1P Start

The Metal Gear Solid games have always been shall we say a bit long-winded, with long cut scenes and FMV sequences which go on for ages with no interaction from the player, but it seems that Metal gear Solid 4 is ramping that up even more.

CVG is reporting that after playing through the review copy of the game they managed to lay their hands on, they found that some cut scenes lasted as long as 90 minutes. This outdoes the previous instalments by quite a margin, with the longest reported before this being a 45-minute long scene during Metal Gear Solid 2.

We all expected there to be long cut scenes included in the game as the series has a history of them and Hideo Kojima, the game’s creator is renowned for them, but is one lasting 90 minutes really necessary? I personally baulk at going to see a movie at the cinema if it goes far beyond that as I know I’d start to get bored and have a sore butt by the end of it, so I really don’t want my video games to start going that way as well.

The thing is that Metal Gear Solid is more like an experience than a traditional video game. Some would even say it’s like playing through an interactive movie so it’s quite fitting that the cut scenes are getting on for movie length I suppose.

The good news however is that this time you can at least skip through or pause the scenes rather than having to sit through the whole thing in one go like has been the case in previous instalments.

The magazine’s article on the game claims:

“MGS4’s story is massive. The videogame equivalent of all three Godfather movies on one disc,”

“As you’d expect, you’ll spend a lot of time watching cut-scenes, so if you found previous games’ story exposition laborious, then you’d better find yourself a nice cushion and plenty of teabags in readiness for MGS4’s.

“They can be skipped, but you’ll be missing out on some of the finely crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming,”

That’s the thing, as much as I’d like to skip through the scenes if they start getting ridiculously long, as a fan of the series, I know I’ll be missing out on some brilliant plot points and therefore won’t be getting the full Metal gear experience.

What do you think to the news? Will you loyally stay tuned for the whole scene or skip through?