny should never have been more than a background character and this really proves it. Another annoying pretty boy. Would Meryl fall in love with him if he was the 30-something plain guy that I imagined he would be by now? Of course not. And has anyone else noticed that once his gorgeous face was revealed, his diarrhoea stopped (as immature and bad a running joke it was, it's severely bad continuity)? Undoubtedly another case of Japanese developers portraying their pretty boy characters as infallible, just as they did with Raiden's crappy ninjaness, as Squaresoft did with making FF8's Squall Balamb Garden's commander, despite being drastically inexperienced and just as Capcom did with DMC's resident loser, Nero (and before him, Dante).

Annoyance Seven: Anime influences. Silly things like a camera close-up and whooshing sound after the tiniest movements (it happened when before the assault on Outer Haven when Drebin moved his arm and lifted his head). It happens with other stuff too, like bad jokes and dialogue. And then there's "Akiba" (a ludicrous name) and Raiden, the two ludicrous androgynous boys, Raiden's supposedly "cool" ninja armour and moves (I, for one, am not impressed by silly sword slashes) and that bloody awful dialogue line in every Japanese game where one character says another character's name and nothing else, supposedly to represent an emotional moment (for example, "Otacon . . .", "Raiden . . ." or, at its most ridiculous, "Big Mama . . ."). As far as I'm concerned, MGS could be infinitely improved with movie influences, which is what so much of it is based on anyway.

Eighth one: Dialogue. When Big Boss finally makes an appearance, I was jumping for joy. Not only was the definitive villain finally in the game but he looked great too. But what happened? Practically nothing. We didn't hear a word about Outer Heaven or Zanzibar, Big Boss' new and equally ignoble death (by Foxdie; one of his others was being burned using an aerosol can) or his reaction to his dream being realised, or what we were led to believe was his dream; a soldier's place being on the battlefield and eternally receiving recognition in the world. No, Big Boss was just there to round off the story rather than give us any insight at all. True, maybe Snake's underuse comes under this category too, since there was so much Snake could've added to this conversation but didn't (if I remember correctly, he said two sentences). There was even less reaction to Big Boss than there was to Liquid. That's not the only case of bad dialogue, of course; "Eye Have You" is a particularly cringe-inducing line. MGS is at its best when scientific or militaristic, so why can it do that so well but screw up the more human conversations so badly?

Number Nine: The Codec. The Codec has always been a magnificent part of MGS, great to use if you ever feel like having a sandwich. Can someone tell me why there's only two frequencies, Otacon and Rose? Neither of whom have anything particularly good to say. If there are any others, I'd like to know, but it's a disappointment as it is. For the final game in the series, I would've thought more would be offered, not less.

Ten: Aiming, Enemies and Weaponry. The more observant amongst you will notice I haven't at all mentioned anything about gameplay. That's because MGS is as good as ever where and when it really matters. But there are flaws. A lot of flaws that make me think MGS4 is the worst game of the series. Put simply, I didn't buy MGS for some over-the-shoulder run-and-gun game. That's not MGS. Throw in the Rat Patrol unit and the FROGS soldiers and it's a standard (or perhaps even substandard) shooter. After what I just said about the final game in the series offering more instead of less, it might make me seem like a hypocrite to complain about the weaponry but, in this case, it sames to go for quantity instead of quality (despite some exceptions, such as the Railgun, Stun Knife and all non-lethal weapons). It's all very well putting weapons like the Sleep Satchel in the game but MGS isn't as "sandbox" as it used to be. Gone are the days of MGS1 and 2 where footsteps were silent and enclosed corridors were everywhere. Usually, gameplay is what you make of it but the game seems far more limited than it used to be. The enemies are the same; the Gekkos are basically Metal Gear Ray-lite, with the same method of defeating them. It's a shame that so many games do this now, offering tactics to beat enemies rather than just making them hard as nails.

I don't want to seem too down on MGS4. It's good. Very good. But it could and should be more. I love the OctoCamo and face masks (although I yearn for a Liquid one, or special abilities for them, similar to the Cobra Unit Camo in MGS3). I love that there's so many extras added into the game. I love the boss fights. I love the CQC (even though, again, there could be more). I love Sunny. I love the Metal Gear fight, unquestionably the highlight of the game. It all goes to make one hell of a game. But it's a shame that so many of the other "one hell of a game" qualities have been ditched.

Oh yeah, I might've forgot to mention it but, um, Raiden? He's a tad annoying.

