Metal Gear Offline – MGO Scheduled for Shut Down

Has it already been nearly four years since MGS4 came out?  Hard to believe.  What’s a little easier to swallow, though, is the recently announced end to Metal Gear Online’s service.  The servers will shut down for good on June 21st, 2012.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’m something of a nut for this franchise, so naturally I put some time into MGO when it first launched in the summer of 2008.  What a train wreck.  The Metal Gear series is traditionally known for three things:

1: Stealth

2: Shooting

3: Lots of cutscenes

The thing is, the basic gameplay isn’t really set up to support fast-paced action with a lot of other people.  Everything from the camera to the controls to the speed of movement is based in a world where you can go at your own pace.  It just doesn’t work when there are 10 other guys out there, all trying to get a piece of you.

It’s a bit of a shame, though.  There was a hide and seek mode that could have been great, especially in consideration of the way Assassin’s Creed was able to integrate the same general concept into their own games.  Unfortunately, this isn’t even close to the first example of Metal Gear feeling old and archaic next to its competition.

Whatever way you slice it, I feel sorry for the poor mooks over in Japan.  They had to buy MGO as a full, separate purchase while we got it included with Guns of the Patriots.

So long MGO.  We hardly played ye…