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I'm willing to accept that MGS4 might somehow be a good game, or even that some of its scores brush up to perfect tens - but this has got to be a joke, right? If this review is to be taken literally, MGS4 is the single best video game that ever has been and ever will be.

Well, it is IGN.

As far as im concerned IGN lost all credibility as a reviewer a long time ago and this is only to be expected, you only need enough marketing to get a 10 from them.

Darth Yoshi wrote:Well, it is IGN.

And Gamespot. And Famitsu. The only ones posting reasonable (ie: not 95+% drooling) reviews are Eurogamer, Edge and arguably GamesRadar.

Just how much did Konami pay them?

In case you spent the last quarter of last year living under a rock, Gamespot is confirmed to be a review selling joke of a site, shouldn't even be quoted or considered as a valid example for anything game review related, ever.

Thanks for the lulz, Bounty. I was curious how it would be recieved by the nerd-fellating review factories, but even I'm surprised it gets a bigger happy ending than GTA4.

I watched the Gamespot video review for a laugh.

They talk about how it seamlessly blends narrative and gameplay. By use of cutscenes.

Yes. You read that right.

Personally, I've never seen the appeal of Metal Gear, I played Solid and it was fun, but nothing amazing in my opinion.

That said, the "stealth in a combat zone" stuff that I've seen of MGS4 looks great (shows off what Splinter Cell has tried to do a few times, but looks like it's done it properly), and damned if that isn't the kind of gmae that I'd like to play. Sadly, it's tied into one of most ridiculous plots that I've ever read and I just do not like Kojima's style.

When I get a PS3, I'll give it a go, have no doubt - but to say that it is the greatest game of all time? Hell nah.

Stark wrote:Thanks for the lulz, Bounty. I was curious how it would be recieved by the nerd-fellating review factories, but even I'm surprised it gets a bigger happy ending than GTA4.

Bah, I won't trust any review I read on MGS4 until the definitive unbiased, truthful and balanced review is written. And there's only one site to trust for that.

lol

this why instead of reading reviews i read the single player gameplay guides and watch playthroughs of games on youtube. It shatters every wank drenched myth IGN or Gamespot perpetuates. Watching the game being played in real world or reading the frustations of someone coming up with strategies of winning a level is far more wiser than trusting paid hacks.

Bounty wrote:If this review is to be taken literally, MGS4 is the single best video game that ever has been and ever will be.

And how many times do you get games that boast that comment on the game box? Game review outlets lost all their credibility in my eyes the first time I read the "best game ever!" comment.... I think it was back in the times of Rise of the Triad and Duke Nukem 3d.

I might be able to accept that a new game can possibly score a 10/10 overall as a great game of its time, but a perfect 10 on every aspect? I would think the reviewer is overdazzled by the new game or perhaps is just lazy. 10/10 scores make me very wary.

Personally, I found the best way is to scan forums looking for possible play-halting bugs and other in-game annoyances before deciding whether to buy a game or not.

And how many times do you get games that boast that comment on the game box?

I expect a game box to overhype a game. I had hoped a supposedmy independent review site had marginally higher standards - or, indeed, any standards at all. Call me naive.

I think the summary of the Eurogamer review is being borne out in the general reviews for this game.

If you're an MGS fan, you'll spunk your pants.

If you're not, it's a solid game with a few odd design choices.

I thought it was understood that reviews for anticipated games on mainstream sites are actually evaluations of the game's PR and marketing campaign rather than the game itself. Are there still people out there who are surprised by this?

I may get it. It all depends on whether or not I want to splurge on a PS3 when there's so many other interesting things to buy for cheaper prices. Until then, I'm sticking with the 360 and PS2.

This review is completely accurate and Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best game I've ever been paid money by Konami to spread viral marketing about.

I saw some gameplay from MGS4 last night. The graphics really are spectacular, and the music is excellent. I wasn't actually playing, so I can't attest much to the gameplay.

