Archive: 1 post

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I really want to praise Metal Gear Karas. I really do, but I don't know if I can. See, the level is good. More than anything, it's well organized and spaced and occasionally challenging. Overall I'd say it was pretty fun, but throughout the entire stage it always felt as if there was something crucial missing. Then I figured it out: There's nothing truly unique or special about MGK. I don't usually have any beefs with a solid level in this game, but it strike me somewhat negatively when the level doesn't really offer anything worth mention. In all honesty, I probably could've gotten the same experience, practically identical actually, if I just played the MGS story levels. I mean, yeah those levels aren't nearly as challenging as MGK, but outside of difficulty and length there are almost no differences. And to be completely honest, those weren't the only issues. So, before I spend a better part of the review bashing MGK, I want to be extremely clear that I don't think the level is actually bad. Just a bit unoriginal. You start off in a parachute dropping on an extremely metallic looking base, and need to sneak in. They never tell you why, probably because everyone should already know that sort of information, but I'm not 100% sure what the deal is (the artist assumes the audience has already played MGS. Too bad I haven't). Then you basically do a lot of sneaking past security guards with deadly flashlights and ceilings riddled with deadly lightbulbs. Because your weapons supply crate was dropped off at the opposite end of the base (instead of more reasonably being carried on your person), you will need to get your gun before making too much progress. Finally you end up in a fight with Karas I'm assuming and are supposed to memorize his fairly simple patterns and beat him. I can't tell you what happens after you encounter Karas and I'll tell you why in a minute. Metal Gear Karas falls prey to two main problems (the first one is a major problem but the second one is probably personal): First problem: Cameras. There is a lot of dialogue in MGK. Most of the time, the dialogue boxes will tell you things like "Go over here" or "If only there was a way to lower that bridge..." while pointing at a switch. Now, I can understand trying to prevent confusion and misdirection by making sure the player is never lost or confused, but I'm not entirely sure if all of the hints and forced camera angles were necessary. People do have brains, they can think for themselves and in the best circumstances they can figure out problems presented in front of them with enough thought. It's also not just the somewhat brain-dead way of showing information, but the forced camera boxes actually become somewhat distracting. At a couple points I was in the middle of making a run or a jump when the game froze me in order to tell me that "R1 is the grab button" in a little something I like to call the "Megaman X5 Alia issue". At least when dialogue stops the action in X5 so to will the game, with LBP I got to read a dialogue box that I literally only had 3 seconds to read before my character was shot with a plasma bullet that I was pretty sure I could avoid until the camera said no. Long story short, you don't need a billion text boxes to get the main point across, and not all of them need to stop the gameplay so suddenly. Second problem: Karas. As far as boss fights go, Karas is fairly standard. You end up going through about 4 or so patterns of various "shoot the weakpoint" scenarios before I'm guessing he dies. Certainly nothing special about that setup, but it was a pretty decent boss and it was definitely well built and shaped, it was just kind of...predictable. Now there's a very good reason why I said I couldn't tell you about the aftermath of Karas. After I got through most of the patterns, I ended up at stage where Karas was shooting these horrifically large red plasma shots. Each one looked like it was about big enough to engulf the Magic School Bus, and they were fired at about the most rapid rate that you can reasonably emit objects. I looked at Karas and noticed a weak point that folded in and out of his frame and had a large green life bar switch, so I started shooting it. As soon as the life bar ran out, it filled up again and the solid snake music chime would play in the background. I figured I probably had to knock out the life bar a few times before he went down so whatever, but I think I may have noticed a problem when I did this about 47 times to no avail. I decided to explore around to see if there was something I missed, and I found the pilot in the opposite corner near the spawn point. I tried shooting him, but he seemed to have the same life bar issue the bot had in that it kept filling up endlessly. After about 35 minutes of trying to advance, I was reasonably irritated. Eventually I tried the stupid man's solution of trying to jump on Karas, and to my immediate surprise I didn't die and actually landed on the **** thing. But, I couldn't find anything else to actually interact with. I think I kept attempting things (as far as I know, everything) but couldn't get anything to work, and eventually I died enough times from moving back and forth and making enough mistakes that I ran out of lives. "Do you want to restart this level?" I think I'd rather eat a lightbulb than go through that **** again. I'm still rational enough to maybe pass this off as a glitch, but it's still pretty depressing. Despite all my complaining MGK is still a pretty solid level. The stealth elements aren't bad, the platforming segments are pretty well thought out, and I love playing stages with a fairly decent challenge. The aesthetic works, the music choices are all accurate (though it would be kind of impossible for them not to be), and as far as MGS clones you could probably do a whole lot worse. You could also do quite a bit better too, as mentioned earlier nothing really makes this level stand out too much from the crowd. Final Score: 7.0 / 10 Seriously graygoose, can you let me know if that was a glitch or if a missed something, because I'm not sure I want to play through the whole level again just to find out....yet. On a side note, what is the appeal with MGS custom stages anyways? There's like hundreds of them.

2010-10-12 03:34:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

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