Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 4

Widely praised across a variety of gaming media, MGS 4 marks an interesting point in the early life of the PS3.  American and Japanese critics laud the game as a watershed moment in mainstream game design.  European gaming critics are a bit more circumspect in their praise, defining Snake Eater as the pinnacle of the series.  If there is one criticism that stands out about Guns of the Patriots, it is that the final third of the game slowly gives way to being primarily an animated movie with a few full-on gameplay sequences and several interactive cutscenes. 

Let’s establish one thing from the beginning: when you come to a game by Hideo Kojima, be prepared to play his game, not yours.  Despite Kojima’s repeated denials of games’ ability to be an artform, he is one of the closest examples of an auteur the medium has to offer.  Kojima has a story to tell, a method to tell that story, and sense that the gameplay should reflect something about that story.  The indulgent cutscenes in MGS are notorious, sometimes leaving gameplay off for cinematic presentations more than an hour long.  The scenes have a true film-like quality — staged, directed, and stylized to near breaking points.  The attention to detail in an MGS cutscene puts the vast majority of hollywood films to shame: 

 

Figure 1 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004).

They unfold slowly, sometimes attempting to emote purely through the actions and movements of the characters.  That this is no mean feat for a game is obvious.  For one, developers forging toward deeper and more intense photorealism must contend with the everpresent approach of the “uncanny valley” — that point at which animated realism is most noticeably fake only because the human eye and brain pick up on the most minute ticks in movement and expression that seem unnatural.  Compare the above footage to that below: 

Figure 2 Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004).

The cell-shading of Sly 2 opens up the “suspension of disbelief” much more easily.  Sucker Punch was also smart enough to turn the level transitions and cutscenes into a kind of blended Saturday morning cartoon/comic book panel motif.  Combined with the intuitive platforming and the serialized storyline running throughout, Sly 2 still captures my attention.  The mood established by the music and setting is flatly intoxicating for me — something I can completely lose myself in.  Thus, for MGS 4, the power of the PS3 is paramount to its cinematic aesthetic constructed in a photorealistic simulation.  The richness and level of detail in movement and expression are paramount to create a sense of immersion.  The pain in Snake’s deteriorating body is etched everywhere in his appearance: 

Figure 3 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008 ).

It’s by no means perfect, but what the presentation lacks in visual naturalism, the audio, voice acting, and narration more than make up for — at least for the most part.  The moments in which Otacon breaks down and cries (several times in the last third of the game) are rather painful to watch, and not because the gamer ends up sympathizing with his plight.  If you’re an MGS veteran, these moments will rank up there with Otacon’s breakdowns from past games.  It’s perhaps one of the most blaring faults in the presentation.  The “pain” Otacon is feeling is clearly false in the audio presentation and voice acting.  It’s sort of an auditory uncanny valley. 

And, while many games are moving more toward interactive cutscenes (Heavenly Sword, Resident Evil 4, etc.), the MGS universe has been rather slow to adopt these conventions.  Guns of the Patriots does move in this direction near the end of the game, particularly in a sequence where Snake is struggling to make his final goal while his friends and comrades fight and suffer on his behalf.  Kojima mixes a simple button mashing mini-game mechanic (hammer away at the X-button for your life, my friend!) in with a cinematic presentation that sets a side-by-side framing of Snake’s agonizing struggle to reach his goal next to cutscenes of Meryl and Raiden struggling to watch Snake’s back.  In some ways, this takes the place of the ubiquitous torture mini-game that’s made its way into the other franchise entries.  And in this case, the scenario feels fare more engaging.  The gamer isn’t simply trying to revive Snake; she’s trying to propel Snake toward an impossible goal and make it before Meryl and Raiden die. 

