Everyday Gamer

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the swan song of the critically acclaimed series, is an ode to both its fans and itself. Through exhaustive storytelling and meticulous attention to detail, Hideo Kojima brings his beloved series full circle. Longtime fans will find just about every question they’ve had answered, some unsatisfactorily, and newcomers will be given a long, detailed synopsis of what the Metal Gear storyline has been about. It seems like Kojima has packed several games worth of storylines into this game, meaning that some of the cutscenes can drag on for what seems like an eternity. Still, Metal Gear has always been about exquisite presentation that complements sneak-heavy action, and MGS4 delivers on both fronts.

Taking place after the events of MGS2, Guns of the Patriots tells the final story of Solid Snake, now looking old beyond his years and with a body that’s wearing down by the hour. With his nemesis Liquid Snake plotting yet again to bring the world to its knees, Snake must ignore the pain and will his way through the battlefield to save the world one last time from the warmongering bad guys.

While past Metal Gear Solid games have always walked the fine line between sneaking and gunfighting, Guns of the Patriots allows players even more freedom in choosing how they’ll approach the action. There are more sneaking options than ever (with many stages having alternate paths and plenty of camo options), and there are more gunfighting options than ever (with a ton of different gun types and customization options). You can also try mixing up the two play styles, since just about every stage can be played with a mixture of stealth and Rambo-style heroics. During the first level, a new dynamic is introduced where besides just stealth and gunplay, you can choose to aid one of the two sides involved in a conflict separate from your actual objective. It’s pretty neat that you can join one of the opposing sides and fight alongside them, but unfortunately that dynamic doesn’t apply to every level in the game. Invariably, you will also face varying gameplay styles like commanding the machine gun atop a moving vehicle or performing QTE button pressing sequences. Another innovation for the series is presented in the form of Drebin, a character who uses in-game currency to expand your weapon selection or upgrade your current weapons. And since you can’t simply pick up any weapon in the game and use it, you’ll need Drebin to unlock them for you.

Still, the bread and butter of the series, stealth-based action, remains mostly intact and still highly effective against the increasingly intelligent AI. Especially on the harder difficulties, enemies tend to protect themselves when they’re hurt, or attempt to circle around you to set up a trap. Unfortunately, the game’s boss fights, long a high point of Metal Gear Solid games, are a bit of a disappointment. Besides being re-treads of past MGS bosses, Guns of the Patriots’ bosses, while being very cool design-wise, were pretty uninteresting in how they attacked you and in their back-story. By the time you’re fighting the last of the Beauty and the Beast corps, you could probably guess what their motivation was and that you’ll have to shoot them before they wrap themselves around you, although given how gorgeous they are, I don’t see why anyone would mind.

Speaking of gorgeous, Kojima’s team delivers one of the best looking videogames around. The world of Guns of the Patriots is detailed, vivid, and full of life. While there isn’t as much animal life as in Snake Eater, the world is brought to life with rich textures and plenty of errant particles blowing around in the wind, as well as ever-present enemies and vehicles. It’s clear that the team at Konami spent a great deal of time making sure that each of the levels felt unique, from the varying texture work to the lighting, and even how each level seems to have its own tint applied. The character models are also very detailed and the accompanying animations make the experience that much more realistic. Snake looks tired and worn, and his animations grow progressively more pained as you play through the game. The locales are varied, starting you off in a war-torn area of the Middle East and taking you around the world to a South American jungle and even into Eastern Europe before taking you back to a very familiar area just before the game’s climax.

The audio in Guns of the Patriots is the best I’ve heard in a videogame. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track put my home theater speakers through their paces. The sound effects, dialog, ambient noise, explosions, gun fire………everything was crisp and clear, even when you pump up the volume. The battlefield sounds envelop you because the surround speakers are constantly active. As you move around the worlds of MGS4, the ambient noises, such as errant gunfire or enemy chatter, always help to keep you focused.

In many ways, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is everything Playstation 3 owners expected when the game was first unveiled. The audio and visuals are probably some of the best we are going to be getting this generation. The story is grandiose, the presentation is flawless, and the controls are the best in the series. The game’s biggest drawbacks are related to the hardware it’s played on and the lack of restraint on the part of Kojima. Still, as the presumptive swan song of the Metal Gear Solid saga, it’s difficult to fault the ambitious designs that lead to the game’s biggest problems; pacing and the mind-boggling amounts of loading. These faults are impossible to ignore and ultimately prevent the game from being the series’ best game, an honor that still belongs to Snake Eater. Still, Metal Gear Fans will be extremely pleased with the end results here. Other gamers should also at the very least rent the game to experience the game’s superb presentation.

8/10