I Call Bullshit: Special Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Edition

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[For the latest on MGS 4, check out Tom Chick's review.]

With Metal Gear Solid 4 only mere days away from confusing and annoying normal people all over the world, we here at Crispy Central thought it high time to devote an entire ICBS column to the greatest, most terrible game the world will likely ever know.

Ambitious? Yes. Groundbreaking? Most certainly. But talk to Konami -- better yet, don't bother -- and you'll learn that the only way they were going to give Crispy G. access to the game before it shipped to stores was by having our reviewer report to a local public relations office and play the game under the very watchful eyes of Konami reps.

To quote T.S. Eliot: We don't play that shit.

To make matters worse, even if we'd agreed to this unethical situation and gone ahead with our review, we'd still have to sign a document promising to abide by an abundance of absurd rules and regulations when writing about the game. (The rules and regulations were apparently so strict that Electronic Gaming Monthly decided to forego the restrictions and review the game in next month's issue instead. One of the rules: That we name our firstborn "Old Snake.")

If your toupee isn't already spinning, it will be by the time you finish reading this. So put on your Sunday overcoats and light up your fancy Sherlock Holmes-type pipes. It is time, people, for the bullshit to be called.

The smart people got off this ride at around the halfway point in MGS 2.

The first Metal Gear Solid was fun and inventive. But the second? It's the point when Hideo Kojima stopped making games for gamers and started making them only for himself. I had no idea what was going on about 149 percent of the time in the game. Annoying boss fights. Neverending Codec conversations. And ... Raiden. Can you guys just pull to the curb? I realize I'm pretty far from my house, but I'll walk from here, thanks.

Sony and Konami jumped the gun on hyping the game ... by about three years.

In development seemingly since the dawn of man, MGS 4 was originally hailed as the quintessential game to demonstrate the PlayStation 3's raw horsepower, more than a year before the PS3 even shipped to retailers. And after all the battles that the PS3 has won and lost since its release -- slowly but surely it seems to finally be losing its stink of defeat -- MGS 4, no kidding, got this reaction from one of my colleagues: "Didn't that game come out already?"

Rumors of a substantial initial install and 90-minute-long cut scenes are all over the Net. If true...

That install? We can stomach that. But cut scenes that are lengthier than "27 Dresses"? Now that's a cruel and unusual punishment that we cannot accept. If you want to make a movie, Hideo, make a damn movie. Said it before, saying it again: Games are for playing.