Metal Gear Solid 4

[Mardigan8]

Also, does anyone knows if there are alternate endings? I read a bit in that link a few posts up about the ending being different depending on you using a Six-axis or a Dualshock3, anyone know?? I was using a Six-axis...

[Spatial]

I've been digesting it over the last few hours and have to admit at first I felt the same as you.

Massive Spoilers approaching!

However on reflecting

->Open Spoiler<-

I think that Snake got the send off he deserved. Kojima clearly felt at some point that his hero needed to die to end the cycle of war and misery which had started so many years ago. You get to see a lot of that in the way that all the major players are removed a piece at a time and in a very final manner - Big Mama, Solidus, Liquid, Naomi etc.

It's the Spartan theory - there's something noble about heroes going out fighting in a blaze of glory.

But then it's as if he realised that it wouldn't really be a fitting ending for someone who had suffered so long and so hard and only tried to do what was right in all the situation he was thrown in to. It wouldn't be dignified for a noble warrior who carries the scars of countless battles and a heavy burden on his shoulders.

Who knows, Kojima's original intention may have been to kill off Snake to stop all those people who say "Oh there'll always be another one!" every time he says its his last. But if these characters have been his life's work for so long I'm sure he's grown emotionally attached to his creations just like we have.

He actually gives Snake the greatest gift of all - the gift of freedom from war. And the gift of life - one away from the battlefield and which leaves him to live out his final days in the peace that he's so rightly fought for and deserved.

It's a very poignant and deserving ending for the legend.

[kernow]

Just finished, I've played the whole series and basically don't have a clue.

I couldn't help thinking this one was a bit pretentious, great game though still.

[Concept]

Ending:

->Open Spoiler<-

Metal Gear started with Big Boss, so it was fitting that it should end with him. The reason I found it more satisfying than Snake Eater's (which does have a hugely impressive finish) is because it wraps up the entire saga for me. It's not like Snake gets off. His body is still decaying and he'll die in less than a year. Even Otacon says he'll support him to the end.

The only problem I have with the end of MGS4 is that Big Boss goes on for a couple of minutes too long. It lessens the dramatic impact.

Another criticism (not to do with the end but to further Spatial's blaze of glory comment above), is that Kojima didn't kill off Raiden (I thought he was dead only for it to be casually mentioned he's alive on the boat in Act 5). Similar to Halo 3 (with the Chief dying or creating a set up where Cortana is rampant), a number of videogames don't have the balls to fundamentally alter long-standing characters. It seems some developers have really hard trouble of letting go of the characters they create - not just the ones we control but the ones that acompany the player on their journey.

And coming back to beauty in the beast unit. I thought when Meryl had her nanomachines hacked at the start of Act 1 Snake was going to have to end up fighting her as one of Ocelot's unit. Rather than being bogged down in endless, confusing detail, the story needed more confrontation amongst it's central characters, rather than just with the 'big bad'.

[Mardigan8]

Fantastic take on it Spatial and it all makes sense, but even if that was the intention I still dont feel he done THAT very well in his closing scenes... SPOILERS!!

->Open Spoiler<-

Snake says next to nothing in the closing scenes, Big Boss does all the talking and you never really feel a conection between the 2 characters because in this story they have never met. This final scene should be fuelled with emotion, content and passion and instead its just an old stranger telling his side of the story. Big Boss seems to get more of a send off than Snake in the end up, lol, plus he swaggers in like a dog with 2 dicks and fair enough but for me it just felt like Kojima was trying to be too smart with the old "haha, Big Boss is actually alive, you didnt know that did you" and it didnt jingle with me at all. I understand his reasoning behind it but like I said above, I feel its so unecessary.

This end scene should have been devoted to Snake, looking over flashbacks of his life, all he has fought for, all he has lost and we should get to see how all these thoughts affect him, maybe a tear rolling down his cheek as he goes to kill himself, I dont know, but for me Big Boss was the wrong character for Snake to close the story with as there is just no connection with the player to get you connected with it.

I love your theory about Snakes existence following the ending and from now on that will be how I view it but it will forever niggle at me how it could have been.