I bought MGS4 a few hours ago and, so far, I'm not impressed. Let's just say, if I wanted a squad-based shooter, I'd be playing something like Counter-Strike or Gears Of War or any number of the other squad-based shooters that I've hated over the years.

Seriously, what's happened to the stealth? Why has it been ditched in favour of repetitive, generic shooting segments with dull, run-of-the-mill weaponry? Why is the game so focused on standard set-pieces instead of the clever and engrossing stealth areas of old? I'm also disappointed with the annoying over-the-shoulder camera angle. I hate that so many games use that now, as well as Gears Of War's ridiculous cover system. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one game that has managed to pull that off well -- Uncharted -- and only two that have managed to do over-the-shoulder camera angles well -- Uncharted and Resident Evil 4. And even though RE4 came first and did it better, it always galls me to see Gears Of War get credited for it. Same with God Of War and its bemani-like button bashing and sequences (which are way too overdone, by the way) while Dark Cloud did it before it.

That's not the only problem with MGS4 though. Can anyone tell me why Meryl is so damn sexist? Why it's so funny to see her punching Johnny (who I refuse to call "Akiba" -- it's a ludicrous name)? Why it's okay for her blame the Colonel for being with a younger woman when she was lusting after Snake in MGS1? Why is it okay for that b!tch to call men "selfish egotistical pigs" when the Colonel is a war hero, has probably saved no less than millions of lives, got Meryl her job in the Middle East, had her life saved in Shadow Moses and yet she calls him selfish!?

And unfortunately, we get a cinematic after (or even halfway into) every single segment. I know MGS is known for its cinematics but come on . . . every single other game managed to go without them for longer. Then again, every single other game had more than one stealth section every hour . . .

EDIT: Before I forget, I can't end this blog without mentioning Drebin's ridiculous "Eye Have You" line, or the fact that Britain is now woefully underrepresented in MGS. Liquid Ocelot has Ocelot's voice (which is good, to be fair) and Naomi is now American instead of English (which is stupid and annoying). And speaking of Naomi, how come she looked older in MGS1 than she does now?

To sum it up for those who don't want to wait for my opinion; it was good. Not great but good.

Ultimately, I thought it started well but, by the last big fight scene, it seemed rather like standard comic book fare. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with that at all but Iron Man from the very beginning sets itself up to be something different. And it is, for a while. The dialogue is casual and natural, the characters are all interesting and their relationships seem very real. This is all good but also seems to be its downfall; when you have characters that seem this real and behave so naturally, you'll have to stray further to make these normal people into superheroes and supervillains. And I don't think it was done enough. Tony Stark wasn't set up to be enough of a hero. Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane's hate and dislike for one another wasn't set up enough (and Stane's acts of supervillainy seemed very generic and standard). It seemed like a little too far to stretch my imagination to fit these two very normal, very reasonable characters into the hero and villain roles they had been put into. They were great characters but average heroes and villains.

A few final notes: the scenes in Afghanistan at the beginning of the movie were great and I think Shaun Toub's role as Yinsen might be the greatest underrated performance ever. The introduction of SHIELD is kind of shaky (and God, couldn't they find a better actor for that main agent?) but if the scene after the credits doesn't give you a tingly feeling, you're probably not human.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I have GTA4. Yay!

I'll skip the preamble this time: I bought Condemned 2 on Friday (the day it was released in the UK) and completed it last night. I've just switched on my PS3 to find that my save file is corrupted and now I have to start all over again. All those levels . . . all the precious unlockables . . . all gone, for God knows what reason. That's my weekend wasted.

Well I think you all now know what I'll be spending my day doing.

I'll say to start, just to ease the minds of any DMC4 fans, I think it's a good game. But they could've paid more attention to what they were shoving into the story. If you've never played DMC4 but are reading this anyway, it'll be very confusing.

Case in point: The Order. The entire storyline revolves around these guys and hardly any of it makes any sense. Why did Agnus -- or any of the Order -- reveal themselves to Nero? Why did they start attacking him? If they hadn't interfered, they could have fooled Nero into thinking they were still on his side. The same goes for when Kyrie was kidnapped.

That's a minor plothole compared to the rest of the Order though; close to the end of the game it's mentioned that the Yamato sword can open and close the door to the demon realm (or something like that). Given that the Order is so anti-demon (more on that later), when I heard this I obviously thought, "oh, so they're going to close the gate permanently, possibly to give themselves unrivalled control of the world?" Turns out no, they're opening it to let the demons flood out into the world. What!?

