Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

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Nostalgia or Notstalgia? - Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

The title is lame, I know. This is my feeble attempt to create some kind of themed series thing, in which I’ll be playing through games that I loved in my childhood and seeing whether or not they hold up to the incredibly high standards of modern video gaming or if I just loved them because I was a child and children are stupid and love anything.

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is a stealth game released in 2003. It's almost unique amongst stealth games in that it features ninjas, which is somewhat perplexing as ninjas are not only known for their stealth prowess but are also fucking awesome and should be featured in everything but whatever. The game follows the epic tale of two ninjas, Rikimaru and Ayame, in their quest to stop an evil guy from being evil; this is exactly the kind of plot you’d expect from a game set in feudal Japan, an evil spirit called Tenrai is seeking to destroy the world or take over the world or steal all the sushi or something using the 3 “totally not Dragonballs and we don’t even like Dragonball anyway so go away” Jewels. The presentation of the story is similar to something like Resident Evil 2, we see similar events from the perspectives of both of the characters and the canon is a mixture of both. I’m fully aware that this is a sequel and I’m sure that the events of the previous games do have some bearing on the plot of this title but it seems to stand up well enough on its own, making only subtle but noticeable ‘winking at the camera’ references to past events.

The atmosphere of this game can charitably be described as inconsistent, it seems to be attempting to maintain a dark and epic atmosphere but undermines this somewhat with all of the guards speaking with hilarious stereotypical Asian accents, the kind your parents come out with while pulling their eyelids and singing the Chopsticks theme, and the several out of place comedy cutscenes, the implied molestation gag at the start is HILARIOUS and totally fits. Overall though, the tone matches what most people would imagine feudal Japan to look like, the buildings all have screen doors and lavish golden ornaments and pictures of dragons on the walls and especially later in the game, when shit’s getting real, the general feel of hostility and intimidation on the part of the game increases. I certainly understand the need to sucker people in with bright lights and rape gags, the developers understand their audience at least, but it’s also pleasant to see a gradual shift in feel as the story progresses. The music is particularly worthy of praise. Despite being what one might call standard sounding traditional Japanese music it’s done so well that you can’t fault it, I’d certainly want this soundtrack playing at all times if I were a ninja!

You’re given a choice between the characters to begin with but there are only very subtle differences between the two of them. Rikimaru is slower but stronger and Ayame is faster but weaker. You know, the same distinctions that Capcom always make between genders. Likewise, their mission sets are very similar, it pulls the same trick as Devil May Cry 2 in making you play all of the male characters levels in a different order and do some of them backwards as a female; I guess everyone decided in 2003 that games just weren't long enough but didn’t have the commitment to do anything about it that didn’t involve copy and pasting. There’s also a third bonus character to unlock when you finish the game but that’ll just be a nice surprise for when you get there. The gameplay itself is actually fairly strong; the controls are simple third person fare, a moveable camera on the right stick, the ability to press yourself against a wall by running into it, an easy to aim grappling hook. Bread and butter stuff, but you’ll certainly never get yourself caught because you’re too busy messing around with complex control schemes *cough*MGS*cough*

Most of the gameplay is focused on sneaking through a variety of levels including villages, fortresses and castles but Tenchu makes the same mistake as many other stealth games in that the stealth is not mandatory. There are a few levels in which you’re not allowed to kill anyone or all of the enemies are undead but for the most part killing patrols is not only a viable option but seemingly encouraged, given that dispatching enough enemies with obscenely violent and thankfully varied “Stealth Kills” in each level unlocks an extra ability. I’d have thought that a ninja game of all things might have a mandatory stealth focus but I’m not a professional game developer so what do I know? I’m not saying that the heavy focus on killing isn't fun of course, just a little out of place with the general theme of the game.

The game also gives you the option to indulge in a vast array of gadgets, ranging from blowdarts and poison rice to mines and flaming shuriken. I have to say though, as nice as it is to have a little variety with my weapon choices, many of them are somewhat cumbersome and difficult to use and it’s often a far simpler option to just stealth kill an enemy than it is to place poison rice in their patrol area, escape to a safe distance, wait for them to eat it and then watch them slowly die. Of course I appreciate the enthusiasm on the part of the developers in creating such an array of tools to use but I never found myself using more than health potions and a few darts to get through the actual game and everything else got relegated to bored piss-about fun. But, you know, they’re there if you want to use them. A somewhat disappointing aspect of this game is the boss fights. See, the controls are far more suited to sneaking and killing enemies before they’ve seen you than they are to heavy combat. There’s very little strategy involved other than “attack the thing” and too often the fights become exercises in button mashing. I maybe would have preferred some clever stealth-based puzzle-type bosses but maybe I’m just too demanding, who knows?

