Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Review

It’s hard to believe, for a franchise running for over 20 years, so many innovations and controversial changes have made its way, but…..it only grew and grew and became the grand daddy of AAA games. Metal Gear Solid series have gone through dramatic changes since it’s debuted in 1988 as “Metal Gear”. Back then, it was the first game of its kind, in introduced a new element to the gaming world…Stealth. Yep… you might say that, if it weren’t for Hideo and his Foxhound team, Sam Fisher wouldn’t have been lurking in the shadows and snapping necks to this day. If I dive into MGS 4, let me give brief intro of MGS franchise; when I say brief, I meant compared to the amount of things you can talk about in MGS. You might notice that I hardly talk about the story, it’s simply because it’s probably the best thing about the franchise, and I don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone.

The majority of the games in the franchise (except 1 in particular) made you play as a Stealth Operative, Solid Snake- The Clone of the legendary soldier, at one time called as Naked Snake, but now known as The Big Boss. The game started its life as 2D game, even then the franchise made a good name for it. But not until 1998, things really started, when Metal Gear turned into Metal Gear Solid; by making a huge jump from 2D action to 3D cinematic experience on the original PlayStation system. Because of new found processing power, Mr. Kojima was able to unleash his vision to some extent. The game comprised of cut scenes which were awesome in both length and quality, had fantastic original score to go with it, the story was way above anything released in that era and the stealth game play we came to know and love are all intact and made a fantastic transition. To many of us, this was the actual “start” of the franchise. Metal Gear Solid is considered one of the two best games of that system.

It wasn’t long until the sequel came in, called MGS 2: Sons of Liberty. It was on the PS2 system, and the bump is visual quality was really apparent. The game took all the stuff which made MGS awesome, polished it and added more to the mix, end result was an awesome experience. The story was made even more complex than MGS, but to those who actually paid attention to the codecs and cut scenes, were rewarded with a thrilling narrative. The only blemish of 2 was the fact that during some point in the game, you had to play as a different character other than Snake, which was not appreciated by the fans, also not me. But the good news is the two other games that followed didn’t make the same mistake.

In 2004 came Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It was a game with a big twist, instead of moving forward with the franchise, it was moved way back, in fact chronologically speaking it’s the 1^st game of the series. You played as Naked Snake (Who later became Big Boss), is the “father” of Solid Snake of the previous two games. Set in 1964 in the Jungles of Russia, the game was stark contrast to the indoor urban areas of the first two, it was a refreshing change. The game also introduced CQC (Close Quarters Combat) and bumped the production quality even higher.

Finally came 2008, and the final chapter in the Metal Gear Series (Chronologically at least), Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Again I am saying that, while I won’t spoil the story of the game, but you assure yourself that, its one experience you are likely not to forget in your entire lifetime. The game pretty much ends the story of the legendary hero, Solid Snake indefinitely.

As far as game play goes, it’s been revamped and improved a lot. While this is a stealth game through and through, you can still play with all guns blazing… at least on easier difficulty settings. The game consists of over 70 weapons, most of them are customizable. You can buy off weapons anytime from a guy called “Drebin” by pulling the menu in exchange for “Drebin Points”. While this might sound to make things a lot easier, but actually it makes things even more convenient and fun. Since you can buy weapons and ammos anytime, you can try a different tactical approach to see where it takes you, it also means that you don’t have to start from a very old checkpoint if you run out of vital ammunition during the Boss fight; also you can skip the system all together and go like a true espionage hero, the choice is yours. Speaking of boss, MGS is famous for its quality of boss fights, and MGS 4 is no exception: you will never see such bosses in any game. Since this game takes place in a distant future, there are lots of high-tech gadgets to help you along. Lets start of with Octocam- it’s a suit that just works like a chameleon, it matches with the texture you are leaning against, and makes it harder for enemies to detect, you can also save textures if you want and use it later. Next lets talk about Solid Eye- Its an eye patch like device fits on your right eye (perhaps a tribute to a certain hero?) and have loads of function like Zooming, Night Vision, it can also pin point enemies and which weapons they are carrying to give you the tactical edge. Finally after all these years you got your trusty geeky buddy Otacon in the battlefield….well… sort of in the form of MK II: Its like a miniature metal gear robot with cloaking capabilities, even though its controlled by Otacon throughout the game, Snake can also control it using the PLAYSTATION 3 Dual shock 3 controller and use it in conjunction with the cloaking to procure weapons I the battlefield for Drebin Points.

Being a Metal Gear Solid game, the game is full of cut scenes and some can be quite lengthy. While cut scenes may tend to take you out of the experience of the game, but the thing is, Metal Gear Solid series houses perhaps the best in-game cut scenes with great attention to detail. The cut scenes are the key to drive a game’s story, and Metal Gear Solid 4 has one of the best story in a videogame and the cut scenes are breathtaking beautiful thanks to fantastic graphics and sound.

MGS 4 is a stone cold killer when it comes to graphics and sound. Its hands-down the best looking game out there and more likely in a longtime. The textures are crisp, the lighting is ultra-realistic. The animation is life-like thanks to advancements in Mo-cap technology. The game practically begs for you to view it in a HDTV. The game is equally outstanding in the sound department. One of the first game to boost uncompressed sound data and next-gen Dolby Digital certification meaning its by far the most realistic positional sound there is in any form of entertainment media, you will greatly do injustice to yourself if you don’t have a surround sound setup. The voice-acting is best there is, David Hayter puts an Oscar worthy performance for Solid Snake. As the series tradition, the game has a lot of quality blood-boiling music to accompany this stellar game.

I should mention that the story is so awesome, you feel really sympathetic for Snake that I shed some tears for the old man during some points in the game. Hideo Kojima made an icon out of legendary Snake, as simple as that. He may not be as powerful as…say Master Chief. He may not have more firepower as Marcus, but one thing he has that puts all those to shame….a true hero’s trait, the power of will.

Although like everything in the world, MGS 4 is not perfect. Some of the things I didn’t like is the installation. I don’t mind 1 time installation of games, it just the fact that MGS 4 requires you to install upon every Act (total of 5 Acts in the game), while this is to ensure to take no more HDD than 4.7 GB or so, it’s also more pain in the *** for those of us with bigger HDD. It would have been better if there was an option to install the game completely on the HDD, I would take 8 GB anyway over installing the game every Act, even if its only 3 minutes tops. I also don’t like the fact that the game loads very frequently during some chance instances of the game, some sections like after only 2-3 minutes, it loads for another 5-6 seconds or so and it just takes out of the experience. Last of all, some cut scenes feels a bit…well…cheesy. Those were the only problems in the game for me, but on the bigger scale of things, can be easily ignored.

Well there you have it; I want to end my review here as I don’t want to spoil the story for you. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a masterpiece and will be remembered for years. If you have a PS3 or don’t have a PS3 yet, it’s definitely a time to get one, even only for playing just this game.