When Agnus opened the gate to the demon realm, he took Yamato to a place underneath the Order's temple/cathedral and jammed it into the ground. It's never mentioned what this place is or how it's oh-so conveniently underneath the Order's place of worship. It isn't mentioned how the Order know what this place is either or what it does (let's face it, we didn't see any instructions carved into the walls).

Now fair enough, this is one that actually ended up making sense; the Order opened the door to the demon realm so they could kill all the demons themselves, thereby getting recognition from all the civilians that see the amazing feat. The problem is, DMC3's The Lady made a cameo shortly after the player switches to Dante and she said something along the lines of "the Order is known only to its members", something that the game's manual confirmed. So what's the point in that if they're just going to reveal themselves to the world anyway?

And while they're saving all these people, Sanctus, the bad guy, says "Repent". Fair enough, you might think, but since when has the Order had the concept of repentance? Supposedly, Sparda is their God, so why ask people to repent?

Sparda being the Order's God is a plothole in itself. The Order take an anti-demon stance because he did the same. And yet Sparda was a demon. Was this just glossed over or was it something that was explained but I wasn't paying attention?

Because then we come to Nero. Someone with a demon arm but he was still allowed into the Order. At the beginning of the game, Nero kept his arm in a sling, presumably to hide the fact but it still makes no sense; don't the Order do a medical? Or a background check? I know they're not exactly too modern but you'd think they'd notice if one of their members -- the only one who doesn't wear white, therefore sticking out like a sore thumb -- was part-demon. And why was Nero even in the Order anyway? I think it's implied that he joined because of Kyrie but it's more than a little clear that he's not the best . . . Orderist, or whatever the term is for someone of the religion. Which leads to a less intriguing plot; Nero didn't feel any big sense of betrayal because he wasn't that involved to begin with. That would've made for a better storyline, made it a revenge piece and given the payoff much more gravitas. But no, once again the pretty boy hero is portrayed as flawless and infallible, as with all annoying young Japanese videogame characters (see every Final Fantasy hero ever).

Also, I might've missed the answer to this but was it ever settled as to why Nero and Dante look so much alike? I seem to recall some mention that Nero was another descendant of Sparda but I might be wrong. By that point in the game, I had completely switched off. Even though my body was still watching the cut-scenes, my mind was at the peep show a few streets away.

Oh yeah, and I just found this on Wikipedia:

"Upon the release of the original Devil May Cry, Dante's personality received positive reviews, IGN described the character as a "maverick head-hunter" as well as a "believable" character"

I've never laughed and cringed so much at a single statement in my life. I understand the kind of fanboys who love to portray every garbage, anime-inspired Japanese game smelling of roses but Dante, aside from FF7's Cloud and MGS' Raiden, is the single worst videogame character in existence. Yeah, it's really believable when a character says "flock off, feather face", like Dante did in DMC1. It's so believable when a character does a half-baked flamenco dance when getting a new weapon, as he does in DMC4.

Oh yeah, and this one too:

"The designs used for characters in Devil May Cry 4 were described as resembling a "legion of seraphim the likes of which gamers have never seen before, and it puts an interesting spin on what all of our preconceptions of 'good' are in a video game"

I can't tell if this one is a joke or not. If any game puts a spin on a gamer's preconceptions of "good", it isn't Devil May Cry 4. Even without the plotholes, I've never seen such a clichéd and tired storyline in my life. It was practically lifted from Resident Evil 4, only Leon wasn't a member and they had the good grace to refer to Los Illuminados as being a cult. Not to mention the characters. They were all stereotypes. In fact they were stereotypes of stereotypes. The stuttering and laughing villains, rolled into one character (Agnus). The moody young hero (Nero, or if you gave him black hair you might as well call him Squall). Still, at least they don't go to the depths of sticking someone like DMC3's Jester in the game.

There is practically nothing about Devil May Cry 4 that will provoke any deep debate over good and evil. Leave that to a game like Bioshock, Max Payne, Half-Life or even Heavenly Sword. DMC is ridiculously immature and, for the moment, all the better for it.

As a footnote, I messed around with Photoshop a bit more and came up with this. My modern interpretation of Turrican.

I'm way behind the times so I only just got Photoshop. I didn't really have any interest in getting it before but the temptation of making Lara Croft chubby was far too great:



I've still got a bit to learn but I think I did a decent job. Compare it to the original:

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1268/karimalaracroft100595dro3.jpg

Before anyone asks, no, I don't have anything better to do with my time. Suggestions are welcome. I've been thinking of getting a new signature. I've had a Spiderman 3 Harry Osborn one for a while now. Since before the movie came out, in fact. So if anyone has any ideas for what would look good, I'd be happy to try a few out.