Metal Gear Solid 4 has some entertaining stealth action, when your not watching the overlong, movie-like cutscenes
Contains: Moderate Violence and Strong Threat
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Metal Gear Solid 4 is a stealth action game, that has a slow-paced story, which is told through its movie-like cutscenes.
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STORY - 3/5
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Firstly, the game's story is difficult to follow if you haven't played previous games of the series, and the developer's clearly show that they made this, judging that people had played the first games on previous consoles. I hadn't, which is why the story wasn't as compelling as it will be to life-long fans, and the reason why most of the cutscenes are boring because of the slow and detailed story-telling. However, for at least half of the game, you will be sat watching cutscenes, and while some are action-packed and tense, a lot of the mission briefings last for extreme lengths of time, and seem like they won't come to an end. Its a love or hate feature, which is sure to impress fans of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, but likely to irritate newcomers to the popular game series.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is set in 2014, five years after the Big Shell incident (MGS2). The world economy relies on continuous war, fought by PMCs, which outnumber government military forces. PMC soldiers are outfitted with nanomachines to enhance their abilities and control the stress on the battlefield. The control network created through these nanomachines is called Sons of the Patriots, and Liquid Ocelot is preparing to hijack the system. Snake accepts a request from Roy Campbell to terminate Liquid, with Otacon and Sunny providing mission support from the Nomad aircraft.
It is confusing, unless, as you already know, you've played the previous Metal Gear Solid games, and the slow progression is likely to be gratifying.
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CHARACTERS - 4/5
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Throughout the course of the game you will meet a wide cast of characters, most of them likeable, and some even memorable. You assume the role of Solid Snake, an old hero in the Metal Gear franchise, who has appeared in the majority of subsequent games and spin-offs. Solid Snake is a combination spy, special operations agent and mercenary of Foxhound, a fictional black operations and espionage unit. Controlled by the player, Solid Snake must act alone (or with the help of allies he meets during missions), supported via radio by commanding officers and specialists. With the latest evolution camouflage suit, Snake is a master of stealth and disguise, and the suit allows you to blend into all sorts of environments by matching the materials and colours relevant to the surrounding that your in contact with.
Ocelot becomes the main antagonist, and assumes the identity of Liquid Ocelot, with the Liquid Snake personality having seemingly taken complete control of his mind. He attempts to resurrect Outer Heaven in his conflict with the Patriots, establishing a dummy corporation that runs the five largest PMCs that exist in the game. Sexy Naomi Hunter, in Metal Gear Solid 4, is working with Liquid Ocelot in order to hijack the SOP battlefield control system. She becomes romantically involved with Otacon and forms a friendship with Sunny.
With simply too many characters to give credit to, there are many memorable old and new characters to the series, and each character's emotions are uniquely portrayed during the cut scenes, and draw you into their role in the game with dramatically intense results unlike many games.
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GAMEPLAY - 3/5
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Metal Gear Solid 4 is a stealth action game, and with the infrequent amount of gameplay during the length of the game, you must savour some of the qualities implemented, and not be impatient because of the heavy focus on stealth. However, the game doesn't penalise you if you are the run-and-gunner gamer type, but progressing through the levels utilising your camouflage suit is far more rewarding and fun. Not all combat scenarios are stealth based though, and this gives the game chances to show off its tight gunplay mechanics, even if killing enemies is too easy and doesn't require much effort, or bullets. There is a huge variety on the amount of weapons in the game, and plenty of opportunities to upgrade how you wish, thanks to a well designed upgrade system with many collectibles to purchase.
But your main attention should be on taking down enemies one by one, with the rest of the group none the wiser to what your doing. Silently dispatching your enemies effectively brings a big sense of satisfaction, and you even can drag the body away from the open ground and into a dark corner. You can hide in bins, throw empty gun magazines to attract a particular guard away from a pack, and even calm your nerves by reading magazines. Using your imagination is the key to enjoying each combat scenario more, for instance, if there is lots of guards patrolling the area, take one down, then watch as the rest of the group rush over. Hide down in some grass as your camouflage suit will act as an invisibility cloak, then launch a flash bang grenade over to their stationary and confused position, then pop up and shoot them all down with a silenced weapon. When it works as well as this, the game is full of memorable moments, and the environments are cleverly created so that you can push your imagination to the limit, where almost anything is possible.
