I NEED SCISSORS...!!!!
Jun. 18th, 2008 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
croikI went to re-upload all my old Metal Gear icons and it turns out they're all some form of penis joke. Whoops.
Reason being, I BEAT METAL GEAR SOLID 4 OMG.
I should say first that my over all opinion of the game is that it was FUCKING EPIC.
IN EVERY SENSE.
Perfect? Naw. I had a few disappointments. But all in all it was a heart-gripping experience, and there were several times when I swore at my screen, choked up, and was left speechless, sometimes all at the same time. All things considered, it was more of an "experience" than it was a game. Which, considering how long it was coming and how many things it sought to do, is pretty much just what I expected and wanted from it.
So, some specifics~
Gameplay
It's been a long time since I've played a Metal Gear (the last time I replayed any of them was MGS3, not all that long after it was first out), so I was actually glad to see that most of the gameplay was intact. Everything was pretty much what I remembered, and the camo being automatic was a great addition. Any gameplay system that doesn't require me to use the pause button is a good thing, so I'd say the Octocam was a definite improvement.
The other things they added like crawling around on your back, the drum can, tons of customizable weapons... I didn't use to much. It was awesome to be able to pick up weapons from the battlefield (something I think Metal Gear fans have wanted to do since the first games) but customizing them really only meant adding a supressor or a laser sight anyway. The tranq pistol and the M4 custom pretty much took me through the whole game.
I had a few control problems at first, that I worked out over the course of the game. I'm not used to having R1 as the gun trigger (I don't play FPS games), and aiming was not my strong suit. I also had a few mishaps with the pressure sensitive X button, and switching between stances, especially when combined with leaning against a wall. Those things I eventually got over, but what bugged me the most was the wall-leaning. In the first games Snake would turn and press his back to the wall, now he just kind of…hunches. I felt like I was popping off the wall a lot more than I wanted to, just from moving the control stick a tad too far. It was frustrating, and I was spotted more than once from accidentally "falling off" the wall.
The stealth sections of the game felt a lot shorter than the other games: there were a ton more "mini-game" like adventures, with rail shooting and protect missions and such. I don't have a problem with the number and size of the cut scenes, but I would have liked to see a little more gameplay time on top of that, if only because the gameplay is so fun.
And speaking of special gameplay sections, running around Europe as young snake in a trench coat was freaking hilarious.
I also really like the number of characters that showed up in and around battle with you. Of course, game AI hasn't improved all that much, especially in the ally department. But being able to run up to a group of rebels, help them out and then charge forward with them was a lot of fun. Even with their cheesey "You saved my ass!" dialogue. Escaping the hideout with Rat Patrol was a blast, not only because Johnny was hilarious, but it was nice to feel like a team for a while. It shouldn't always have to be a *solo* sneaking mission.
There were also a few events that required just the minimum of player involvement… like crawling down the microwave chamber at the end. It was just pounding away on the action button, but even that much got me really worked up. I guess you could say it got me really emersed :D
My favorite moment of the game that was not part of the story or a cut scene was something that happened to me near the beginning, when in Act 1 I passed through the underground tunnel that opened up into a room of injured guys. I was lying flat against the passageway and was come across by a pair of rebels. It was nearly pitch black but of course they spotted me easily and ran right over. Just when I thought they might alert, one crouched down and - I swear to god - started patting down my ass. Then he popped up, declared, "Oh, it's you." And ran off again.
THE REBELS WERE IDENTIFYING ME BY MY ASS.
I know it was just convenient placement but it was still hilarious.
The Codec
The codec was a little disappointing this time. I called Otacon about a million times, trying to get him to comment on the porn I was carrying, the cigarettes I was smoking, the locker I was hiding in… but he just didn't care. And as thrilled as I was to have Rose as my counselor (the fact that she got on Snake's nerves right away cracked me up), she never had anything interesting to say. I thought calling her would at least have an affect on my psyche gauge (since that was what she was there for!) but it never seemed to do anything. And with the Save function stripped from the codec, it was almost never worth it to call people, which was a shame after the hundreds of creative and hilarious codec conversations in the other games.
You couldn't even call Cambell directly. Or Raiden. After he called you, couldn't you at least be allowed to bother him and have him yell at you? Is it so wrong that I want to hear more of Raiden's voice!?
Meryl and Johnny
Metal Gear fandom has always been something of a curious place where female characters are concerned. Not to offend anyone on my Flist reading this, but I've always found it to be a curious phenomena among female fans of action games where no female character is ever good enough. I've especially seen Meryl get a lot of flack, considering that it's killing her in MGS1 that paves the way for the Snake and Otacon ending.
