f13.net

Boo ya. Aweeeeeeeeeeeesome.

Who's playing? In-game name: schild

Stoked. Waiting for bluetooth headset to finish charging.

Wouldn't it be awwwwwwwwesome? Or perhaps aaaaaaawesome?

Edit:

Also, I meant to say that unless it's co-op it sounds like it would suck terribly.

I think I'm going to pick it up just for the online crap, but I need to finish MGS3 before I start the single player.  PSN: Happy_Hedonist.

Still haven't broken the seal of it yet, too busy working.  :drill: Will be there in a few hours, name : photekz  :ye_gods:

lolwut

You obviously don't know what MGO is. That's cool. Go look at it.

Just putting this out there:

I'm ranked 123rd for Base Cap and 73rd for Capture. Like, among all the players. I don't know if it's seperated Japan or America. Anyway, yea, I enjoy the game a hell of a lot.

206 kills, 133 deaths. I'll have to fix that. But it tends to happen that way since the modes I play involve me not firing to not draw attention to myself. Out of 90 games, my team has won 58 of them. Out of 27 capture games, I've won 19 of them. Most of those I'm in first place. I pretty much rape face at capture.

Anyway, I should hit 20 hours this weekend. Comeon! I want folks to play with!

Even if I owned a PS3, you couldn't get me to pick up an MGS game.  Resistance 2 will be tempting on the other hand.

Just so you know, I hated Metal Gear up until this revision. The controls actually make sense now.

It wasn't the controls that bothered me in previous games so much as the huge focus on a largely nonsensical and convoluted story.  I could skip past all that I suppose, but that would be skipping over half the content of the game.

Eh? haven't even played SP yet.

What you didn't like the 20 minute cut scenes for every 5 minutes of actual gameplay? :awesome_for_real:

My tolerance for cut scenes in games is in constant decline.  All my years of playing JRPGs eventually caught up with me, and God of War is now just about the right ratio of story to action for me.  Also MGS's story makes no fucking sense and Kojima needs to ask someone what pacing is in regards to storytelling.

Scratch that, after 2 hours, ranked 89 in Base.

I'm really quite goddamn good at this. Now to find a good bluetooth headset for online gaming.

With the coupons I have at Amazon, I think this is going to be it -

Etymotic etyBLU (http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-etyBLU-Dual-Mode-Noise-Isolating/dp/B0012Q3OFO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1213443490&sr=8-11)

Roomie just beat the SP mode. I might hop on the MP with his account, I'll check with him what his name is and give it to you.

Did Metal Gear Solid 4 ship with Metal Gear Online?? I thought it was two separate products.  I'm purposely avoiding all MGS4 info to go in as blind as possible.

Yes it did.

And ohmigod I hated MGS before this. But MGS4, masterpiece. Goddamn so good.

GOTY.

HAY.

YOU KNOW THAT FEELING YOU HAD WHEN YOU EXPERIENCED SS2 OR DX FOR THE FIRST TIME?

I CAN NEVER RELIVE MGS4 AGAIN. DO YOURSELVES A FAVOR. FOR REALS.

(no cutscenes you can't pause, no 45 minute cutscenes without a break, and no fights you can't pause (you can press select to pause them to pull up the controls menu)). Reviewers need to play a final build. That is all. Oh, right, obligatory, if you don't play this you're part of the problem.

The reviews have been very generous.

45 minute cutscenes = epic fail in my book. The appeal of the entire series eludes me - average action game married to a terrible movie. I enjoy that Kojima's direction consists of zooming in on asses and camel-toe. He's a real artist.

I wouldn't be so quick to write it off. I've not been a fan of Metal Gear as well, but the latest offering looks - at least in the gameplay department - to be quite fun. I don't know about the overtly melodramatic storylines, etc... but if it plays anything like Splinter Cell, i might be tempted to try it.

There is nothing average about the action in the game. in face the first boss fight is as good, imo, as anything in GoW or SotC.

Can you write a few paragraphs on the multi and single?

Sure. I'll start with this though - play multiplayer a few times before playing single player. You'll be able to mow through the SP if you start in MP and it will be a pure joy.

The controls in both are the same. Compared to past MGS titles, they actually make sense. They're closer to Resident Evil 4 than anything else though. Snake is a fair bit faster than Leon as well. Basically, the controls come down to this - if you've played any previous Metal Gears, just assume this is a different game altogether. They're friendly to beginners and completely accessible within your first hour of play. Playing in Multiplayer simply makes you better equipped to take on what seemed to be a relatively good AI.

