My MGO Beta Suggestions

Any time you get to take part in a beta, you know you are in something unique. You're in the world of a developer. You won't end up changing any codes or developing how the game works, but you are that stage between there idea, and the realization of a final product. This is the developers chance to fix things to make them better so that they can profit more from a well polished game. I've alway thought that betas are great for the gaming world. They help the gamers know that they are buying a more polished game than if there would have been no beta. Take Warhawk for instance, the beta to me had TONS of issues, but the final game turned out great. Though they didn't get all the bugs out in the beta, the final product resulted in a better experience. Though what I've come to notice is that developers no longer feel the high need for a beta. Why? One word that makes me want to grit my teeth in anger. Patches. Remember the good ol' days when games went through extensive testing prior to release? When they had to because there was no going back. Well those days are seemingly dwindling. But PS3 owners have some hope. MGO Beta.

  I had no desire to rush out and preorder Metal Gear Solid 4. I knew that it would be readily available on release day, no problem. But then there was incentive... a public beta. My mind went wild with excitement. Another chance to experience a game before the mass public- Great. So I went to Game Crazy, gave them 5 bucks and got a dvd and beta code. Well as it grew closer to beta time, problems popped up for all beta testers. KONAMI ID's! WTF is that? Well needless to say, as most of you know, Konami wasn't prepared for the masses to log on to get this id that we would later find out means nothing in the beta. Soon after that we found out that the beta had an update that took up to 5 days to download because their servers were bogged down. Which was followed by a server update which meant beta delay.
  I refused to let this all get me down. I got it all done because I knew that the beta was going to be worth it. I mean its METAL GEAR SOLID!

So the beta huh. Well, coming off of fast pace Call of Duty 4, this game slams on the brakes. The running on this game is the walking of COD. But hey nothing to complain about, I love a change of pace. So what really bugs me about the beta? What would I like to see Konami fix? Try to picture this, your running, you see an enemy. He sees you, bullets start to fly...and more bullets... then some more bullets, the whole time you see his body light up to represent his teams color letting you know you're hitting him, but he doesn't die. But neither do you... you quickly find both of you have to reload. You could stop and watch the two of you have to reload before the fire fight can commence again, at which point it comes down to whose reload was quickest. Luckily you kill him, but it took you over a magazine.  One headshot would have dropped him instantly or over a magazine full of ammo.  The second thing I would like to see fixed is aiming. Auto aim is worthless, it can take over to magazines of ammo this way, at which point he's swapped to iron sights and killed you. So you have to manually start to aim which brings up this reticle which is huge compared to your target, so you have to push triangle to pull up your iron sights or scope, to start shooting. All the time you've taken to do that you could be dead.  I think they should have made it and option to have iron sites as a standard sight.  Or if I do go to my iron sights then release my aim, it should go back to my iron sights/scope next time.
  The damage to me isn't accurate or realistic at all, a grenade is roughly half some ones life. A pistol kills quicker than a submachine gun or assualt rifle, which is just plain dumb. Yes, this happened to me, I was using the M4Custom, I started shooting him before he saw me. Then he pulls up a pistol(Operator) and kills me in a matter of 4-5 shots. The Operator I'm assuming is using a 9mm to .45ACP round from 20-25 yards killed me before my Nato Standard .223 rounds killed him. Any one who has shot pistols before knows they aren't very accurate over 20-25 yards. While there are some that can, most are effective within 10 yards. I am an owner of pistols and assault rifles, and have been through many firearm courses- none of which would ever say that your handgun would be your primary firearm when carrying an assault rifle. Another issue of mine is that many of the "perks" don't make much sense. Having shot with the assault expert lvl 1 on and off I didn't see much of a difference. While some perks just don't have much use at all. As for weapons there is a good selection. You can substitute your grenades for nudie magazines and wait for people to come gawk at them, at which time you would shoot them, but its not really feasible unless you want to just camp all game. Matchmaking works well, though most people won't push start on the ready screen to get the game started faster, but I'm sure with time they will figure that out. I really would like to see your character run at a pace equivalent to that of an actual human and not that of a gorilla carrying her 4 babies. The graphics are what we have come to expect from the series, good with this bit of haze. It's like Snake never has a sunny day- theres always a bit of haze/overcast to it. But graphically it's great. Character customization needs work. I shouldn't have to put on any extra gear if I don't want to , but for some reason I had to (such as glasses or goggles, neither of which I wanted or needed.). There's also few difference combos you can come up with. Another issue I've encountered is the cover system. Some times you be near a wall and the icon will come up for you to push triangle to take cover behind that wall. Well sometimes when you push triangle your character comes to the position of attention and begins to salute. He is saluting a wall in the middle of combat! I don't know what the purpose of saluting could possibly be, but thats the worst time to do that. All military members know you don't salute while in a fire fight situation, it just points out your chain of command leaders. Why Konami needs us to salute is beyond me.  I'm sure I could come up with a few more issues, but what I would really like is Konami to have an area where you can easily make suggestions- which wouldn't be on the PS3, because typing with a PS3 controller is way too time consuming.
   But the games not all that bad. Konami seemingly put enough in the beta to get your attention and hype up the game but not enough to base your full decision of the game on. All PS3 owners should be buying MGS4. It will be the first HUGE exclusive to the system. If I were to rate the game from the beta, which I'm not, right now I would give it a solid 8 to 8.5. This could easily be a 10 if some things were better.
   As for me now, I'm going to go and play some more. For those of you PS3 owners not in the beta but interested in MGS, don't take my issues to heart. This is a beta with issues. That's the whole reason for betas. I am just venting about some thing I think are pressing issues to have fixed, hopefully before the beta ends so we can better judge the beta. Just know there is a great game on the horizons in MGS4.