Metal Gear Solid: A Fresh Perspective

With June 12th rapidly approaching my excitement for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 grows each day, my mind wanders mid-day and visions of the various Metal Gear Trailers infiltrate my thoughts. I can't wait to play through the finals chapter of the Metal Gear Series! I want to see how Kojima could possibly tie all of the crazy loose ends he left unbound the past three games--the only problem is that I have no clue to what those loose ends are.

You see, as of last week the game I had played the most in the Metal Gear series was the Recently released Metal Gear Online Beta, which I had played for about 2 hours on upon it's initial release. I know, it's crazy isn't it? How could I possibly miss one of the most beloved stealth action franchises to ever hit the playstation? It's easy. I'm a fool.

10 years ago Hideo Kojima and Konami released the first Modern Metal Gear game. In it's day it was critically acclaimed for it's amazing fully 3D graphics, it's unique play mechanics and most of all, it's story. The game went over so well that Five years later, it was remade for the Nintendo GameCube with updated graphics, controls and even redirected cutscenes. But for the sake of this article, I will limit my recollections of the game to the Original PlayStation.

Recently, in March I went to my local game retailer to preorder Metal Gear Solid 4 I decided it was time to put an end to my ignorance of the series and pick up the Metal Gear essentials box set. My purchase would sit on my shelf for weeks until something went off in my heard and reminded me that it was Mid-May already and I only had a few weeks to play through the whole box set, which I needed to do in order to understand what was going on during the 4th game. So on Sunday this week, I popped Metal Gear Solid into my PS3 and started to play.

My first impression when I saw the opening scene was that we have come a long way as far as graphics go in the 10 years following the original game's release. As soon as I took control of Snake for the first time I worked to familiarize myself with the controls; everything seemed to be in order so it was time to start the game. The sneaking worked well enough, but one of the first things I noticed after I started to move around within the first area was that many of the abilities I would assume Snake would have were not there. Snake couldn't jump, couldn't climb and couldn't one-hit kill anyone from behind. I was disappointed, but the game is 10 years old and can be forgiven for things that it lacks.

The second thing I noticed is that the game is hard. Very hard. I was killed many times just in the first area, but I was never frustrated; I made mistakes and the game punished me for them. The difficulty made me develop skills in stealth I rarely use in games as I am more of the fun and gun type of player. Metal Gear Solid does an excellent job of making you play the game as a stealth operative. You're not going to mindlessly shoot your way through this game as a one man army, you're going to have to sneak, hide and kill when possible. As the game went on, I found myself getting used to these controls and enjoying the limitations that were placed upon me; the challenge was great. As you move through the game, you acquire a large arsenal of specilized weaponry, but the primary game mechanics aren't focused around gunplay outside of boss battles.

The story on the other hand had no problems hooking me. Prior to playing the game I didn't read any back story concerning the original Metal Gear games so all of the characters were new to me. As the game goes on there will be more references to characters that don't appear in the game and plot points that wont be completely understood if you haven't read up on the two previous Metal Gear games for the NES, so I would recommend reading up on those before getting too deep into the story. Aside from the needed series history, the story is twisted and confusing in a good way. You never quite know what's really going on until you get to the end of the game. The over the top boss characters have been deeply thought out and leave an impression on you, especially in the case of the character Psycho Mantis.

My experience of playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time was an enjoyable one and it has me looking forward to playing the next game in the series. The game's mix of stealth action, shooting and crazy story has made me a fan of the series. For a game that is 10 years old, it hold manages to hold up well and deserves the hype and praise it earned back in it's heyday.

GTA IV: The Review

Grand Theft Auto IV is Rockstar North's latest addition to the storied Grand theft Auto series and the most ambitious to date. The opening sequence introduces you to the main character in Nico Belic as he arrives to Liberty City on a freighter in search of a new life of luxury and glamor that his cousin Roman has dazzled him with in sensational letters and emails.

The story unfolds in a the simulated New York City known as Liberty City (the site for three previous games in the Grand Theft Auto Universe), which spans four unique districts that are microcosms of their real life counterparts. Rockstar's attention to detail in the design of Liberty City easily takes hold of you as you explore the islands little by little as the story unfolds. The visuals in Grand Theft Auto have improved exponentially in the four years since the last game in the aeries San Andreas hit the shelves. The characters are greatly detailed and the addition of bloody clothing after meting the business end of flying bullets adds a real feel of losing health when shot. A major element to this new and improved Liberty City is the inhabitants that can all pass for everyday people because they have a very organic feel to them. If you try to slowly run them over, they're going to put their hands out in front of them to protect themselves and they're going to realistically react to a someone being killed unlike previous games where the NPCs would gather around a fresh corpse to catch a glimpse. You're also going to get subtle details like people's cell phones ringing and being answered, people reacting to you bumping into them and dropping what they're holding in reaction to your interactions with them. The NPCs seem almost real at times, one time in particular I was impressed on a trip to Happiness Island (Ellis Island in the real world) when a man took out a camera to snap a picture of the statue of Happiness (Statue of Liberty) . Small details like that really make the whole experience of being a Liberty City surreal.

