Haha, yeah, lots of stories. One thing I recall was all the PS3 vs. 360 controversy at the time. (If you recall, it was much worse than it is now. I clearly remember having my family threatened by a fan when he became convinced that we were prepping a 360 version.) We had fun with it all though and put in a few easter eggs to stoke that fire, but I'm not sure anybody noticed...
That's some saddening stalker shit. It's exclusivity was certainly the most unusual thing about the project, at the time it was announced, PS3 had lots of third party exclusives, it's just that over time, while every one of them eventually went multiplatform, MGS4 didn't.
I remember the 'insert disc 2' thing leaked a few days before release, and everyone presumed it was a slight at the 360, in context it's not, but I can't think of any other potential easter eggs. Other than any 'proxy war' style subtext about console wars.
As you all can see, Act III had the most problems. Credits goes to Shinta Nojiri for coming in at the very last minute and greatly improving it. He practically lived at the office for the final 60 days.
Act 3 really is pretty bad. It also feels like a huge waste of assets, there's that whole water way and stuff which 99% of people would never see. It almost feels like war should break out over night, and you'd get to see it all in the day, open war style.
Overall, I remember being really worried about the game upon ship because of the cutscene-to-gameplay time ratio. I wanted the entire game to be like Act I & II, but I think the desire for a lot of special case fan-service stuff won out. I'm still really proud of the game and the controls, actually (they were drastically improved over what was originally intended to ship). Still don't have the urge to play it again though. Maybe on its 10 year anniversary?
It is more movie than game, but I think everyone expected that. In fact, there are areas that feel distinctly lacking in terms of video, things like the B&Bs backstories just being described by Drebin, it could have been great to see those stories played out visually in some way. Although I don't like it in the context of PO/PW, Ashley Wood style could have been great. A Tarantinoesque shift in presentation.
I think the fan service was important, every act parallels a Kojima game (or with the first act, a planned one we didn't get), it feels like an appropriate culmination to a series with the history it has, it's just a shame there's very little of the stealth action after the first boss, unless you're going for a no alerts run anyway. I think it controls great, the CQC is fumbling, but it was in 3 too. There's some animation priority that's a little extreme, but you can make it a lot snappier in the options.
I can't imagine how long you'd have to leave it to get any sort of fresh impression, but it is much nicer not to have to deal with the installs. When you do get around to it, it's better than it was when you shipped it.
Weird question, does anyone notice little squares on the screen during cutscenes? (not present for me during regular gameplay, and I tried two HDMI cables to be sure)
It looks like aritfacting (albeit they're larger than those though) that you would see during compressed cutscenes, but that's not something possible in this game, so i'm trying to figure out what it is.
It's some bizarre colour grading effect. The scene on the Volta with Ocelot's gun fingers, and the AI graveyard are the only prerendered cutscenes I believe.
