Metal Gear Solid 4 April Fools' Video (New Gameplay Footage)

Thought this was just some crappy fan-made trailer, linking Assassin's Creed and MGS4 together. Boy, was I wrong:
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As if this April Fools' Day couldn't get any better. Now I just need this clip in HD. Sorry about not putting this in the April Fools' threads, but there's a lot of never-before-seen stuff in that video (to my knowledge anyway), so I felt it deserved more than that. Guess it doesn't help that I'm a huge MGS fan.

Spoiler

Yea, more Jade Raymond!

 

Turns out that Jeuxvideo has a written preview of the game, along with some new screens:
http://www.jeuxvideo.fr/jeux/metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots/article.html
Unfortunately, it is in French. BTW, you can see more screens under captures (new stuff near the end).

From wotter at NeoGAF:

Apparently, there's some quote from Kojima where he basically says he's making MGS4 to show other Japanese designers that they can do something else besides making Brain Training games.

 

Fixed.

And for that, I applaud the man.

It does seem like they put a larger focus on gameplay with MGS4 though.

 

Maybe that is part of the controllable cutscenes, although I'm guessing you mean something a little more than simply changing the camera angles.

I know you're able to pause cutscenese, although I don't know if you'd be able to skip them. It is a nice feature when replaying the game, but I don't really see the point in skipping them on the initial playthrough. If someone is playing MGS4 and wants to skip through the cutscenes, then something is wrong. Maybe they should be playing something else, maybe even MGO.

Yeah, its a nice style for games like that. I don't think it would quite work with MGS4 though, at least not in every cutscene. The story is too epic, too many characters are involved, you're playing as Snake not as "yourself", etc. Forcing this sort of style on MGS would end up hurting the overall quality of the story IMO.

I would guess that most of these longer cutscenese occur at those points (beginning or end of game). Since MGS4 takes place in regions across the world, I'm guessing there could be some longer cutscenes in-between regions as well. Sort of like chapters I guess, each with its own setup, climax, resolution, etc.

 

Didn't realize that there was an embargo that ended today. 1UP, IGN, and a few others posted previews as well.

Shane Bettenhausen from 1UP gave a little bit more info regarding exactly how interactive the cutscenes can be:

Too lazy to post links and info from the other articles. Might be better to avoid them anyway if you're greatly anticipating the game.

 

Hehe...you must not know my taste in games if you're asking that.

I'd rather play the game with the better plot. Of course, I'm assuming the gameplay isn't so horrible that I no longer want to play the game. It just needs to be "passable" if that makes sense, providing a way of moving through the plot. Something like Silent Hill 2 might be a good example. It is one of my favorite games, and yet the gameplay isn't that great. Bad control, bad camera, bad combat, etc. Granted, I guess other survival horror games aren't much better, but I can tell you it wasn't the gameplay that made me love the game (I probably came away liking SH4 since I didn't have to play it). I played the older Marathon games, which IMO have had issues with their gameplay becoming "dated" over time, but I probably enjoyed those games more than some of the more recent games I've played. On the other hand, I played games like Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4, etc., and I didn't really think much of them. Sure, they were fun and I enjoyed playing the games. But nothing really got me "attached" to those games. I didn't really have any interest in playing them some more to find out what happens next if that makes sense.

To be honest, I'd be happy if they could just put an decent effort into both. Personal opinion and all, but it doesn't seem like some developers are even really trying that hard to come up with a decent storyline. Mostly just generic plotlines, full of cliches, and not really any effort put into trying to get the players interested in the characters/world/etc. Seems like they're just trying to come up with a reason as to why the players can shoot things on the screen (or whatever).

I'm obviously in the minority in my opinions, but that's how I prioritize what I want from games.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to go to that extreme either. Granted, the stories in these games would probably be 2X-3X the length of movies (if not much more), although I don't know if that is really a good excuse (2X-3X the length does not mean they should cost 2X-3X the price). I guess it does allow for more complex storylines and such, but in the end, I probably would want a little more. Of course, I rarely pay $50+ for a game unless I can play it for many, many hours (MGS would probably be one of the shorter games I'd buy at that price, and it would probably take me ~20 hours to beat, obviously not counting multiple playthroughs).

I could have sworn the IGN interview with Hideo Kojima touched on this, although I can't find it anymore. Either it was deleted for some reason, or I'm getting it confused with another article.

I think Kojima said something about this being Snake's weakness, an addiction he can't control. Might just be a politically-correct way of answering the question though. I'm not sure that will really come through in the game; some of the characters have criticized Snake for smoking, but I don't know if it really goes any further to show how bad it is.