Metal Gear Solid 4 Review

For those of you who have forgotten, my name is Stads, and I do video game reviews, I haven't done one in forever because I was in another country, and saving up for a playstation 3 (those things are expensive.)  For those of you who hardly ever read this blog because we rarely post, screw you guys, video games aren't cheap, and neither are movies. Though movies are admitedly much less costly than video games, what the hell shandeaux? The whole point of this otherwise pointless venture into blogging is that we're just average joes who enjoy movies and video games, and think we actually might know a little more than those so called "professional reviewers." I will step off my soap box now, it was slippery up there anyway.

On to Metal Gear Solid 4, the so called "must have PS3 title." The game that everyone said was going to save the playstation. Well they were wrong, Sony can save the Playstation only though Blue-ray. Metal Gear Solid 4 is not an inherently bad game, it just happens to be more of a movie than a video game. A very impressive movie at that, but still a movie. This is one of those games that Sony up in their tower, will probably never drop the price on, and I'm telling you, it is not worth 60 dollars. The game has roughly 10 hours of cutscenes, and somewhere around 10 hours of gameplay. This means, you are watching the game as much as you are playing it. I got the impression that good ol' Hideo just had too much left that he wanted to say. Registration is bad, war is harmful, aging is ok, the messages go on and on.  Normally I like a game with plot too. I want to know why I want to kill this guy with a mustache and someone else's arm that controls his thought(what?) But the story just makes no sense! It never has, either, and the gameplay has always made up for it, but in my mind this time, there was just too much preaching. To me, it was like watching Fight Club, after everyone else told you it was a really great movie. You finish the movie, and are confused, wondering how it was good. Finally you decide it must have been good, because that's what everyone else said, and you don't want to sound stupid.

 I know that if anyone actually read this blog, all these die-hard Metal Gear fans would be jumping down my throat, Kojima is a genius, the game is brilliant. Well of course you people like it, you're hardcore Metal Gear fans. You were so invested in the first game, that you've been living off it's good will ever since. It's like season one of Lost, it was great, so great in fact that it has kept people watching crap for 3 more seasons. That is a little unfair, Metal Gear Solid 2 was also good, providing as you didn't play as Raiden. 

The only true way to enjoy the game is to skip past every single cutscene, which will of course leave you wondering why you're crawling through the Middle East, but still it's better than wondering why you're crawling through the middle east picking up weapons for a hairless monkey. The replay value is actually pretty good, if you're the type who like to collect achievements (trophies, sorry Sony.) And I have to say for once a game that lets you change difficulty's in a continued game.

I feel I have to comment on Metal Gear Online, at least a little. My main problem with it was that you have to jump through ten different hoops before you can play, download a huge patch, install a huge patch, mail in a letter signed in triplicate and notarized, kill you first born son, etc. You can't even use your Playstation Network ID, you have to make one through them. Playstation 3 is capable of inredible graphics, but it doesn't seem capable of a decent multiplayer experience.

In the end, if you're bored with the other Playstation 3 games that are actually well done, like Uncharted, and you have spare cash, Metal Gear Solid 4 is worth it, simply because the graphics will leave you speechless. But if you own any other console, I really would recommend not buying this title, Playstation is going to have to come up with a different "must have" exclusive title. I have faith some great ones are coming.

Rating 7/10 

Review: Eagle Eye

I now have a review paradox. Without spoiling the movie, the review would be nothing but vague and rambling (which someone could argue wouldn’t be different from any other of my reviews). However, giving away this nugget of the plot truly does ruin the movie, as in I was actually digging the flick until the big secret was revealed. So I either ruin any pleasure one can derive from the film, before it even happens, or I can reveal the big secret to give a more accurate picture of why this movie fails. Whatever. Let the spoilers rain down!

Ok, so plot is everyday slacker Jerry Shaw (Shia TheBeouf) is framed as being a terrorist by some unknown entity, who uses him as an agent to perform various acts for them, all while monitoring him by hacking into various uses of surveillance that exist (security cameras, cellphones, etc.) and helping him out, by again hacking into various machinery that exist (traffic lights, large cranes, etc.). He is accompanied by single mom Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), who is also being coerced by the mysterious forces by threatening to derail the train seven year-old her son is on to go and play a concert in Washington (the important one, not the state). Also government officials (various actors) are pursuing them.

Ok, then the curtained is pulled back and we all discover what’s really going on. Turns out surveillance monitoring government computer has gone rogue, because when it determined attacking that the person the US government thought was a major terrorist was unwise because facial recognitioning couldn’t get a high percent chance of likelihood it was the dude, it was ignored and the president went ahead with the strike anyway. Well, turns out the computer was correct, it wasn’t the guy, so now pissed off Middle Easterns are blowing up US embassies in retaliation for us killing innocent people (but how innocent are they? They are living in the Middle East). So now the computer, in order to prevent further loss of American lives through poor decision making, feels that it should kill the president and various other people along the chain of command, putting the Secretary of Defense (Michael “The Thing” Chiklis) in charge. It’s kinda assumed this is because he did advise the president to listen to the computer’s advice, so I guess the computer feels he’d be better in charge. But Jerry Shaw’s twin brother in the Army discovered the computer’s coup and put a security lock-down or whatever, so the computer could not follow through with it. The computer then kills Jerry’s twin with its traffic magic, before he can tell anyone, but since he is the only one who can unlock the computer, the computer gets his twin to do it, because that’s just as good. Then the computer can use single mom Rachel’s son to kill everybody at the State of the Union address through music (remember how I mentioned him briefly at the beginning? You thought he wasn’t going to be a part of it right, just a secondary character to add pathos? Well you were wrong!). Will the computer take over America? Or will somehow against all odds will Jerry rise to the occasion and stop it? Pay $8.50 to find out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Ok, really? A sentient computer goes rogue and takes over humanity? Really? I mean forget that this movie is ideologically speaking exactly 2001: A Space Odyssey, except you replace the space ship with America, you’ve still got so many other movies with the exact same thing happening, Terminator, The Matrix, I, Robot, that one unaired episode of the Jetsons where Rosie malfunctions and kills Elroy, the list goes on. And that’s really a shame because when I saw the previews I was very interested in enjoying the ride this flick was going to be. Enjoying the action of the good ol’ Hitchcock average guy caught up in international intrigue, while we slowly learn who’s behind, what they are doing, and then of course why they are doing it. Once it was revealed that Hal 9000 was behind it all my interest really just took a nose dive. It was like someone had a good idea, but couldn’t really think of a good reason why this all was happening so they just reused 2001 and called it a day. And look I’m all in support of movies stealing from one another. Quentin Tarantino has proven this is a good way to make awesome movies. But you have to take the idea and make it yours, not just take the idea and shove it in your plot so your movie has some place to go. Admittedly they made it political in nature, but that just means they mixed it with Dr. Strangelove too.

Admittedly this is the only way the movie fails (of course it is, as the kids are saying, an “epic fail”) The action is suspenseful and cool, TheBeouf and Monaghan have good chemistry and sell their respective predicaments, and the political intrigue works well, if you can get your mind to ignore the super computer thing (and you have to really want to ignore it).

So if you don’t care about stupid, trite, hackneyed, stilted, clichéd, unimaginative pseudo-twist that ruined this movie for me, you should enjoy the flick. TheBeouf is still great and has plenty of potential. Hopefully he’ll be in movie that isn’t an affront to the annals of cinema.

Rating: 5/10