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Platform:	PS3
Genre:	Action
Players:	1
Website:	http://www.konami.jp/mgs4/us/
Release Date:	June 12, 2008
Rating:

There aren’t that many games that I anticipate and for the most part when I do I always wind up being mildly disappointed. There are a few noticeable exceptions to this rule and they are Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy X, GoldenEye 007, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Shadow of the Colosus, Chrono Cross, Legend of the Dragoon and some others that I can’t think ofright now, and this list is still growing as I play more games that I missed out on in the past. I now have a new game to add this list.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is one of those rare games that delivers on all fronts. I have been waiting for this game since I finished MGS3: Snake Eater about four years ago. Perhaps by anticipating it for so long I was setting the game up for failure or making it’s goal so lofty,that not being somewhat disappointed was impossible. But after loadingthe game up and witnessing the first mission and everything that flowedafterwards I can safely say that I am impressed. I must personally say that the press spent far too much time showcasing the first mission because it doesn’t feel fresh or new, but everything afterwards gets better the deeper you get into it.

MGS4 not only raises the bar, but takes it and proceeds to mercilessly beatevery game that came out before it this year to death with it. It’s what games from now on will be compared to. If you dare call yourself a PS3 exclusive you will be compared to MGS 4. It is one of those games that every gamer should sacrifice lesser games to in order to appease it. It should have its own religion created in its honor. In fact I now call myself a “Kojimaist” because I can now say that Hideo Kojima is a gaming God that can now safely be put within the same ranks as Hironobu Sakaguchi, Shigeru Miyamoto, Yu Suzuki, Shinji Mikami and many more.

Story:

MGS4 takes place five years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: TheSons of Liberty. Snake who is now a grizzled geezer has been tasked with his last mission. This mission is to kill his brother Liquid who has finally taken over Ocelot’s body completely. Personally I wish they used Liquid's voice because I loved the vocalization of him from veteran voice actor Cam Clarke (I’ll miss the way he screamed “Brotheeer!!!), but Patric Zimmermand oes a more than serviceable job. Snake is falling apart because of his genes (everybody knew this already) and Liquid is gearing up to pursue his father’s dream of creating Outer Heaven.

During the story you will see Snake triumph, but there are also a lot of times where you will see the characters suffer defeat and agonizing pain. You will winch for the characters and wish that it wasn’t happening to them. There are not that many game characters that I care for, but Snake and his crew are part of those rare few. The pivotal moments of the story are so powerful and gut wrenching, but they must not ever be spoiled, only witnessed. There is so much to this story that outside of the basic plot I don’t even know what I can actually divulge, but all I know is that you will devote yourself to it. Everything gets answered. You might not like the answer, but whatever questions you have, with the exception of “why the hell is Raiden wearing that cyborg suit” will get answered. People might not like the method used for the story-telling because some of the cutscenes seem to take forever, but this really only became a problem at the end of the game. Maybe it’s because at the time I beat it I really needed to eat, but luckily you’re allowed to pause them now.

The Metal Gear Solid series is now over and it’s kind of sad not havinganother one to look forward to. It was a world full of realism mixed witha fantasy world where only the absurd seemed possible. It was a worldwhere nobody would question the existence of a dancing bisexual, blood drinkingSpecial Forces member that could run on water and run up walls. Whereelse could you find a photosynthetic ancient sniper with the ability to talk tonature. It was full of imagination and seeing it end was amazing and sadat the same time. Granted you had to stomach the existence of some reallyreally weird mind bending plot elements, but it was always intriguing. And now it’s time to close this portion with one of my favorite game relatedquotes. This from MGS 2 at the end when Col. Campbell flips hiswig; “I hear it’s amazing when the famous purple stuffed wormin flapped jaw space with a tuning fork does a raw blink on hari-kari rock. Ineed scissors! 61!”

Gameplay:

MGS4 continues the tradition of adding new gameplay elements within each newiteration. Though they got rid of having to eat to actually survive theyleft the way you actually approach the game rather open ended. Theyimproved the controls to make it more intuitive, but I did have to get used toit. The square button is no longer used for firing and attacking and nowit is R1. In it’s defense if I had just read the instruction manual Iwould’ve knew this already, but hey I’m hardcore and I feel that the manual isjust there to make the box heavier. Don’t worry it’s a mistake I onlymade once and after getting caught after a botched throat slashing I learnedthe hard way. This is also when I found out that taking the Ramboapproach is rather satisfying.

