Metal Gear!?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 »
My three-day mission to finish both the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (the MSX versions included with Subsistence) just came to a successful end, mere minutes before Metal Gear Solid 4's release. The MGS series has long been one of my absolute favorites, and it was fascinating seeing just how many elements carried over from the earlier games into the modern incarnations. (In the case of Solid Snake, it was actually a little disturbing.)
I also found myself reading Gamespot's review of the original Metal Gear Solid by Jeff Gerstmann (score: 8.5/10), and was amused by its conclusion:
Five years from now, when we look back upon Metal Gear Solid, what will we see? The game definitely is revolutionary in many ways. It breaks new ground in gameplay and truly brings the video game one step closer to the realm of movies. It is, without a doubt, a landmark game. But the extreme ease with which it can be mastered and the game's insultingly short length keep it from perfection. Plus, do we really want games that are more like movies? If Hideo Kojima, the game's producer, was so set on this type of cinematic experience, he should really be making movies instead of games. While Metal Gear Solid currently stands alone, it stands as more of a work of art than as an actual game. It's definitely worth purchasing, but don't be surprised if you suddenly get extremely angry when you finish the game the day after you brought it home.
They really ought to fire that guy.
Bad Company
Saturday, June 7, 2008 »
So the Battlefield: Bad Company demo is out and last night I thought I'd try jumping into a game with Flik to demolish some buildings. So I got online and sent him a squad invite. A few minutes later, he told me that my invites didn't work and that he'd send some to me instead. I got them and selected "join squad," and then the game just sort of hung at the "joining..." screen for a minute before telling me the squad didn't exist. Then when I tried to send him one more, it said that he was no longer online. (This was false.) At that point we gave up.
And they said consoles would never get the authentic Battlefield experience.