Post from: EveryJoe

NSFW: Snake snaps pictures of MGS4 beauties

Pundits say that the PlayStation 3 provides über designer Hideo Kojima the platform to finally realize his vision for a Metal Gear game. I say hogwash. Kojima never did let hardware limitations prevent him from creating masterpiece upon masterpiece in the previous console generations.

Case in point: the brilliant boss fights. Each Metal Gear Solid installment had them, and even the ones in older games could be considered as all-time greats. Psycho Mantis and Sniper Wolf were my personal favorites in the first MGS, and when either are compared to any game boss ever created, the FOXHOUND duo is certainly unmatched when it comes to fun factor and design brilliance. Of course, how can we forget the sniping showdown with The End in MGS3? There is simply no boss fight like it in any game system.

However, I can’t say the same with my first boss encounter in MGS4. Laughing Octopus was quite tricky to locate given her camo powers, but there were no “OMG!” moments to permanently sear the experience into my subconscious. The second round against Laughing Octopus wasn’t that interesting as well because while the boss was tricky to hit with guns, she never did try to do anything else but try to grab Snake—and she didn’t do a very good job either because she’s too slow. To be fair, it was the first boss fight so MGS4 has several more chances.

I just find it ironic that the supposedly-ideal platform to fully realize Kojima’s vision for MGS has already used up one bullet–and it missed.

Could it be possible that because the hardware is supposedly ‘ideal,’ Kojima and his crew have lost their edge? Or was Kojima too wrapped up in closing the story’s loose ends story that somehow, he didn’t put in as much time and effort to make the boss fights as staggeringly impressive?

Whatever the case, the eyes of all Metal Gear fans and gamers everywhere are on Kojima and crew. Forget the perfect score given to MGS4 by GameSpot. Forget all the hype that we were subjected to for four years. Play the game and let it speak for itself. Let the discussions commence.

Image of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is courtesy of Konami.

Post from: EveryJoe

MGS4 playthrough: Could boss fights be not as good?

So Bioshock gives me a headache when I play for long periods. I can still enjoy it for a couple of hours, right? I take in the twisted art deco, the awesome eye candy, and the superior audio for 120 minutes or so, then log out happy, right?

Taking in the atmosphere may put a grin on my face, but the visit to Rapture can get really tedious because you can fight only so much bad guys before you notice that there’s not much variety in the antagonists you encounter.

You have a few splicers, two types of big daddies (that look pretty much the same), a bunch of little sisters that you can’t tell apart from each other, and a few freakish stage bosses that are too far in between that somehow remind you of the splicers.

That’s pretty much it.

Can’t I have ninjas? Ninjas are always cool. How about bears that shoot lasers out of its eyes? Nevermind that these types of enemies have nothing to do with Rapture or Plasmids. Hardly anyone pays attention to FPS storylines anyway.

Post from: EveryJoe

Bioshock annoyances #2: Shooting splicers are fun—up to a certain point