Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Total letdown"

You know, I really fail to understand how this game is so highly rated. I love the MGS franchise with 3 being my favourite and number 4 was the reason I bought my PS3. I couldn't wait to play it. I shouldn't have bothered.

The main problem with this game is the cut scenes. The other MGS games managed to blend fantastic game play with the odd cut scene and create a fantastic story. This game seems to depend solely on cut scenes to advance the story, meaning you end up with about 65% cut scene and 35% game, that's being generous. There is one part in the middle of the game where you literally do not need to touch the controller for an hour.

As if this were not bad enough the game decides to offer you the illusion that you are still involved by allowing you to press a button at random parts during the scene. These acts of immersion allow you to see mostly irrelevant things like Snake smoking his cigarette from a different angle. I find this worse than just letting me watch it without the interruption.

Cut scenes aside, the game just feels dull and flat. The emotion you felt whilst playing through its forbearers just isn't present in this game and by the end I just couldn't wait for it to be over with.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing though is the fact that everyone seems to love it. It makes me feel like the only sane person in an asylum. Are people just happy nowadays to lap up this rubbish? How does this bode for the future of gaming? I have already seemingly lost 2 of my favourite franchise to the laziness of cut scenes (MGS and Final Fantasy) and I cling on to the hope that the next Metal Gear Solid will go back to its roots, as in actually be a good game.