Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

The Metal Gear Franchise has been claimed as the pinnacle of storytelling and even the best game of all time. Well from the first game to the fourth game in the franchise and this being the last, it's easy to say that Kojima definitely saved the best game till last.

Between each and every act, Snake will be shown smoking, warning you of health and safety. Ironically he's smoking and there are messages telling you about Health and Safety on a console. While this is going on there is an installation process between every act, some which take one minute and others which are three minutes. While it's annoying in some respects, it's a small price to pay for the amount of true Blu-Ray technology you should be getting from your PS3 games, furthermore "end of act cliffhangers" also give you a breather to summarize opinions and thoughts.

Metal Gear Solid 4 continues the ongoing saga of Snake. Unfortunately Kojima decided to end it here with Guns of the Patriots where Snake has one mission, one task and that's to hunt Liquid down. The bitter enemies cloned from Big Boss and opposition of karma makes them not the best of brothers. Snake's given a huge disadvantage though because of his incorrect genes from which he faces faster ageing than the average human and so despite being moderately young, he's doubled his actual age. Over the course of the story, Snake becomes less and less fit to do the job but his sheer determination really pushes him to the end. Liquid will put all kinds of obstacles in yours and Snakes way including hiding in the middle of an ongoing war, among his army of Elites and Bosses and using various methods of transports.

The story was exciting and thrilling from start to finish. The story is relatively easy to follow and is all about the unforgettable Snake and his determination to find Liquid despite going through desperate attempts and different environments all across the world just to take one man down. This emotion really makes you want to find him, every time he escapes just makes you hope you get him soon or Snake might not last much longer. Despite this, the story is chopped up a tad near the end (no spoilers). Some quick decisive and exciting story aspects all happen at the end to quick at the end resulting in rather brief but fantastic ending.

If you're new into games or pretentious of the franchise, Kojima makes a clear way of revealing the story from the past games through the cut-scenes. Some will say some cut-scenes contain refreshment of memory and unanswered questions which while heavy handed, they aren't relevant for newcomers and should be skipped. These cut-scenes are based for hardcore fans dying for more. Some people may say it's heavy handed but clearly Metal Gear fans who understood the complexity of the past games, will definitely have no problem in doing so with the heavy handed aspects of this game. Even suffice to say newcomers needn't know these aspects because they just answer unanswered questions from past games never raised to newcomers. However it should be noted; that the past Metal Gear games depsite their age are beyond worth playing even to this day.

Snake returns with all the characters from previous games. All memorable and some with unanswered questions from previous games are answered here. Emotions and Motives are clearly expressed through this fleshed out cast of returning and new characters into the franchise meaning not one character is lacking or underdeveloped. Twists also arise with some plot twists and some unexpected ones, meaning just when you thought you understood something, Kojima thows something else at you.

The difficulty is harder than expected on the higher difficulties. Easy difficulty is for Run and Gun players. Unlike previous games, Metal Gear Solid 4 provides players with two styles of game play, run and gun or stealth each of which are very balanced. Unfortunately due to the un-scaled difficulty levels, Liquid Easy is a steady difficulty for casual-intermediate gamers where as Naked Normal should be designed for half and half of both styles of game play. Instead, it forces you to play more stealth than run and gun which doesn't give a very good blend of both. 35% Run and Gun to 65% Stealth. The higher difficulties rely higher upon stealth. The next difficulty relies on one or two hiccups of stealth but mainly and purely stealth alone. Big Boss Hard relies upon almost no mistakes and if you do get found out, you better be careful.

I completed the single player just under 20 hours, which is in Run and Gun. However stealth players will complete it in a considerably longer time period. Higher difficulties which sometimes force you upon stealth will take 30 hours or more and while there is no replay value of such beside the leaderboard scoring at the end of each act, the game also has set to include trophies before 2009's end.

There's even a Metal Gear Solid Database which is a 77mb downloadable piece of content of the Playstation Store with every inch covered from the franchise and a Time Line along with facts and unanswered questions on the stories motives as well as characters motives. You can also start the game again with all your gadgets and guns you had previously unlocked and most people will want to complete it at least twice not just to get the hidden easter eggs and jokes but to see through the eyes of Snake in both ways of run and gun aswell as stealth.

Aside all of this, MGS4 at the end of the day felt like a film and it depends on your love for the game. The paragon of storytelling and cinematic storytelling is the main draw here and it depends on your love for the game and whether you'll want to do it again in spite of knowing the story around every corner you par take.

Seeing as Snake is pretty ancient, there's a stress bar where if the gauge fills up to 100% you'll automatically die. I have to admit, I didn't die once from this but I did try in doing so. Unfortunately I failed in deing of stress but instead because Snake was soaking up way too many bullets. Supposedly, this further steadies the balance between Run and Gun and Stealth. On the most part you'll die from your health rather than stress and it's more likely to die from stress on huge fire fights of the harder difficulties but even so, why was it apprent at all in the earlier difficulties? It's a minor faulted touch.

The missions are varied and so varied that the missions and story make the game so addicting and fluid, it's hard to stop playing it from the start. There are a handful of On-Rail sections all of which work brilliantly, some of which may be associated with a split screen cut-screen going on at the same time. Missions where you must survive hordes of enemies to keep a split screen cut-scene going until it's over or an On-Rail section where you must survive as long as possible so the vehicle reaches its destination. Missions feature five distinct environments from the deserts to Shadow Moses and feature huge open span areas which fail to get confusing or generic thanks to their well designed and developed levels.

