Welcome back, one and all, to the penultimate instalment of my Metal Gear Madness challenge. Formerly known as the Metal Gear May Madness challenge, it was a calculated attempt to play through the entire Metal Gear canon within the month of May. Despite failing to hit that challenging milestone, I've been continuing the challenge into June, mainly because I still have a desire to see the whole series through from beginning to end. If you want more details regarding the specifics of the challenge, you can find them in this introductory post. If you want thoughts on a particular game, I've grouped all the previous episodes together in the table below:

This seventh episode is all about the series' epic finale, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Episode .07 - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

This is essentially the game that this whole challenge has been leading up to. See, until yesterday I'd only beaten Metal Gear Solid 4 once, all the way back in 2009 when I borrowed a PlayStation 3 from one of my university flat mates. When I picked up a PS3 of my own earlier this year, a copy of MGS4 wasn't far behind. Keen to revisit the chapter in the Metal Gear saga that I'm least familiar with, part of the reason I devised the challenge was to create an excuse to play this game again, this time with a nice lengthy refresher on all the plot points that came before in the hope that some of those twists might not seem quite so bat-shit insane.

The first thing that's noticeable making the leap from Snake Eater and Portable Ops to MGS4 is just how 'modern' it feels to play. With the aim and fire controls moved to the shoulder buttons, combat is a lot less clunky than it was in previous games in the series. I want to go on record here as saying that I've got nothing against the shooting controls in MGS2 and MGS3 myself, but there's definitely a fluidity to the more conventional set-up of MGS4, and that in turn makes combat a bit easier to deal with. What's really great, though, is how this shift doesn't compromise the unique nature of the Metal Gear control scheme - the item and weapon selection menus are still governed by L2 and R2 respectively, X still presses Snake to the ground, and Triangle is still your all-purpose action button. It doesn't feel like every other third-person shooter out there - it just feels like Metal Gear with better shooting, and that can only be a good thing.

Aesthetically it's brilliant, too. In the five years since its release there's no doubt that Metal Gear Solid 4's visuals have been surpassed by a handful of titles, but there's no denying that it's still one of the best-looking games of this generation. Everything within the game is painstakingly detailed - the character models, the environments, the weapons... all of them look great. The voice acting is also arguably the best in the series to date, although David Hayter's performance as Old Snake doesn't quite live up to his reputation (the aged nature of Snake in this game means a lot of Hayter's performance feels over-acted, especially alongside some of the other characters). Harry Gregson-Williams's score is, as ever, an aural tour-de-force.

Then there's the story - the main thing that drew me to this game when I first played it four years ago. If anything, I think I actually enjoyed it more this time than I did back in 2009. That's probably due to the nature of the challenge, which meant a lot of the plot points from the other games were fresher in my mind than they were on my first go round. It made a lot of the thread-tying that MGS4 does seem to make more sense, and served to cement its position in my mind as a fitting coda to the series. In some respects my opinion has changed for the worse, though - I was originally a fan of the game's closing cut-scene and the big twist it brings, but this time around I was less willing to accommodate that ending. I'm not entirely sure what specifically has caused that change of opinion, but coming into the game off the back of the entire series left me feeling indifferent about that particular moment.

Aside from issues with Hayter's performance and that ending, my biggest complaint about Metal Gear Solid 4 is that in some areas, it feels like its scope is much wider than it needs to be. This is especially apparent in the case of the game's huge arsenal of weapons. Through Drebin's shop, Snake has access to a huge array of firearms including several different handguns, sub-machine guns and assault rifles. It's an impressive arsenal, to be sure, but one that struck me as largely unnecessary. Snake Eater had a lot of weapons, but its strength was in its variety rather than its depth. I honestly don't see why Snake needs five or six different kinds of assault rifle at his disposal, especially in a game where the player is advised to avoid combat at all costs. It doesn't hurt the game, per se, but it does feel weirdly out of place in a stealth game.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is unique in the series in that it gives you cumulative statistics at the end of each of its five acts. In keeping with the standard set by the other blogs in this series, I decided to capture all five ranking screens. They're listed below in Act order from left to right. Considering this is only my second time ever through the game, I'm intensely proud of how low some of those figures are (although as the time probably indicates, I was playing very slowly and cautiously for most of it). Along with the Gecko title you can see I've been awarded with, I earned the Inchworm and Scorpion emblems too.

Gallery

Well, there you have it - seven games down, and just one more title left to play in this epic journey through Kojima's flagship franchise. It probably won't surprise you to learn that I've already made a start on Peace Walker, specifically the HD Edition of the game which I downloaded from the PlayStation Store last month. Early indications are that the expanded control system is a lot more friendly than it was on the PSP, so I'm sure I'll end up having a lot of fun sinking hours into this version of the title. As ever, you can expect the next (and final) episode of Metal Gear Madness when Peace Walker's all wrapped up. Until then, all that remains to be said is thanks very much for reading, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD Edition (PS3)

I haven't played Guns of the Patriots, so I can't read any of this without spoiling it for myself. However, I will say that Snake Eater gave me the itch to go back to Sons of Liberty, and now that's making me really want a PS3 just so I can play this. That HAS to be natural, right?

@video_game_king: I'd say that's very natural. I borrowed a PS3 from a flat mate in my first year of university just to play this game, so I can definitely empathise. If you're worried about spoilers, I think I've managed to avoid them in writing this, so it should be a safe read as long as you're fully aware that Snake is old. Also, kudos for managing to avoid spoilers for a five-year-old game for so long, especially with the level of presence you have on the forums.

Great blog, as always. Have you watched the HAWP Youtube videos on Metal Gear Solid 4? They're not the best of the Burch's work but they're pretty damned funny in spots.

@sparky_buzzsaw: I hadn't. To tell the truth, I had no idea what 'HAWP' was until I put it into YouTube's search bar last night. 'Twas pretty funny, the references had me chuckling at some of the game's absurdities in a way I simply couldn't do within context (there's a lot of stuff that makes sense in the Metal Gear universe that's simply bat-shit insane out of it), and David Hayter contributing some voice work to the ending was awesome.

@dankempster: Nice to see you keeping on. I love MGS 4 so much. So many great and absurd moments. Its one of the few times where I felt entirely at peace at the end of the game. I felt the game touched upon every story best I wanted wrapped up. And even though a lot of the story was sort of stitched together in places with reveals of things like the DARPA chief conveniently being SIGNT from MGS3 Overall it made me feel my investment in the series was rewarded. Ill be interested to see what you think of Peace Walker. Just make sure to get the "true" ending. Won't spoil how to get it.