But I always liked Meryl. I liked her awkward rookie-crush on Snake, and the way she tried so hard to be tough that just ended up getting her in trouble over and over. When she showed up on the first list of characters for MGS4 I was excited to see a more battled-hardened Meryl, and finding her in game made me like her even more. I was glad to see that she still had her girlish her-worship going on, but tried not to show it, and eventually got over it. I'm always glad to see a female character who can be tough but still feminine. Wedding dress + gun holster is awesome.
Then there's Johnny, who I was convinced through the beginning of the second act was really Raiden in disguise - especially when he didn't react from the nanomachines, and saved Snake at the end of act one. But then TK showed me his hotness in the game guide, and the real Raiden showed up in South America, and there went that XD. But I loved Johnny. It's dangerous territory to take a joke character and try to get people to take him seriously, but I thought he was adorable, and him together with Meryl was even more so. I think it was good for Meryl to get paired with someone who was pretty much the exact opposite of Snake. Plus, Johnny's hot and they're adorable together.
Sunny
Sunny was adorable. At first I wasn't sure what to make of her, but by the end of the game she's so cute with her new confidence, and her protective instincts towards Raiden and Snake. TK suggested that in the next Metal Gear, it should star Raiden's son John and have Sunny take on the Otacon role. Which would be adorable, they look the same. Plus, having Snake and Otacon act like her two daddies was cuteness itself.
The B&Bs
I didn't really like the BB squad. Their designs were cool, no doubt about it. Their boss fights were fun and interesting. But in a game where every other character is tied to the plot in about 200 million different ways, with backstories we're familiar with and a reason for being involved, it seemed strange to have four beautiful women who weren't connected to anything. They didn't even seem to care about each other. I know the point was that they were beasts, so it wasn’t like they were going to sit around with Liquid and plot evil deeds and drink tea. But beating each of them just to stop and listen to Drebin recount their history (without even any art or scenes to back it up) felt a little silly.
By the time Snake got to Crying Wolf, he had already (since his early twenties) murdered his father, crippled a friend and comrade, discovered and murdered his brother, discovered and murdered ANOTHER brother, got super old super fast, learned he had one year to live, learned he had a few months before he would become a living biological weapon, was blown up, stabbed, electrocuted, and held his own mother in his arms while she died.
I'm sorry Crying Beauty, but it's a little late for me to care about you
So even though their boss fights were fun, I don't like the BBs as much as Foxhound, Dead Cell, or the Cobra Unit.
Naomi
I still miss her accent from the original. I don't care how much or how little sense it made. :<
Naomi was another great female character, and I was glad to see her play such a big role in MGS4. Even if some of the wankier plot points came from her at the same time… she really kept me guessing, and her flirting with Otacon was unexpectedly awesome.
Otacon/Naomi may have been short lived, but TK and I both cheered when she pulled him into that helicopter. I guess since Otacon is never personally in the field and they can't STAB HIM WITH A KNIFE and then JERK HIM AROUND BY IT UNTIL HE GETS FRIED the best they can do to inflict agony on him is to kill people he cares about. But it was good to see that even after all he'd been through, he was still willing to put his trust in people.
Anyway, I'll talk about Otacon in a second, back to Naomi! Naomi being responsible for Vamp was pretty interesting. Since Vamp himself didn't get much explanation in the story (I assume he was helping Liquid just to stick it to The Patriots, like everyone else, but they never really talk about it), it was good to give him one more connection. Even if…nanomachines. Solution for everything.
Nanomachines
The solution for everything. That's all :D
Otacon
Otacon was brilliant in 4. From the moment he showed up in his appropriately feminine overcoat, I was back in love with the little geek <3. Just hearing his voice pop up over the codec made me happy (there was a lot of talking outside codec conversations, oddly enough, which I actually liked a lot. It made it feel even more like Otacon was involved). It was great to see him and Snake tooling around in their plane, living the kind of bachelor-esque domestic life fanfiction has been putting them in for years. They make such a great team. Otacon telling Snake he wanted to stay with him, right up until the end, choked me up, not to mention him having to tell Sunny that Snake wasn't coming back! It was really heartbreaking watching Otacon hover around Snake on the Nomad, trying to help and support him even though he knew they had to send him back into battle again. The actor and the motion actor did a great job showing his struggle.
I don’t really support Snake/Otacon as a couple, but I love their relationship as friends, and MGS4 did a great job with it. So much love.
MECH BATTLE
Snake hopping into REX to fight Liquid in RAY was what dreams are made of.
Not only was it Snake having to fight IN a Metal Gear for once, but it was Otacon using his creation for its original purpose - to protect people. It kind of redeemed REX as a "good guy" even if he got his rail gun stolen, poor guy.