Overall, I’m probably not as in love with this game as I used to be but it hasn’t lost too much of its charm over the years and is still a very enjoyable experience. Plus, ninjas. Ninjas, man!

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

To begin with, let me just say that I really did enjoy this game, there aren’t too many games that I’ll immediately play again the day after I finish them like I did with this one, and that despite the seemingly negative nature of the upcoming pedantry, this is probably now my second favourite entry of the series. No lie.

Shattered Memories is described as a “reimagining” of the original Silent Hill game, but in all honesty it bears very little resemblance to the original, beyond the fact that both games feature a man who can’t drive very well and has lost his daughter it’s pretty much night and day. I wouldn’t say it’s too outlandish to consider SM a brand new entry in the series, as I do, and to suggest that the implied association with the first game is purely to draw in the nostalgia crowd who (rightly) thought Origins and Homecoming were bullshit and to ease them into the idea of having to play a “new” Silent Hill game without any sense of fear and self-loathing.

Yes, Climax do have some balls, it seems. They certainly weren’t worried about “doing the original justice” or “keeping the die-hards satisfied” with this remake, as pretty much everything is totally different, besides the aforementioned premise and a few character names from the original, the Otherworld is now blue and icy, there’s no combat and the exploration and puzzle solving elements have been given a severe trimming down. In fact, very few of the established elements of Silent Hill are even present in SM. See, balls! Like fucking grapefruits!

The gameplay itself is divided into 2 distinct sections, exploration through the town and chase sequences. During the exploration sections, you, Harry Mason, wander through various dark buildings and streets with a flashlight. That’s it. Sounds thrilling, right! These sections are pretty much linear; they are given some semblance of a sandbox feel by the inclusion of various mementos and photo opportunities left by strangers most of the time it’s just moving from A to B, and the quickly established fact that these sections feature no monsters or dangers of any kind make them sound as exciting as dry toast. And yet, these sections, as well as the story, are what make the game feel like a Silent Hill title, and are actually my favourite in the entire game. The traditional Silent Hill atmosphere is strongest in these parts, and there’s just something very chilled and relaxing about travelling through the snow with soft, beautiful music playing, knowing that, for now, at least, you’re safe. No homo. This is a very underutilised methodology in horror games, earlier Silent Hill and Resident Evil games (Nemesis, in particular) worked on the premise that you could be attacked any place, any time, and by including long periods of complete safety, SM creates a false sense of security that the save rooms in RE really cannot match.

Although, this isn’t to say that SM has completely abandoned established horror practice, as the transitions to the Otherworld, while not always impossible to predict, are fairly sharp and jarring, taking you from seemingly safe locations, such as bedrooms and living rooms, to icy, nightmare land, and these transitions usually made me “jump” more than most of the actual monsters, which isn’t saying much, as an adorable puppy licking my face and waggling its tail at me made me jump more than the monsters in SM. I’m really not sure what happened there, pretty much every other element of these chase sequences was done well, the controls are tight and dependable, easily outstripping similar sequences that I’ve played recently in Yakuza 4 and LA Noire in terms of usability and not making me cry with frustration. The environments are challengingly maze-like but sufficiently navigable and the music and camera work give a strong sense of impending doom. And yet, all of this is undermined by the pathetic looking, whimpering cuddly toys you’re running away from. I’m not sure if this was the developer’s aim but I actually felt like a bit of a girl for running away from enemies who are trying to snuggle me to death, to the point where I expected Harry to be wearing pigtails and a pink bra in the next cut scene. The reason being chased in RE3 was scary was because the guy chasing you was a fucking huge monstrosity with a rocket launcher and a massive impaling tentacle. Now, say what you like about RE’s lack of subtlety in comparison to SH but fuck, that guy was scary! I mean, even Pyramid Head had a giant phallic knife. Because of the absolute lack of threat posed by the enemies, these sections fall from being “tense and heart pounding” to “mildly irritating.” Shame really, Silent Hill has always had such good monsters, and maintaining this tradition would have benefited this title in particular, perhaps more so than any of the others.

