Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots : PS3 Review

Posted December 1, 2008 by General Victory in Featured, Featured Home, PS3 Reviews, Reviews.

Metal Gear Solid 4
Every longstanding franchise needs a fantastic ending story; something that explores and answers all of the questions that came before it and explains all of the characters and the situations that have been talked about the series. After all, The Matrix films came to an end, it looks like the Syphon Filter series might have come to an end and the last generation of Grand Theft Auto has ended and it closed up the storylines that linked them all together.

Creator Hideo Kojima decided to finally finish his last effort to truly “complete” the story of Solid Snake once and for all. With Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Kojima has not only provided one of the top games of 2008, but has also given series fans a myriad of extra features… while simultaneously creating one of the best PlayStation 3 games ever made.

Of course, before I go any further, I have to mention that the sheer amount of gameplay in MGS4 is colossal and going over it all again would make this article far too long a read. Anyhow, on to the new game we go!

First of all, I have to come out and say that Metal Gear Solid was the previous titleholder for the Solid Snake crown. With the creative boss battles and innovative style it was well worth replaying over and over despite the naysayers who complain about its length. After all, the same thing can be said for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with its incessant Codec conversations and movies. But Strip away MGS4’s story and there’s a pretty huge collection of gameplay there as well. As for its story itself it’s one of the most interesting stories yet.

Still, the one thing that MGS4 does right, fantastically right, was take the gold standard of stealth espionage action from MGS3 and update it beautifully for the current generation. The graphics were amazing to look at and with the new sets of moves and details to dig into, gamers kept going back again and again for more to try out a situation in a different way. It was so slick and pulled off so well that it even helped the Metal Gear REX / RAY battle go down superbly.

Pulling the series nice and tight with the best ideas from all of the games is MGS4, a game that takes the series to its fullest incarnation yet. Both the storytelling and the action have been improved to make a game that still has its fair share of movies to sit through as well as a healthy amount of different situations to work through. The biggest changes have obviously been in the raw mechanics of the game which have taken the franchise a full step forward in the evolutionary scale of games.

Snake’s Travel Plans
MGS4 takes place in a number of locations around the world in 2014 and the good old radar system that helped gamers creep through offices has been removed as defences have been invented to counter it. While that may scare many people especially those who relied on that circular crutch in the previous games, the new radar system is viewable only through Snake’s Solid Eye System and it is revolutionary in that it makes the game more difficult to deal with at first. The main tools for getting a sense of one’s surroundings is the Solid Eye System. This uses up battery power that charges up again when not in use so it’s best to use it only when it’s absolutely necessary.

This device works in different ways to get a view on things. The Solid Eye System comes packed with a Radar that reports the locations of all the living things in the area, including humans, machines and other animals. The second feature of the Solid Eye System is the scope that allows Snake to look into the distance and the trid and lats feature of the Solid Eye System is the Nigh-Vision and Thermal Mode which shows up all enemies, animals, items and footprints in the area. Each one of these has its own merits and problems with the pinging of the Solid Eye System bringing some unwanted attention from guards who get too close.

Put these devices together and you get a system that helps you get all the info you had from the previous games as long as you paid attention to get through. Just like the other games, it will also be crucial, oh so crucial, to use the thermal goggles early on so use the mto lookout for those enemies that you sometimes don’t know are there. With the requirement of paying more attention to the surroundings MGS4 pulls off the feat of bringing the gameplay more to life than before.

Even more lifelike is the locations that Snake gets sent into. With PMC troops and Gekkos patrolling the areas in huge numbers, and other animals running around all over the place, and each and every building is done superbly. Like the rest of the game, the look of the locations are lush with an incredible amount of detail. Animals, troopers and gunfire make the areas come to life as they move through it. When taking shots from an off-screen enemy it’s possible to find the source just by following the footprints or noise.

While these outdoor environments are still “rooms” with very brief loading times between each one they can sometimes be absolutely huge, spanning many several acres each. Since the alert status doesn’t go down between areas it’s key to keep a low profile and become a master at the art of the camouflage. Hiding out in the buidlings by using your Octocamo is a matter of sneaking around like before, but it’s all about the blend.

