Skykid wrote:Boy, did that point of that entire post actually get lost on everyone?!
I thought it was kind of simple.
Okay, lets summarise:
MGS4 - I'm now in full swing and enjoying the heck out of it. Hoorah.
It still suffers from weaknesses here and there, and no-one will convince me Drebin is a 'great' character - he's a cliche' who spouts cliche's who turns up in the oddest places without rhyme or reason - but thats part of the MGS way.
RE4 as pointed out by Turrican, does nothing to escape what it is. Fantastic, we're in agreement: it's a truly knockout piece of software that is completely and totally accomplished in every respect.
MGS2 has a beautiful first 25 minutes and then becomes a nice little bag of all the things wrong with Hideo Kojima - thankfully these appear to be addressed as the series goes on, culminating in MGS4, whereby in comparison, he's made huge efforts to cut out most of the gibberish, and attempt to make head or tail of his own convoluted plotline.
Finally MGS does not win an Oscar for dialogue, it does not burst its boundaries, it is not profound or moving, it is not art. It's a game from a man with aspirations of more, but ends up not always having the ability, perhaps due to a culture difference, of understanding the subtleties required to drive an important point home via a commercial medium. Bar all that, as a game, there are times when its great fucking fun.
I'm signing off boys.
I was able to follow the discussion without it, but let's summarize again for the sake of convenience:
MGS4 - I've found some problems with this game, it certainly doesn't break any new grounds (gameplay and story wise) and at times Kojima was just too worried to explain every little bit, at expense of emotional impact. There are also issue with the great diversity between the acts and stuff I won't comment on for the sake of who's still playing it. I did enjoy the controls new layout, though.
RE4 - it's a truly knockout piece of software, which is sadly plagued by more than one flaw. The whole plot, characters, and environments were merely an afterthought. The team knew it had a decaying series in their hands, so they did the right thing. They concentrated on reviving a rotten gameplay. Sadly, everything else wasn't nearly as carefully planned. You can't relate to Leon because he's anonymous as a faultless hero can be. The other few characters are equally as bland. You don't care about Krauser's motivations, Saddler and his minions are an embarrassment, the story isn't really there - it's just the same minuscule incident in the whole Umbrella wrongdoing, and after the first two good locations, the game seriously succeeds at breaking the suspension of disbelief by throwing Leon in completely unrelated settings.
It's a truly knockout piece of software, where the main focus isn't the story or its characters (which are just a decorative necessity), but aiming and shooting with style. In this sense, I feel Galaga is far more accomplished because the shooting part is equally as stunning, and it doesn't suffer from bad cliché characters and a laughable plot. Oh, and being "totally accomplished" is a fancy way of saying that it gets its job done. A Walker Texas Ranger episode is perfectly accomplished in its context. Blade II as an action movie is totally accomplished. That still doesn't measure their quality. Resident Evil 4 is totally accomplished the way the last RE movie was. Luckily for us, at least the gameplay is ace. The fact that I would still rate the game 9/10 despite plot and characters being a complete turd, only shows how much these factors are irrelevant in RE's outcome.
MGS2 - is not "art", it doesn't win Oscars, etc etc. It's just another piece of entertainment. Like many Kojima games before it, the main root of this form of entertainment is drama, hence why you manage to have a script, a main character, and several players on the stage. Since story and script are a factor (unlike above), you have a lot of characters with their background and personality. It's entirely possible (I didn't measure of course) that a character like Peter Stillman might have more lines than any Resident Evil character. That's not a merit per se; that's the nature of drama, whereas in RE you have a set of interchangeable dolls that only embellish your shooting actions.
The Metal Gear Series is a form of entertainment where the sneaking action and the scenario writing have roughly the same weight - and Sons of Liberty in particular is a game that uses the latter to question some of the gamer's thoughts and beliefs. You seem to think that it doesn't do a particular good job at that, but that's irrelevant to the question. MGS2's postmodern approach doesn't detract anything from its entertainment offering. Although it certainly is what makes the episode shine in comparison with the rest, but only to an audience that will resonate with that style. How small is this audience is not a concern.
If you'll come to enjoy MGS4 fully after you've finished it (somehow I doubt that), you'll see that much of the emotional content in the game is related to each of those characters' different fates. Some will die, some will live and so on. The key factor for the core audience of these games, is that said audience cares about them.
An wrap up like MGS4 for the Resident Evil series is not possible, right now. No one right in their mind would write a colossal ending drama about Ashley's fate, Rebecca's new reasons to live, Leon's fears, Claire's doubts. It's not possible because these characters haven't got a slice of depth so far. No one would care. I can only hope these words I wrote will ring true in your mind after you're a couple of acts further in the game.
. Someone tell me it gets less ridiculous. 