Another non SH addition to the series is the intermittent therapy sessions, during which you’ll be asked a wide variety of questions about your personality and your feelings on topics such as sex, death and family life, and the game will, apparently, use these answers to create a “unique experience.” Now, I only played the game twice, answering honestly the first time and lying about everything the second time, and there were admittedly some differences between the two playthroughs. Some of them are very easy to predict, for example the female characters were wearing more revealing outfits when I said that I’d been unfaithful (I haven’t, don’t worry!) and some less so, I was given differing routes through the first section, for example, but for the most part the experiences were mostly the same. It’s a very promising step for gaming in general, having your individual choices impact gameplay in subtle ways but I can’t help but feel that it could have been used in more extensive and impressive ways than simply changing outfits. Also, despite having elements of cut-scenes and normal world play change based on your answers, the Otherworld sections always stay 100% the same, every time, and I would suggest that having vast portions of the game unaffected by the game’s major selling point is really not a wise move. Surely, when considering the implementation of a “personalised nightmare,” someone must have asked, “Well what if people like ice and the colour blue?” I, for one, do like ice and the colour blue, which dulls the psychological impact of these sections significantly. If the game could have deduced from my answers that I’m mortally afraid of vegetables and close-ups of Stephen Merchant’s face and created a nightmare around that, then I would have been impressed. As it stands, I’m not. One last gripe I have with the therapy sessions is the fact that they are needed at all and that they are touted as a new and exciting addition to the series. At least in SH 2 and 3, I’ve always taken it as standard that my actions and behaviour would have consequences to the games progression and ending, and as such it feels like buying an album with the words “Now contains music!” written on it. Although it could be argued that previous games weren’t affected as extensively and subtly by your actions, I still don’t feel that SM does enough in this area in order for it to proudly boast it as a major selling point.

Despite all of these vast differences to previous SH games, there are areas in which SM retains similarities to earlier entries in the series, and the most obvious of these is in its storytelling. Don’t want to give too much away, mostly because I can’t, even after 2 runs most of it makes very little sense, even to a seasoned SH fan like myself, I can’t imagine how a newcomer would react to all this. Suffice it to say that everything is steeped in symbolism and that the multiple choices the game presents aren’t the only way of increasing the replay value, you pretty much need to finish the game once in order to fully comprehend all of the subtleties of its story. Trust me, it’s impressive stuff. Of course, there are multiple endings in true SH fashion but I don’t get the feeling that as much effort was put into them as in previous SH games, each one contains about 4 seconds of unique footage, which would usually make it more of a “play the game once and watch the other endings on Youtube” kinda deal, but the replay value is bolstered by the aforementioned various choices you can make and the batshit impenetrable story.

One other area in which SM retains the high standards of the previous games is in the music. I have to say that Akira Yamaoka is one of my favourite artists in general; it does him a disservice to say “He’s good for a video game composer.” I listen to his music much more than I play the games, and I downloaded this game’s soundtrack long before I even considered playing the game. The in-game music has again shifted in style to suit the tone of the game, eschewing much of the earlier trip-hop influenced sound in favour of a more chilled, piano-based sound, which suits the relaxed, wintery atmosphere of the game perfectly. The 4 vocal tracks feature probably my favourite female vocalist Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who sounds amazing as always. The main theme “Acceptance” is simple and beautiful, the rockier “When You’re Gone” and “Hell Frozen Rain” feature incredibly catchy vocal melodies and an immense guitar solo respectively and the cover of “Always On My Mind” is just… well, let’s forget about that! Suffice it to say that the Pet Shop Boys’ version is still my favourite.

Overall, I would say that SM is a game for which it is very easy to nit-pick and single out weak individual elements. Yeah, the monsters aren’t scary, the exploration could be considered boring and the psychological profiling could be just as easily replicated by playing “pin the tail on the donkey” with a deck of Tarot cards, but when considered as a complete experience it ultimately succeeds, much in the same way as Heavy Rain does. I might not be able to explain exactly why I like it, but I do, and that’s all that matters!

Silent Hill: Downpour - First Impressions/Warning

To say I'm a bit of a fan of Silent Hill would be like saying that Charlie Sheen is somewhat keen on cocaine and losing money. At least 3 of the games would go into my top 10 of all time and I could spend hours discussing the symbolism of Mary's outfits or Heather's secret guardian monster. Anyone? PLEASE!? And yet thankfully I'm not one of those weaboo hipster "Only Nihon no Silent Hillz r good" fuckheads. I've managed to enjoy most of the Western developed Silent Hill games, Shattered Memories in particular is spectacular with a story far greater than any that ever involved an evil cult. So it's not prejudice that fuels my refusal to continue to play Silent Hill: Downpour. No, it's more the fact that what I've seen so far is plaintively terrible.

