Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Kombo’s Review Policy:
Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game’s About
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the story of Solid Snake’s final mission and allegedly is the final installment of the Metal Gear Solid series, concluding every aspect of the franchise’s enormous plot introduced over the course of Metal Gear’s twenty-year history. In Snake’s final mission, he has been assigned one goal: kill Liquid Ocelot before he can unleash his private military insurrection.

What’s Hot
First of all, it nearly goes without saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 is possibly the best-presented game of all time. From graphics to art direction to cutscene direction to sound direction to gameplay, it’s clear from the beginning that Hideo Kojima had a vision of the epic story that he wanted to tell and it’s fully realized. Everything works in conjunction and weaves perfectly with the other parts — nothing feels out of place or unwarranted. This is one complete, unified game — a unified vision of Metal Gear Solid’s final installment and it just makes MGS4 a better game as a whole for it.

As far as graphics are concerned, Metal Gear Solid 4 takes top honors of this generation thus far. The amounts of detail and texture work alone are staggering — from Otacon’s fuzzy sweaters to individual wrinkles in Snake’s face to the cracked, aging wood present where you fight Laughing Octopus. Whether you’re playing the game or witnessing a cutscene, you’ll find yourself staring at some things in disbelief of how much detail is in this game. Do not miss an opportunity to see this game in high-definition, especially in full 1080i or full 1080p (upscaled).

Speaking of cutscenes, yes, they’re in the game extensively and some of them are fairly long — with the longest being somewhere around forty minutes. Some will instantly think, “It’s MGS2 all over again.” Let me assure you: Metal Gear Solid 4’s cutscenes are no chore to watch. They are well directed, well acted, powerful and compelling — from Snake’s battle against his aging body to the numerous confessions. As a matter of fact, some of the scenes are even more engaging than when they appeared in the trailers for the game — this is especially true for Raiden vs. Vamp in The Middle East.

The gameplay that comprises Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best of the franchise and is one of the best single-player experiences ever made. The default stealth action experience has been significantly upgraded, with simpler and more flexible systems like the Octocamo and the Metal Gear Mk. II’s “on demand” Drebin systems removing the micromanagement that plagued the franchise in MGS3. The flexibility extends past these systems, always offering the player at least one viable alternative to the default strategy, including pathways through the levels. If you want to be a stalking threat or go out there with guns blazing, MGS4 offers you those choices.

The single-player campaign as a whole is incredible (and packed to the brim with fan service,) from your default stealth action experiences to the best set pieces offered since Call of Duty 4. Battles with Gekkos and Haven Troopers are always memorable, with Gekkos providing an intense survival horror edge to gameplay and the Havens being your most fun gunfight opponents. The Beauty & The Beast Unit provide the best overall collection of boss battles since MGS1 and at least one of them could be considered one of the best of the franchise. However, none of them compare to the epic battle at the very end of Act 4, which will go down as one of the definitive Metal Gear moments. MGS4 is twelve to twenty hours (including cutscenes and depending on your difficulty choice) very well spent.

What’s Not
There are only three significant problems with the cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid 4. I don’t include the length of the cutscenes in with “significant problems,” because they can be easily skipped or paused. Rather, the first is how often cutscenes can appear and feel like they dice up gameplay, which can feel shortened at times. The second is that with the frequency that cutscenes appear and the amount of information given to the player from Act 3 on, it can feel like Metal Gear Solid 4 is crashing an avalanche of story and relevant facts onto the player. However, if you’re confused after the second set of credits have rolled, I highly recommend the Piggyback MGS4 Official Strategy Guide, as it has an extremely well-detailed account of the entire chronology of MGS after the revelations of MGS4. The third problem is that towards the end of the game (circa Acts 4 and 5,) there’s a rare bit of melodrama and it’s laid on quite thick, especially one moment involving Naomi, Vamp and Otacon (which you’ll recognize when you see it).

The only problem with gameplay is that it just feels like there’s not enough of it. Don’t get me wrong: what’s here is incredible. It just feels like after the game hits an incredible stride in Act 4 that pushes the stealth action side of the game through the roof, it’s quickly over from a gameplay perspective during Act 5. Overall, though, this point is just nitpicking — the single player experience is so incredible, you just wish it could be longer.

Final Word
Metal Gear Solid 4 is a game that pushes. It pushes the PS3 into beginning to realize its potential. It pushes the stealth action genre forward at least two fold and keeps it Kojima-dominated. It pushes the potential of action set pieces from diversions to interwoven gameplay spectaculars. It pushes presentation to immense unified standards that are rarely ever heard of. It pushes the development standards of games themselves to new heights that developers need to learn from if they’re going to take full advantage of everything this generation has to offer.

Finally, it pushes Snake to the best farewell he could ever have.