Snake’s New Systems
A crucial element of blending in is by leaning up against surafes long enough for your Octocamo to mimic the texture for Snake to become invisible in the different areas of the game. Everything from the terrain to whether Snake is standing or lying down to how fast he’s moving will affect the camouflage index that rates on a percentage scale. It’s almost a hassle, but the system is worked out so that it’s possible to pause the game, swap Octocamo suits and FaceCamo for the best possible way to become invisible, and get back in the game with just a few seconds.

There are two other new systems as well and these are the Injections and the eating/drinking to keep your Stamina Up and Psyche Down. Both of these affect the game’s depth in a similar way as the camouflage and both of them are just as smoothly integrated so that there’s more of a feeling of realism without straying too far away from the fact that this is meant to be a videogame and a fun one at that. The health bar regenerates here as long as the stamina is kept up with a steady diet of health drinks and health foods and having the injections will prevent Snake from concentrating, but it can also be used to attack your enemies.

Even more than health, the stamina affects Snake’s running speed and the ability to aim as well as his lung capacity for swimming and his grip strength for holding onto ledges. In one fell swoop MGS4 has integrated several different parts of the game into one system and making it come alive. There is the occasional syringe for injections that keeps Snake thinking, but it also makes him immune to be controlled by external forces, but the game is really about staying healthy and stealthy.

In terms of fighting the big change here is the CQC (Close Quarter Combat) which is basically a new set of moves that Snake can pull off with enemies. With a knife and gun combo it’s possible to hold a guard hostage or just slit his throat. While it’s entirely possible to skip the CQC as well as the new option to shoot while hanging from one hand, it’s highly recommended to try it out, but it’s a blast to take hostages and get through groups of enemies with a human shield.

Two final changes that help to manage all of the items is the Backpack System and Drebin’s Shop. There is one pack for the items and one for the weapons and each have a huge number of spaces available. This allows players to just have their needed items available within the game without having to dispose of everything else. It’s awkward that new items that are picked up need to be entered in the pack manually, but with the elimination of item clutter it’s definitely welcome, the only problem with the backpack system is that most weapons you pick up now are ID locked and won’t work for Snake until he hands them over to Drebin, who will unlock them for Snake at a price, luckily if you pick up the same weapon more than once then it automatically goes to Drebin’s Shop and you get extra points given to you, so if there’s a weapon you want like the P-90 then you have to get Drebin to unlock it for you, but then it’s yours for the rest of the game. But if you run out of ammo for a certain gun then you can go to Drebin’s Shop where he will also have ammo for sale to help you out.

Another helpful tool in MGS4 at Snake’s disposal is a remote controlled machine called Metal Gear Mk II and later the MK III, this little machine can be controlled by Snake via a PS3 Controller and it allows Snake to send it off to scout ahead to find enemies and if you need to the Mk II can knock them out aswell with an electric charge, the Mk II also comes packed with stealth camoulflage that can be turned on or off. Then during the cutscenes the Mk II is controlled by Otacon.

Any Way You Like It
But enough about the mechanical aspects of the game because the real meat of the game is the game itself and there’s so much to do here that many areas can trigger an onset of Option Overload that any PS3 owner should be familiar with this season. In each of the areas there are so many different ways of going about a situation that it’s not only possible, but likely that a group of players will have unique experiences. This is not new for fans of the series, but it’s just been pulled off to a more extreme degree than ever.

When the game first starts up there is a required installation to the PS3 HDD of around 4.66gb (4000mb) and this usually takes around eight minutes to install the game, but after that there are four more required installations that take around three minutes each, yes it can be annoying to wait around around after each act but its better than waiting between cutscenes as once these installs are done there is no loading between cutscenes and no loading between cutscenes to gameplay.

After playing through the entire game there was just one single urge that came to mind: the burning desire to start the game over right away and play through it again. Even finishing the game once was not nearly enough. Once you’ve played MGS4 you’ll start to think about going on it again and again. It would be easy to see people going through the game at least a couple of times if not several times over.