The game starts with a scripted action sequence in which you, a prisoner whose parents named him Murphy Pendleton and as such almost definitely hated him from birth, murder a fat man in a shower. Sounds fun, I know, but right from the get-go I had several problems with this part. First of all, this section acts as something of a tutorial, complete with on-screen pop-ups giving you masses of instructions. Practical yes, but horribly detrimental to immersion. You see, when you boot up Silent Hill 2, there are no control charts clogging up the screen, or tutorials mandating that you use each attack 3 times to show the game you've understood it like it's your fucking nursery teacher showing you how to match shapes. It almost feels like you're actually involved and that you're maybe not playing a video game. In Downpour, it's painfully obvious that this a videogame, and not in an ironic, postmodern way like Metal Gear Solid 2 or something. This is something I've noticed in all of the Western Silent Hill games, and it takes you right out of the moment, every time. Maybe it's just indicative of the times; studios can't imagine modern casual gaming "I need something to blow up before I can get an erection" bellends tolerating having to maybe read an instruction manual for 5 minutes, which is fine in a lot of games but for a game so dependent on immersion as Silent Hill (should) be it's a poor design choice, to say the least.

Another glaring problem with this section is the fact that it shows you the murder outright. On my English course, when writing stories we were taught to "show, not tell," and of course Downpour breaks even the most basic of writing guidelines by telling and not showing. This is another sign of the times; in the past, when the writer wanted the audience to know that a murder took place, Mary's murder in SH2 for example, they built up a steady stream of clues and symbolism, culminating in some grainy black and white footage that you couldn't even be sure showed anything of significance. Downpour doesn't trust you to understand such complex symbolism and as such has you performing the murder in a well-lit room as the first fucking level. Hooray for subtelty! I suppose it might be necessary for the story to know this took place but I spent a good hour or 2 pissing around in caverns and hotel rooms, leaving a few diary entries or video clips to build up even the slightest sense of intrigue wouldn't have gone a miss here, guys! Of course, it's revealed to be a dream but I'm assured this did actually happen. I think, I didn't care enough about the story to do much research that didn't involve Wikipedia.

In a dazzling display of originality, Sir Murphy Charles Rudyard Pendleton the 3rd is being transferred to a different prison when his bus crashes and he makes a daring escape, proving definitively that there's NOTHING that modern Silent Hill games won't steal from Resident Evil and do slightly worse. The following section sees more shameful rehashing of modern action gaming tropes with the inclusion of quicktime events and moral choices, the quicktime event in which you balance Murphy as he walks over a log proving particuarly annoying with the fact that it's obscenely difficult and I died like 6 times, again kicking the immersion square in the testacles. The section does take place in a darkish forest though, the section is Resident Evil 0 was in a dark forest so it had to, which makes me picture a developer desperately pleading with the player, saying "Look, it's dark! Old SH games were dark too! See, we're still good!" A later section which invokes a similar image is one in which you run up a never-ending staircase, only to turn around and have the exit right in front of you. It's supposed to be a mindfuck, but wasting 10 minutes running up stairs with no indication that you're supposed to turn around is just irritating. In fact, in the time I spent playing Downpour there were no real mindfuck moments at all, just jump-scares and signpostings of enemies with noises from the next room, removing the thrill found in earlier games, when your radio buzzes but you can't see anything, almost entirely.

I think my real problem with Downpour as a whole is that it's aiming to be something of a Greatest Hits package. It's like the developer didn't play any of the old Silent Hill games but was given a list of things that were used in old Silent Hill games and told to use all of them. We get the rusty Otherwold from SH1, breakable weapons from Origins, chase sequences from Shattered Memories, poor combat from all of the earlier titles, a feature added to please the fans I imagine; it can't be for story purposes, this guy is a convict and I imagine more than capable with weaponry. Lack of cohesion is a massive issue, the game tries to do so much and ends up being a Jack of all trades, master of fucking nothing. It tries so hard to include all of these features to please the fans, pretty much begging them to accept this as a true Silent Hill game, but trying to do this while simultaneously trying to please modern action audiences with copious unneccesary violence and quicktime events is the game trying to have all of the cake, eat it and requesting a doggy bag, and the inclusion of these features will, ironically enough, probably turn away the Silent Hill fans the game is trying so hard to cater to. But it's not just a bad Silent Hill game, it's just a bad game in general. I can forgive quicktime events if they're done well or moral choices that make the story interesting but they're not used in any noticeably meaningful way, they're just there because the developers think they need to be. Shame, really.