Withso many other games this generation they are using the Resident Evil 4 over the shoulder perspective to handle shooting. On top of this you arenow capable of actually moving around in the first person perspective. This may not impress some, but it’s a huge step for the franchise since in thepast games you just stayed in place as if you were wearing cementgaloshes. To add to the chaos you are now offered enough weapons to startyour own Outer Heaven. It may be overkill running around the place withthree different assault rifles, two of which have a grenade launcher attachedto it, a highly accurate and deadly magnum sniper rifle and a friggin RPG, butit’s worth it. You dare stuff to get in your way and create ruckus justfor the hell of it. There seems to be plenty of stuff to shoot too,because until the local militia has declared victory over Liquids forces theyseem to respawn forever.

Whileon the topic of the PMC and rebel forces you have the option to just leave themalone. If you wish you can just kill everything with a pulse, but thatwould require a lot more sneaking, because you would become a target of bothforces. If you help out the rebel forces they will assist you. Theywill help you overcome the PMC forces and offer you shelter in their base whereyou can find a disguise and also get weapons from them. All of theshooting does and will take its toll on Snake.

Younow have to manage Snakes stress and psyche levels. These allow Snake tofunction properly in combat. And when these take a nosedive you willactually notice. When rolling Snake won’t recover as fast from it andstart to visibly winch in pain, but the most noticeable price comes at theexpense at aim. Snake’s hands will start to shake and getting off thatimperative last minute headshot will become even harder. There are alsotimes when all of the stress will put Snake into a combat high allowing his aimto become steady and sharpens his senses, but after it Snake will blow chunksand his psyche and stress gauges will practically become empty. Otherthan aim these gauges determine how fast Snake will recover his health. In order for you to steady the stress gauge and replenish the psyche gaugeSnake will have to actually read a Playboy magazine. Another interestingdetail regarding the psyche gauge comes from the usage in cutscenes. Forinstance his psyche will decrease if Snake tells a joke that just falls flat orfor instance if somebody denies him his precious cigarettes.

Tomake the game interesting there is a gun launderer called “Drebin” who isactually part of a team of hundreds of Drebins (he’s #893 to be exact). Drebin allows you to buy weapons and customize them with scopes, laser sights,flashlights {useless add-on) and even a grenade launcher or a shotgun under thebarrel. You’re able to access these accessories through “Drebin Points,”which you pick up in different ways. One way is to pick up weapons thatare dropped by people you kill or by finishing each act. At the end ofthe level you’re given a tally of how many flashbacks you have accessed. Now all the flashbacks are are sequences where you press the ‘X’ button whenyou’re prompted to during cutscenes. Al they show you are pictures frompast games and a snippet of Yoji Shinkawa’s artwork. If you have neverplayed an MGS game before you will be quite lost because you won’t know what itis they are referring too so this is definitely something only the fans mightget a kick out of. Honestly if they referenced something from MetalGear or Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake I would’ve been out of the loop,but back to the Drebin Points. These things are really just easy to comeby because with the way I was playing something just seemed to die every twominutes (beat the game with over 700 kills and almost 300 headshots). Butthis isn’t the full experience of MGS 4 because if you choose to you canplay it like a stealth game (the way most would say it’s meant to be playedas).

Inorder to do this you have to properly utilize the Octocamo, which is thesystem, you use that allows you to almost blend into every environment. If you press up against a wall or lay on the ground the suit will change it’spattern to best suit the environment and works fairly well. There were alot of situations where I was crawling about four yards from a guard and wasn’teven spotted. You can use this to then get the drop on a guard and stunhim with some CQC (Close Quarters Combat) or just be merciful and let himlive. Later on there are situations where stealth is highly stressed likein Act 2 when you are trying to locate Naomi Hunter or in Act 4 when you aresneaking past Gekkos, and the beginning of Act 3 is purely stealth unless youjust want to destroy helicopters and kill people for the fun of it. Butwhen it comes to the Gekkos you want to be stealthy. They’re fast,powerful and will jam your rockets sending them veering off course. Inever would’ve thought that I would fear something that moo’s but these thingsare no joke. I wish that there were more sequences with them, but I guessyou can’t have too much of a good thing. Kojima Productions also didrather nice job with the boss battles.