But I'd hardly call the line delivery "perfect". Snake's delivery in particular continues to piss me off ("Whooooooooooooooooooooo arrrrrrrrrrrreeeeee youuuuuuuuuu", Christ, does the guy have to draw out every last syllable?), and the dialogue in general wasn't all that great. What most videogames need is a guy who reads over the final draft of the script and says "Real people don't talk like this" and then translates from writer-speak to real person-speak.

The mistake a lot of videogame dialogue writers in general seem to make is that they write a formal essay and then have the characters read it. As Harrison Ford once famously complained to George Lucas during the shooting of Star Wars, "You can write this stuff, but you can't make me say it." It'd be nice if more actors were the same way.

Don't get me wrong. It's not bad for a videogame in terms of dialogue. Much of it is quite good. But perfect? Hardly.

I like David Hayter's voice acting of Solid Snake, it reminds me of Shatner doing Captain Kirk, and I'm (proud? embarrassed? haven't decided) to say that I'm one of the few people in the world who thinks Captain Kirk's acting is fucking perfect.

I expect I'll like MGS4 a lot, I played through each game 6-8 times, never skipped a cutscene (did skip codec/radio convos, though), and thought that every successive game was better than the last. Of course, I'm also cognizant of some of the flaws of each game, as well as why other people wouldn't like it as I do. As big a fan as I am, I would never call them the greatest game ever, that title belongs to Perfect Dark.

The only question is why people are surprised by this.

Whatever lingering respect I had for general gaming reviews was extinguished when I read a few weeks ago MTV's week-long special examining game reviews. In one article some reviewers were bitching to the author that they don't get long enough in advance before release day to play games. Notably, I recall someone (I think it was a Gamespot reviewer) complaining that for Ocarina of Time they had just over 2 days from first game play to final published review. Really? Why should I take your pretentious accurate-to-a-tenth rating seriously, then?

It's hard to believe that blasting through games as part of a desperate effort to publish a review before deadline is a good incubator for critical thought; I think that partially explains the groupthink among certain titles.

I might be willing to give MGS4 a chance as one of the first games to grace my Playstation 3 with if it's actually got some excitement this time. Most of the reviewers are talking about some kind of GoW style "over the shoulder" shooting system that you can play the whole game with if you so chose. But the descriptions aren't too good because most of the reviewers just wank off to it without describing it.

I could swear this whole situation with gaming journalism reminds me of another game. I can't quite seem to put a finger on it though.

It sounds to me like almost no one in this thread has actually played MGS4 in any depth, you might want to do that before bashing the reviews.

I don't know if I'd give it a perfect 10 (I just started playing yesterday and have only gotten through an hour or so), but so far it is a serious cut about the previous MGS games with cinematic quality, level of detail and sound design are concerned. As far as the gameplay, I'm not really used to it yet so I can't comment, but it seems well thought out for the most part.

It sounds to me like almost no one in this thread has actually played MGS4 in any depth, you might want to do that before bashing the reviews.

No amount of hand-on experience will convince me that a review made up of perfect tens, with reviewer's comments that sound like a marketing powerpoint, is worthy of anything but bashing. I'll happily accept that a game can get close to a 100% score, but once it gets 100% chances are you've just got an okay game with wheelbarrows of pungent hype dumped over it.

You know, it never ceases to amaze me that this comes up for every game that gets a 10/10.

You don't see people decrying Empire, say, for giving a movie five stars, and saying that that must mean it's a perfect movie never to be bettered, why do you do it with games?

Vendetta wrote:You know, it never ceases to amaze me that this comes up for every game that gets a 10/10.

You don't see people decrying Empire, say, for giving a movie five stars, and saying that that must mean it's a perfect movie never to be bettered, why do you do it with games?

How many movies get five stars (ie, fall into the 4-to-5-star bracket), and how many games get 100% (ie, fall into the 99-to-100-percent bracket)?