Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Before being thrown headfirst into a warzone, it’s nice to watch something soothing, so don’t worry, don’t do a puzzled double-take when the game’s first opening scenes have you searching to see if you’ve installed the right Blu Ray disk. Yep, it’s supposed to look like that. Calm down, smoke a few thousand cigarettes (like Snake himself does during the game’s rather natty installation screen – which I hope will set a precedent for PS3 titles that demand you sit and be patient while they preload) and prepare yourself for battle.

Solid Snake is back, old and grizzled he may now be but he’s still a combat-hardened veteran with reflexes like a spring-steel trap, and the same dour expression of contempt he’s always had (this will be why Old Snake doesn’t have massive crow’s feet, he rarely cracks a smile).

When you do eventually take control of the game, after several beautifully rendered (though perhaps overly lengthy) cinematic scenes you’ll feel like you’re back on familiar ground.

MGS4 does still err on the stealthy side, but perhaps not as punishingly as before. Put simply, the game is more rewarding (and tougher) if you choose to sneak your way through but if you’re like me and prefer the more gung-ho Rambo-style approach, you’re not going to get unjustly punished. You may find the game’s a tad more difficult played that way but at least there are no insta-deaths if the enemy does discover you.

The game’s deliciously detailed graphically. Snake himself really does look the worst for wear with his accelerated decrepitude eating away at him and his constant pauses to rub his aching back, but don’t be fooled. The dude is still a steely-eyed combat specialist and more than capable of handling himself in tricky situations.

One of the biggest progressions over the older (and arguably more frustrating) games in the series is way you at last have proper 3D control over the camera system in-game. The lack of such control ruined MGS 1-3 for me, but now you can pan and scan around you get a greater sense of immersion in the game now you have the ability to properly scope out your surroundings.

Snake carries all the right tools for the job too. With Otacon once again backing him up, and a mysterious shady weapons vendor also providing support (at a cost), you’re never anything but fantastically kitted out with regards to weaponry and gadgets.

Snake himself is lovingly detailed and some serious work has gone into the visuals of the entire game. You’ll find yourself pressing up against walls just to see how Snake’s adaptive camouflage takes on the texture and patterns of a particular surface. Surprisingly this works really well in game and the AI’s clever enough (or dumb enough, depending on your point of view) to give you the chance to slip by guards and aggressors when you use the suit at the most opportune moments.

As well as the suit, Snake’s got a nifty electronic eyepiece that relays battle information and also allows you to switch on night vision or binocular mode.

Finally Otacon lends you his robotic sidekick, Metal Gear II, a comedic mini-robot / video platform that can be controlled and sent into hot situations to scope out the state of play. It’s a very useful device until its batteries run down, so use it sparingly.

Gun-wise, you name it and it’s in here in fact I completely lost count of the amount of different guns and sidearms available in Metal Gear Solid 4. There’s even a rusty looking old flintlock blunderbuss if you’re into your antique weaponry though the thing makes such a cacophonic noise you might not fancy the attention it draws when you use it.

The deeper into the game you get, the more satisfying it becomes for fans of the series – with more than just a few familiar faces rearing their ugly heads once again to torment Snake. I won’t go too far into spoiler territory, but spotting these in-jokes, character cameos and pop-culture references becomes almost as addictive as playing the game itself.

After a sustained length of play with the game, I had expected to be bitching and moaning about certain aspects but it’s so unlike the previous few Metal Gear titles that I’ve taken to it almost instantly.

It’s certainly recognisable as being a Metal Gear Solid game but all of the elements that I’d previously found annoying have been polished out, and given a reboot of epic proportions so that I’m personally left with exactly the sort of game I wish Metal Gears 1-3 had been.

Using stealth transgresses from being annoying to being wholly addictive. Sneaking up behind someone and dropping them just at the moment they’re alerted to your presence becomes superbly satisfying. Zapping someone with the stun knife and seeing them crumple in a dishevelled pile on the floor provides such sweet gaming moments that, if you’re like me, you’ll shrug off your balls-out attitude and start to pick your way carefully through the game’s many tricky battlefields.

Of course, it’s not always possible to play nice and be quiet so with such an extensive armoury as MGS4 offers, it’s good that you’re not unjustly punished for “going Rambo”, purchasing something big, nasty and offensive from Drebin, and wreaking havoc.

Such a high profile console exclusive as this can only really be approached with the highest expectations even if you’ve disregarded previous games in the series, and thankfully Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots doesn’t disappoint.

It’s beautifully presented, lovingly constructed, completely free of the usual graphical glitches and nastiness we’ve come to (unfortunately) expect from most PS3 titles of late, and all told it’s an essential purchase, lining up with a scant few other titles that set the bar impossibly high for anything else to match up to.

Some may describe it as an acquired taste as it’s not the type of game everyone will take to immediately, and third-person action nuts might find the whole experience lacking in comparison with the brightest and best of the genre. If you’ve not fallen hopelessly in love with the game after a few hours of actual gameplay, then you’re not going to find anything mind-bendingly awesome in the rest of the game that’ll change your mind, but if you do find it compelling from the word go, you’re in for a heck of a treat.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the sort of future-fine-vintage gaming tipple that should be savoured and enjoyed at length, and perhaps shed a tear over when it’s finally finished. But when you do finally get through to the end of the game, you will at least feel like you’ve had your money’s worth and played one of the best titles currently on offer on Sony’s flagship gaming machine.

Note: I’ve purposely not covered the Metal Gear Online portions of the game – mainly because that justifies an entire review of its own. Bear in mind that this review is designed to cover the main single player story mode only.

Our rating

9/10