The Bad: Storyline and characters completely bust the meter for cheesiness and pompousness. High barriers to entry for newcomers to the series due to long running story carried over from previous games. Did this game REALLY need a multiplayer element? Boss battles are a bit limited. There have been plenty of games over the last year or two that had great graphics or tremendous gameplay. We've seen games that have strong audio or an immersive setting that drag you in. Seldom, if ever, have we seen a game that does all of these things as well as Metal Gear Solid 4 does. This game goes further than any game before it ever has to blurring the line between blockbuster summer action movie and video game, complete with both the positive and the negative inherent in summer blockbuster movies as a genre. As you might expect for summer blockbusters, you can chalk up some of the most exciting action sequences seen in years. From the moment you first start playing this game, it drags you in and convinces you that you are in a war zone. Bombs burst around you. Soldiers fighting on different sides kill each other in addition to just you. Environments crumble under military assault and the screams of the dying reach your ears. At times this game comes close to being just a bit disturbing with how realistically it portrays the action around you. You play the role of Solid Snake, returning for one last tour of duty after being in hiding for years after being blamed for Liquid's crimes in previous games. However, all is not well with you. Whereas in previous games you were a trained fighting machine with a body of unequaled speed, strength, stamina and reactions, this game shows that time catches up with us all. It has caught up with Snake quicker than it was supposed to. You don't find out why Snake is aging so prematurely until you're well into the game, but the fact of the matter is that it has definite impacts upon how you play and your abilities. You're still a killing machine, but you also have some Achilles heels.
Snake's body is breaking down. What this means in terms of gameplay is that you must monitor more than just the amount of damage that you take in order to play successfully. Your "psyche" meter, representing your mental state, and your "stress" meter, representing the physical strain your body is under, need to also be monitored or they start severely impacting your abilities. For those people who have played the Metal Gear games before, this adds a fun and challenging new element to the gameplay to help keep the series fresh, but don't worry, many of the old mainstays of the series are still present. For example, stealth, like in other MGS titles, is often a much better approach than just storming through the proverbial front gates of the castle. As with previous games, the soldiers you encounter will call for backup if they spot you and eventually you can, and often will be overwhelmed if you simply try and bull your way through trouble. This simple adjustment that soldiers in battle will call for reinforcements is one of the biggest features that separate the MGS series from your typical shooter title. Knowing when to fight, when to flee, and when to hide adds an element of strategy that remains fresh even after so many Metal Gear offerings. The stealth systemin MGS4 is a particularly advanced and well-developed element of the gameplay. The level design often presents numerous routes to your end destination for the creative and patient souls willing to spend a little extra time searching. Whether it is crawling under a crumpled building, scaling the rooftops or heading down a blind alleyway and hopping over some boxes, there is almost always more than one route to get to where you want to go if you are intent on avoiding combat to the maximum extent possible. Helping to avoid combat is your new suit, which incorporates "Octocamo" technology. Essentially, the suit works like an Octopus or a Chameleon, allowing you to change colors and blend into your surroundings with little effort. However, MGS4 still more than adequately succeeds as a traditional shooter title. The game markets top-notch visuals. The graphics are the best yet seen in any game released to date. The guns you have access to are varied, customizable and real feeling. In fact, the game adds another fun touch where guns are concerned. Due to the unique setting the game is based on (more on this in a minute), not all guns you come across are immediately available for use. Some guns are "ID Locked", or coded to a specific person, and that coding must be removed prior to your being able to use them. You pay to have the ID lock removed by trading in guns to a local arms dealer named Drebin in return for "Drebin points" that you can use to shop at his store. The one area of the gameplay that feels a little weak is in boss battles. The strategy of "run around a lot and take pot shots when you see openings" seems to work quite nicely for just about all of the bosses until you start getting close to the end of the game.
So far, we can list the following elements as positves for MGS4. Gameplay is addictive, varied and original. Graphics are excellent and the level design borders on "evil genius". But no amount of gratuitous violence, pretty colors and originality in the world can make a perfect game if the storyline, characters, voice acting and audio can't keep up. This is where we start seeing some problems in MGS4. One of long running concerns of the MGS games is that their storylines are unnecessarily convoluted, wordy and childish. Unfortunately, this title fully justifies all those concerns. The problem isn't that the game doesn't try and make sure that it has a deep and immersive storyline complete with engrossing characters. The problem is that the story actually got in the way of the game. It was a horribly constructed, badly written, shoddy, pompous mess.
The storyline has a lot of potential. The general idea is that at some point, the world entered what is referred to in game as the "War Economy". In other words, the military industrial complex in the world has become so large and so central to the world's economy that war is actually necessary to keep many of the world's economies from collapsing completely. All of this is being controlled by a secret Illuminati/Masons/Skull and Bones sty1e fraternity of power brokers called "The Patriots". This is a great idea of something to explore, and if the execution had been handled better would have been a fascinating inclusion. The problem is that the execution was horrifically botched. The main problem is that the series has just gone on for too long. In order to make some of the back story fit together, some incredible and unlikely gymnastics and leaps of believability are required on behalf of the player. All of the worst cliches in literature are pulled out here. People believed dead come back to life under unlikely means. Dopplegangers and clones abound. Just when you think you've beaten the big, awful threat it turns out that was just the smallest piece of something much, much larger. And any crime can be forgiven if the woman committing the crime is hot enough or has a sad enough life story. (The men can't mind you, but the women can.)
It doesn't help that the dialogue appears to be have been written by a depressed teenager off of Facebook with pretensions of being a awe-inspiring philosopher. The characters whine, wax melancholic and weep dramatically. They go on long monologs that would have put Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to shame. Part of this is obviously an attempt to remind old players of pertinent details that happened in previous games and to expose new players to those details, but the game would have been better off if they tied up some of the old story arcs and put them away so they didn't have to constantly go on longwinded explanations as to things that happened three or four games back. The tendency of the characters to blather would be even more obvious if the voice work talents and the graphics weren't so top notch. Often times it is easy to zone out what is actually being said because of how beautiful the scenery is and how excellent the voicing. Watching the beautiful graphics and listening to the life-like voices can be hypnotic when the actual plot and subplot updates are conveyed in the first few sentences, even if the characters themselves continue to talk for another 15 minutes. Go ahead and get yourself a beer. The next level isn't starting anytime soon. The bottom line is that this is a game, and a series, that has fallen in love with itself and is now very focused on making everyone else who plays the game acutely aware of just how awesome and deep the storyline is, which is unfortunate, because the actual story idea as mentioned before is a really good one. In a way, it is a mark of just how impressive of a game this is that it succeeds not because of the story and characters but in spite of these things. The actual game itself, when you are in control and dictating the flow of action, is just incredible. Overall Impressions: This game is a must have for any PS3 owner who doesn't mind excessive cheesiness or being preached at a bit in exchange for host a of positives. This remains, minor issues aside, a remarkable game achievement that quite justifies its status as one of the great games of our time. True Score: 9.0