The variety of enemies also enriches the missions and also the variety and diversity of the game play. There are the local PMC Troops and Taliban which wage a war while you're on the move trying to find Liquid and then quick to change the game play to Liquids Elites blocking your path. As well as the frequent pop in of the Geckos, mooing like cows but as tall as a detached house. Furthermore there are the returning boss fights and welcomed ones, all fleshed out biographies by Drebin and must be tactically thought out as well. Some bosses also have their own mini-bosses aiding them, to make your task all the more distracting and harder. Frustrations in their tactics and weaknesses aside, the boss fights were a blast.

The game play is very much unchanged from past games, aside that Run and Gun is now accessible. Kojima has added refinements and tweaks to give us the most polished experience of Metal Gear thus far. It truly is perfect, aiming and shooting is great given the sense of realism linked to the damage, recoil and sound effects coming from them. My biggest gripe with the game lied with in-game animations. They hadn't evolved from the PS2 era whether it was crouching or running, they were boring and simple lacking the style of what Metal Gear was known for.

The control scheme is really well presented and consistent through out. You have your standard array of face button purposes including X to jump, square to reload your present weapon, Circle to crouch or a quick double tap to go prone and the Triangle face button to stick to a wall (not literally). L1 and R1 does the simple task of "aim and shoot". Maybe, I felt a bit disappointed by the fact that the controls lack some more intuition like the Gears of War reloading mini-game aside this Metal Gear does feature some notable inovations.

For example staying in a position without moving for several seconds allows you to blend in near perfectly with your environment with your given Octo Camo Suit. You HUD (Heads Up Display) tells you your percentage from 0-100 of how well blended you are. L2 and R2 allocate five slots to each button. L2 permits five gadgets and R2 prohibits anymore than five guns. Switching gadgets or guns is as simple as holding the trigger down and having a flick around. You can even go to the start menu and switch your loadout of five gadgets and guns with your whole armory. Soon into the game you're given access to this armory where you can buy gadgets and weapons from a weapons dealer whos funds the arts of mass destruction. Once you find this weapons dealer called Drebin he'll start buisness with you and from then on, any new gadget or gun you find is automatically put into your armory (start menu) and there after any duplicate is automatically sold when you run into it.

At the end of each act, you're given a score based on your alarms risen and Run and Gun limits. So really there's a tight if not sometimes in or out balance between each side of playing. Do you kill every enemy you see and sell those guns to Drebin? Or do you play it all safe and then exchange those points at the end of the act for Drebin Points. Either way, at the end of the game you're going to get a massacre of points and a hell of alot. So much to say you're going to be able to buy probably about every gun in the game resulting in a rather generous marketing implementation.

The cut-scenes are one of the most highly memroable parts in the game, they feel like you're in a movie but you're not. You're in a interactive movie which has never accomplished such a feat before. Metal Gear Solid 4's breathtaking cinematics is only furthered with "life like" animations which are incredibly well done throughout the devlopment aswell as the perfectly timed voice acting. The over the top cut-scenes are amazing to watch not just because how crazy they are but how well made and put together they are.

The in game graphics are textured and presented to the finest degree, lighting and shadowing is also beyond satisfactory by far. Every mechanic of the graphics have been shown so good that Kojima has had no slacking of his creators. If that's not enough each act (five) features distinct environments from the hot deserts to the cold snowy Shadow Moses. There are a few disappointments like not as par technically proficient characters in-game as say Gears of War 2 (released months after MGS4). But then there are no graphical glitches or pop in. Even after five years, I never expected this. Doing a fine job of everything not just Metal Gear Solid 4 has to offer but the Playstation 3 has as well. Graphics of the year, full stop!

The sound too duplicates the graphics. The script, weapons and voice acting has no slacking, and to a point of the same degree, deliver perfection. The script is neither boring nor dragged on as you may expect from the complexity of a Metal Gear game. Each line has some emotion or persuasion to it which further enriches your love for the game. Every character does a wonderful job, to the point they were from an Oscar winning film. Weapons, as said above deliver superb effects with some fantastic and realistic recoil which makes each mechanic so superb, it's hard to ask for anything more!

You're probably wondering where the multi-player component review is. Well, I wrote a review on it (Metal Gear Online). Just copy and paste the url into your search engine and you should get it, if for any reason you don't just leave a comment and I'll get right down to the problem. I am not reviewing the multi-player component in this review. I am instead reviewing solemnly the single player in this review because they play entirely differently and it also seems other sites are reviewing the two in this way.

 http://www.giantbomb.com/metal-gear-online/61-21414/user_reviews/?review=8105

Pros
+ A Metal Gear story?
+ Balance between "Run and Gun" and Stealth.
+ Boss Fights are challenging and well crafted.
+ Brilliant detail, lighting, shadowing and texturing.
+ Cut-scenes show how much power the PS3 really has.
+ Drebin points system gives the game a RPG twist.
+ Newcomers won't find much trouble with the story.
+ Returning and welcomed characters are all memroable.
+ Same gameplay with more polish and refinement.
+ Single-player length will clock in at around 20 hours.
+ Tons of mission variety and on-rail sections.
+ Well written script and spectacular voice acting.

Cons
- Gameplay animations are far too basic.
- Obtaining Drebin Points is too easy.
- Pacing is slightly rushed in the closing hour.
- Phenomenal step from Liquid Easy to Naked Normal.
- Replay Value comes down to your love for the game.
- Stress implementation doesn't work out quite so well.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is an outbreak success and delivers everything a Metal Gear fan wanted and even newcomers are welcomed into the game and me being a newcomer loved it. The experience is so enriching, loving and polished that other than tiny, tiny balancing issues and some lack of game play evolution it's a sensational masterpiece. The single player can clock in at any more or less than 20 hour's, a gratifyingly and overwhelming experience to be cherished long after this gen is over. Ultimately, this is a game all gamers should take part of and a game which I cannot forward enough. Cherish it, bury it and then years later you'll still remember it, simply put; a modern masterpiece which should not be missed.