And speaking of that entire scene, I have to admit, Kojima totally got me. When Raiden pulled his Gray Fox stunt and started ripping off limbs and then getting CRUSHED by a HUGE SHIP, I totally thought he was dead. By then it was almost 2 in the morning, and I'd played through all of Act 4 in one sitting, so ending with Raiden's little headlights blinking off was probably the worst way to end. In all honesty, I was toooootally bitter about it, and I bitched at TK for a while about how cheap and demeaning it was to off Raiden in such a repetitious way.
And then of course they casually toss out "he'll live" in the next cutscene that I was too tired to stay up and watch. Damn Kojima. It's a good thing NANOMACHINES solve everything, because Raiden got wasted every five seconds in the damn game.
Which brings me to….
Raiden
MGS2 was the first Metal Gear I ever played, and even then a few weeks after it was released. I wasn't in the fandom, so I had no idea there was some kind of controversy behind Raiden being the main character instead of Snake. I loved MGS2, and I loved Raiden. I even loved Rose and Emma. I loved the psychotic ending and just about everything that led up to it. Imagine my surprise when I finally entered fandom and found myself alone! XD
So when I heard that Raiden in 4 would be nothing more than a head and a spinal cord in some kind of cyber ninja suit, I expected that he would end up dead before the end. I was dreading it, because I really didn't like the idea that maybe Kojima turned Raiden into this ninja monster just so he could die in a horrific way and appease the fans that hated him. If we assume Kojima is telling the truth that MGS2 was meant to be the end of the series, that also means Raiden's ending was meant to be happy. By the end of Raiden's first appearance in South America, where he's convulsing and coughing up crazy white blood, I was worried that somewhere along the way that that happy ending was about to be replaced with a tragic martyr.
And now I'm sorry I doubted Kojima, because he gave Raiden the ending he deserved <3
I am a little sad we didn't get to see and learn more of how Raiden became the ninja. They didn't even fully explain how he went between a normal human body to a cyborg one and then back again. Did Dr. Madnar remove Raiden's head, stick it on a cyber suit and save his real body, and then… pop him back on the real one once he was finished? I think the scars on Raiden's mouth in the final cutscene corroborate that, since they appear to trace where his cyber-jaw attached. However, the scars on his shoulders would imply that he was in his own body when his arms were ripped off at Shadow Moses. So was all the cyber stuff just Iron Maned onto him?
Or is the body we see him in at the ending cutscene another fake? Does he still have creepy white blood? Will Little John ever be able to have a little brother!?
It would have been cool if there was some kind of unlockable extra mission where you play as Raiden to rescue Sunny, or to retrieve Big Boss' body. I was hoping you would get to be the ninja for a while - not everyone likes Raiden, but he is an important character, and I would have liked to have a section with him the same way everyone else likes playing Snake on the Tanker. But one game can only hold so much, I guess.
Rose
Though I've been something of a Snake/Raiden shipper, I was really happy that Raiden got back together with Rose at the end of MGS4. As amusing as it was to think of her banging Cambell (lol, "Lucky me" he said XD), I do like Rose, and I like Raiden and Rose together. I guess there aren't many fans who can say that…? XD;; But I called Rose all the time in MGS2, and I liked how even though the timing was awkward most of the time, you really got a ton of information on the two of them. By the end of the MGS2, just about every aspect of their romantic relationship had been fleshed out, and I appreciated how the further you went, the deeper and more personal things got.
Rose in 4 wasn't nearly as interesting. Like I wrote before I was really looking forward to her bugging the crap out of Snake, but she barely said anything funny or interesting. The "counselor" bit was just to involve her in the plot, pretty much. It's not a horrible thing but I think they underutilized the comedy aspect of Snake having to call Rose XD;;
And for Christ's sake woman, couldn't you have come up with a more interesting name for your son than "John"? If he grows up and loses an eye it'll be your fault! >:I
Shadow Moses
The section in Shadow Moses was one of my favorites in the game (along with the Snake/Eva motorcycle chase), if only because of the nostalgia factor. Hearing all the flashbacks, sneaking into Otacon's office (where the Policenauts post was still up!) was fantastic. It really showed how the Solid series had come full circle, in the most plausible way possible.
Just before it actually happened, my brother and I were joking how funny it would be if Kojima made you do the entire Moses chapter with PSX graphics. We only got a little taste, but it was worth it! I want to replay all the games now.
Anyone know how much of the Shadow Moses map is intact? I want to try and find the holding cells where Snake met Meryl, but I never got around to it. I want to find all the flashbacks…
Gekko - Irving
Seriously, wtf XD. Those things were creepy as hell. What's scarier than watching a flock of death tanks with very shapely legs chasing down your tank!?
