Lets just get this out of the way. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is amazing. Metal Gear 4 does not simply tack a new story over the same style of game play, instead Kojima productions took a risk and reinvented (not fundamentally) how we play Metal Gear. The controls are tighter then past iterations of the series and a controllable camera make for an intuitive experience. The player has a few options: 1)Sneak through the game without killing a single enemy, 2)Sneak through the game killing foes when needed, 3)Take an action game approach and kill a lot of enemies. The final option works really well as opposed to past metal gear games and no matter which way a person plans to play the game they are sure to find enjoyment out of it. It is interesting to note that the game actually awards players who play each style by giving the gamer special emblems upon completing the game. In turn some of these Emblems unlock weapons, items, and different camo. The camouflage system is back but in a whole new way. Instead of navigating through a bevy of menus to select which camo best suits snake for a particular situation. Snake is now equipped with octocamo which will mimic any surface snake presses his body too. This makes for a more fluent experience and does not break up the action at all. With a simple shake of the six axis controller the player sets the camo back to the default state. Further to the game play tweaks the vehicle in which the story is told has changed as well. In previous metal gear games a gamer would have to listen to lengthy codec conversations which could be dragged on for quite some time. In Metal Gear 4 the codec is still prevalent but tends to update mission objectives more so then plot. Metal Gear 4 opts for a more cinematic experience telling the story through a series of lengthy cutscenes that are suspenseful, stunning, and extremely well acted, the voice overs are top notch as the actors time their lines perfectly. The visual design in Metal Gear 4 is some of the best work I have ever seen. The cutscenes run in real time on the in game engine. I did not believe this at first because they were so stunning. Words cannot give these graphics justice they are absolutely jaw dropping and the environments are extremely varied. The sound is extraordinary. From gun shots, explosions,to dialogue the attention to detail is stunning. The amount of weapons and Items in the game is astounding and the game makes navigating item/weapon menus a breeze. The player sets what items/weapons they want in their equipment, and the amount they can chose is set to a minimum because of the vast volume of weapons/items in the game, it just makes for a more neater experience. Weapons can be purchased from an in game arms dealer named Drebin, or the Id tagged weapons can be found on the battlefield and Drebin can unlock them for you for a price. The monetary system works extremely well. Find weapons on the battlefield that you do not need, sell them to Drebin and you get Drebin points in return. Through Drebin you can purchase weapons, ammunition, items, and attachments for weapons. Mostly all the weapons are customizable where you can attach various things such as, scopes, red dot sights, laser sights, grenade launchers, and flashlights to name a few. You are better off focusing on a few weapons instead of amassing a large armament. The boss battles are some of the best the series has seen and are fun to play and extremely rewarding, it is upsetting that there is no boss battle mode available. Along the way the characters whom you would expect to appear in a metal gear game show up along with a few other surprises. The convoluted Metal Gear saga gets concluded nicely as players are not left scratching their heads at the end of this game. Which is strange considering it's a metal gear game. When you finish the game the experience is not over. There is plenty of unlockables to go back and play the game for and upon completion the Big boss difficulty mode is unlocked. On top of all this there is Metal Gear Online also. I found it rather frustrating setting up the Konami ID and the web menus you must navigate are horrible but when you are finally into the game you are able to create a character through a number of options that run head to toe. Further to this the different variety of modes Metal Gear Online offers makes for an enjoyable experience. Check in a little while later for more on Metal Gear Online because I have only begun to scratch the surface. 4 Comments
