Game.....or movie?

Being a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, I could not wait to play this game. I started out really liking the game, the graphics were amazing, but somehow through rapid aging, Solid Snake is REALLY OLD! He talks really crackly, moves somewhat slow, and if you stay crouched too long, he starts to moan and pat his own back because it hurts, only thing that's missing is a bottle of Viagra.

The game does start out really fun and really feels like the old Metal Gear games with having to stay hidden and being stealthy. Where the game lost me, is as the storyline progresses, you play less and less. I'm all about the cutscenes, but keep them short or far apart, or just let me play right after them!!

I started playing one night, and in about 2 hours of "playing", I only spent an actual 15-20min of ACTUAL GAMEPLAY. There were soooo many times during the cinematic scenes that I was actually yelling at the TV "I just want to play! Just let me play!". I even started telling friends about how long you actually don't play the game, so they would come over, and sure enough watch this "game" with me for a better part of an hour (again, about 10min of gameplay). I'm not sure if it's just because I'm so good at the game that I just flew past the interactive parts of the movie, I mean, game. As much as I'd like to toot my own horn, I don't think this is the case.

Another pet peave I had with the game, is that everything is dramatic and they overkill on making a point. First I'm going to start off by explaining what I mean when I say everything is dramatic. Whenever there is something new in the game, it always starts off by everyone looking at the camera (so you can't see what it is), and shows ever angle possible, then does a very slow shot of who/what it actually is. Half the time it's nothing special. For example, there is a character that has worn a ski mask the whole game, then towards the end of the game, there is this big cinematic scene because he actually took off his mask, and kept showing everyones face as they looked at him, then music got louder and they showed his face and he look like a NORMAL PERSON, nothing special! The other part that made the cinematic scenes so long, is over emphasizing points. There is a part where the enemy is on a boat, and gets surrounded by the army on boats, over the bridges, and by helcopters. It probably shows the different people setting up and pointing there guns for about 12 minutes.......we get it already!! there are A LOT of people setting up to trap them! I don't need to see soldiers taking out their guns, loading them and pointing them for that long.....OVERKILL.

The game's storyline does get very confusing (have no idea how you would follow along if you haven't played the previous games), and it does go on and on and on, even the ending credits are interrupted for another 20min of storyline (don't worry, no actualy gameplaying). Then at the end of the credits, there is some audio to keep the storyline going even further, it reminds me of the cow in the movie: Me, Myself, and Irene that just wouldn't die! End the game already!

As much as I have complained about this game, the times you actually play the game, it is really fun. Also being a fan of the franchise, I had no choice but to play it all the way through just to see what happens. However, I couldn't have been happier when it was all over. If you are a fan of the series, I suggest playing it because they have more plot turns than any game in history (gets kind of ridiculous), if this is your first time playing a Metal Gear Solid game, you will like the gameplay, but be confused as hell at the plot.

-Pfieffer