It was a little strange that in the final MGS there wasn't a last super Gear to fight. In just about every other game (dunno about Ops, haven't finished) there was some kind of new, giant last mech to face. With the Gekko everywhere there was no need for Snake to face down a new gear, (especially since we got Rex vs Ray anyway), but it still seemed a little weird. Maybe because except for the Suicide Gekko portion at Moses, you spend the whole game running away from Irvings instead of trying to kill them. At least, I did.
When I hopped off the elevator at Moses and found a Gekko RIGHT THERE I almost shit myself, seriously.
Dr. Madnar
I would have really liked to have seen Dr. Madnar. They were careful not to give away the doctor's gender, which was what interested me the most: it couldn't really be the original Dr. Madnar, father of Metal Gear. Cybernetics doesn't even seem to be his field. I was hoping that it would be his daughter Ellen Madnar. I was particularly intrigued by the thought of her showing up because among all my failed attempts at MGS fanfiction, Snake reuniting with Ellen for a quick fling was one I was most fond of.
It's too bad that the original Metal Gears are so old now, and simply didn't have the technology back then to develop a story as intricate as the games have gotten recently. There were a lot of people in those first games that an impact on Snake's life and missions, but in the case of the very first game you don't even get to see most of them (like Jennifer and Schneider). So when MGS4 sports just about the entire solid cast, it's almost too bad that none of those originals get a cameo as well. Of course, for the most part such cameos would mean nothing - who cares about Coward Duck anyway? XD
In the end, at least it allows me to believe that Raiden gave up his body to a hot older Russian woman >:3
Ocelot
4 gave me an appreciation I didn't fully have before. He was a great villain in Solid and Solid 2, and young Ocelot was adorable, hilarious, and awesome at different points throughout the story; but I was never totally in love with him until the very end of 4, when he finally reveals himself to Snake on the top of the ship. It was really touching to think that he worked so hard, and gave up everything--even himself--just because he idolized Big Boss enough to want to make his dreams come true. With the boss fight kiss one might even call it a canon pairing (or at least, canon one-sided beyond-simply-platonic adoration possibly?) It was also really touching how much Eva seemed to care about Ocelot too. When she said, "I lost Ocelot" during her long cutscene speech, it really got to me. At that point I thought Ocelot really was gone for good, and it was sad to think that he'd just been absorbed away into nothing like that. But then…he hadn't! And I was happy, because I liked Ocelot better than Liquid anyway <3
I'm especially glad that they kept Ocelot's voice the entire time, because as much as I like Cam Clarke, if I had to listen to him the entire game I would have wanted to punch him in the mouth XD
BTW that final boss fight was epic.
Snake
Okay so I'm writing this in MSWord and it's already 6 pages, and now I'm finally going to talk about Snake.
I love Snake. Even his mustache <3
I think MGS4 was the first time that a game trailer choked me up: watching Snake, old and exhausted, putting a gun barrel to his mouth… It was all just so heartbreaking, before I even really knew what the game was going to be about. I really have a thing for strong male characters put in vulnerable situations, so from the start Old Snake really hit the mark for me. Plus, there's something alluring about older men when you're used to seeing Bishies everywhere…
Of course, once the game starts Snake's oldness isn't quite a sexy, since he spends the entire game hacking his lungs out. I think if David Hayter got his voice any more gravely his throat would turn to stone, dear man. It made the cutscenes painful to watch sometimes, with Snake falling out of chairs, shooting up his crazy syringe, and finally being put on oxygen near the end. The worst (best?) was in the ending, after the mission, when they put Snake in the helicopter. He saved the whole world through sheer power of will, and yet by then he's just so exhausted he looks completely out of it. Despite being fictional in every way, it still made my chest ache a little. I was hoping that Otacon would scoot closer and give him a hug or something, poor bastard.
Through the whole game, I kept thinking... "This had better be the last game. Even if Snake survives to the end, there's no way he could do it again after this." I wouldn't want him to star in another Metal Gear: I wouldn't want to put him through that again. I guess that's what Kojima wanted…?
I'm so glad everyone was wrong about the player having to pull the trigger at the end of the game to kill Snake. It would have broken my heart ;_; I'm so glad that even though we know he only has a little time left, he'll be able to spend it peacefully. With Otacon :D
Other than that, I thought Snake's character throughout the game was pretty much perfect. He was gruff when he needed to be, a little bitter, mostly accepting… I loved the display of different relationships he had with every other character, especially the sequence with Eva. When we were racing through Europe on the motorcycle and she said, "That's my boy!" it choked me up again. YES, I AM A SAP.