[Concept]

The connection is:

->Open Spoiler<-

Big Boss, the original material for Solidus, Snake and Liquid, is dead. They can't clone Snake or anyone from the remains of Liquid or Solidus, so Ocelot's legacy of building the perfect solidier, and of the 'curse of Big Boss' (so to speak) is laid to rest. The reason Snake is still standing at the end is to reaffirm the point Snake made to Raiden in MGS2. Kojima wants it to be known that he obviously thinks it's still very important to have a voice to remind people of the past in the future. That we don't keep making the same mistakes.

The flashback idea is an interesting one though.

[Concept]

->Open Spoiler<-

Actually, scrap that. His remains are still on the ground when the scene finishes (I'm presuming Snake and Otacon deal with them but it's never made clear).

[mr_woo]

->Open Spoiler<-

He actually gives Snake the greatest gift of all - the gift of freedom from war. And the gift of life - one away from the battlefield and which leaves him to live out his final days in the peace that he's so rightly fought for and deserved.

It's a very poignant and deserving ending for the legend.

Completely agree with this

->Open Spoiler<-

After everything Snake has been through I thought the death on the battlefield would have been, whilst typically glorious, just a bit too standard. It's obvious Snake's going to die and he gets to spend it doing what he wants instead of fighting. I thought it was incredibly poignant and a fitting end for one of my favourite videogame heroes ever

MGS4 is definitely my favourite MGS game along with the first one. I loved Snake Eater but I thought MGS4 surpassed it in every way. For the first few hours of Snake Eater I thought it was very poorly paced and a bit dull, only picking up a few hours later. MGS4 grabbed me right from the start and had its hooks in me until I finished it, I had to literally fall asleep (and wake up again ) to get me to turn my PS3 off for some rest, I was that addicted to it.

In all honesty though MGS1 had a huge impact on me as a 15 year old all them years ago and despite MGS3 being a good game I just didn't have the same attachment to the characters in that, that I do with Solid Snake, Otacon etc so that's another reason why I loved it as much as I did.

A fitting end to a great character, don't mess it up Konami.

[Mardigan8]

Ending:

->Open Spoiler<-

Metal Gear started with Big Boss, so it was fitting that it should end with him. The reason I found it more satisfying than Snake Eater's (which does have a hugely impressive finish) is because it wraps up the entire saga for me. It's not like Snake gets off. His body is still decaying and he'll die in less than a year. Even Otacon says he'll support him to the end.

The only problem I have with the end of MGS4 is that Big Boss goes on for a couple of minutes too long. It lessens the dramatic impact.

Another criticism (not to do with the end but to further Spatial's blaze of glory comment above), is that Kojima didn't kill off Raiden (I thought he was dead only for it to be casually mentioned he's alive on the boat in Act 5). Similar to Halo 3 (with the Chief dying or creating a set up where Cortana is rampant), a number of videogames don't have the balls to fundamentally alter long-standing characters. It seems some developers have really hard trouble of letting go of the characters they create - not just the ones we control but the ones that acompany the player on their journey.

And coming back to beauty in the beast unit. I thought when Meryl had her nanomachines hacked at the start of Act 1 Snake was going to have to end up fighting her as one of Ocelot's unit. Rather than being bogged down in endless, confusing detail, the story needed more confrontation amongst it's central characters, rather than just with the 'big bad'.

->Open Spoiler<-

I couldn't agree more on videogames being unable to kill off long standing characters Concept, that is what I was getting at in my inital post!! Halo3 is nother great example and for Nylund who wrote the Halo books has a firm grasp on this concept and showed the balls to execute it in the ending of Ghosts of Onyx (you read it?). Here, just like Halo 3 we see a scenario where everything including the characters desire points to a thrilling, emotional climax for many characters but instead everyone that the player has a real connection with walks off into the ****ing sunset.

You are echoing everything I have thought about what the game should have been and I think it is something that Snake Eater absolutely nailed. Instead of continuing from that fantastic achievement he convolutes things with so much unecessary information that it is almost impossible to emotionally connect with the characters during the ending.