Ready for the Close-Up
The details in MGS4 spared absolutely no expense in piling in tons of tidbits to make the world a more living, breathing thing. There are a few magazines lying around, even though they are mainly PlayBoy. There are plenty of different environments to explore from the Middle East to South America and to Eastern Europe, but wait as there’s still more locations in MGS4.

The level of detail in all of the environments and the characters is extremely well done. All of the people in MGS4 get the most detailed treatment of their bodies and faces that have ever been seen in a game. This detail works in making the game pretty to look at and helps to enhance the emotional impact of the different cutscenes.

The storyline is not as complicated as MGS3, but is more complicated than MGS2, especially when trying to figure out who’s working for who and what’s going to happen to who it’s fun to figure out what’s going on, but even better is witnessing the personal interactions between the various characters in the game. The best one sby far is Liquid Ocelot, Naomi Hunter and Vamp as we get to see Naomi progress from a useless scientist to one of the stars of the game, we also get to find out why vamp refuses to die aswell as the true story between Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot’s blending.

Just like a blockbuster movie, the game begins to take off towards the end of the game with several battles that will bring to mind other movies as well. While it’s not fair to give away any details it can still be said there are some major links to Metal Gear Solid (PSOne), Metal Gear Solid 2 (PS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3 (PS2) that help to complete the story. The last few hours keep up the action and keep bringing some major surprises in a way that works with the story itself and doesn’t get bogged down in an endless bit of philosophical rambling like in MGS2, but it does get very emotional like MGS3.

Snake and the Bossman
The soldiers more attentive than ever and will call in for support if Snake gets spotted or even hinted at in the area, but the real emphasis is on the boss battles of which there are more than a half dozen to get through. Each one provides a different challenge and there are several ways to take them down. And that’s not even counting the tricky part of taking some of them down with tranquilizer darts.

While it’s possible to consistently take the bosses down with one single strategy for each there are plenty of ways of going about it and it can be as difficult as you want it to be. One of the more varied challenges is easily against a boss in an oval room. Giving away details about the battle would a crime, but it’s safe to say that there are methods that could satisfactorily take an hour or more while another could finish the whole thing in just a few minutes. It’s linear in terms of the storyline, but incredibly deep in the amount of options available.

New Camera System
Of all the things that are going so amazingly well with the rest of the game there is no longer an issue with the camera system. The top-down view is gone and replaced with a new third person view with the camera able to move around Snake, then there is also the option to play the entire game in a first-person view. While in the regular third person view it’s possible to move the camera around with the right analog stick and while aiming at enemies you can click the R3 button to make the camera jump from one shoulder to the other and this is a huge help.

With the new growth in other options for dealing with this type of gameplay the new camera system that replaces the one that’s been in use for the past six years is a great welcome. While the game manages to be the best form the game has taken of all four of the Solid games the new developments in other games could take note of this and make improvements to their games. It’s entirely possible that the current system is as good as the game can handle with all of the graphics and detail on the PS3 and that we’ll have to wait for the next PS3 Metal Gear game.

One issue with the camera is that when Snake crawls under objects he gets a forced first-person perspective with the view being very limited. It makes sense in terms of providing the experience that when one is hiding it’s good to be able to see Snake wit hthe third person camera.

Time and Time Again…
The camera system has been tamed pretty easily and with so much other good, no, fantastic, stuff in the game it can be forgiven. So much so that beating the game once is just the beginning. As an extra bonus for the game, there is the Virtual Weapons Training in which Snake enters a VR Simulator where he can practice wis weapons skills agains VR Soldiers, And if it all gets to be too much there’s always the Extras Section in which you can downlaod new songs, camouflage suits and podcasts and the best news about this menu is that everything is free.

Metal Gear Online
However, the largest and most significant feature is Metal Gear Online , which provides multiplayer support for up to sixteen players using the MGS4 engine. Five game types are included in the online play, including the standard Deathmatch and team Deathmatch modes, which can be played across 5 separate maps inspired by sections of MGS3 and MGS4. While they’re not exactly ripped from the game, astute players will be able to recognize certain areas that you’ll be fighting across like Gronznyj Grad from MGS3 and Midtown Maelstrom from the Middle Eastern section of MGS4. Players are also introduced to sneaking, capture and rescue missions, each of which are slightly different than what they first seem.