Man there should be more to say but I've totally run out of steam. I actually beat the game Monday night and it took me this long to write everything up. So if you've beaten the game, please come and talk to me before I go crazy. *_*
…. <3 you, Kojima~
Reason being, I BEAT METAL GEAR SOLID 4 OMG.
I should say first that my over all opinion of the game is that it was FUCKING EPIC.
IN EVERY SENSE.
Perfect? Naw. I had a few disappointments. But all in all it was a heart-gripping experience, and there were several times when I swore at my screen, choked up, and was left speechless, sometimes all at the same time. All things considered, it was more of an "experience" than it was a game. Which, considering how long it was coming and how many things it sought to do, is pretty much just what I expected and wanted from it.
So, some specifics~
Gameplay
It's been a long time since I've played a Metal Gear (the last time I replayed any of them was MGS3, not all that long after it was first out), so I was actually glad to see that most of the gameplay was intact. Everything was pretty much what I remembered, and the camo being automatic was a great addition. Any gameplay system that doesn't require me to use the pause button is a good thing, so I'd say the Octocam was a definite improvement.
The other things they added like crawling around on your back, the drum can, tons of customizable weapons... I didn't use to much. It was awesome to be able to pick up weapons from the battlefield (something I think Metal Gear fans have wanted to do since the first games) but customizing them really only meant adding a supressor or a laser sight anyway. The tranq pistol and the M4 custom pretty much took me through the whole game.
I had a few control problems at first, that I worked out over the course of the game. I'm not used to having R1 as the gun trigger (I don't play FPS games), and aiming was not my strong suit. I also had a few mishaps with the pressure sensitive X button, and switching between stances, especially when combined with leaning against a wall. Those things I eventually got over, but what bugged me the most was the wall-leaning. In the first games Snake would turn and press his back to the wall, now he just kind of…hunches. I felt like I was popping off the wall a lot more than I wanted to, just from moving the control stick a tad too far. It was frustrating, and I was spotted more than once from accidentally "falling off" the wall.
The stealth sections of the game felt a lot shorter than the other games: there were a ton more "mini-game" like adventures, with rail shooting and protect missions and such. I don't have a problem with the number and size of the cut scenes, but I would have liked to see a little more gameplay time on top of that, if only because the gameplay is so fun.
And speaking of special gameplay sections, running around Europe as young snake in a trench coat was freaking hilarious.
I also really like the number of characters that showed up in and around battle with you. Of course, game AI hasn't improved all that much, especially in the ally department. But being able to run up to a group of rebels, help them out and then charge forward with them was a lot of fun. Even with their cheesey "You saved my ass!" dialogue. Escaping the hideout with Rat Patrol was a blast, not only because Johnny was hilarious, but it was nice to feel like a team for a while. It shouldn't always have to be a *solo* sneaking mission.
There were also a few events that required just the minimum of player involvement… like crawling down the microwave chamber at the end. It was just pounding away on the action button, but even that much got me really worked up. I guess you could say it got me really emersed :D
My favorite moment of the game that was not part of the story or a cut scene was something that happened to me near the beginning, when in Act 1 I passed through the underground tunnel that opened up into a room of injured guys. I was lying flat against the passageway and was come across by a pair of rebels. It was nearly pitch black but of course they spotted me easily and ran right over. Just when I thought they might alert, one crouched down and - I swear to god - started patting down my ass. Then he popped up, declared, "Oh, it's you." And ran off again.
THE REBELS WERE IDENTIFYING ME BY MY ASS.
I know it was just convenient placement but it was still hilarious.
The Codec
The codec was a little disappointing this time. I called Otacon about a million times, trying to get him to comment on the porn I was carrying, the cigarettes I was smoking, the locker I was hiding in… but he just didn't care. And as thrilled as I was to have Rose as my counselor (the fact that she got on Snake's nerves right away cracked me up), she never had anything interesting to say. I thought calling her would at least have an affect on my psyche gauge (since that was what she was there for!) but it never seemed to do anything. And with the Save function stripped from the codec, it was almost never worth it to call people, which was a shame after the hundreds of creative and hilarious codec conversations in the other games.
You couldn't even call Cambell directly. Or Raiden. After he called you, couldn't you at least be allowed to bother him and have him yell at you? Is it so wrong that I want to hear more of Raiden's voice!?
Meryl and Johnny
Metal Gear fandom has always been something of a curious place where female characters are concerned. Not to offend anyone on my Flist reading this, but I've always found it to be a curious phenomena among female fans of action games where no female character is ever good enough. I've especially seen Meryl get a lot of flack, considering that it's killing her in MGS1 that paves the way for the Snake and Otacon ending.