After putting up with all of this bullshit, I got to part in some caverns, entered a room and heard a monster screaming in the next room. I said to myself, "if I get attacked in here I'm selling this piece of garbage." I hope whoever buys my pre-owned copy from Game has a better experience than I did.

Metal Gear Solid 4 (and a bit of MGS2)

I was wrong about something once. There, I'll never use that sentence again.

I'm referring to the fact that once upon a time, I distinctly remember myself referring to Metal Gear Solid 4 as "the greatest game ever made." I now look back on that unfortunate period of my life in the same way that most people look back on the years they spent wearing all black, listening exclusively to Marilyn Manson and being a bit rude to their probably very nice parents. Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the greatest game ever made. It's not bad, but it's far from great.

The funny thing is, when looked at solely from a gameplay perspective, MGS4 is pretty decent. Notice the absence of words like "innovative" "spectacular" and "unique" from that last sentence, words which have all been used extensively to describe previous Metal Gear Solid titles. A very under-discussed aspect of this game is just how much of a departure the gameplay is from previous MGS games, as rather than using the traditional fixed camera angles and control sceme established by earlier games, MGS4 favours a far more generic, over the shoulder 3rd person presentation, more akin to Gears of War-style action game. Similarly, the gameplay itself is far more action based than it has ever been before; the game offers some illusions to a focus on stealth, with the inclusion of a drum can and the ever-present cardboard box to hide in, but this is somewhat undermined, in the same way that a forehead Swastika tattoo would undermine your insistence that you don't mind Jewish people, by the massive arsenal of weaponry with purchaseable ammo that's made available pretty much right from the start. This means that the game falls into the same trap as 99% of all stealth games by not making the stealth mandatory, or making it an even remotely attractive option to anyone who doesn't give a fuck about PSN trophies.

The other core features of gameplay read like a checklist of generic modern AAA action gaming. Act-based structure - check. Aforementioned massive arsenal of overcompensatory firepower with virtually infinite ammo - check. Straightforward action story (or as straightforward as Kojima was ever going to manage) - check. In fact, it could be said that very little about this game is unique. I suppose the boss fight structure could be considered unique, you fight a boss with some kind of special power, then fight their weaker, feminine form, then hear their tragic backstory. This is fairly unique, until they repeat it 4 times, taking the innovation out back and putting a shotgun bullet between its eyes, the post-fight explanations of their tragic childhoods become particularly tiresome given the fact that they're barely characterised, making their admittedly horrific stories impossible to care about. Even the individual elements of the boss fights are copied from old Metal Gear games, and it's certainly not to serve an intricate plot as the repetition of older elements in MGS2 was. One boss has stealth camoflague, one you fight in a snowfield, one has psychic powers, oh come on!

And all of this is when you're even allowed to play the game! Much is made of the fact that the series contains a ratio of cutscenes to gameplay in uncomfortable favour of the former, and any hopes of change are quickly dashed with the fact you could get in a cup of tea, a hearty English breakfast and a decent length wank before you're even allowed to control Snake. So it's fairly clear that, in gameplay terms, Kojima is taking litres of the piss in this game.

But you know what, I think that was intentional. I'll be discussing this in more detail later on but essentially, after Metal Gear Solid 2, fans were unhappy with series focus on more serious topics, especially after the blockbuster Hollywood style of the original Metal Gear Solid, and demanded a return to this style, and by demanded I mean "threatened to kill Kojima if he didn't." So what essentially happened with MGS4 is Kojima thought, "They want generic action? I'll give them the most generic of all the generic action!" and made a game adhering to all of the modern action gaming stereotypes. It's the videogame equivalent of a child's tantrum, like serving your dinner guests rib-eye steak, only to have them all throw the steak away and demand Spam. So you serve them out of date Lidl value Spam, and they love that even more, if the near universal perfect review scores for this game are anything to go by. But you know what, sometimes Spam is okay. I occassionally enjoy Call of Duty as much as the next guy, and this is a succesful world-renowned game developer we're talking about, so even his metaphorical cock-slaps are still fairly fun to play.

So the gameplay is not a total dealbreaker. No, what I really have a problem with, what makes me feel that the game has absolutely no right to exist, is the story.

