MGS 4 is by far the best video game in the history of video games, no questions asked...

User Rating: 10 | Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum) PS3
This game, defines games, not only on the PS3, but for every console out there! Its simply the most stunning and stellar game ever made. There are no goofs, nothing you can find thats not interesting. The story is compelling and better than any book I have ever read or movie I have seen. This game is not only a video game, but its something else, something more.

Pros:

-Excellent graphics
-Excellent gameplay
-Excellent audio and design
-Not only Snake, but all the other side characters are amazing and have their own magnificent stories which follow up amazingly during the game.
-The most detailed and most breath taking environments/visuals.

Cons:

-Absolutely no mistake, no goof, no cons and I guarantee you that!

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a story-driven adventure game, with seasoned hero Solid Snake drafted for one final mission. Set across stages including the Middle East and South America, the now aged Snake has been asked to assassinate his old adversary, Liquid Ocelot. To do this, however, he must make his way through a series of battlefields, using his legendary stealth abilities and all-new OctoCamo suit to avoid detection and to reach his target. With series favorites such as Meryl Silverburgh, Raiden, Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich, Eva and Roy Campbell returning, and with all new gameplay features including a remote-controlled Metal Gear Mk. II and enhanced CQC (Close Quarters Combat) system, Metal Gear Solid 4 rounds out the Metal Gear saga with a fittingly cinematic and gripping final outing.

The world of Metal Gear Solid 4 is quite a bleak one. In fact, in many ways, it's precisely the one that Solid Snake and Otacon have been hoping to avoid. Set six years in the future, war and conflict are no longer a sporadic occurrence with hot spots around the globe; instead, the entire planet is engulfed in constant battle. War has become its own self-sustaining industry, replacing the overall global economy with the contracts of private military corporations, or PMCs, that sell their services to the highest bidder. These mercenaries constantly try to prove their effectiveness on the battlefield to gain even more contracts, which causes more and more destruction as nanomachine-enhanced soldiers clash in cities, in buildings and on the streets. With such a chaotic environment, not even civilians are safe from the constant fighting, as skirmishes can break out at any point.

This is the setting that Solid Snake has been called out of retirement for: one final mission issued by Col. Campbell to save the world from one last threat. Snake is initially inserted into the war zone of the Middle East undercover as a UN PMC inspector to gauge how the situation on the ground is being handled by troops there. Of course, he has a more direct task that takes advantage of his specialized skills: he must find and assassinate Liquid Ocelot, who has become the head of five of the largest PMCs in the world. That's definitely easier said than done, as Ocelot has surrounded himself with a group of deadly comrades -- including a quartet of deadly females known as the Beauty and the Beast Corps who appear to be half woman, half machine -- to eliminate Solid Snake.

I haven't gone over all of the features within the title, such as the photo gallery which stores and displays pictures taken by Snake with his camera, or the virtual range which lets you practice with the various firearms that you have within the title. Nor have I mentioned the exquisite evolution of the control scheme, which is the best one yet. But the one other significant feature of MGS4 is the inclusion of Metal Gear Online, which provides a multiplayer feature to a package that is already solid (no pun intended) with its single-player campaign. Technically, Kojima Productions didn't even need to include this section within the game, particularly because it's a starter pack and will be expanded into a full online product by itself. But what's included on the disc is a good sneak peek of what to expect from the multiplayer realm of Metal Gear.

Similar to that of the beta test, Metal Gear Online features five multiplayer maps for up to 16 players to blast their way across. The starter pack now includes two additional stages not seen in the beta, Urban Ultimatum and Ambush Alley. Urban Ultimatum is a large stage that's more impressive due to its verticality than its various nooks and crannies that you can explore – many players can climb the ladders attached to the buildings and take up positions as snipers on rooftops. Ambush Alley, by contrast, is all about stealth and surprise, as the bombed out rubble and smashed buildings provides quite a bit of cover for players to engage and eliminate unsuspecting enemies.