The more observant among you have probably noticed my mentions of the Metal Gear series in other reviews and what with me saying things like “I often put the controller down during cut-scenes (because you never know just Metal Gear-ish a game is gonna be these days)” you would be forgiven for thinking that I loathe the series. Especially the cut scenes. Well it’s about time you learnt that simply because something seems to be true, it doesn’t make it so.
I do not loathe the Metal Gear series. I enjoyed Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid yet the series got a little too… preachy, stupid and boring for me later on. For those of you who say that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was a good game I have one word for you and that word is Raiden. For those of you who believe Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was a great game I can name one glaring flaw for you, the “Heal” and “Hunger” systems, both of which didn’t work very well and became annoying.
I’m guessing that by now many of you are assuming that I’m going to say that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a bad game which follows the trend set by MGS2 and MGS3. Well you’re wrong, again. MGS4 isn’t a bad game.
Last time we saw Snake (and by Snake I mean Solid Snake, not Liquid, Solidus, or Naked Snake) was at the end of MGS2 when he was getting all preachy to Raiden about love, reality and human compassion in possibly one of the most lifeless representations of a city ever created, and since then he hasn’t aged well. The plot of the game sends the player on a journey all around the world as they attempt to stop Ocelot from taking over the world’s militia using the SOP system. Along this journey Snake must come to terms with his own mortality and learn some harsh truths about war and how the world at large is run. Sounds clever right? Wrong.
The main problem with the plot is that Kojima (the series’ director, also known as the man who believes hands can posses people) spends most of his time trying to come up with reasonable explanations for things he wrote into previous Metal Gear games, most of which is so unexplainable he has to resort to the tried and tested excuse “nanobots did it”. Not only does this lose him credibility and take the player as far out of the experience as humanly possible, but it also forces the player to notice some of the gigantic plot holes created by Kojima in the past.
Now I know this has been said before, but Kojima’s cut scenes are too long, by about an hour each. I was trying to avoid making this statement because it seems like such a generic statement about the Metal Gear series, but when the player is forced to watch a little girl cook eggs repeatedly, I started to think that maybe it was a valid complaint.
However if you, as an individual can stand Kojima's famously lengthy method of story telling, then the plot here does touch upon some truly important issues, including an advanced commentary of video game culture, the threat of nuclear war, and invasion of privacy. Ultimately Kojima does manage to wrap up the series in the most credible manner possible when his previous plot holes are taken into consideration.
The game play contained within the game is a mixed bag. With controls better suited for stealth game play, and a game consisting primarily of combat, the game does feel slightly cluttered at times. However when MGS4 is good, it is one of the best games I have ever played, with surprises running smoothly alongside predictable Metal Gear AI and stealth sections offering some of the tensest and most enthralling game play I have ever encountered.
Sound is the typical Metal Gear affair, which is not bad by any stretch of the imagination but does get a little tiresome after awhile. The graphics are the jaw dropping symphony of images that one would expect from a next generation game.
MGS4 isn't bad. It isn't everything that people say it is, but it isn't bad. Basically it's a game for the fans, including everything that fans enjoyed from the previous games, everything requested from online forums and cutting out the crap. As a stand alone game it isn't the best, but as a conclusion to the Metal Gear series it excels.
8/10
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