[Rossco]

Haha yeah, when there's like 5 soldiers with stealth camo in there with him.

Speaking of stealth camo, I was gonna give MGS4 a rest after completing it once but might go back in on a no-alert run. Anyone managed this so far?

I'm half way through it on Big Boss Hard right now, and it's nails! So much fun though, really taking your time, and sneaking everywhere by crawling. You have to be so aware of your surroundings and the surround sound helps you understand where enemies are around you.

Does it matter if a guard spots me but then I take him out quickly before other guards come? Or is it the moment a guard gets alerted, that's it?

If ALERT appears at the top of the screen, even for a split second then your done for. And that will happen the second an enemy sees you, as they usually shout as it happens alerting their mates to your presence! Caution is okay though, like sometimes you'll make a noise to distract them and they might go into caution mode and investigate, that's fine! But Alert mode is a complete no-no!




I shall be doing Act 3 again tonight with no alerts which I'm fairly confident should be quite easy as it's mainly the

->Open Spoiler<-

tailing section, the boss battle and the chase sequence!

[Concept]

CMGS4 is definitely my favourite MGS game along with the first one. I loved Snake Eater but I thought MGS4 surpassed it in every way. For the first few hours of Snake Eater I thought it was very poorly paced and a bit dull, only picking up a few hours later.

That's my main problem with Snake Eater. It takes a good five or six hours to truly come alive (though once it does it's develops into one of the game's of the last generation). You could argue, and I can see how MGS4 will polarise people, that in the middle of the third act

->Open Spoiler<-

MGS4 takes the reverse stance. I wouldn't actually agree with this because I enjoyed the return to the old-school stealth gameplay in act 4. I barely got caught in that chapter and until the fight with Vamp it was tense throughout.

That's why I can forgive MGS4's latter half. Each act offers something unique and different.

->Open Spoiler<-

I couldn't agree more on videogames being unable to kill off long standing characters Concept, that is what I was getting at in my inital post!! Halo3 is nother great example and for Nylund who wrote the Halo books has a firm grasp on this concept and showed the balls to execute it in the ending of Ghosts of Onyx (you read it?). Here, just like Halo 3 we see a scenario where everything including the characters desire points to a thrilling, emotional climax for many characters but instead everyone that the player has a real connection with walks off into the ****ing sunset.

You are echoing everything I have thought about what the game should have been and I think it is something that Snake Eater absolutely nailed. Instead of continuing from that fantastic achievement he convolutes things with so much unecessary information that it is almost impossible to emotionally connect with the characters during the ending.

->Open Spoiler<-

I've read Ghosts of Onyx, and yeah, I'd agree that on retrospect of that series, the books actually offer a stronger (you might say expected) narrative than the games. I'd argue this is less to the difference of mediums and more down to the dramatic choices.

I want to see titles that aren't afraid to make fundamental changes to characters and let us see them gradually happen, or not be afraid to put characters into conflict with one another with no 'comfortable' resolution. You could argue that 'Old Snake' is a significant alternation (and he is), but Otacon, Naomi, Rose, Campbell are all very much the same as they were (a little more world weary in the case of Otacon).

Take Raiden for example. Kojima has to be comended for changing him, but we see no arc to that change. All we get are a couple of throwaway lines how he became abusive once his old memories had been resurfaced by Solidus between MGS2 and 4. It would have been nice to have perhaps had one act go back into his past as a child soldier and how that may have affected him.

Having said all this, like mr. woo I personally do have more of an attachment to the characters in MGS and MGS 2 simply because outside of The Boss, Ocelot and Eva, all the other characters (Snake included) in MGS3 were too poorly voiced to be taken seriously. MGS4's characters are more likeable all round for me.

[Mardigan8]

Maybe this is my problem with the ending...

->Open Spoiler<-

In MGS1 the story and eventual fate of Grey Fox gave me a lump in my throat and I thought it was a fantastic way for such a poignant and important character to be handled.

In MGS3 the death of The Boss and then your realisation that she fought knowing that she had no choice and gave her life for the good nearly reduced me to tears, that whole final battle and cutscene is something I will never forget.