In SP, I'd recommend not even trying to sneak through your first time through the game. Just run and gun. The games are friendly to both methods and both styles of gameplay will net you different rewards at the end of the game in the form of achievements and I would assume, different items - which I think are given based on the achievements you get.

There are a few different ways to beat each boss, but each of the Beauty and the Beast bosses are fucking super unique. Also, PROTIP: Once the bosses uhmmm 'change,' draw the fights out as long as possible. Honestly, there's so many easter eggs for being a Patient Snake that I would almost be ruining the game if I went further. So I won't.

The storyline makes sense. Not only that, but it only slips into the weird and surreal about 2-3 times at most. And two of those are merely daytime soap shit they had to close up from previous games. The ending ties every question you've ever had about metal gear into a Bow, and there  are parts - had I not been wired on caffeine and thereby adrenaline, I probably would've shed a few tears.

It raises the bar for storyline, scripting in cutscenes using the actual engine (only ONE SCENE in the entire game has any CGI far as I can tell. ONE - out of nearly 3-4 hours of cutscenes, that's INCREDIBLE). The final cutscene is about an hour long, but you can pause during it and it's broken up into parts so you can take breaks. Reviewers need to go the fuck away. Also, stay through the credits... uhmmm... twice.

Anyway, it's a masterpiece of storytelling - Kojima has honed his craft perfectly, there are several very subtle homages to other games that are just wonderful if you notice them, the action is tight and boss design is impeccable (though one feels a little too homagy to a certain other PS3 exclusive), and uhmmm. Yea. It raises the fucking bar.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. Solid Snake is fucking rad. I was wrong for the last 10 years or so. It just happens to be that all those games sucked my balls and the controls were more obscure than mastering Civilization 1 at the age of 11.

Need anything else?

Oh, and I liked it as much as if not more than Portal.

EDIT: OH RIGHT MULTIPLAYER. Uhmm. It's multiplayer. You play a PMC (or Snake in one mode) and kill people or finish an objective. I happen to really like the tactics of all of it and the level design. Also, the pace is perfect for the amount of strategy it requires at high level play. Honestly, I'm really really fucking good. Unstoppably good. This morning I had cracked the top 50 in two modes and top thousand overall. So I might be untrustworthy as I took to it like a fish to water. The pace is not for everyone. SP is much, much faster (until you level up sprint to level 3). Oh, right. There are levels in multiplayer. Mostly for unlocking skills. I think the actual levels are a combination of K:D and it's so that you don't join games with levels 0-1 and such. It's mostly for seperation. The real leveling comes from getting GOOD at skills (which I think everyone at f13 likes, so yea, there's that).

In about 7 more hours of playtime on MGO, I'll have Bat Country made.

Allowing people to pause during an hour long cutscene isn't a masterpiece of storytelling, Kojima honing his craft, raising the bar for storyline etc...

It's still a shining example of being completely clueless as to how stories should be integrated into an interactive medium.

Try playing it thx. The cutscenes are seamless with the gameplay. A lot of them slip right through eachother. And some of them play out in another frame while you're playing. Really, you're off your rocker this time. Either play it or STFU. I don't think I've ever said that here. But it's just that fucking good.

Cool, ta Schild.

Come on dude, this is drooling fanboy review. You like it therefore every thing about it is teh best evar!

Just play it. It's flabbergastingly good. I keep giving series another chance and one of them finally paid off in spades. How many games do you sit down to and not get up for 20 hours? I haven't done that in a single player game since Disgaea 2. And that was only because I had a deadline.

You're making an overly optimistic assessment of the PS3 install base here.

I don't see how. It's not like I'm asking Halotards to play Eve.

Wut?  :headscratch: 

Edit. Ohh, I meant size, not taste in games.

I assume that anyone posting on a gaming website knows that MGS4 is a PS3 exclusive title and they would not venture in here unless:

1. They have a PS3.
2. They are interested in a PS3.
3. They want to know how MGS4 is because, technically speaking, it's officially the third killer app on the system.

I've always hated MGS, but 4 has done something.. different. I don't know what it is, but it's just that great. The story isn't as convoluted as the others,  but is still pretty intense/big. This game could double as a movie with one cut scene coming in at around 20-30 minutes.

