"This is Good....Isn't it?"

You are not ready for this game.

My friend bought MGS4 this week and I've spent the last few days watching him play and finally finish it roughly nine hours ago.

Now, I don't own it, but I have played it some while I was up there. And that's why I'm about to review ir right now. Because I think given what I've seen, and what I have played of it, I think I can accurately assess this game. But that's where all the big words stop. Because now I'm gonna get to the point:


Now, what I'm about to say, it's not from the point of view of a console fanboy, or a graphics **ore, or somebody who has to watch everything in HD (because I have no HD anything). I am a fan of Metal Gear Solid. I never got to play the original game, but the first MGS swayed me over to get a Playstation, and MGS2 was the reason for getting a PS2. And now watching MGS4 has swayed me over to get a PS3, if nothing else but for this game alone.

Now, from the perspective of one fan of MGS to another, who has been following Snake's exploits across 3 seperate gaming consoles, who has been eagerly awaiting the final conclusion to this series, I say this:

This game was worth the wait. As far as the overall play of MGS goes, Guns of the Patriots answers every question that the prior three games raised. Every mystery is unravelled. Every loose end gets tied up, and the game comes to a very satisfying, jaw-dropping conclusion with a final revalation that puts M. Nyght Shamalan to shame.

As I said, you are not ready for this game. I won't ruin the plot, but for fans who might be worried that this final installment might raise more questions than answers, I have just answered that question. Everything that Hideo has been building up over the past three games finally comes to fruition here, and Jesus Christ you'll be picking your jaw up off the floor by the end of it, I guarentee you.

Old Snake
The game takes place in the near, unspecified future, where war has now become a standard, routine part of the worldwide economy. Mercenary forces broadcast their services over loudspeaker in the midst of war zones. Miniaturized Metal Gears have become a staple of the battlefield now. And now soldiers are being augmented and regulated by the use of nanomachines. These nanomachines not only serve to enhance a soldier's fighting ability, and link them directly to the military network, but they also serve as a form of control. A means to prevent dissent and disorder. A soldier can't question themselves or their orders without the nanomachines interfering with their thought processes and informing their superiors.

"War Has Changed."
These are the first words Snake speaks as the game opens up on a war-torn landscape in some unnamed Middle-Eastern country. As we soon learn, Liquid (who despite being dead is still living on through Revolver Ocelot somehow) has turned up in this place, and is scheming something insidious, and the only one who can deal with it is Snake himself.

Or can he? It seems that time has not been kind to our affable hero, as due (and if you didn't know this by now you need to unbury your head from the Martian polar icecaps) to the fact that he is a clone, his body is beginning to succumb to the effects of accelerated aging.

Though, I can allay your fears of having to march a crutch-wielding Snake around, as he is sent into battle with a special suit. It doubles as a muscle suit to give Snake enhanced strength to make up for his weakened body's condition, and it also has a built-in camoflauge feature, allowing Snake to blend in with virtually any environment at anytime. Due to the automated nature of this gameplay mechanic, it eliminates the unwieldy and cumbersome method of switching camoflauge from the prior installment of the series, which could really slow the action down. Another very useful feature of the suit is that it constantly emits a special circle around Snake, visible only to the player. This circle acts as a sort of radar, and reacts to the presence of enemy soldiers nearby, which helps considerably in detecting and avoiding enemy threats.

Another neat piece of technology that Snake has been endowed with is the Solid Eye, which triples as set of binoculars, infrared/nightvision, and a special lens that allows Snake (and the player) to discern item pickups from the environment. All-in-all, a very useful piece of technology. To Snake and to the player.

Another thing that's been changed is the lack of a stamina gauge (also from the last game), which has now been replaced with a stress guage. Snake starts at zero stress, but as he gets put into adverse environmental conditions (getting into fire fights, around dead people, etc.), it begins to increase, and as it does, his combat effectiveness begins to suffer. There are means to lower it, such as hiding out and staying out of combat, or using special items you can find.

