Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Title: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Genre: Action (R18)
Players: 1, 2-16 Online
From: Konami
For: PlayStation 3
Website
For a little over 20 years now the Metal Gear franchise has been wowing gamers worldwide with its clever mix of shoot-em-up action and stealthy covert missions. It’s a recipe that you either loved or hated because one thing’s for sure – you could never call a Metal Gear game easy.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final game in the long-running series and brings the storyline, which has flowed throughout, to a climax. Hideo Kojima has achieved the impossible and answered every question, filled every plot-hole to create an immensely satisfying ending for the MGS fanbase, while simultaneously summarising the whole series to provide backstory to newcomers.
MGS4 is set six years in the future, a time where war has engulfed the globe and is fought by corporates, contract killers and hired mercenaries. War is now an industry run by Private Military Corporations or PMCs. Our old friend Solid Snake (and I do mean old) has been brought out of retirement for one last mission – kill Liquid Ocelot, the head of five of the largest PCMs. However Solid Snake is suffering from accelerated aging due to cellular degeneration. This makes him slower, less agile and even gives the poor old fellow back ache if the action gets too intense. His dozen pack a day smoking habit probably doesn’t do him any favours either.
While I mention it, I’d just like to focus briefly on the nicotine levels in this game. Before you start the game about 4GB of data must be loaded onto the PS3 hard-drive which takes 8 minutes. The loading screen has a close up shot of Solid Snake chain-smoking cigarettes – about 1 per minute and stubbing them out in the palm of his hand. The incredible irony is that during this time blurbs onscreen warn the player of the harmful effects of too much gaming! “Do not play in a dark room”, “Do not sit too close to the screen”, “Take a break every 15 minutes”. I thought to myself that this must be a piss-take and waited for some witty ironic comments about smoking. Then came something along the lines of “You should use an ashtray to put out cigarettes” and “Please look into the dangers of smoking before taking it up”, or words to that effect. I got the feeling they were actually trying to be serious. I mean come on!
Anyway, with that rant over, back to the game itself. The MGS series has prided itself in introducing one or two new features with each release. MGS4 includes all of those, improves on them and also introduces a whole heap of its own.
One of the more significant new features is in the way you can choose to approach the game. You can choose to kill absolutely everyone, which will mean you are very busy. Or you can align yourself with militia and earn their trust enough to have them aid you in your mission. However if you accidentally put them in danger then they can turn on you until you do enough to restore their faith. Within that choice you can also choose to run and gun or play it safe and stealthy, however being MGS you will need to use stealth regularly anyway. To help Solid Snake blend into his surroundings he is fitted with an Octocamo Suit which, whenever Snake presses up against a wall or object, takes on the pattern, texture or colour he is up against, essentially making him invisible. These textures can then be saved and easily called up at any time if you should need them again. Using the Octocamo effectively becomes paramount to success in some sections of the game.
Along with the Octocamo is a handy feature called the Threat Ring which acts like a traditional radar in showing where enemies are, but also shows their alert level. Having enemies alerted to your presence makes life very difficult as the AI is the most human-like I have come across in any game to date. Enemies don’t follow preset routines, they will actively hunt you down, shoot at and destroy potential hiding places, communicate with each other, flank you and call for back up. They think, then act rather than automatically reacting to your own actions.
Below Snake’s health gauge is another called a Psyche Meter and below that a Stress Meter. These are important to understand as they all directly affect one another. The Psyche Meter controls Snake’s weapons and physical ability, the lower the meter, the less accurate he becomes and less agile. He’ll actually start to feel his age. The Stress Meter indicates exactly that. In the midst of a fire-fight if Snake doesn’t like his chances or would prefer to take cover than be a sitting duck then the Stress Meter will spike which in turn decreases the Psyche Meter faster and your overall health is bound to suffer because of it. While they do regenerate over time, it does pay to keep an eye on these gauges.
Perhaps the other significant new feature is the weapons system. Previously, as in most games, you could pick up and use any weapon throughout the game which had been dropped by an enemy. This time however, all weapons are ID coded to their individual user. If you pick one up it’s essentially a hunk of metal until you can get it unlocked. For this you need to visit a gun merchant named Drebin who will unlock weapons, sell you new ones, or upgrades to your current choices. Luckily he is virtually always on call. You earn Drebin points to use as currency by completing objectives or by simply picking up enemy weapons to sell/trade for something you really need.
You also have at your disposal a little remote controlled drone called Mark II which can be used to scout ahead to identify enemy positions and even stun them with an electric shock if you feel inclined, but it can also pick up weapons (and immediately trade them with Drebin) and has its own active camouflage if it needs to disappear in a hurry. It’s something you’ll utilise a lot, just like the unmanned drones in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.
As if the totally epic single player game wasn’t enough, the developers have also included Metal Gear Online which includes 5 multiplayer maps for up to 16 players to battle for supremacy on. While it works well, it’s really just a teaser for greater things to come. While this may be the last we see of Solid Snake, you can guarantee there will be a full dedicated online release coming in the future.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a cinematic masterpiece. Cutscenes and gameplay slip in and out of each other so seamlessly that it is literally like controlling an action movie. The direction, camera work and acting (if you choose to call it that) put some Hollywood blockbusters to shame. So too does the musical score, with the help of a virtual iPod you can listen to music from the whole series.
Honestly, there are so many levels and layers of gameplay in MGS4 that I could wax lyrical for pages upon pages. But I’m going to let you discover the brilliance of this game for yourself without giving too much away. It’s full of ‘in’ jokes, subtle and not so subtle humour as well as a heapin’ helpin’ of hidden “easter eggs’ to keep the trainspotters foaming at the mouth.
The game not only sets a new benchmark for all to follow, but it smashes all that have come before it. If you don’t own it – then buy it. If you don’t own a PS3 then MGS4 is the reason you’ve been waiting for.
It will be a close battle between Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Grand Theft Auto 4 for Best Game of 2008 – and yes, I am taking Gears of War 2 into consideration in making that prediction.
Score: 98%
Pros: You’ve just read them – the game is as close to perfection that you will get this generation. It’s a console seller.
Cons: The almost pro-smoking message bemused me. Some plain textures in places and minor frame-rate slowdown, especially in explosions – but that’s really splitting hairs.
Watch the trailer