Yes, but with f13 there is always:

4. To give schild hell over any PS3 related issue.  :drill:

Not sure I could even give this a play when/if I get a PS3.  I mean, would someone that knows jack shit about Metal Gear Solid even manage to care about the plot? The cutscene length would bother me.  Long periods of inactivity in games has always bothered me and what made Lost Odyssey so easy to put down.

I came very close to picking up a PS3 recently due to the free $100 giftcard Walmart is offering with purchase.  Couldn't justify it though, with Uncharted still being the only exclusive I want at the moment and the release schedule is pretty barren until Little Big Planet and Resistance 2 at the end of the year.

Um - ok i'm out of touch, but can you pair a good BT Headset to the PS3 - never occurred to me to even try.

I've put a couple hours into the MP now and I'm impressed.  I typically don't like console shooters online but this is great fun.  I especially like the bases mode.

I haven't touched the single player and won't until I'm done with MGS3.  I finished 2 for the first time last week and to my surprise enjoyed the hell out of it.  I didn't think I liked this series but guess I was wrong.

You don't need to know about Metal Gear to enjoy the plot. That is, they have a character that exists solely to make sense of Kojima's madness.


Yes.


I'm glad I didn't play through MGS3. Well, past the first couple missions. MGS4 explains everything in 3 and makes sense of the entire series. I'd rather play MGS4 5 times than play all the originals.

I picked this up on a whim, and so far I am impressed with the production quality, but the actual gameplay is like "Hey I am Splinter Cell, without all the improvements". Granted I am only like an hour into the (or 15 minutes of gameplay  :awesome_for_real: ). I am having trouble with the enemy spotting me from random places. Some times I seem very covered and the enemy spots me easily, other times they walk right past me when I am in the open. And chain knockdown sucks just as much in singleplayer games as it does in MMOs.

I love the cooking show on one of the channels at the beginning.

Pick up warhawk (box copy, not DD) and you get one for free with it.

I picked up Warhawk when it came out, got it free, and then traded warhawk back in. But that headset sucks. It's just filler for now.

I predict we have this exact same conversation when FFXIII comes out also.

What, where I tell you to play MGS4 again and you still don't? Only if you're a hardhead 'not-liking-fun' dork. ^_^

The conversation where you're ready to make sweet love to the game, whereas I think that any game that makes you put the controller down for more than 3 minutes at a time to watch the story is poorly designed crap in this day and age.

Edit:  If you can give me reasons to justify a PS3 purchase right now, I'd be more than happy to play MGS4 just to point out every point where I find the story intrusive.

 :awesome_for_real:

Creepy.

I didn't find FFXII's cut scenes that intrusive or overly long. However, who knows what direction they'll take the presentation on a new hardware platform?  Lost Odyssey was an example of bad, bad cutscene direction.

Velorath, I can't fix you. I'm sorry. Keep not having available fun.

My problems with FF games (and most JRPGS) these days extends to the dialogue also.  Western style RPGS at least tend to give you dialogue options, and occasionaly allow you to choose between two different courses of action (Mass Effect had a number of spots where you could choose to deal with things peacefully or violently).  In other words, you're still interacting with the game in a way that Final Fantasy has never offered.

Will you help us?
Crono : Yes
           No <
Marle: How can you say that, Crono?!  :uhrr:
Crono: Yes <
          No
Marle: Alright, I knew you'd come through! :awesome_for_real:

I'm doing a no kill/alert run now.

hmmm is the stealth part really that well done? I don't have any experience with MGS series except for the very first one on PC. Is it even worth it to sneak around completely? Trailer showed Snake acting like a corpse, etc. You can do that in game?

Yes, you can.

I could be arguing different view points here, but I think you need to look at it differently. MGS4 uses cutscenes* to establish vital moments and emotion within the game. I'm tired of playing games where they script out a rail scene that moves the story along because you can tell at which points they thought "How can we make this retard proof?" and it really detracts. If that's your thing, fine, but I've come to realize I can't play every second of a game and have it sustain a meaningful story or an interesting plot.

*Referring to rendered and in-game cutscenes.

