Ben’s Week In Review: May 25

Coming off a few more hours of GTAIV fun, I suppose it's time to hit up the weekly update. You know you love it. 🙂

90-minute cut-scenes? Don't think so

So the latest rumor is that multiple cut-scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots are an hour and a half in length. Now, I have great difficulty believing this, although I suppose it's probable that the intro and ending might be that long. I know Konami jammed a whole ton of data onto the disc, and I know the MGS series has always been highly cinematic. But this rumor has gotten out of control; people are actually starting to say they won't buy it because they don't want to "watch more than play." This is shades of that editorial I did last week, where I talked about how certain ADD gamers constantly over-exaggerate the actual length of cut-scenes. Because they're incapable of sitting still for even one minute of loading, they think 15-minute cut-scenes are like an hour long. So my question is, did anybody actually sit there with a watch when viewing these MGS4 cut-scenes? I'm guessing few, if any, did.

I do, however, find it somewhat interesting that this game is supposed to be 30 hours long. That's a good deal lengthier than any previous entry in the series, so it may be bloated due to crazy long non-interactive sequences. But even so…90 minutes? Are we even comprehending how long that is? I'm still not buying it, but I'll guess we'll find out soon enough…

Suikoden's coming back!

It's always good to check the ESRB and the latest games they've rated, and when you see a 12-year-old game like Suikoden , you know it's coming up for download soon . I consider this to be excellent news – even though I own a copy of this great RPG myself – because it comes into the homes of a whole new generation of gamers. Being a huge RPG fan, I will always believe the original PlayStation is the ultimate king console for the genre, so there are plenty more role-playing classics that can hit the Store. I mean, the Final Fantasy PS1 entries would be no-brainers, but there are many others. Furthermore, there are plenty of non-RPG games that should once again see the light of day; Twisted Metal 2 , Medal of Honor , Mortal Kombat: Trilogy , Gran Turismo 2 , Alundra , etc. Being able to download any number of PS1 classics for a very agreeable price ($5.99 – $9.99) is one of the most underrated features of the PS3, especially considering that the 40GB PS3 has no backwards compatibility at all.

Those of you who never got a chance to play Suikoden should definitely pick it up when it becomes available on the Store. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I'm very glad I have it in my collection. Oh, and to make y'all a bit more jealous, I also have a mint condition copy of Suikoden II . Bought it two days after its release way back when. 🙂

Personal gaming update

Yep, still moving along in GTAIV, Prologue and HSG: OoB. I've reached the final row of tournaments in the latter (Gold level, unless there's another one above it), and as expected, I love it to pieces. The only real problem I have with it is that Clap Hanz went and made the greens almost impossible on the later courses; the Crown Links is absolutely absurd . Being one of the better players around, I could drop -18 or even -20 on the easiest courses, but I'm lucky to even get -5 or -6 on the Crown Links. That's just completely nutty. I'm also on the last few races in Prologue (gotta get me a Ferrari to complete them), and I'm probably 2/3 or 3/4 done with GTAIV. Of course, you have to bear in mind that I always want to do absolutely everything in GTA games; I'm actually quite close to the end, I think. The missions just got better and better, although I'm still partial to Three Leaf Clover; the Packie mission where you jack a bank. Man, it so reminded me of "Heat!"

By the way, could somebody tell me who those characters are you can buy from the Store? Are they Advanced players?