the story is pretty hit or miss on some people. if you don't like kojimas style, then you're not gonna like this and think it's shit. if you "get" Kojimas style and the hidden meaning behind it, you're basically going to love it, and love it even more since the cinematic quality is through the roof.

What hidden meanings man?

I only liked the story because I couldn't stop laughing at how bad it was. I mean seriously, the final battle left me in tears, it can't get any worse.

But it's cool in a way, so much b-movie with such high production values.

man

if the story/dialogue/writing is so bad, why is this game getting tens?  fucking reviewers.  PERFECT.  PERFECT GAME... except for all that bad stuff.  i almost want to play it so i can see for myself but i have no desire whatsoever to own a ps3 so!

Because if other reviewers took a chance like Edge or Gametrailers and actually pointed out the flaws people would be sending them death threats (seriously, one dude on Gametrailers board is like "where does this guy live i have anthrax).

To be fair, the gameplay is fantastic and I would easily rate it higher 9 (I hate fractions but 9.4 lololololol) but the plot itself is ridiculous.  The presentation is great, but the writing is odd in its translation and some scenes come off really stale.  Maybe an 8 or upper 7.

But it is a great game.  I'd easily give it a high 8 or a low 9.  Even if I didn't like MGS, I'd buy it for the game itself and the online mode which is really fun because of the multitude of weapons.

I just finished it. I really liked the first three acts, but they were short. They really had a lot of things missing that made the previous game "maps" so awesome. Battles were really awesome but there were really few. Once Snake went to Shadow Moses I really started to hate the game. Basically EVERYONE WAS A FUCKING ROBOT. YOU CAN'T CQC A ROBOT. I really liked the gameplay basically. I just felt I was missing alot.

Now, the story, I am just so fucking pissed. I am really really fucking mad. I waited 4 years for this bullshit. It was mad cool for the first 3 parts, than it just takes this MASSIVE DOWN HILL. Characters keep dying and coming back. It even takes like an hour for everybody to fucking die. Theres so much shit I want to complain about, but I'm really bad at pulling stuff out of my head.

The ending was the biggest motherfucking let down ever. First you kill mantis Then you run down a repeating hallway, than the game play just ends. Oh wait, you can fight Liquid Ocelot but the controls are so fucking bad, it's just not epic at all. The actual ending was long as fuck, it was dumb because they reexplained the story two times. It was cheesy, there was nothing redeeming about it. The endings of MGS2 and 3 almost made me fucking cry because they were so epic. MGS4 has none of that.

NONE OF IT

FUCK THIS SHIT MAN

FUCk.

GOD WHO WROTE THIS SHIT

I had such high standards; again there was just nothing redeeming about the story. At all. I can't believe I waited 4 years for this bullshit.

LIMAN YOU B  ASTARD

Yeah so I was alarmed by GT's responses as well. I was hoping it wouldn't get a ten, honestly, because I think they should be saved for the really perfect games, and I wasn't sure if this was one. From what I've heard, the plot isn't great? Also anyone want to explain the multiplayer modes?

I actually enjoyed most of the story.  Then again I was expecting the story to be cheesy and filled with fanservice.

Ok, Laugh if you want but i learnt something from those stupid cutscenes.

I learnt how to make perfect Sunny Side up eggs XD
Cover it with a lid and leave it for a minute works every fucking time.
And they are just right, With the yoke slightly cooked so its not all runny, but not all solid either.
Fucking Hideo

Dude, I don't think you can give a game a 9 because it has good gameplay in spite of an abysmal story, when cutscenes literally account for HALF THE GAME.  Maybe if the game wasn't story driven, it'd be fine, but it sounds like it clearly is, even to a further extent than most games, so when said story, dialogue, and characters are awful, it should have a serious impact on the game!  From how prominent you're saying the narrative is, it should be at least as integral to the game's overall quality as the gameplay, considering you apparently spend as much time sitting through FMVs as you do playing the game.  I haven't even played it, but going by what you're saying about how big a role story played in the game, and the quality of it, a flat 7 or something probably would've been a lot more appropriate.  Going "well the game is clearly story-driven and the story blows but 9/10!!" seems odd to me!

dude they've done this for every RPG ever, why would they switch it here? think of how many TALES OF SPACEIA or whatever generic pieces of shit get a 7.0 and above and those are RPGs, games not known for their gameplay.

basically reviewers don't actually care about story and if you have one that isn't just SAVE PRINCESS yeah they give it a pretty good rating!

man

if the story/dialogue/writing is so bad, why is this game getting tens?  fucking reviewers.  PERFECT.  PERFECT GAME... except for all that bad stuff.  i almost want to play it so i can see for myself but i have no desire whatsoever to own a ps3 so!

