Given that MGS4 has abandoned the dramatic flourishes, you may wonder whether the concluding chapter at least makes a cogent philosophical point. It starts promisingly. In the near future, big business has co-opted war so thoroughly that most of the world’s weapons are ID-locked — meaning they can be used only when nanomachines in the wielder’s body transmit a “go” code to them. Were someone to gain control of this private system, as Liquid intends to do, he would command all of the world’s armed forces. So easy — and all thanks to that pesky gun registration! You’re not reading this wrong: a series noted for its pacifist stance has taken a hard-right turn in support of gun rights disguised as an anti-corporate message.
Maybe the themes wouldn’t seem so muddled if the execution of those cutscenes weren’t so botched. Kojima’s cinematic eye is above reproach, but as a writer, he needs someone to rein him in. Characters don’t have conversations in MGS4 — they trade soliloquies. Everybody in this fictional world seems to feel that the height of a firefight is a dandy time to delve into the deepest philosophical questions. People make their points; then they make them again. Unprompted, they’ll relay detailed stories of their past exploits. There’s not one cutscene in this game that doesn’t feel too long by half. I just watched a video on YouTube in which someone beat the game in under three hours by skipping all the cinemas. That is not a point in its favor.
And yet something about MGS4 remains compelling, whether it’s the slick execution of the rare playable sequences or simply the nostalgic desire to see how it all ends for these characters. Aged and enfeebled, Snake cuts a tragic figure. The return of crucial players from all the past MGS games is welcome for long-time fans. Given all the memories Kojima and his team have given gamers over the years, maybe it’s only right that they conclude the saga on their own terms. At the end, it’s clear that time has passed by old soldier Solid Snake. But it’s also passed by MGS as a video game.
No one will ever forget what a revelation the original MGS was. The depth of the narrative and the quality of the cutscenes were unlike anything in comparable action-adventure games. The state of the art has since moved on; other developers, like Valve and 2K Boston, are doing a better job of advancing story lines within the gameplay. Kojima hasn’t kept pace. Although cutscenes can be useful in a variety of ways, they’re often a crutch, particularly when they consist of little more than characters delivering extemporaneous speeches. Yes, war has changed. Games have changed too. It’s time for something new.