I think there's a middle ground between what you're talking about with rail scenes, and games that overuse cutscenes.  Take something like GTA4 for instance (far from being the pinnacle of great stories though it may be).  They tend to keep the cutscenes short and then they help flesh out the character interaction by having dialogue taking place between the characters while you're driving from one place to another.  Mass Effect keeps you busy during character interactions by giving you that dialogue wheel to choose what you say.  There's ways to keep people interacting with the game in some form or another.  That's partly why a lot of developers started putting QTE's in games, although that's a mechanic that has a lot of room for improvement.

In the past, it was largely technical limitations that required cutscenes for telling stories.  Developers should be weaning themselves away from that on current and future generation consoles.

You know what, it's not worth arguing.

Simply put, it's a piece of gaming history, a total fucking masterpiece, and you won't like it because you can't sit still. Which is weird because of the whole movie thing. Whatever. I'm not the one missing out.

In fact, I like it so much I'll say this: If you play it and hate it, you're doing it wrong. :grin:

I could explain the difference to you but I'm guessing that you already know what it is.

Oh I do. And I still think you're crazy for not playing it because of cutscenes.

Tell Team Ico and David Jaffe to hurry up and get some games out on the PS3 so I can go ahead and buy one.  Then I'll rent MGS4 at some point in the future.

Wait. I thought you had a PS3. What the fuck are you doing in this thread if you had no intention of generating interest from reading about MGS4? Just wondering.

I think I've mentioned a half dozen times in this topic alone that I don't have one yet.  When Disgaea 3, LBP, and Resistance 2 hit later in the year, I might pick one up or if I come across a good deal on one somewhere.  I'm reading this thread just to see what peoples' reactions to the game/series is.  For me the series has always been frustrating (especially since Metal Gear is my all time favorite game on the NES), because I always got into the gameplay only to be constantly be pulled out of it by cyber ninjas. clones, and long conversations on the codec.

The conversations on the code have video now, can be fast forwarded if you're reading a lot more than the person on them, and all that weird shit like Cyber Ninjas and such, well. That's part of Metal Gear. If you don't want that, go play COD4. The gameplay is such a cut above the previous ones though it might as well be a different game. So is the storytelling. Also, you can skip the codec stuff entirely.

It wasn't as bad in MGS1 though.  MGS2 ramped that shit up to extreme levels.  I assumed they made MGS3 as a prequel because they had no fucking clue how they were going to wrap up the excessive amount of shitty characters and plot twists introduced in 2, which sadly got left for MGS4 to deal with.

They wrapped them up like they knew what they were doing all along. It's pretty impressive. Maybe part of the problem is you played 1 and 2 whereas I just read some backstory before going into 4 because the controls in all the previous ones were shite.

This series seems to bring out the hate like no other.  It's entertaining.  MGO is pure love though.  I can't get enough, played 6 hours or so yesterday.

I'm half way through 3 and fucking love it.  The controls are great!  At one point last night I was pushing 6 buttons in order to tranq someone in first person view while standing on my tip toes.  Wheee!  As stupid as the story is, I fucking love metal gear now

Finish 3 so you can realize how much it sucks compared to 4. You're basically wasting your time though, 4 spends half an hour making 3 make sense.

Schild isn't kidding. Kojima went out of his way to make 4 the end all of MGS games.

Velorath - If you know someone who owns MGS4, you should see if they made saves every time the game asked. I didn't play the game, I just had my roomie play through all the cutscenes and important parts. It was worth the 2-3 hours.

You should play the game. The datamining is really neat.

I still havent got very far, but I think Splinter Cell did stealth much better so far.

If you haven't gotten a PS3 yet, this fall they're doing a Little Big Planet bundle with an 80GB. Sony Reps are telling Gamestops this week.

Of the 3 PS3 owners I know, none are into the MGS games.  I think a couple of them bought their PS3's just as blu-ray/guitar hero players.  If the LPB bundle schild mentions ends up being a good deal though, I might be in for one of those.

I'm still waiting patiently for FF XIII :awesome_for_real:

And neither was I, hardhead.

You sure have a lot of patience.

Plenty of other games to occupy my time while I wait.

Go on...

Just saying that none of them have bought MGS4, so I can't go over to their homes and try it.

Ok. Long story short, I don't know how to use amazon apparently and now I've ended up with the Etymotic EtyBLUE headset. And it's fucking AMAZING.

AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING.

I need people on teamspeak to yell at. TF2 already got boring since I didn't know anyone.

If I told you I'd have to kill you.

