So the few rockstars among us with enough disposable income to splurge on Sony’s big bad black box have finally had the opportunity to have one last series ending romp as old fan favourite Solid Snake. The game delivers, by most accounts, a fantastic ending to a great series and has sold very well despite the PS3’s lagging market penetration. There’s few complaints on the gameplay front, aside from the fact there just ‘isn’t enough of it’ and the story seems to be getting just short of universal acclaim so surely I’d be hard pressed to find fault in this wonderful example of human endeavor? Wrong. How long have you been on the internet?
Now before you load up your email client and flex your fingers in anticipation of a ten thousand word email that explains both exactly why I happen to be wrong about Metal Gear Solid 4 and that I also happen to fuck pigs, hear me out. MGS4 is good yes, and the story is better than most games that centre on grizzled soldiers murdering people but it’s not ‘that’ good. And I intend to tell you why.

1: Oh woe is Snake!

One of the reasons the fans have stuck with MGS so long, even when it seems the developers hate us, is that Snake just happens to be a profoundly likable character. He’s tough yes, grizzled in a medium rare kind of way but he’s also rather well educated and erudite for a man who’s essentially a state sponsored serial murderer. He’s also sporting a quirky sense of humour so it’s not unusual to hear him throwing out the odd one liner inbetween sessions of intense philosophical debates and stealthy neck breaking.
Now from the very first screenshot of MGS4 it was rather obvious that Konami were going for a rather tragic slant. One look at Snake who now looks more like a high school math teacher than the enstubbled hero of old and it was clear that things were perhaps not going to end entirely well for our razor shy protagonist.
What we didn’t expect however was for Konami to express a kind of pathalogical hatred of Snake ensuring the entire game centre around him being miserable.

This picture essentially sums up the whole game.

Now having Snake contract vague clone disease-itis was a good idea. It adds a layer of pathos to the game. Snakes deteriating health means that even if he wins, he still loses. But Konami begin pushing the whole melodramatic misery thing very hard very quickly. Just as we’re warming up to the fact Snake is going the way of your great grandmother it’s also revealed that even if old age doesn’t get him he’s going to have pop himself anyway thanks to a dubious bit of pseudo science involving nanomachine death viruses. Then he accidentally kills his mum. The game reaches a retarded fever pitch of melodramatic misery however during the scene where Snake finds himself being mother fucking microwaved while his girlfriend is stolen by a character known most for shitting himself.
One of these tradgedies or perhaps a combination of two would have had quite an effect but the part where Snake is turned into an elderly hot pocket just made me feel like I was being manipulated. Like they were poking Snake with pins just to make me cry. Worse is, the story never really explains why Snake has crawl his way through the tunnel of burning pain. I mean snakes survives the whole ordeal and even goes on to go 12 rocky style rounds with brother on top of a nuclear submarine and win so why exactly couldn’t we have sent Raiden through there? In fact that would make perfect sense, I mean not only does Raiden not feel pain so he wouldn’t have to crawl the last 100 meters at a glacial pace while he bursts into flames but you’d also get to watch the blonde little bastard cook like poptart which would make the whole thing worthwhile.

2: Sad death scenes for everyone

One of the best scenes in Metal Gear Solid was the death of Sniper Wolf. It was interesting counter point to the rest of the game and it’s the first I recall in gaming where I’ve been presented with the idea that killing another human being is actually a bad thing. The scene worked because it was such a suprise, a few hours earlier you saw Sniper Wolf go all Full Metal Jacket on Meryl and you’re thinking she’s a complete bitch but when you do finally put a stinger on her rectum she responds with a well written monologue that explains why she did what she did and it was very moving. It’s good to see Konami has learnt from this but I’m thinking perhaps they missed the point as nearly every character in Metal Gear Solid 4 gets their own drawn out tragic death scene regardless of whether they were particularly tragic or not.
All of the bosses in the game just happen to be hot chicks with super tragic pasts. There’s supposed to be a serious point in there about how war has terrible effects on everyone who encounters it but it’s kind of lost in a clumsy competition to see who can come up with the most ridiculously tragic backstory and the whole thing just comes off as cheap and manipulative.
The worst example of this is of course the fact Vamp gets his own tragic death. Yes. Vamp. The guy mostly known for murdering Otacon’s teenage sister in Metal Gear Solid 2, dies very slowly and we’re expected to feel sorry for him because he’s immortal. It’s madness. Kind of like playing through Wolfenstein 3d only to find once you’ve killed Hitler you have to listen to him tell you about how he ‘only wanted to be loved’
It’s worth noting however that the only character in the game who actually isn’t as much of an asshole as he appeared to be, good old Revolver Ocelot, does not get his own tragic death scene. Perhaps they ran out of violin solos.

3: Meet the new character, same as the old character

The Metal Gear universe is populated by a diverse and intriguing cast of characters but is not apparently populated by a decent pension scheme because those fuckers keep on coming back year after year no matter how god damn old they get.
Meryl was conspicously missing from MGS2 so her return is welcome but bringing back Mei Ling as the captain of a WW2 battleship pushes coincidence to uncomfortable extremes. It’s only slightly short of having a scene where Snake needs to take a bus and finding out the driver just happens to be Vulcan Raven.
Konami’s refusal to introduce new characters reaches epic levels when it’s finally revealed who the mysterious Patriots are and the whole thing stinks to high haven. Big Boss’ turning into a kind of bad guy we can handle. But when did Paramedic turn from a Japanophile who knows more than a healthy ammount about the taste of frogs into a comic book mad scientist? And how exactly does Major Zero turn into the MGS equivalent of the Emperor from star wars?
The worst offender is of course the inevitable return of big boss who’s remarkably well preserved for a man Snake has killed twice.

The worst part is he pops out just when you think “Hey they really showed some restraint” during the credits.

4: Like a Hollywood block buster, in the worst way

When a game is touted as ‘Like a Hollywood blockbuster’ it can mean a few things. If it means high production values and good voice acting. Great. If it means retarded plot elements and cop out endings. Not so great.
In true Hollywood style most of the game takes place genericsville. Sure there’s a reason why the opening mission is set in the ‘middle east’ instead of say ‘Iraq’ and it’s the same reason Call of Duty 4 is set in generic middle eastern country-istan but it’s kind of silly when Snake is told to look for the remains of big boss in ‘Eastern Europe’. Oh there’s only 10 countries in Eastern Europe. I suppose I’ll start with the Ukraine and work my way up.
I can actually mark the exact moment where the game made the jump from over the top to retarded. It was when Snake, the snarky english Babe cum scientist, the black token character and his pet monkey took part in a thrilling car chase involving backflipping robots and mother fucking zombies.

A large portion of the game looks like this.

The game is also fond of trying to use one scientific principle to explain all the weird shit that happens. Nanomachines become less of a radical technology advancement and more of a kind of magical device that can let people do anything, kind of like how the internet was presented in 90’s movies.
The ending takes a pure unadulterated dose of Hollywood cheese too. One of the games most powerful visual metaphors was Snake’s rapidly depleting cigarettes and how they tied into how much time he had left. You just knew when Snake knocked back that last cancer stick it was probably about time for his mouth and that .45 to have a meeting. Then, in one of the clumsiest bits of symbolism ever Snake decides to quit smoking, doesn’t pop himself in the mouth and instead goes off to ‘live as a beast’ with his bestest buddy Otacon.

Personally I would have sucked on the .45.