And that's another aspect of the game that has been greatly improved. Immediately after the game begins, Snake starts out unarmed, but soon after it starts, he can begin picking up virtually any weapon he can off the bodies of fallen soldiers, or just any weapon laying around, and there's no limit to how much ammo you can carry now. Though, like the last game, there is a limit to how many weapons and items you can have equpped to Snake at any given time. But there are so many guns in this game. You could combine all the weapons from the last three games and they still wouldn't add up to a fraction of the total list of weapons on Guns of the Patriots.

Another very excellent feature that helps MGS4 stand out from contemporary action and FPS games is the fact that you can now customize every single weapon in the game. You can find attachments to swap on and off of every weapon you can find. You can attach silencers, laser sights, different scopes, different sights, rifle grips, and even grenade launchers and shotguns to certain assault rifles such as the M4. This is all mostly thanks to a gun launderer named Drebin that encounter early in the game, who makes a deal with Snake. Any guns that Snake finds (and already has) will automatically be sold to Drebin for special points Snake can use to purchase guns, attachments, and ammo literally on they fly at any time during the game: Sneaking around, dicking around, or in the midst of a heated firefight, Snake now doesn't have to fear running out of ammo as much as he did in the last three games.

Because weapons and ammo are now more plentiful, the game also takes on more of an action-oriented slant. Which I'm perfectly fine with, as you can still sneak around (which is a bit tougher this time around), but if you feel like just gunning down everything to your goal, then that's a perfectly viable option, which unlike a lot of the previous games doesn't equate to gradual failure. Snake can now CQC, and holding up soldiers to pat them down for items is not only more worthwhile on this installment, but a lot easier to manage compared to the other games.

As such, the game controls have been altered quite a bit to suit this new slant on combat. They were kinda cumbersome at first, but once you got used to them they got the job done without too much trouble, though I will confess they aren't quite as tight as they were on MGS3.

But boy oh boy, we've not even scratched the surface yet, my friends.

Balls through the wall.
Unlike the other games where they all pretty much took place at one locale, MGS4 is now divied up into roughly five chapters. Each chapter takes Snake to a different part of the planet as he attempts to track down Liquid and figure out what is nefarious scheme is. Unlike the other games that had a slower pace, or kept all the action towards the end, MGS4 doens't ***k around. You can expect all sorts of crazy insane excitement throughout each part of the game. Everything from blowing up APCs in the Middle-East, to being chased down by a bunch of psyched out soldiers in South America whilst laying down suppressing fire from the top of an APC, to.....Jesus I can't spoil it. The final two acts of the game define the words "***king awesome." And literally, by the end of the game, Solid Snake looks more ***ked up and beat up than Bruce Willis did at the end of the first Die Hard.

And I'm not getting into the bosses. I'll just say that they get a lot better explanations than they did in MGS3, AND their powers are actually explained away in a reasonable fashion.

And speaking of which, almost all of the game's story elements are meted out through cutscenes. Unlike the other three games, the codec is not used as much to get the story across, and isn't really used all that much for anything except to consult with Otacon and a scarce few others who shall remain unnamed to get clues for gameplay progression.

The game itself is absolutely beautiful. Especially the lighting effects, which I've always been a sucker for (which is probably why I love Ace Combat so damn much). The level of detail is incredible, and that's something I really appreciate more than anything, even more than how a game looks. The sound is even better. The voice overs are dead-on and match the lip flaps a lot better than they did in MGS3, and definitely match pace and impact of everythnig going on. The music is beautiful.

Although the plot is very serious, the game routinely breaks the fourth wall with in-jokes, easter eggs, and lots of references to other video games (including others by Hideo Kojima), but at the same time managing to keep up an intense pace that the game never deviates from the moment you power begin the game.

"The world would be better off without snakes..."
And that's pretty much all I'm going to say. As I said, strictly from a fan of MGS to any other fan, especially of the games' story, you'll love it. It wraps everything up. Everything gets resolved. Every question is answered, and you are not ready for the ending. But despite the rather dour tone that the trailers have led on, the game is very fun to play, and has a lot of fun with itself. It's not nearly as morose as you would expect, though there's lots of heart-wrenching moments throughout.

But if you are a fan of MGS, you will have your payoff. Especially at the end. To quote my friend as he finally beat the game's final boss:

"All boss fights must be like this." And by god, that's the understatement of this century.