Theyare with the Beauty and the Beast Corps, which are a team of psychologicallydamaged women that are out to kill Snake and eat his bones in an attempt tocleanse their minds. They are called Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven,Screaming Mantis and Crying Wolf and yes their names are nods to the originalvillains from MGS 1. As far as MGS villains go they seem alittle bit tame. Though they may be nuts they’re believable. No oneis shooting bees at you and the sniper battle isn’t at tense as the one withThe End in MGS 3. After you beat them you can tell that they gotthe reward system from Mega Man 2, which is fine because you get somecool weapons out of it. My big gripe is that the fight a new Metal Gearstaple isn’t really there, but what’s in its place is still pretty fun. And the last boss battle is nothing but the purest kind of fan service for thedevoted Metal Gear Solid fans. While on the topic of fan serviceAct 4 oozes it. Fanatics of the first game will even notice that the sameweapons are in the exact spot as they were in MGS 1. I’m prettysure everybody knows the place I’m referring to, but if you don’t I’m not goingto ruin it for you.

Bythe time Metal Gear Solid 4 is done your jaw will drop, you might shed atear and you will start the game over and take part in that lovely rollercoaster ride all over again…in fact right after the credits are done rolling Ican almost guarantee that you will restart the game. Some might have aproblem with cutscene length but I have really just gotten used to them. Besides if you don’t like them you can skip them, some of them are betterdirected than a lot of movies.

Graphics:

Fora while I was wondering if the graphics in MGS 4 would continue to beimpressive when I finally got it and it is safe to say that they do. Theyare so good in fact that I think that I might never be impressed with anythingagain. But I do assure you this and I hope that everybody that finishedthis game takes this vow. If someone says to my face that the Playstation3 is incapable of good graphics I’m going to do one thing. Whether he/shebe gamer or developer I am going to go to a sporting goods store and purchase abaseball bat and with baseball bat in hand I am going to knock every tooth outof that persons head.

Thegame is absolutely stunning and runs at a smooth frame rate through about 99%of the game. There is so much action and detail going on in the game thatyou would normally expect slowdown from any other game. While riding ontop of a Stryker armored vehicle you’re driving around gunning down men andGekkos. Seeing a Gekko jump through the air to get to you and seeinganother one launching a volley of rockets is breathtaking.

Ontop of this the character models are absolutely beautiful. And if you’renot sure just pay attention to your camoflague because whatever color Snake isin before the cutscene starts he’s the color during the cutscene. If youwant more proof just shake the controller and he will revert back to thedefault sneaking suit color before your very eyes. For some odd reason ina cutscene in Act 3 my camouflage was set back to its default color. Ontop of this the final scene in Act 3 seems to be using a touched up version ofthe in game engine. I didn’t realize it until my second play through butyour command vest (if you changed its color) is the default color and you’renot allowed to zoom in or move the camera around.

Thedetail on everything from clothing to facial hair is remarkable. Payenough attention and you can notice the razor bumps on Otacon’s face or thefine stitching on his turtleneck sweater. And now Meryl Silverburgh looksmore like her Policenauts counterpart because just like her she nowwears a bullet shaped earring. Another nice effect is on the Metal GearGekkos and this is the distorting effect of their jamming pods. From timeto time you will see a low-resolution texture on a door or a wall, and for someodd reason Meryl’s hair really doesn’t move that much (too much hair gel?) butyou really have to search hard too find something ugly. Besides whoreally cares about the photorealism of a wall, especially when this much carewas given to the rest of the game. Another thing I realized was the lackof hair clipping in this game. I remember playing Dead or Alive 4 and just seeing a ton of hair clip through a womans shoulder. In fact Ihave seen this in so many games that I had almost written it off as aninevitable glitch in a game. But I was honestly shocked to see thismissing in MGS 4. All those delays for this game allowed them tofinely polish this game to near perfection.

