Done Playing? Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)

Ok, so it took me a little longer to get to this game than I expected but — alright, it’s been a year!! I can’t even explain how I justified not playing Metal Gear Solid 4 for an entire year even thought it was the only reason I even wanted a PlayStation 3 for the longest time. I finally did it though and am glad to have made it through before anything major was spoiled. Surprises, laughs, in-jokes, it was mostly all untainted even a year later.

I’m not going to do the traditional Done Playing thing and try to review the game here, inevitably dishing out spoilers of my own. Instead I thought I’d compare my Game Clear stats from Metal Gear Solid 4 to its 2004 prequel (in more ways than one) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It was December 15th, 2004 at about 2am that I finished the game for the first time and posted my stats to Livejournal. I remember doing it because it was the very next day that I got fired from my job, but not before spending just over twenty hours traipsing around a jungle in the 60’s.

And in comparison, here’s how I fared on July 11th, 2009 having finished Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons of the Patriots.

I thought for sure that MGS4 was a shorter game than Snake Eater but as far as recorded play time goes it was actually longer. It’s not by a lot but I know I spent loads more time in Snake Eater hiding in the grass and waiting, waiting, waiting for just the right time to crawl another fifteen feet. I also spent way more time than I should’ve crawling around on the ground with The End. That fight took ages. If I’d run through it at the pace that I played MGS4 my play time would probably be more like 12-to-15 hours. That’s due largely to modern game design that ruled out those horrible fixed camera angles and didn’t require me to go into a menu every ten seconds to adjust my camouflage and apply bandages.

The rest of the stats are pretty specific to each game. I’m pretty sure I didn’t tranquilize many people on my first time through Snake Eater but I set out to do just that with MGS4, totally expecting another “here’s an endless scene with all the people you killed, you big jerk” moment. I’m also not so sure about the titles. Crocodile sounds pretty sweet but I think there were way more badass ranks in Snake Eater. And no matter how many ranks there are in MGS4, Frog just doesn’t sound so cool. I crawled, crouched and tranquilized a lot but I was also spotted a lot.

I’m not sure if I’ll make it all the way through MGS4 on Hard, I know I didn’t do it in Snake Eater, but I’m going to give it a shot, if for no other reason than to keep the experience fresh in my mind until Maxx and I can do a little spoiler-filled, post-play podcast. You’ve been warned!