<<Spoilers below. Don't read on if you haven't finished MGS:4, or are worried about spoiling any of the other MGS games>>

One of the major criticisms leveled against the Metal Gear Solid series is its over-reliance on long cutscenes. In some cases, really long cutscenes.

Personally, I like cutscenes. I see them as a reward in many games. And if they move the story forward and deepen my understanding of the characters in an entertaining way, I'll not only sit through a long cutscene, I'll often go back and watch it again and again.

My problem with the cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid is that they fall squarely into two camps.

1.) Scenes - These are about characters. They play out in front of you, and by the end something has changed in the characters, or your understanding of them. In many cases they are balls-to-the-wall action set pieces that do character work while kicking ass.

2.) PowerPoint Presentations - These are summaries. They are about events or facts. They are almost always concerned with things that happened in the past, or off-screen. These are used to provide players with the exposition and context necessary to feel grounded in the story.

When I'm watching a scene in Metal Gear Solid I'm often impressed by Kojima Productions' inventiveness, technical skill, and great stroytelling devices. When I'm watching one of the PowerPoint presentations I want to strangle myself with the controller - but there is no cord.

It's not that I don't think that exposition is important, but it's the ham-fisted way that it's delivered that gets to me. Sometimes in chunks that feel like they're somewhere between 15 minutes and 39 hours long, when the important information could be summed up in a sentence or two.



What's frustrating during these presentations is knowing from the past MGS games that a lot of the information you internalize during these epic expository excretions is going to turn out to be a lie. Many of the facts will turn out to be intentionally misleading. While you could look at that as a puzzle to solve, I just see it as getting hit over the head with 30 minutes of misinformation about a make-believe history that I don't find that interesting to begin with.



What I do find interesting are the characters, their relationships, and how they change over the course of the game, and the course of the series. For instance, the first scene with Meryl where she calls her father a "womanizing pice of shit" tells us a lot about her character. But what tells us even more about her is the finale where she asks him to walk her down the aisle. After everything she's been through she's changed, and that's really interesting to me.



One of the reasons I resent the PowerPoint presentations is because they ruin what could be brilliant scenes about the characters. For example, when Snake meets Big Mamma and discovers that not only is she Eva from MGS3, but that she's his goddamn mother, my jaw hit the floor. I was expecting a great scene from these two strong characters. But instead I got a long diatribe about make-believe history and a camera spinning idly around a Church looking for symbolism.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the MGS universe is so deep and well thought out. But here's how I would have preferred - just when it's about to go into the PowerPoint presentation, Eva could have said,

"Snake, you need to know the history of the Patriots. It's all here on this Nano-Film. You can view it at any time on your codec. Would you like to watch it now?"

NO!!!!!!

If the PowerPoint presentations were optional, I wouldn't have any problem with them. In fact, I'm sure I'd still watch them. But then they wouldn't interrupt the flow of the more interesting scenes.



The worst offender for me was the epilogue. Big Boss telling Snake, "I've never thought of you as a son. But I've always respected you as a soldier, and a man." That was good shit bringing closure to pretty much the whole series. The "Back to Zero" PowerPoint presentation that you have to sit through to get there; that can die in a fire.

Anyway, I loved the game and look forward to playing it again. But I hope that future installments make unnecessary exposition optional and focus on what the Kojima team excels at, things like action, romance, and complex characters.

Does anyone actually like the "talky" cutscenes? Am I just overly critical?