The Controls in Grand Theft Auto IV have been modified from previous offerings to offer more realistic driving and a better targeting system. The new driving controls make driving like a madman through the streets of Liberty city more difficult and adds great disparity between types of cars and trucks you drive. I found driving to be difficult at first, but after a couple of hours into my first play session I was able to master the driving and was was drifting around corners away from the police with ease.

Speaking of the police, the wanted system has been changed for to accompany a seemingly more realistic fleeing system. Gone are the star icons that lower your wanted level and with that, a new radius system system has been implemented in which your goal is to escape the police line of sight; the more wanted stars you have, the bigger the radius the police have to spot you in. This new system seems to punish you if you try to flee on a straight path as police units will be dispatched to intercept you outside of their line of sight by predicting your path, and if the spot you, the police radius will reset to center on where you were last spotted. Making quick turns and using a less predictable path will provide better results for fleeing the police.

Another new implementation is the use of a Cell phone that will act as a mission initiator and allow you to call your in-game friends, do bonus missions and acts as the launchpad for the Multiplayer game modes, which are new to the series. The phone can be great because it allows you to call for a cab when you don't feel like physically driving to your next location, you can call your lawyer girlfriend (who you can meet online) when you're in a spot of trouble to eliminate your wanted level and it genuinely adds to the story as characters will call you; likewise you will call people you're doing jobs for to inform them that your task has been completed. The phone also can be your biggest source aggravation. There are times when you're just about to start a mission you might get a call from a friend asking if you want to go out to drink or maybe hit up a strip club, or you may get an angry call from a girlfriend that you have neglected guilt tripping you into going out with them again. The phone is a cool concept, but it can act as a ball and chain because your relationships you establish affect the story and will provide you with benefits if they are well maintained.

Of everything I mentioned, the most important, improved, compelling and interesting, the story being told stands out far above the rest. After a few missions Niko will begin to divulge information about his past and at that point I began to grow attached to him as a character and began to pay more attention to what I was doing as I played. When I first started jacking cars I would shoot people in cars in the face to steal their cars because it ensured no resistance. Later I began to believe that even though Niko kills for a living, he was better than killing random strangers for their cars. Sure, he would steal at the drop of a hat, but I began to feel bad for making him kill innocents for no reason. It's a strange effect that I haven't felt in past iterations of the series. The story is a standalone story as GTA typically goes, so there is no need to play any of the previous games before jumping into Liberty City.

Grand Theft Atuo IV is a strong title that can be picked up and played for hours on end. I personally took about 42 hours of play to beat the main story and select side missions. The joy of playing the first current generation title of the GTA series will keep me coming back to Liberty city and I feel it's a must play for anyone who is interested in open-world games, fast-paced driving and shooting and anyone who has enjoyed a previous GTA title.

Hard At Work.

So, you may have noticed a whole lot not going on here at last generation games over the past couple of weeks and for that I apologize.

Right now I'm the only staff since Jeff is on active duty for the Marines and I have a job, school and a band to work with, but that doesn't mean I haven't been finding time for games!

Just to fill you all in, I've been playing Tales of the Abyss and I'm 45 hours into it, but a busy schedule and the release of Grand Theft Auto IV have thrown me off track for my review, but don't worry it's on it's way as I am looking to put in some time on the game this weekend!


Now, I'm not sure how often I'm going to fill the lull with mindless drivel posts like this, but only time will tell. I did a bad thing and decided to pick a ton of PS2 RPGs to review and not a whole lot of short games so my reviews wont be a plentiful to start the site out, but I'm going to pick a game that is less than 60 hours for my next review so I can get it out in a timely fashion.

I have a ton of games here in the Last Gen office and just this week alone picked up Devil May Cray 4 (PS3), GTA IV (360), Lost Odyssey and shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne for review on top of the sprawling list of games I have in the vault. Most of them are going to easily breach the 40 hour mark, but rest assured I will get through them and hopefully Jeff will post some interesting stuff up when he's off active duty. Also, I'm going to be writing some news stories similar to the Movies article I did last month to fill the void between my reviews.

Anyway, I just thought I would give you all a heads up and let you know that Last Gen is "Still Alive" and we're eating our delicious and moist cake.