I wonder if Sony could get away with that being their new slogan

I don't post often but maybe what I have to say might help people make a decision on if they want to get the game or not.

My Metal Gear history has been a long term hate/boredom relationship. I bought MGS for Playstation when it came out wanting to love it but I ended up hating it. Borrowed 2 from a friend and it was so so but I got bored in about an hour. Third one I ripped from blockbuster and I think i've spent a total of maybe 5 or 10 minutes total on it, no joke. That being said, with MGS4 I had a hard time putting down the controller to get to sleep. I have a pretty horrible case of ADD when it comes to video games and if I even make it all the way through a game, 99% of the time I have no desire to play them again. This game I can see myself playing again.

My second 360 conveniently broke right before MGS4 came out so I ended up reading a bit about the game since I realized it was coming out soon. Long story short, I said "fuck it" and made an impulse buy of a PS3 and MGS4 and I can happily say it was worth the purchase. Sure a lot of the story didn't make too much sense for me, and some of the codec sessions were a bit overboard, but I have never found myself so damn impressed with a game in ages. The transitions between gameplay and cutscenes were done pretty damn well I thought. At times I forgot I was playing a game or even looking at game graphics and thought I was watching a movie. Also, as Schild mentioned earlier, the controls definitely made more sense for me as well this time around. I think the resident evil 4 comparison was pretty spot on.

The only problem I have now is I don't know what to do with my PS3 until FFXIII comes out. (Besides playing MGO or going through the single player again.) None of the exclusives that I've tried demos for did anything for me. MGS4 spoiled the shit out of me. =/ If only all games had this much love/quality put into them...


PS: In-game name for MSO: Nekon (I'm pretty scrubtastic right now.)

 

Just to point out that I'm not just crazy, I downloaded this week's GFW podcast (which just came out today), and surprisingly almost the whole second half is about MGS4.  They spend a lot of time discussing the same problems I was talking about (and various other ones).  Not to start the whole debate over again, it's just nice to know that I'm not the only who has ever thought that Kojima desperately needs an editor watching over him.

Have you been listening to me? I agree. I've said that for every MGS since 1. And this one, he obviously had someone pulling his reins. And good for Konami. Also GFW is a PC podcast. Their opinion on a console exclusive title means exactly jackshit to me since PC Gaming has been a representation of ADD since Snood.

I'm with you on that one. The guy manages to turn simplistic conversations into some overly verbose situation that makes you feel like both characters have a horrible case of verbal diarrhea. Even so, MGS4 still is an amazing game.

They actually haven't been very PC focused on the podcast since the magazine folded.  Most of these guys play PC and console games.  That their work is PC focused doesn't somehow invalidate their opinions.  In fact it means that they weren't playing it just because it's their job and they had to review it or something, they played it because they wanted to (except for Jeff Green who is still playing through MGS3 at the moment, who sits silent through most of the segment).  They also had a lot of positive things to say about the game, but a lot of their particular criticisms were exactly what I feared and they went into a lot of detail (the segment lasted close to an hour).

In the time you listened to them squawking about the game, you could've finished an entire act.

Just saying.

For better or worse, I'm about to go watch Get Smart instead.

Mostly for me because I'm doing a no-alert run and don't want to have to keep pulling up IGN

MGS4 is fucking awesome, MGO is cool but kinda...eh IMO. Feels far too sluggish and then there's my hatred of using thumbsticks to aim.

Speaking as someone who did a no-alert run of MGS3, learn to love the body slam. I'm only on the 3rd act and so far I've seen definite ways to literally just run through everything without getting spotted. The body slam is hilariously overpowered just like it was in MGS3.

Spoilerish thoughts below:






Having finished the game, I enjoyed it and thought it was a pretty damn good game.  Somewhat redeems the series, in my mind.  The return to Shadow Moses and pretty much every part of that sequence was especially cool.  My only complaint is, that Raiden should have died there.  The game certainly seemed to make it his death, instead of just a fake out, and it worked better that way then the somewhat lame latter happenings involving him.  And I never disliked him from the 2nd game, really.  It just came across as Kojima being unwilling to actually kill any of his main characters. 

Especially with what happened during the credits.  Seeing Big Boss was cool and all, but really, I think the ending would have been just fine as it was before the credits.  Technically, it would have left the fate of Zero open a bit, but really, that would have been fine.  Especially since most of it was just repeating stuff they'd said already. 

