I really don’t want to get into this debate again. It just keeps popping up! The story of MGS is something you either love or hate, and nothing can really change that. If you absolutely must know, I find the plot itself very convoluted and over-complicated (nobody cares what triple-S stands for) which makes the overall anti-war/make your own destiny message hard to swallow. As for storytelling techniques, the plot-development and player-controlled sections of the game seem so seperate, that it feels like the two are competing for the player’s attention. This is not the mark of good game design. I’m not opposed to story in games, but the plot should be seemlessly woven into the gameplay, not forced down the player’s throat in ten-minutes cutscenes. What’s more, the dialouge is just too melodramatic. I consider the Naomi Hunter monolouges from the ending of Twin Snakes (at least the one I got) to be one of the most poorly-written pieces of dialouge I have ever heard in a game. I just find the whole series piercingly over-rated. After Portable Ops, I stopped playing.
Admitedly,the Rising trailer looked pretty cool, but I have such little interestin the story that I might not get it.