But I always liked Meryl. I liked her awkward rookie-crush on Snake, and the way she tried so hard to be tough that just ended up getting her in trouble over and over. When she showed up on the first list of characters for MGS4 I was excited to see a more battled-hardened Meryl, and finding her in game made me like her even more. I was glad to see that she still had her girlish her-worship going on, but tried not to show it, and eventually got over it. I'm always glad to see a female character who can be tough but still feminine. Wedding dress + gun holster is awesome.
Then there's Johnny, who I was convinced through the beginning of the second act was really Raiden in disguise - especially when he didn't react from the nanomachines, and saved Snake at the end of act one. But then TK showed me his hotness in the game guide, and the real Raiden showed up in South America, and there went that XD. But I loved Johnny. It's dangerous territory to take a joke character and try to get people to take him seriously, but I thought he was adorable, and him together with Meryl was even more so. I think it was good for Meryl to get paired with someone who was pretty much the exact opposite of Snake. Plus, Johnny's hot and they're adorable together.
Sunny
Sunny was adorable. At first I wasn't sure what to make of her, but by the end of the game she's so cute with her new confidence, and her protective instincts towards Raiden and Snake. TK suggested that in the next Metal Gear, it should star Raiden's son John and have Sunny take on the Otacon role. Which would be adorable, they look the same. Plus, having Snake and Otacon act like her two daddies was cuteness itself.
The B&Bs
I didn't really like the BB squad. Their designs were cool, no doubt about it. Their boss fights were fun and interesting. But in a game where every other character is tied to the plot in about 200 million different ways, with backstories we're familiar with and a reason for being involved, it seemed strange to have four beautiful women who weren't connected to anything. They didn't even seem to care about each other. I know the point was that they were beasts, so it wasn’t like they were going to sit around with Liquid and plot evil deeds and drink tea. But beating each of them just to stop and listen to Drebin recount their history (without even any art or scenes to back it up) felt a little silly.
By the time Snake got to Crying Wolf, he had already (since his early twenties) murdered his father, crippled a friend and comrade, discovered and murdered his brother, discovered and murdered ANOTHER brother, got super old super fast, learned he had one year to live, learned he had a few months before he would become a living biological weapon, was blown up, stabbed, electrocuted, and held his own mother in his arms while she died.
I'm sorry Crying Beauty, but it's a little late for me to care about you
So even though their boss fights were fun, I don't like the BBs as much as Foxhound, Dead Cell, or the Cobra Unit.
Naomi
I still miss her accent from the original. I don't care how much or how little sense it made. :<
Naomi was another great female character, and I was glad to see her play such a big role in MGS4. Even if some of the wankier plot points came from her at the same time… she really kept me guessing, and her flirting with Otacon was unexpectedly awesome.
Otacon/Naomi may have been short lived, but TK and I both cheered when she pulled him into that helicopter. I guess since Otacon is never personally in the field and they can't STAB HIM WITH A KNIFE and then JERK HIM AROUND BY IT UNTIL HE GETS FRIED the best they can do to inflict agony on him is to kill people he cares about. But it was good to see that even after all he'd been through, he was still willing to put his trust in people.
Anyway, I'll talk about Otacon in a second, back to Naomi! Naomi being responsible for Vamp was pretty interesting. Since Vamp himself didn't get much explanation in the story (I assume he was helping Liquid just to stick it to The Patriots, like everyone else, but they never really talk about it), it was good to give him one more connection. Even if…nanomachines. Solution for everything.
Nanomachines
The solution for everything. That's all :D
Otacon
Otacon was brilliant in 4. From the moment he showed up in his appropriately feminine overcoat, I was back in love with the little geek <3. Just hearing his voice pop up over the codec made me happy (there was a lot of talking outside codec conversations, oddly enough, which I actually liked a lot. It made it feel even more like Otacon was involved). It was great to see him and Snake tooling around in their plane, living the kind of bachelor-esque domestic life fanfiction has been putting them in for years. They make such a great team. Otacon telling Snake he wanted to stay with him, right up until the end, choked me up, not to mention him having to tell Sunny that Snake wasn't coming back! It was really heartbreaking watching Otacon hover around Snake on the Nomad, trying to help and support him even though he knew they had to send him back into battle again. The actor and the motion actor did a great job showing his struggle.
I don’t really support Snake/Otacon as a couple, but I love their relationship as friends, and MGS4 did a great job with it. So much love.
MECH BATTLE
Snake hopping into REX to fight Liquid in RAY was what dreams are made of.
Not only was it Snake having to fight IN a Metal Gear for once, but it was Otacon using his creation for its original purpose - to protect people. It kind of redeemed REX as a "good guy" even if he got his rail gun stolen, poor guy.