Sound:

Thescore by Harry-Gregson Williams is almost perfect. The music crescendosappropriately and seems more original than the Snake Eater (don’t worryit’s a great score none the less) score. Unlike the last game Williamsisn’t going for a Bond like characteristic. He puts his own futuristictwist on the music and it’s beautiful at points. One interesting featureof the game is the Ipod. It doesn’t allow for custom soundtracks, but youcan find pieces of music from the older games in the franchise. It’sentertaining just running through certain areas using the music from MetalGear Acid 2.

Thevoice work is astonishing. There’s no use reiterating the absence of CamClarke, but everybody else there is great. David Hayter turns in his bestperformance as Snake. Hayter sounds like he started a 16 pack a dayregiment to get his voice all raspy and phlegmy, which might have helped himget his “smokers cough” just right. Snake sounds like he is about tocough up a lung and his stomach. Hayter’s cries of pain are totallybelievable in the more dramatic scenes of the game and his comedic lines aredelivered nicely as well. Quinton Flynn gave Raiden a more gravelly voiceso nobody should be complaining about how whiny Raiden is (I personally had noproblem with Raiden in MGS 2). Jennifer Hale turns out anothergreat performance as Naomi Hunter showcasing how smart her character is. Along with this she shows us a motherly and caring side to Hunter that we nevergot to see in MGS 1.

Whenthe voice acting isn’t the case the audio quality is top notch and it shows itearly on. The whirring of the helicopter blades and the engine noise ofthe helicopters are the best to be used in a game so far. Everything isbelievable from the mechanical sounds as the Metal Gear Mk II moves around tothe mooing of the Gekkos. The sound of metal breaking and creaking atpoints is haunting and everything else is excellent. It’s easy to tellthat the sound team at Kojima Productions made sure that they got every littledetail right.

Replay:

Thestory is riveting and it’s a blast to play, but there is also a ratherentertaining online portion. Metal Gear Online is third personshooter that seems to be one part Call of Duty 4 and another part GRAW. It’s supposed to be tactical, but the only problem is (with the rooms I end upjoining) is the lack of people actually using their headsets. Granted itdoesn’t matter to me because I’m always one of the top people in the room, buthaving some audible back up would be great. The one thing you notice (andfast) is that people can soak up some rounds. If you go for a body shotbe prepared to shoot a lot. The game of MGO is to go for thehead. It’s almost a one shot kill and the quicker you realize this thebetter your chances of survival are. It might also help to find a gunthat works for you. I personally like the M14EBR, but others might notlike it. The one thing I don’t like is that Drebin Points are reset whenthe host changes the game type, but it doesn’t take too long (depending onskill) to get more. The points allow you to purchase a weapon as well asattach stuff to them.

Onething I find great about MGO is the ability to change the music. There’s a good chance that nobody on the same team is listening to the samesong. For nostalgia reasons I like to play listening to the music from MetalGear Solid and I occasionally listen to the Tanker music from MGS 2,but every now and then the music from Metal Gear and MG2: Solid Snake come up. Some might not like MGO, but I actually like it. Myone grievance came from actually having to create a Konami ID and trying tofigure how they wanted you to create your name everything really just pissed meoff. Since punching the information in with the Dual Shock 3 wasn’t fastenough I eventually just turned on my laptop to do it.

Anotheraspect that adds to the replay factor are the extras. Depending on therank you receive when you beat the game you will get stuff such as stealthcamouflage are an unlimited ammo bandana. Also you get some interestingthings for clearing the game with no kills, continues, alert phases and otherthings. Plus getting access to the secret costume will make you playagain. It’s definitely a game that rewards the player for getting betterat it and playing it a certain way. On top of all of this after scouringthe web I have seen a lot of comedic Easter eggs. So there is almost noway in hell that you will stop at only one play through of the game. Somethings change and every time you notice something new.

Overall:

Thegame delivers on absolutely every front. Some might complain about thelength of cutscenes, but it is nothing new to the franchise. MGS 1,2 and 3 (especially 2) had a lot of cutscenes and codec sequencesso why would this one be any different. And just like the previous gamesyou can skip them. From an artistic standpoint MGS 4 is mindblowing a lot of the sequences are capable of dropping the jaw of even the mostcynical gamer. I don’t issue a lot of these, but I’m never really thisfulfilled or impressed with a game.