EGM's Parish Explains MGS4 NDA Brouhaha
The current issue of EGM set some tongues wagging when the editors presented a "roundtable" about Metal Gear Solid 4 instead of the expected review. Stating that because of restrictions placed on them by the NDA they had to sign, they didn't feel comfortable formally reviewing the game under the terms of the agreement. As a result, rumors started flying about Konami trying to control the press or EGM grandstanding for attention. Now that the NDA is lifted, one of the writers from the roundtable, Jeremy Parish, explains the situation in a little more depth.
[W]e weren't so happy with was the restriction on discussing the length of the game's cutscenes. The wording of the line item was nebulous: Did it mean the total time of all cutscenes? The specific length of individual sequences? Or simply the general proportion of cutscene to action? Far from being a minor technicality, this is an issue that cuts right to the heart of the biggest criticisms against the Metal Gear series. By preventing us from addressing this aspect of the game, Konami was tying our hands. Regardless of embargo dates, being hampered from talking about something that for many gamers is a make-or-break issue was an unacceptable compromise.
He goes on to say that the inclusion of the roundtable wasn't meant to jab Konami for their strict NDA. Rather, due to the hard deadline of print journalism (i.e. they had pages allocated for the review and the "polybags" for the magazine had already been printed), they were required to include MGS4 coverage in their magazine, and only had hours to fill it. Otherwise they would have just left the review for the issue after the NDA would have expired with no additional comment.
I'm not sure the report completely absolves Konami, as some of the terms of the agreement seem to be in place simply prevent reviewers from bringing up valid criticisms of the game. Hopefully other big publishers will take note of the controversy, and give journalists a bit more freedom in the future.
MGS4, EGM, NDAs, and YOU [1Up Blogs: Jeremy Parish]
Dawdle
Posted to Video Games on 14 June 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: egm, jeremy parish, kojima productions, konami, metal gear solid, mgs4, ndas, reviews
Thats screwed up because I'm very happy with the ratio of cutscene to gameplay. Hell, I'd say its close to an equal 50:50. And there arent even that many, far fewer than MGS3. But what they do say...it will blow your mind. Mindfuck? More like FOOTBALL Mind fuck!
(Vamp and Raiden's fight in the title pic was sooo homoerotic. Then again, it's Vamp...and Raiden, though he's way more badass now.)
I don't think there's really a point to griping about the length of the cutscenes, as this IS the MGS series with its notoriously frequent cutscenes. That probably shouldn't need explanation or warning, especially to fans of this series. Plus, there's the option to skip or pause the cutscenes (though skipping them would take a lot away from the game story-wise). I do think that some of the cutscenes could have been interactive some sort (kind of like the action icons in RE4, but then again...no).
Overall, the freakishly long cutscenes don't take away from the AMAZING game. I don't think that they'll deter people from the game.