Evaluation

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• Evaluation
• Shane Costello
• CIS 487
• Dr. Maxim
• 9-22-08

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Basic Information

• Title Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots
• Company Konami
• Director Hideo Kojima
• Type of Game Stealth Action
• Price 59.99
• Hardware/Space Requirements Playstation 3/At
  least 4600 MB

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Game Summary

• Overview Solid Snake is asked by his old friend
  Colonel Campbell to eliminate Liquid Snake once
  and for all because Liquid is trying to hijack
  the Sons of the Patriots (SOP) system and have
  control of soliders worldwide

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Game Summary Continued

• Story Chronologically there are six games
  before MGS4. The year is 2014, 5 years following
  MGS2, and global war has become a business with
  Private Military Companies (PMCs). Liquid
  Ocelot (Liquid Snake inhabiting Revolver Ocelots
  body) owns the five largest PMCs, which rival
  the United States military.

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Game Summary Continued

• Story Continued Nanotechnology is common in
  this time and all soldiers have them in their
  bodies to enhance battle skills as well as force
  loyalty. Liquid plans to hijack this system to
  control all soldiers. Snake and others set out
  to stop him. The game takes place in the Middle
  East, South America, Easter Europe, Shadow Moses
  Island, and Outer Haven (Liquids Headquarters)

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Game Summary Continued

• Players Role Veteran Soldier/Infiltrator whose
  mission is to assassinate Liquid Ocelot and,
  later on in the mission, to rescue Naomi Hunter
  (a former friend) from Liquid
• Installation The game must install on the PS3
  at first play (its all automatic). Also, at
  each chapter in the game (there are 5 total) a
  3 minute installation screen appears.

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Game Summary Continued

• User Interface/Gameplay controls
• Easy and intuitive
• Movement/aiming with the analog stick
• Browse items/weapons with shoulder buttons
• Fire with shoulder buttons
• Actions with gamepad buttons (triangle, square,
  etc)

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Game Summary Continued

• User Interface Continued

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Game Summary Continued

• User Interface Continued

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Game Summary Continued

• Gameplay
• Snake must sneak around PMC troops
• Should only engage when necessary (except for
  boss fights)
• If spotted, an Alert phase will ensue in which
  troops will search for Snake until the Alert
  phase timer runs out
• Snake can buy new weapons with Drebin Points
  (Drebin is an illegal arms dealer Snake meets
  during the story)
• Drebin points are earned by trading in PMC
  troops ID tagged weapons to Drebin

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Game Summary Continued

• Scoring Drebin points are the closest thing to
  scoring. When the game is completed stats are
  displayed such as completion time, number of
  alerts, continues used, etc. Note that
  completing the game in a certain time or without
  being spotted may allow the player to receive
  special weapons/items for the next play-through

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Game Summary Continued

• Artwork The creators of the Metal Gear series
  of games typically have worked very hard making
  the game look as real as possible, and MGS4 is no
  exception

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Game Summary Continued

• Artwork Continued

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Game Summary Continued

• Artwork Continued

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Game Summary Continued

• Artwork Continued

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Game Summary Continued

• Sound and Music The sound effects are, as
  always, very realistic. The game does include
  Metal Gears signature ! sound when Snake is
  spotted. The music is very professional and, as
  always, works very well with the game. The music
  was composed by the same man that has composed
  the music since MGS2, Harry-Gregson Williams

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Game Summary Continued

• Special Features
• The game allows photos to be taken and viewed
• Bonus items can be obtained through game time
  completions and not being spotted
• The game also features a separate game called
  Metal Gear Online (MGO). Controls are the same,
  but a new character is created for the online
  play and includes several different game modes

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Game Summary Continued

• Special Features Continued
• MGO

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Game Summary Continued

• Manual The manual is actually very helpful and
  gives instructions in the form of a short comic
• Bugs No found bugs yet

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Game Review

• Good Aspects of Game
• Addicting, action-packed, and sometimes comical
  storyline
• Intuitive and fun gameplay
• Challenging to try and sneak by warzones
• Customize and collect a realistic and vast
  variety of weapons

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Game Review

• Bad Aspects of Game
• Some would complain about the length and
  frequency of the cutscenes
• First run through of game took 19.5 hours, second
  run through (skipping all cutscenes and radio
  conversations) took 5 hours
• If the cutscenes are skipped (without ever have
  watching them before) the player would most
  likely be very confused as to what is happening
  in the story
• The story itself can be confusing

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Game Review

• Comparison
• Much more popular than Splinter Cell, but
  Splinter Cell is more of an Americanized type of
  stealth-action game while the Metal Gear games
  are more of a Japanese-Anime style of game
• Splinter Cell is more about the gameplay while
  MGS4 is more about the story, however neither
  series is deficient in the opposing attributes as
  well
• What makes MGS4 a better stealth-action game is
  that there is so much history to the story and
  the developers are very experienced with this
  type of game

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Game Review

• Appropriate Audience
• Due to the complexity of the storyline and the
  violence/language I would agree with the ESRB
  rating of Mature
• This game would definitely appeal to previous
  fans of the Metal Gear series, as well as online
  gamers (for MGO), shooter fans, and even RPG
  gamers
• Design Mistakes
• None that I could find or research about

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Summary

• Strengths
• Fun and challenging gameplay
• Addicting storyline
• Online play
• Weaknesses
• Long cutscenes (some might say)
• Confusing story (some might say)

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Summary

• Is the game worth purchasing?
• Definitely
• How could the game be improved?
• Incase the player doesnt want to watch the
  cutscenes but still wants to know what is
  happening in the story, maybe have a summary
  page of information that the player can scan
  through before or during a mission