And speaking of that entire scene, I have to admit, Kojima totally got me. When Raiden pulled his Gray Fox stunt and started ripping off limbs and then getting CRUSHED by a HUGE SHIP, I totally thought he was dead. By then it was almost 2 in the morning, and I'd played through all of Act 4 in one sitting, so ending with Raiden's little headlights blinking off was probably the worst way to end. In all honesty, I was toooootally bitter about it, and I bitched at TK for a while about how cheap and demeaning it was to off Raiden in such a repetitious way.
And then of course they casually toss out "he'll live" in the next cutscene that I was too tired to stay up and watch. Damn Kojima. It's a good thing NANOMACHINES solve everything, because Raiden got wasted every five seconds in the damn game.
Which brings me to….
Raiden
MGS2 was the first Metal Gear I ever played, and even then a few weeks after it was released. I wasn't in the fandom, so I had no idea there was some kind of controversy behind Raiden being the main character instead of Snake. I loved MGS2, and I loved Raiden. I even loved Rose and Emma. I loved the psychotic ending and just about everything that led up to it. Imagine my surprise when I finally entered fandom and found myself alone! XD
So when I heard that Raiden in 4 would be nothing more than a head and a spinal cord in some kind of cyber ninja suit, I expected that he would end up dead before the end. I was dreading it, because I really didn't like the idea that maybe Kojima turned Raiden into this ninja monster just so he could die in a horrific way and appease the fans that hated him. If we assume Kojima is telling the truth that MGS2 was meant to be the end of the series, that also means Raiden's ending was meant to be happy. By the end of Raiden's first appearance in South America, where he's convulsing and coughing up crazy white blood, I was worried that somewhere along the way that that happy ending was about to be replaced with a tragic martyr.
And now I'm sorry I doubted Kojima, because he gave Raiden the ending he deserved <3
I am a little sad we didn't get to see and learn more of how Raiden became the ninja. They didn't even fully explain how he went between a normal human body to a cyborg one and then back again. Did Dr. Madnar remove Raiden's head, stick it on a cyber suit and save his real body, and then… pop him back on the real one once he was finished? I think the scars on Raiden's mouth in the final cutscene corroborate that, since they appear to trace where his cyber-jaw attached. However, the scars on his shoulders would imply that he was in his own body when his arms were ripped off at Shadow Moses. So was all the cyber stuff just Iron Maned onto him?
Or is the body we see him in at the ending cutscene another fake? Does he still have creepy white blood? Will Little John ever be able to have a little brother!?
It would have been cool if there was some kind of unlockable extra mission where you play as Raiden to rescue Sunny, or to retrieve Big Boss' body. I was hoping you would get to be the ninja for a while - not everyone likes Raiden, but he is an important character, and I would have liked to have a section with him the same way everyone else likes playing Snake on the Tanker. But one game can only hold so much, I guess.
Rose
Though I've been something of a Snake/Raiden shipper, I was really happy that Raiden got back together with Rose at the end of MGS4. As amusing as it was to think of her banging Cambell (lol, "Lucky me" he said XD), I do like Rose, and I like Raiden and Rose together. I guess there aren't many fans who can say that…? XD;; But I called Rose all the time in MGS2, and I liked how even though the timing was awkward most of the time, you really got a ton of information on the two of them. By the end of the MGS2, just about every aspect of their romantic relationship had been fleshed out, and I appreciated how the further you went, the deeper and more personal things got.
Rose in 4 wasn't nearly as interesting. Like I wrote before I was really looking forward to her bugging the crap out of Snake, but she barely said anything funny or interesting. The "counselor" bit was just to involve her in the plot, pretty much. It's not a horrible thing but I think they underutilized the comedy aspect of Snake having to call Rose XD;;
And for Christ's sake woman, couldn't you have come up with a more interesting name for your son than "John"? If he grows up and loses an eye it'll be your fault! >:I
Shadow Moses
The section in Shadow Moses was one of my favorites in the game (along with the Snake/Eva motorcycle chase), if only because of the nostalgia factor. Hearing all the flashbacks, sneaking into Otacon's office (where the Policenauts post was still up!) was fantastic. It really showed how the Solid series had come full circle, in the most plausible way possible.
Just before it actually happened, my brother and I were joking how funny it would be if Kojima made you do the entire Moses chapter with PSX graphics. We only got a little taste, but it was worth it! I want to replay all the games now.
Anyone know how much of the Shadow Moses map is intact? I want to try and find the holding cells where Snake met Meryl, but I never got around to it. I want to find all the flashbacks…
Gekko - Irving
Seriously, wtf XD. Those things were creepy as hell. What's scarier than watching a flock of death tanks with very shapely legs chasing down your tank!?
