Taking Uncharted for example, yes, most of the time you'd be over-the-shoulder shooting. But you didn't have to (there's that word again) and there were occasions when you wouldn't. In fact there were achievements for running-and-gunning. The auto-aim of the R1-without-L1 shot proved invaluable in later hectic levels, when we learnt you could actually shoot without aiming! And it was far more intuitive. If you have a shotgun and a whatnot is inches from you, you shouldn't need a carefully direct aim to take it out, and Uncharted supported that. In Uncharted, if you were by a wall and a ne'er-do-well rounded the corner, you could shoot them with R1. Worst case, you could shoot them with two buttons. In MGS4 you'd have to press Triangle to back away from the wall, L1 to get the gun and R1 to shoot.
I'm not saying MGS4 is impossible, nor a rubbish game. I'm just saying the combat mechanics, or indeed controls in general, aren't great.
I don't recall anybody saying combat or controls are great. Well at least certainly I haven't been one of those people. MGS4 shooting is too slow for my taste, but it's still pretty good certainly much better than any previous MGS. It even does a couple of things many games still don't do, like switching sides in over the shoulder view. I also like psych and stress meters, though I doubt many really notice them playing on normal.
They could certainly be improved to eliminate a lot of the early mistakes and not require quite a long learning period to be able to use them effectively.
Well, if it took the last chapters of Uncharted for players to figure out aimless shooting, I don't think that MGS4 can be considered any worse.
From an objective stance of game design, I hope lessons are considered and learnt.
We started to discuss two different things. I cannot honestly say whether controls are userfriendly or not, I can however say they were pretty standard for me (and others) because there are many games with similar mechanics even if theirs aren't always strictly mandatory, it's still what player is practically forced to do most of the time. And that certainly should be enough to get used to.
Second issue is whether controls are good/efficient or not. It may not be efficient, but they are good for me. In MGS4 I couldn't care less about aimless shooting, I have Solid Eye and Threat Ring, meaning I always know where the enemy is, I don't think people would use it most of the time anyway considering the enemy needs to be out of CQC range. but the option wouldn't hurt.
If MGS4 had faster melee enemies like Uncharted it would be a different story, but it doesn't have them unfortunately.
In MGO however, aimless shooting with Uncharted's aiming assist would make a totally different game where everyone would be picking up shotguns, no assult rifles, no sniper rifles and no CQC. Random 1(or 2)-hit kill battles. I'll pass on that, thank you.
BTW, I said shooting is slow in MGS4 but it fits very well with MGO. For that, I feel the need for other stuff, but I am waiting for leveling up to be able to criticize really objectively.
Sadly a game that gets 10/10s or even virtual 11/10s probably isn't going to come into much objective criticism...
That goes both ways. Have you played GTA4 yet?
