The least complimentary Metal Gear title yet.

Last week I finished the fourth of five Metal Gear Solid games in my pile of shame. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was a ridiculous, fantastic spectacle that somehow managed to bring together all the crazy story threads and loose ends from the previous games and actually compress them into a somewhat cohesive narrative. Of course, it needed several hour-long cutscenes along the way, but the direction, invention, and showmanship on display made the whole crazy ride a marvel to behold.

Whether it was being dropped into a raging Middle Eastern street war, or sneaking through the South American jungle whilst aiding local guerrilla fighters, the game was a blast to play. Then it would switch things up and, like something out of an old war movie, you were shadowing resistance members through the foggy streets of Eastern Europe. Eventually you end up returning to Shadow Moses, the location of the first Metal Gear Solid game for some nostalgic fun before the big finale. It was a fantastic end to the saga, and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

But, as usual, the most important thing to report is this; the title that was bestowed upon me at the end of the game, the one which would denote my particular playstyle.

For MGS it was: Hyena

For MGS2: Sons of Liberty it was: Elephant

For MGS3: Snake Eater it was: Panther

For MGS4: Guns of the Patriots it was…

Inchworm?!?! Bloody hell.

It seems I was awarded that because I crawled on the ground for more than an hour. Well, that’s not so bad. In this Metal Gear you also receive additional titles. The ones I received and their meanings were:

Tarantula: Get fewer than 75 alerts, over 250 kills, and fewer than 25 continues.

Pig: Use more than 50 recovery items.

Hyena: Pick up 400 dropped weapons.

So it seems that I was pretty sneaky, murdered a lot, collected a ton of booty, and ate lots of pot noodles. Cool, I guess.

The other game I finished this week was Dead Island. I’ve always loved zombie movies and zombie games, but even I’ve been getting tired of their overexposure lately. This game however was something a little different. Instead of your typical gloomy zombie setting this one was set in a tropical resort paradise, and all the zombies came hurtling at you in broad daylight, scantily clad with half-drunk pina coladas still clutched in their rotting hands. Which was a nice change.

The game suffered its fair share of terrible graphical glitches, and the most useless mini map destination plotting I’ve ever seen in a game, but it was actually quite a good laugh, and it was pretty satisfactory to hack up those stupid zombies. The game was made up of the sort of fetch quests you’d expect to find in a zombie outbreak: forage parts to get the radio antenna working, salvage fuel for some vehicles, help out some idiots on the radio who need you to come and get them in your vehicles, etc. 

Oh, and then there were the accents. My God, the accents. 

33 down, 17 to go.