That's not just spoilerish, it's spoilers. No foul though, I'll just fix it.

I'm just starting Act 4 and I'm getting annoyed at the game to cutscene ratio. The story is actually pretty awesome and the cutscenes are interesting but goddamn let me play the game for more than 40 minutes straight. So far the game is morbidly depressing and that annoys me too.

Yeah lots of talking but I still like the story.  I agree it is depressing.  Snake was like this badass commando and now he's becoming weak and frail, barely able to do anything because if his accelerated age.  I just finished Act 4 btw.

I liked the old aspect. Gave him more depth and shook off a bit of the Halo style one man army bullshit.

I don't know if it's my imagination, but I swear that at least on three occasions, Snake's aging condition has caused an Alert status on me.  Grunting in pain and grabbing his back seems to potentially alert the baddies around him.  Am I wrong?

I'm just beginning Act IV now, and while I won't yet call it a masterpiece, it's definitely up there for GOTY. 

Compression packs are your friend. I didn't realize until almost the last act that it totally lowered your stress meter, even in Alert mode.

Can we start a separate discussion thread for MGO? I don't want multiplayer strategy discussion mixing with potential single player plot spoilers.

This isn't really much of a spoiler since it's just an animation of Ocelot with no context to it, but this was hysterically funny when I saw it.

(http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6350/11h9en9ak2.gif)

Does anyone know any good places where there's serious discussion about MGO Tactics? I am having the hardest time with it, probably due to the high lethality of head shots and what seems to be some advanced tactics rolled over from the MGS3 version of MGO (which apparently had some RIDICULOUS mechanics like "dancing").

I don't know any names for any tactics as I wasn't big in previous MGO stuff or titles. But I'm fairly good. What kind of loudout are you going in skillwise and where do you seem to have the biggest problems? I wandered into a clan match last night and came out on top 3 out of 4 rounds even if my team lost. So uhmm, I can probably answer questions but it won't be with MGO lingo.

I went Assault Rifle, Monomania, and Runner.  Right now I'm just raising skills.  But I see the power of CQC though it really depends on the game type.  Higher ground and headshots are king.

Right now my favorite weapon to use (sans Drebin Points) WAS the M4 but I'm finding that it's rough to aim in first person with iron sights, while the AK-102 seems to be a better more powerful but more inaccurate choice.  Doing the pop-out maneuver in First Person view is hard because I can't seem to line myself up right with the wall.

So I typically go AK-102, default pistol, and either grenades or magazines depending on game type. I plan to keep raising up my skills to find out which ones at Lv. 3 only occupy one slot (Monomania at Lv. 2 only costs 1, which is a big improvement.  I am guessing all the blue skills are like this).  But knowing when to Auto-Aim (Pistols at close range?), knowing when to go first person (Ranged fight?) and generally becoming smooth at handling my character is taking some practice I guess.  But when I saw Cardboard box tactics in the original MGO I almost threw up.  Pressing against walls seems pointless when you can box yourself to below visual range of small obstacles.

I have absolutely no problem winning Sneaking matches though as Snake.

There's no questions there. Heh.

I go AK as my only weapon with running at 2 and assault rifles at 2. I have them maxed out, but ehhhhhh, the extra burst from running at 3 isn't particularly helpful, 2 is though. Honestly, the best advice I can win if you aren't a headset using team player is learn to count bullets and listen for reloads. That's to say, I've mowed down 5-6 people a life in base/gako simply because I know when they're out of bullets. I do a lot of standing behind walls listening. Also, line up with the game and then pull L. Lining up with the camera is about 3 times as fast as pulling L and aiming at your targert. Remember, it always will center directly on teh screen. I've yet to use auto-aim.

Boxes are tough, depends on the stage. I find killing snake to be a cakewalk. But maybe I've only played against bad players. I do find that sort of match horribly boring but generally I always get a couple snake kills and he's never gotten the jump on me.

Why are you using monomania? It seems that would be a detriment to killing and winning. It's a tactical game, sure. But it's better to be offense, offense, and more offense.

Probably looking just to raise all the different skills.  Monomania IS useful if it's a team game and you want to know where your opponent is exactly after you've struck them.  At Lv. 2 you get a good outline for quite some time.  If Lv. 3 is only one slot and lasts an extremely long time, then it may be worth it to nix Runner 2.  I haven't seen a major increase with Runner but that all depends on what I feel like playing as.  But yeah Assault Rifle is my default kit.