Well . . . I sort of think personally that MGS 4 is perfect.  It is the best video game I've ever played!  I thought that the cutscenes were all excellent and the gameplay really couldn't have been much better.  There are so many things I could say about the game but I guess I'll save the essay for my blog or something.  I think the whole point of the writing is that it is pretty heavyhanded and droll - the game is saying something about video games.  But yeah I guess depending on whether or not you give the game the benefit of the doubt (it may or may not deserve it) your opinion could go radically in either direction.

Ok, Laugh if you want but i learnt something from those stupid cutscenes.

I learnt how to make perfect Sunny Side up eggs XD
Cover it with a lid and leave it for a minute works every fucking time.
And they are just right, With the yoke slightly cooked so its not all runny, but not all solid either.
Fucking Hideo

Metal Gear Not Solid but Not Runny Either

http://kotaku.com/5017036/battlefield-bad-company-mocks-metal-gear?autoplay=true
EA's take on MGS4.

Dude, I don't think you can give a game a 9 because it has good gameplay in spite of an abysmal story, when cutscenes literally account for HALF THE GAME.  Maybe if the game wasn't story driven, it'd be fine, but it sounds like it clearly is, even to a further extent than most games, so when said story, dialogue, and characters are awful, it should have a serious impact on the game!  From how prominent you're saying the narrative is, it should be at least as integral to the game's overall quality as the gameplay, considering you apparently spend as much time sitting through FMVs as you do playing the game.  I haven't even played it, but going by what you're saying about how big a role story played in the game, and the quality of it, a flat 7 or something probably would've been a lot more appropriate.  Going "well the game is clearly story-driven and the story blows but 9/10!!" seems odd to me!

Because, and I know this may be difficult for you to comprehend, it is a fun game.  Not every cutscene is poorly written and campy but despite that fact you can still play this game without knowing squat about the story and skip the cutscenes.

You can't do the same with an RPG.

This game takes about 10 hours to complete minus the cinematics plus all the hidden extras plus the great online mode plus the downloadable content.  You also have a wide variety of enemies, environments, weapons, and various situations which help spice up the gameplay.

An RPG is atleast 20-40 hours of mashing X, talking to NPCs, and leveling up.

It may be a story driven game but the gameplay is the focal point of the title and the game is, well, fun.  I could play MGO by itself and feel like I'm getting my money's worth.

If you don't plan on playing MGO one might feel a bit ripped off but when I rate games I try to look at all the mitigating factors and piece them together.  Pacing issues and golden age comic book villains aside, the game itself is top notch thus the writing doesn't adversely affect my enjoyment.  I still penalize it for its pandering but I'm not going to tell my buddy "Hey, don't buy this game.  It's really fun but the writing is juvenile THUS YOU WILL HATE EVERY ASPECT!!!"

But an RPG thrives on the plot and writing and the gameplay is almost always second.  In the case where the entire game balances on whether or not I can stay interested by reading massive amounts of text, the final score will be lowered dramatically but the beauty of MGS4 is that you can press START+SELECT and still enjoy the game.

oh yeah the making-of documentary that comes with the special edition specifically states the total length of cutscenes and it's something like 5 hours so yes, lots of exaggeration flying around in this topic!

But it's not GOD AWFUL (fuck, why do people throw this word around so much??).

I already expressed my opinion on what is GOD AWFUL.  That is an extreme word that should be reserved for the trashiest of the trash like everything NIS releases or throwaway action games like conflict ops denied assault or whatever.  It is, by far, not awful, not horrible, not bad, not even mediocre.  There are hundreds of games worse than this and even comparing it to them is stupid.  I'll go off on a limb here and say it is above average.  There are eye rolling moments mostly coming from Naomi and Mei Ling who should've never been in the game at all, but for the most part it's good.  Obviously you have to be a fan of MGS to enjoy it because if this is your first MGS game or you haven't followed the story from the past 3 you'll be left the dark completely.

And the total length of the cutscenes, after just watching the documentary, is about 7 and a half hours so about 40% of the playtime is cutscenes.  but only a handful of them truely stand out and make you think "Why did they add that in again?"

So yeah, I hate giving numbers to video games and would much rather say "I recommend this to fans of the series but non-fans don't even fucking try" but game magazines, reviewers, and THE CONSUMER are too thick headed to comprehend words and can't make decisions without seeing an arbitrary number tied to it.  On a purely math related basis a 9 in gameplay and a 7 in story would average out to 8.5 so I cannot understand how this is poor reasoning or whatever.  Since there's no objective way to tell if a game was specifically designed to convey a story I think it's just as hypocritical to say "Well, because it's a story driven game I'm going to count the gameplay as 10% of the final score and the story as 90%." 

it's math.

EDIT: Speaking of which, it is my goal one day to start a comic/game/movie review site that completely throws away the numbers system and simply offers a generic recommendation as the "total score."  I'm much more inclined to buy something when someone says "If you're a fan of campy action and puntastic dialog then this is the product for you!"