{"id":250,"date":"2008-06-20T21:37:16","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T21:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decisionproblem.com\/seminar\/?p=250"},"modified":"2009-04-21T03:16:12","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T03:16:12","slug":"400-words-about-metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/?p=250","title":{"rendered":"300 Word Review &#8211; Metal Gear Solid 4:<br>Guns of the Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s clear one thing up: Hideo Kojima does not make games.<\/p>\n<p>Kojima makes media products that incorporate games. They also incorporate animated movies, as well as motion graphic novels, as well as radio dramas. Calling them &#8216;interactive movies&#8217; though would be like calling film &#8216;recorded dramatics&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>With that settled:<\/p>\n<p>As a game, <em>Metal Gear Solid 4 <\/em>is an improvement over its predecessors. By making the game more of an action game the developers give the player a more tangible decision in how they&#8217;re going to navigate the battlefield: peacefully, violently, or a creative mix. This makes it a little easier to avoid &#8216;playing the game wrong&#8217; than in previous installments. Unfortunately, the game still isn&#8217;t as snappy as it should be by now and learning the controls is tantamount to learning the oboe.<\/p>\n<p>The long and frequent cutscenes, while beautiful and tasteful, feel archaic and prove once and for all that they will soon be a thing of the past. <em>Metal Gear Solid 4<\/em> is probably about 50% slight- to non-interactive cinematic. This dooms <em>Guns of the Patriots<\/em> to be a monument to its past, as well as old video game motifs, rather than a signpost pointing the way forward.<\/p>\n<p>All this being said, I loved <em>Metal Gear Solid 4<\/em>. Having followed the series from the beginning, this game gave me something that I hadn&#8217;t felt in a long while: closure.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve often been disappointed when games have been given ambivalent endings in order to leave an opening for the inevitable, and interminable, sequels, or simply didn&#8217;t live up to the drama of their gameplay. For all its flaws <em>Metal Gear Solid 4<\/em> succeeds at drawing the convoluted, often ridiculous, storyline to a close. Which means a lot to those if us who have been following it this whole time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s clear one thing up: Hideo Kojima does not make games. Kojima makes media products that incorporate games. They also incorporate animated movies, as well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1437,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}