There are a sensible amount of well spaced boss battles in each chapter, and each one demands different, and sometimes imaginative, tactics in order to defeat. A variety of sizes, and various amounts of potential and skill, means you have to focus carefully, and not become overwhelmed if you become stuck.
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GRAPHICS - 5/5
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The visuals during gameplay are stunning, but even more fantastic are the graphics during cutscenes. The sharpness of objects and the representation of characters brings everything to life in high definition detail, and are not only technically impressive, but technically flawless.
During gameplay, the detail is immense in the different locations, and the animations produced from enemies and yourself flow smoothly and are authentically impressive for the capability of the Playstation 3 hardware.
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SOUND - 5/5
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The cutscenes are fully established as perfect, not only because of the visuals, but because of confident cast of voice actors, who are placed in each characters shoes perfectly, and give each character the sense of believability that they fully deserve. The audio is deliberately dramatic, to suit the situation of the story, and towards the end, the direction the music takes is quite remarkable, as it makes the cutscenes and the emotions showcased, even more absorbing. Other sound effects noticeable in combat are just as impressive, and make each fired bullet connecting with the environment sound accurate, just as much as realistic to portray the quality gone into everything the game possesses.
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CONTROLS - 2/5
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The layout of the controls can actually deteriorate the gameplay, because of some overly complicated actions that are difficult to pull off and oddly unresponsive if you do manage to be in the correct stance to attempt it. The entire control scheme is an unfamiliar set which are tricky to memorise, and are also a letdown if you want to try something different in combat. An action like taking hold of an enemy and holding him at gunpoint like a hostage, is cool if you nail it, but awkward to attempt, and if you fail to pull it off it can become frustrating, as you can ruin an entire stealth section, and have to go into hiding for a length of time until the enemy stop looking for you.
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ATMOSPHERE - 4/5
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A sensational and emotional atmosphere is created at various points of the story, and some are very compelling and negotiate not only with your mind, but with your emotions to, and with the dramatic music evident in the backdrop, there is some seriously tense scenes that should captivate you into a caring state for any characters in danger. There are many long cutscenes, but some will be full of action and suspense, and you won't care if it lasts for long time because its literally like watching a movie play out. The action sequences are choreographed exceptionally well, and really make clear the talent of the director behind it all.
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ENEMY AI - 5/5
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The enemies who cross your path and hunt to take you down, attempt to in many cool ways, and their awareness to your presence is really good. Their animations during these responses make the gameplay so much more tense, knowing your enemies are smart. They'll inspect many possible hiding spots, search logically if they caught your glimpse at the corner of their eye, and work as a team to prevent you from moving any further in the story. All of these reactions are great to watch, and the suspense is sometimes unbearable if your hiding in a container and one of the enemies is cautiously moving towards it to take a peak, or your back is against a wall and your camouflaged in, but the threatening movements of your foes are extremely close and almost trigger an alarm.
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LENGTH - 5/5
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For virtually half of the game you'll be watching cutscenes, some highly watchable, some painfully slow-moving, and its split up by stealth action in 5 intriguing chapters, each set in completely different locations with varied weather conditions and new enemies to try out and develop new tactics. When the game is finished, you would have likely put in 25 hours worth, mainly because of the deliberately slow-paced combat, which is intended to force you to carefully figure out ways past the vast amount of enemies without sounding an alert, which also proves the most enjoyable way to progress.
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REPLAY VALUE - 2/5
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Unless you thoroughly enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 4, then you probably won't want to replay through it again, not for a very long time. There is enough replayability in the gameplay, as each situation can plan out differently than before, depending on your approach, and use of imaginative ways to utilise your stealth skills. All the cutscenes can also be skipped, so you can pick and choose on future playthroughs which ones you want to watch for 20 minutes or so, and which ones you don't. Overall MGS4 is a technically outstanding game, but its heavy handed story and extremely long cut scenes aren't for everyone, but when you do get to play it, you can appreciate the achievement that the development team have accomplished.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 8.5/10
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Good Points: Outstanding audiovisual presentation, Tight shooting mechanics, Fun boss battles, Entertaining stealth action, Some memorable characters with terrific voice acting, Fantastic enemy AI responses, Really cool camouflage suit, A wide array of weapons and gadgets.
Bad Points: Storytelling is heavy handed with extremely long cutscenes, Unfamiliar controls layout with some awkward actions.