Snakes

You know that post where I said I wished I was stupid? I was sitting on the porcelain throne and then all of a sudden a thought came to me. What the hell was I thinking? I am stupid. Like the mother of my friend Mr. Gump once said, "Stupid is as stupid does." I still have no idea what it really means, but quoting someone famous is always, always impressive.

So I finally got myself some hot Metal Gear Solid 4 action. It's as fun to play as instant noodles is good to eat. You know it isn't good for you, but no matter what anybody says you'll wolf it down just the same. You love it. You want to hate it but you can't and you know it. Everybody tells you that despite Nissin's gentlest suggestions that it was real ramen, it simply wasn't.

My point is that MGS4 is more movie than game. It isn't as movie-like as Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit) was, but it certainly is very lengthy in the cutscenes department. I mean, in a couple of occasions you literally walk a few steps into another cutscene after the last one, or maybe if there were some enemies around you could bust a cap or two into them and then follow the determined path into the next trigger for a lengthy conversation between Snake and some bloke.

I've only completed the first two Acts so far, and it's still rather satisfying. The boss fight wasn't so nice though. It didn't actually feel like a real fight, and the boss was so lame if I were to fight her again I would walk out of it as perfect as Megan Fox.

From what I've heard the rest of the game was going to be even more cutscene-heavy. I'll never be able to understand why if everything were cutscenes, Hideo Kojima had to cut some of the original stuff out so it'll fit in a 50Gb capacity dual-layered Bluray disk.

Some of the cutscenes were pretty irritating at first. When a long one pulls up you'll tend to want to put down your Sixaxis and enjoy the dialogue. But no. Some parts of certain cutscenes have flashbacks going on, so while you listen to David Hayter make his raspy voice even more raspy, you have to watch out for signals to start mashing on the circle button when something nostalgic pops up during conversation.

Something new that happened with this installment was the presence of a player economy. There was no currency on Shadow Moses. No currency on Big Shell. And certainly none in 1960s Soviet Russia. But then all of a sudden in this game you're picking up guns to sell and buying ammo from the menu being manned by a malnutritioned monkey. Need a clip of 5.56mm ammo? That'll be 200 points please, thank you, please come again.

The storyline has put out some very sharp criticisms and views about wars like all the other MGS games have, and this time it's updated to keep up with our modernised ideas of threat and combat. The elderly jokes never end, and you get random pokes from nowhere that'll make you chuckle, but looking like a grimacing Wookie.

It's all in all a great game, but it's really just for the fanboys. For the others who have no idea who Solid Snake is, it's probably better if you played something else like Dynasty Warriors on your PS3. Or Pacman. Or Pong.