The main plot can be fairly simply summarised: Bad guy wants to destroy world, you stop him. Not horrible in itself, and that's not where my grievances lie, this would be fine as a stand alone game. No, most of my problems with the story of MGS4 come from the fact that it's essentially a sequel to MGS2. Now, anyone who's played and genuinely understood the story of MGS2 should understand that this in itself is a fucking ludicrous idea. In my opinion, and the general opinion of informed Metal Gear fans, MGS2 was never meant to be taken as a series of real events. Hell, it was unclear before the release of MGS4 whether or not the events actually happened; the abundance of postmodern themes in the game has lead people to theorise that the story took place in a dream or a VR simulation. Not saying I agree with this either way, but the main point of such theories is probably to suggest that the frankly ridiculous events should not be taken literally, and more that the story is more of a vehicle for it's messages and themes rather than concrete events. I'd compare it more to something like Silent Hill 2 than the first Metal Gear Solid, the events are similarly disjointed and nonsensical but they don't matter, as the themes of MGS2, much like the symoblism in Silent Hill 2, are far more important than the individual events.

The real problem I have with MGS4's story is that it took events that were never meant to be taken literally and canonised them, making it so that every single inexplicable ludicrous event in MGS2 happened in real life, exactly as it was seen. Oh dear.

I'm trying my best not to sound like a massive hipster bellend but frankly, 99% of people who played MGS2 just didn't get it. They took the events at face value, and to be fair, when you take that view of the story then all of the criticism of it being poorly constructed and nonsensical becomes completely valid. This is obviously the wrong way to look at the game, but the problem in this case is that if enough fans hold the same viewpoint towards something, it usually becomes accepted as the truth, no matter how incorrect it may be. And the widespread face value evaluation of the plot of MGS2 becoming the accepted one, coupled with the fact that Kojima recieved death threats to make a sequel to MGS2, means that we have a developer making a sequel to game he never wanted to sequelise based on an incorrect interpretation of his own fucking story. Think about that, for a second. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. No wonder he chose to bore you all to tears with hours of pointless cutscenes in MGS4, you fucking deserve no less.

So it's a game made for the fans. In fact, everything about this game feels about as fanservicey as 2 KPop stars penetrating each other on stage. Literally every member of the MGS cast comes back to make an appearance, no matter how token and pointless it may be. I mean, seriously, was anyone losing sleep at night because they didn't learn of Mei Ling's eventual fate? Her character in particular feels as if she's had a role invented for her just so she can appear, looking like some kind of supermodel as all female characters in current generation action games must by law. And on that topic, it seems Kojima was truly devoted to his AAA checklist with the entirely irrelevant shoehorning in of a sex scene between Naomi and Otacon and a romance subplot between Merly and Johnny aka. the guy who shits himself, yeah they even had to try and make him cool. Not to mention Raiden performing a vast array of amazing stunts despite his ever decreasing limb count, a meme which almost feels like an ironic apology for making him a pussy in MGS2, as if to say "You didn't like Raiden in MGS2? Fine, now he's a cool ninja! Happy, you shallow-minded bellfucks!?" It's a good thing that all of this is most likely a simple satire of Hollywood action movies, because Kojima would lose major cred with me if he expects anyone to take this shit seriously.

It's no surprise that trying to make sense of all the bullshit that came before this game is very difficult, and trying to get any kind of resolution of out it is even worse. I've watched the ending cutscenes multiple times and it really is very easy to lose the will to care about the story towards the end. What I do understand is the fact that, right to the end, the game is straining to please the fans, allowing them control Metal Gear REX and including a final fistfight reminiscent of Liquid and Solid's iconic encounter in MGS1, complete with a medley of various Metal Gear themes, just screams of nostalgic fanservice, basically shouting "Remember this? Remember when this series was good and I made games for fun and not to avoid car bombs!?" Predictably, the ending itself is almost 4 hours too long and includes a myriad of plot twists that would confuse M Night Shyamalan, leading to the inevitable happy ending, Snake saves the world, every single loose thread or shred of intrigue that ever made the series interesting is tied up in waves and waves of exposition and everyone lives happily ever after. Which is what everyone wanted, right?

So yeah, shallow but generally enjoyable gameplay, what little there is of it, anyway. So if that's enough then enjoy! However, if you're a fan of the original Metal Gear Solid games then you should find everything about the story massively offensive and a total piss take. But hey, shooty guns fun wahey!