In terms of the straightforward gameplay, the first two acts are really the shining accomplishments.  The battlefield is loud and dynamic, and the AI is sometimes freakishly smart, especially as I’ve started playing through again on one of the higher difficulty levels.  But, the options opened up to the gamer are more than any MGS veteran has been accustomed to in the past.  The controls are much more twitch-based, allowing Snake to fight his way out of tough situations instead of simply running and hiding.  In fact, this is a marked shift in the gameplay aesthetic MGS is known for.  In past iterations, the camera angle and control map actually worked to slow the gamer’s decision making process down, seeking to create situations that allowed maximum tactical control.  Along this line of thinking, enemy NPCs often moved and patrolled along fixed paths at regular intervals.  Stealth was essentially a matter of timing similar to gameplay from 2D platforming games. 

In Guns of the Patriots, neither of these elements is in place.  The over-the-shoulder third person camera provides for a more expansive situational awareness, and the control map is now pretty similar to games like Call of Duty 4, or more accurately Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.  In fact, I spent a lot of my time in the first two acts mentally comparing the latter with Snake’s newest adventure.  And the NPCs do have some fixed trigger points with basic scripted scenarios, but once they arrive on scene, they rarely, if ever, behave the same way twice.  Think of them as initial actions that trigger the onset of action, but the action often unfolds in different ways. 

It’s not “freedom”, per se — despite the more open layout of individual areas, the progression is still relatively linear.  MGS is in no way a sandbox experience, and Guns of the Patriots is thoroughly in keeping with this tradition.  The progression is more akin to a series of arenas with a few basic options to move from point A to point B.  Each option allows the gamer to establish one form of play over another: stand-up fight versus sneaking and flanking.  Whereas MGS entries of the past almost punished the gamer for seeking out confrontation, MGS 4 allows for the possibility, even rewarding the gamer’s choice to a degree by allying Snake with differeing militias if he chooses to fight the PMC troops. 

An interesting design element in the simulation comes into play, though.  Even helping the militia out just a bit (in one battle for instance) can pay off in later sneaking gameplay.  Their firefights serve as a distraction to the PMCs while the militia members allow you to sneak through their lines without any cares.  They don’t exactly provide you cover fire or anything, but they become one less set of guns to worry about. 

As for the story in MGS 4, I plan to do some work on that in a later post.  It’s not the finest writing in the MGS saga, but neither is it the worst.  Until the final cutscene, the story is actually rather straighforward, if sometimes melodramatic and schlocky.  The sudden burst of love between Meryl and Johnny (Akiba) is completely unearned, especially give the comic relief Akiba has played throughout the series and the way Meryl’s character has developed.  And Raiden is turned into a thorough badass, but there are distinct opportunities with him that are missed.  By the end, Raiden turns more into a convenient plot device, saving Snake’s butt on several occasions and arriving out of nowhere to do so.  At least with Gray Fox and Olga Gurlukovich, the stories in MGS and MGS 2 provided some kind of reasoning for their presence as cyborg ninjas.  Raiden just keeps showing up.  But Snake’s main story is as engaging as ever, and so is the story behind The Patriots.  The manner in which characters from Snake Eater are tied into the franchise tie the entire series together in a way that is far simpler to understand than many might have thought possible. 

One thing MGS 4 does do, alongside Snake Eater, is essentially reveal the thematic heart of the story as a long exploration of family dynamics in a technological age.  The relationships between many of the characters essentially become distorted family relationships, particularly with respect to motherhood and fatherhood.  The Boss’ role as the founding “mother” of special forces during World War II is the key to cementing an understanding of her relationship with Big Boss, something echoed in the relationship Big Mama (aka Eva — a loaded enough name in its own right) has with her resistance movement.  The final cutscene takes on some exploration of Big Boss’ role as Snake’s “father” — the source of Snake’s genetic material.  Add this to the seemingly broken relationships Otacon has with most of his family, and Kojima’s opus essentially becomes a look at human emotional identity remediated into the simulacra of advanced computer and biotechnology.  And in many ways, despite its shortcomings, it’s a fascinating and sometimes profound treatment of the subject.