The five or six hours I've been able to spend with Metal Gear Solid 4 have been strictly A-plus, in stark opposition to my experience with publisher Konami, which sadly rates a disgraceful F. That's because despite due-diligently requesting a reviewable copy of the game months ago, Konami has so far managed not to send Game On anything whatsoever.
This, in spite of many polite phone calls and emails asking (imploring, entreating) Konami for at least a day or two with the game before pulling together something sufficiently competent to call a "review." I finally went out this morning and bought the game at the local Walmart. (Walmart would've had them to sell at midnight, but my local store weirdly happened to be running a full blown inventory, so they were mercifully spared a Wednesday shipment.)
Employing an equation that makes about as much sense as some of Hideo Kojima's plots (and ironically reflecting much of the shallow commercial and/or information-control partiality Kojima himself mocks during the opening sequence of MGS4) Konami didn't send out review copies to most journalists until yesterday and today. That's send, as in receivable today or tomorrow.
Who waits to send out review copies until a day or two before retail street?
Games aren't books or movies. I can finish a pretty sizable book in eight or nine hours reading at a normal pace, and watch a movie two or threes times over in about the same span.
But a game?
How much time is time enough, when today's games are so vastly, time-devouringly multi-dimensional?
Did you see this story on 11th hour reviews by Simon Parkin for Gamasutra? Rockstar pulled something similar with Grand Theft Auto IV, resulting in who knows how many journalists rushing to publish reviews having only played fractional aspects of the total game. Grand Theft Auto IV is quite obviously not a game you review in a day or two. Not even if you're sleeplessly jacked on Jolt and popping caffeine pills.
Think about sleep deprivation's effects on a person's judgment. Think about the way you've felt right after seeing a movie or reading a book, compared with your thoughts and feelings a day or two later.
Even the most experienced critics need time to muse and reboot. It's just the way human brains are wired.
I've had to rush-review games before. It's not a happy experience. Even with the ones I've felt I played sufficiently, it's always emotionally tricky landing confidently on a final grade, knowing I might feel better or worse if I had a sliver more time -- just a day or two -- to let the experience mellow and reflect.
After all, this whole operation is about passing along reliable information to you, the reader. It's about offering opinions that -- whether you agree or disagree with them -- you can at least depend on, in terms of their insight and authenticity.
The whole enterprise conspires against that, when publishers start pushing reviewers flush against hard deadlines. The result is not provably, but very probably, a spate of mechanically thorough but insightfully vapid reactions, signed, sealed, and immutable. No critic (except for the commendably candid Simon Parkin, that is) shackled to a publication with its reputation on the line is going to come back days or weeks later and rescind a review on the basis of minds changed by continued play.
You don't review a game like Metal Gear Solid 4 overnight, or even after a couple of days. It's simply too massive. I've spent the last three or four hours alone just exploring the war-torn starting area and trying out Snake's panoply of enhanced abilities while enjoying the way all the old ones feel totally new. Not to mention the fact that everything's harder (in all the right ways). The tactical AI which now pokes its head into every hiding place may be some of the best I've ever encountered in a stealth game. No blatantly cheap tricks or workarounds. If you're not paying attention to every inch of space between you and the other guy, you're screwed.
And I love that.
Or that's my knee-jerk reaction, anyway.
You know how you've been hearing more about game journalists and payola lately? The enemy of competent, reliable opinion journalism isn't money so much as time. And by proxy, therefore, companies who treat ours cheaply.
I know there's nothing you can do about that. That's my job. But since I'm not going to rush my Metal Gear Solid 4 review -- it'll be up this weekend or early next week -- I just wanted you to know why.
Suck it up. I've seen other reviewers post first impressions and allude to a more detailed review later. You've done the latter but have managed to spend the better part of this "article" bitching about how precious your time is. I bought the game last night @ 9:45 and spent 3 hours playing it. From that tiny window, I walked away with enough nuances of the game to post a "first looks" review. I could do that here, but then again, that's not my job. It's yours. If you can't manage to write a decent initial review of a game that has generated so much buzz (what other game coming out is of this magnitude in terms of anticipation, depth and story-telling?) with a couple hours, then maybe you should consider a change in career.
You're missing the point, Samagonistes. Readers want reviews on or before product streets. Books, movies, games, CDs, etc. This isn't about whether it's worth sputtering out a few half-baked reactions to a game after a half dozen hours with it, it's about convincing publishers to stop playing games with the press.
I understand that readers want reviews before a product is launched but disagree on the degree of details you think that they want. In the days before blogs, bulletin boards, etc where "traditional" media outlets only had one chance to get a story right, I can see where you're coming from. In fact, I commend your sentiment in wanting to get a more detailed review out for your readers. But now, you're competing with so many "reviewers" from all over the place, and for the likes of the PC Worlds out there, you simply don't have the luxury of wanting things to go back to the way they were. Google MGS4 and you'll see hundreds, if not more, impressions, reviews, thoughts, opinions on the game. Of all those, yours stood out as the only bitch fest about not getting the game earlier. By this logic, we can deduce the following:
you guys really need to fix this comments box. it's utterly useless. I've had to try numerous times to basically reply to your comment!
1) IGN, GamePro, etal. are spewing bulls##t in their reviews;
2) they're much more adept at getting the review done in the same timeframe (under the assumption all media get the product at the same time); or
3) your opinion on games is less relevant because instead of reviewing games, you bitch about things like this.
That, or Matt Peckham is the only person with the moxy to call Konami to the floor.
You remember what consumers were left to expect when a movie, game, etc was with-held from critics until it was launched, right? We were left to expect garbage. Tomb Raider: AoD. Matrix. Any number of movie-to-game based games. Almost every single game ever released in which the reviewable copy was with-held from the press meant the game was garbage.
This is not to say MGS4 is garbage however. This is to say that Konami is playing games with the consumers. In addition, do you truely trust a review of a game when only the first six hours worth have been played? What review would you have given yourself to Star Ocean: TtEoT (PS2) if you only played the first 6 hours? A solid 9? How about after hour 50, when the "big twist" was revealed? A 5?
Exactly.