Also, Monomania + Grenades = I know where you landed, pal.

Grozny Grad is my favorite level though.  It was the first map I played on and it was good.

Also: WHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

I only use nades in Cap. Mostly because the other team, instead of guarding points, is all standing at the cap point like a bunch of morons.

I ran monomania. But you know, I'd rather get headshots and reload before the next guy notices than know where someone lands. I find defensive/ancillary skills in this game only hinder my ability to be a killing machine.

Do you FPS it or do third person with your aiming?

Only third person.

How do you fire? Three round bursts?

First Person is the only way you can pop around corners to take someone down, but that does leave you standing in one spot and prone to getting shot at as a stationary target...

You don't really need to be in first-person to pop around a corner and rape face. I make heavy, heavy use of camera exploitation and switching which side my toon is on. And no, I leave it on full auto, if I only need a few shots, I'll tape the trigger a few times. I haven't been playing much lately. But here are some stats:


That's for all game types. But I only really play Base mode. Which has a k:d of 174:108. That'll go up as I've gotten better. I find base mode requires less tactical advantage from an organized team once you've gotten very good at aiming and abusing the camera. Also, I'm not saying these stats are good by any means. But I've got no regulars I play with but I've played 155 rounds and won 95 of them. Here's some more:

Friendly Kills    3 Times    <- On purpose. Some people are just a hindrance.
CQC Attacks Given    0 Times  <- woot.
CQC Attacks Taken    28 Times <- Considering how many people do CQC, I'm proud of this.
Times Caught in Trap       20 Times <- Not proud of that. Always friendly fucking magazines too.


Anyway, we should play some. Ah neeeeeed people to play with.

The TV my PS3 is on is shared for the house, so if someone wants to watch TV, I'm fucked.  But we're already signed up as Friends so it shouldn't be that big a deal to get on Friend's List in MGO.  The Friend's List functionality is pretty good as far as I can tell.  I can quickly add friends and the such and see where they are on the website without logging in.

Just watched the ending. Decently satisfying if not way too wordy, but wordy is Kojima's thing.

Headshots are still hard to pull off but I'm doing better now.  Just got my Hawk.

Is it me, or is it that MGO would be 100x more popular if it was released on XBox Live?

Oh, and didn't involve all the assinine steps to get into the game.

I would be terrible at this game on the 360. Don't ask me why. Basically though, I play games on each controller slightly differently. Wouldn't translate to that one for me.

Well I mean in terms of userbase, not necessarily control schemes.  I think I only ever see at most 1500 - 2000 concurrent players.  Sure, that's a lot of games, but it's not like Live with its, what, 1 million concurrent users or something for CoD4 or something?

It was this way with Warhawk on F13.  You and I were the only ones playing it.  But yesterday's gaming session ... I was a LOT better.  Like, 40 kills 3 deaths.  I'm playing smarter now.  But I do want to try out different builds (CQC, Traps, etc)

My friend who is not very tech savvy or and doesn't have an abundance of patience got this game mostly for the multiplayer. He is used to playing Xbox Live, and he couldn't get MSG4 to connect to any games for 3 days, so he took the game back.

My strongest recommendation to him would be to avoid Automatching at all costs.  It took 15 minutes just to go from 12 to 10 needed on 3 separate attempts, then we went into Free Battle and got a game right away.

Updates from Famitsu:

July 4th:

New mode - Team Sneaking
New Setting - Headshot kill

July 17th:

Bonus Pack (1200yen) - Johnny and Meryl playable, Female PMCs can be created, 3 new maps, Official Survival Battle can be played

Hurray! Here's hoping for another sniper friendly map like MM.

Updates:

The 3 maps are Shadow Moses, Meiling's Ship and MGS1 Heliport. (OMG WUT)

Team Sneaking is the only new MODE. It has two teams, a sneaking team and a defending team. The sneaking team can use stealth camo.

The headshot mode SETTING. When it is turned on, you can only k-ill (stupid filter) a player with a headshot.

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*sigh* I wanted to create a female PMC.  Does that mean I have to reset all my data?

Rad. You can buy another toon for $7 as a one time fee or something.

Yeah but there's no point in having alts.  Not like my raid group needs a CQC Expert to take down Liquid Magtheridon or something which would require making another character.