The Sneaking missions are a “me against the world” kind of situation, where one player takes on the role of Snake while everyone else plays as opposing guards. Snake’s objective for this mission is to steal a number dog tags (which players will readily recognize); the guards, obviously, have to prevent this by any and all means. While it may sound extremely unfair to have such skewed odds against Snake, he does have an ace up his sleeve in terms of the octocamo suit that can camouflage him into the surroundings and can render him invisible to the naked eye..

The Capture missions are team-based missions and task you with capturing a Kerotan idol (aka a frog), bringing it back to your squad’s goal and holding it there for a number of seconds. This “Capture the Frog” game is relatively standard, although it can be particularly tense on some of the smaller maps where the goals are practically next to each other. Finally, the rescue missions are somewhat similar to that of “hostage” multiplayer modes in other titles; the red team is tasked with protecting a GA-KO (or rubber duck) until time runs out or the other side is eliminated. The blue team is tasked with taking the idol and returning it to their goal as soon as possible. If you’re curious, Kerotan is definitely the office favorite.

What’s extremely cool about the multiplayer is the wealth of options available for you to customize your experience before matches. For instance, players have access to buddy lists as well as personal stats which are tracked on the server, including how many rounds you’ve survived, the number of idols you’ve placed on a goal or the number of times you’ve communicated to your teammates.

Another wanted feature is used when creating a game: you can queue up a number of mission types, in any arrangement you’d like, to fight through, one after the other, until you’ve exhausted the list, as well as the kinds of primary and secondary weapon types that can be used in each map. For the hardcore, you can literally restrict it to a knife fight and CQC (or close quarters combat) if you’re so inclined.

Thankfully, the multiplayer mode takes full advantage of the third person view in the middle of a match, and the framerate is extremely stable and smooth. In fact, regardless of the number of people in a match and whatever action they were performing, I weren’t able to detect the slightest bit of lag through my numerous hours of play. The only strange thing I found were slight animation “cheats” where you could trigger a CQC combat accurately even if the victim was a couple of feet apart from your character, but these are minor hiccups that happened every now and then. There are a number of details from the single player game that stand out as well, such as building designs as you run through them. This is easily what you’ll wind up playing when you’ve mastered the story of Guns of the Patriots and what’s even better is that Kojima Productions will be releasing further maps, game modes etc over the cming months at a small fee. Be sure to check back at a later date for a complete review of Metal Gear Online as a standalone game, this review will include the starter pack and both of the expansion packs (GENE & MEME).

Closing Comments
Guns of the Patriots is a fantastic game. Metal Gear Solid 4 goes a long way towards remedying the problems of past titles in the series with a brand new camera system that literally rejuvenates the gameplay. The online mode adds a ton of replay value as well, and has dozens of options to keep you returning to blow away friends late into the night. For fans of the series, the additional extras, including the virtual weapons training are bonuses that are simply not to be missed. For the price, you can’t go wrong with MGS4 — the only problem is that if you haven’t played and beaten the any of the other Metal Gear games then you’ll have trouble understanding this game, but it still can’t be missed.

Once again, this is the best game in the Metal Gear Solid series and it pushes the PS3 just as far as it can go. With a total of 30-35 hours for the first time this provides a fantastic experience that will stimulate multiple parts of your brain and make you feel all fuzzy inside. The storyline plays out like a twist-filled spy novel crossed with a thriller and sci-fi and the rest of the characters and action fit well into this final story of the Metal Gear universe. With so much going on this is a game that will easily please fans of the series and help to woo back those who were dismayed by MGS2.

With a beautiful graphical style and dozens upon dozens of things to try out in this highly detailed game playing it once just isn’t enough. There’s still the one issue with the camera system that can become frustrating, but with the general level of excellence everywhere else and considering the power of the PS3 this is still an amazing game. This is a true return to form and a great way for the series to wrap up everything in an exciting way. They don’t get much better than this.

Tagged as Metal Gear Online, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, MGO, MGS4, Review