It was a little strange that in the final MGS there wasn't a last super Gear to fight. In just about every other game (dunno about Ops, haven't finished) there was some kind of new, giant last mech to face. With the Gekko everywhere there was no need for Snake to face down a new gear, (especially since we got Rex vs Ray anyway), but it still seemed a little weird. Maybe because except for the Suicide Gekko portion at Moses, you spend the whole game running away from Irvings instead of trying to kill them. At least, I did.
When I hopped off the elevator at Moses and found a Gekko RIGHT THERE I almost shit myself, seriously.
Dr. Madnar
I would have really liked to have seen Dr. Madnar. They were careful not to give away the doctor's gender, which was what interested me the most: it couldn't really be the original Dr. Madnar, father of Metal Gear. Cybernetics doesn't even seem to be his field. I was hoping that it would be his daughter Ellen Madnar. I was particularly intrigued by the thought of her showing up because among all my failed attempts at MGS fanfiction, Snake reuniting with Ellen for a quick fling was one I was most fond of.
It's too bad that the original Metal Gears are so old now, and simply didn't have the technology back then to develop a story as intricate as the games have gotten recently. There were a lot of people in those first games that an impact on Snake's life and missions, but in the case of the very first game you don't even get to see most of them (like Jennifer and Schneider). So when MGS4 sports just about the entire solid cast, it's almost too bad that none of those originals get a cameo as well. Of course, for the most part such cameos would mean nothing - who cares about Coward Duck anyway? XD
In the end, at least it allows me to believe that Raiden gave up his body to a hot older Russian woman >:3
Ocelot
4 gave me an appreciation I didn't fully have before. He was a great villain in Solid and Solid 2, and young Ocelot was adorable, hilarious, and awesome at different points throughout the story; but I was never totally in love with him until the very end of 4, when he finally reveals himself to Snake on the top of the ship. It was really touching to think that he worked so hard, and gave up everything--even himself--just because he idolized Big Boss enough to want to make his dreams come true. With the boss fight kiss one might even call it a canon pairing (or at least, canon one-sided beyond-simply-platonic adoration possibly?) It was also really touching how much Eva seemed to care about Ocelot too. When she said, "I lost Ocelot" during her long cutscene speech, it really got to me. At that point I thought Ocelot really was gone for good, and it was sad to think that he'd just been absorbed away into nothing like that. But then…he hadn't! And I was happy, because I liked Ocelot better than Liquid anyway <3
I'm especially glad that they kept Ocelot's voice the entire time, because as much as I like Cam Clarke, if I had to listen to him the entire game I would have wanted to punch him in the mouth XD
BTW that final boss fight was epic.
Snake
Okay so I'm writing this in MSWord and it's already 6 pages, and now I'm finally going to talk about Snake.
I love Snake. Even his mustache <3
I think MGS4 was the first time that a game trailer choked me up: watching Snake, old and exhausted, putting a gun barrel to his mouth… It was all just so heartbreaking, before I even really knew what the game was going to be about. I really have a thing for strong male characters put in vulnerable situations, so from the start Old Snake really hit the mark for me. Plus, there's something alluring about older men when you're used to seeing Bishies everywhere…
Of course, once the game starts Snake's oldness isn't quite a sexy, since he spends the entire game hacking his lungs out. I think if David Hayter got his voice any more gravely his throat would turn to stone, dear man. It made the cutscenes painful to watch sometimes, with Snake falling out of chairs, shooting up his crazy syringe, and finally being put on oxygen near the end. The worst (best?) was in the ending, after the mission, when they put Snake in the helicopter. He saved the whole world through sheer power of will, and yet by then he's just so exhausted he looks completely out of it. Despite being fictional in every way, it still made my chest ache a little. I was hoping that Otacon would scoot closer and give him a hug or something, poor bastard.
Through the whole game, I kept thinking... "This had better be the last game. Even if Snake survives to the end, there's no way he could do it again after this." I wouldn't want him to star in another Metal Gear: I wouldn't want to put him through that again. I guess that's what Kojima wanted…?
I'm so glad everyone was wrong about the player having to pull the trigger at the end of the game to kill Snake. It would have broken my heart ;_; I'm so glad that even though we know he only has a little time left, he'll be able to spend it peacefully. With Otacon :D
Other than that, I thought Snake's character throughout the game was pretty much perfect. He was gruff when he needed to be, a little bitter, mostly accepting… I loved the display of different relationships he had with every other character, especially the sequence with Eva. When we were racing through Europe on the motorcycle and she said, "That's my boy!" it choked me up again. YES, I AM A SAP.
Man there should be more to say but I've totally run out of steam. I actually beat the game Monday night and it took me this long to write everything up. So if you've beaten the game, please come and talk to me before I go crazy. *_*
…. <3 you, Kojima~