In MGS4 there were 2 characters (Snake and Raiden) that could have been given the deaths they deserve. Sacrificing themselves for the causes they stood for and forever being remembered as the soldiers who brought balance back to the world. This is what I was hoping for and is essentially why I have been left wanting as the credits rolled. Snake tells Raiden at the end "He has something to live on for", so I figured Raidens ending would include a wee bit about how Snake knew about his kid and Rose and was helping to protect them and eventually gave his life defending them, that is why he wouldn't let him go through the microwave chamber. Raidens ending worked for me but had he died protecting Snake or maybe Rose I would have loved it even more.

I guess it just doesn't work for me with Snake alive. He has no quality of life, cannot enjoy the world he helped shape and instead of going out with a glorious and emotional finale he has to endure a horrific, painful and lonely death. I cant understand how this is something Snake would want, but maybe that is the point Kojima is making, that it is not his fate to die in battle but to endure and live on.

Regarding Raiden...

->Open Spoiler<-

It really was a no brainer for Kojima to alter Raiden because of how he was in MGS2. I agree it would have been great to see some backstory on what happened to him between MGS2 and MGS4 as it would have made his redemption all the more important.

[Spatial]

More massive spoilers

To me, Raiden's fate was a bit of an enigma until you start to look at it from the view that

->Open Spoiler<-

he's acting as a counter-weight to Snake. It's the perspective of old veteran vs young warrior.

Snake (at the point in time things are happening) really has nothing to loose because his fate has already been decided (or so we're led to believe) .

Raiden on the other hand just thinks that he has nothing to lose when we know that he actually does (and it becomes a lot clearer just how much at the end).

I think the difference between them in both mindset and body is intended to show that just because a life has been touched by conflict and strife that it shouldn't be regarded as throwaway. Snakes desperate to hang on to his humaity and Raiden's throwing it away. Towards the end Snake makes a big deal of telling him to go and live his life because there's still time for that to happen, even after everything he's done.

I agree that it's a bit ham fisted in the way that it's dealt with though, especially at the end of Act 4, but I think the overall idea is to show that those touched by war and inner turmoil have something to live for, even if they can't see it.

Perhaps that's what separates characters like Raiden from the B&B's.

That said I do believe that Raiden's fate wasn't as fitting as I would have liked it. He was one character that Kojima would have made more of an impact with by getting rid of him - the best point would have been the end of act 4 with the noble sacrifice. But again I think this is part of Kojima's attachment to his characters - in Raiden that attachment is probably extremely strong since everyone else disliked him so much after MGS2.

If he had been killed off it would also have been quite funny seeing him go from the one everyone got to play and hated, to the one everyone wanted to play but never can.

[kernow]

can I just check

->Open Spoiler<-

'zero' at the end is major zero from mgs3, and the original creators of the patriots are him, big boss, sigint and paramedic right?, I still don't know why naomi changed sides so much either, or JD, GW and all this, I kinda know they are controlling AI's as such, but jesus christ

[Concept]

Mardigan8 - Pretty much. Though on that note

->Open Spoiler<-

Raiden's ending with Rose was a little twee. Kojima says in the making of that he wanted the characters to be 'happy' in the last game, but I think Raiden's reunion wasn't as tense or as unsure as it should have been.

It sounds like I'm down on the ending but I'm not. The point about the microwave is fair - it makes that whole segment seem kind of pointless in terms of drama, but again, when Big Boss showed up I just immediately got the sense that yes, the series is finally coming to a close. Another point on top of the idea that Snake has to endure, is that there is no atonement. Remember what Vulcan Raven said about a path with no rest?

When Big Boss dies there is no sudden redemption. He dies a tired, weary soldier who ultimately end up becoming twisted in betraying his only connection (the Boss). Symbolically, he's the last of the founding Patriots... so it's kind of fitting that he ends up passing away on the very grave of the only person in the saga who could arguably be considered to be the true 'patroit' (the Boss).

There is no sacrifice in MGS4's end other than Snake once more having the control being removed from him, and Naomi's virus killing off his last surviving link.