Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Right, this Friday evening I completed Metal Gear Solid 4 on my PS3 for the first time. I am going to attempt a reasonably in depth review here that is going to be absolutely chock full of spoilers, to that effect I'm putting it behind a cut tag. If you are at all likely to play Metal Gear Solid 4 yourself and you in any way care about the story then I would suggest you go no further as this will totally spoil the entire game for you.

For those of you who aren't going to read the full spoiler filled review I'll give you the quick version here. Metal Gear Solid 4 is one of (if not the) greatest computer games I have ever played.

Just one final thing before the review begins, I know there are people on my LJ Friends List who probably have no idea what Metal Gear Solid is or why I would be this excited about it. So for you folks here's a brief précis, in case you want to know what I'm talking about. :)

Taken from the Metal Gear Series Wiki Page

Metal Gear is a critically acclaimed series of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. In the series, the player takes control of a Special Forces Operative (Solid Snake in most games) repeatedly facing off against the latest incarnation of the eponymous superweapon "Metal Gear"; a bipedal walking tank with nuclear launching capabilities. The series is famous as a pioneer of the stealth game genre and for its lengthy cinematic cut scenes and intricate storylines as well as its exploration of the nature of politics, warfare, censorship, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, loyalty, reality, subjective vs. universal "truths" and other philosophical themes.

I've been a massive fan of this series ever since I played Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation in the late 90's and I've been waiting for this incarnation of the game for a really long time. In fact the existence of Metal Gear Solid 4 is basically the reason I brought a Playstation 3.


The game itself is split into Acts so I'll split the review into the same acts so you can see what I'm talking about. I'm going to start with some of the basics though. A lot of the text in here has been lifted from the MGS4 Wiki Page, I make no apology for this. However I've arranged myself and written my own expanded details into each section.

Looks, Sounds, Feels
The game looks like a movie, the face animation and the movements are exceptionally well captured and animated, the dialogue is clear and easy to hear over the special effects. The game itself has a really good score, the music throughout is exceptional. The immersion level is extremely high from the very beginning and the script writers have done a very good job writing this game. The actual level of graphics is just astounding, I know that the 3rd Gen consoles are capable of some pretty amazing stuff (Chris has a XBOX 360 and I've seen more than a few games played on there) especially when coupled with a HD TV and I know the theoretical and technical capabilities of the Playstation 3's Cell Engine, however the quality of the graphics just blew me away completely. The best example of this is the Intro, all Metal Gear Solid games have an intro that goes something like this:

Narration of current world situation.
Some Event Occurs.
You take control of your character.
More briefing and narration via communications system as you progress through the 'intro'.

So the game intro's have always been played through. In this version though it goes to a whole new level, the scene starts with a group of soldiers in the back of a truck driving into a warzone somewhere in the middle east. Snake is narrating as the truck drives, he talks about the evolution of war and control, the way things have changed in the past years and the ideology behind war. The truck drives into the warzone and and immediately comes under attack from opposing forces all he breaks loose, Snake hops out the back and engages, shortly after he jumps down the screen changes, the level of detail doesn't alter from the cut-scene level and none of the stuff that's going on around you halts but your control interface rezz's up on screen and you are in the game. This absolutely blew me away (I'm going to be saying that a lot in this review), totally seamless transition from cut-scene intro to in game.

This incarnation of Metal Gear Solid also contains various flashback options. As you progress through cut scenes an X will appear in the upper right corner of the screen, pressing the X button repeatedly as this icon shows causing various still images from previous games to flash up on screen and shows you key moments relating to the person you are talking to or the event you're watching.

Finally feel, this is a slight gripe, not about the game but about Sony. For whatever reason the genius' at Sony saw fit to remove the Dual Shock functionality (which has been in the system since the PS1) from the PS3 controllers, this is very annoying as historically Metal Gear has always used the rumble function to indicate when people you cannot see are moving closer to you. In MGS4 this have been replaced with the 'Threat Ring' which is actually very good and functional, but it's not a rumble pack. Although I should add that as Sony have now released a Six Axis Dual Shock controller MGS4 will almost certainly support this in concert with the threat ring.

Control, Control, You Must Learn Control

The controls should be familiar to anyone who has played Metal Gear Solid before, being that they are essentially the same with a couple of minor changes X is crouch/stand or hold to lay down, Triangle hugs the wall or ducks down behind cover (of if you are prone fully lays down to reduce your profile), Square & Circle vary depending on the situation. L1 now readies your currently selected gun and R1 fires it, with L1 held pressing Triangle activates the 'down the barrel' sighting mode (which if you have a scope attached greatly increases your accuracy). The biggest change to the controls is the camera, the left analogue stick now controls movement but the right analogue stick controls the camera, so Metal Gear finally has a movable camera.

In addition to the standard moves there is a nice CQC (Close Quarter Combat) system that has been enhanced from previous version of the game, this means you have options other than shooting the enemy.

The Stress of Conflict

Snake's psychological status plays a much more important role in this game than in previous ones as well. You have a Psyche Gauge under your health bar, the more you immerse yourself in battles and long running conflicts the lower your Psyche gauge drops, the level of this gauge directly effects how quickly you recover health, your accuracy and your ability to move swiftly and quietly. So its in your interest to take care of Snakes mental state, this can be achieved through a variety of means, stopping for a smoke helps Snake calm down as do various items found in the game. You will also have access to a Psychologist via the Codec (more on her later).

Octocamo

One of the coolest features in the game is the addition of Octocamo. This is a system built into Snakes Suit that scans the surrounding area and remaps the colour and textures of the suit to better fit in with the surroundings, this allows to you keep hidden and to escape from pursuers through properly sneaky & stealthy actions. I really enjoyed this aspect of the game and it does add a new tactical dimension.

Old Snake

Although the game is set in 2014 Snake appears to be much older than he should, this is because he is suffering from a rare form of Werners Syndrome.

I AM NOT KIDDING, IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY THIS GAME READ NO FURTHER OR IT WILL BE RUINED FOR YOU

Act 1 - Liquid Sun

Each one of the games acts is named to evoke some kind of Metal Gear Solid related memory, this is cool and adds to the ambience.

Liquid Sun starts after the intro has finished playing, it sees Snake in an unnamed war zone somewhere in the Middle East, picking up from after the intro. Your first objective is to cross the war zone and retrieve the Metal Gear MkII, a high speed, low profile roving remote developed by Otacon and Sunny. This is where you also pick up the rest of your gear, a Tranq Pistol, a real pistol and the Solid Eye. The Solid Eye is a gadget developed by Otacon that you wear a bit like a pirates eye patch, it gives you a radar showing movement around you, low light and zoom, it also brackets weak spots and areas to aim for on larger targets.

From here you are ordered to go and meet up with Campbell's (yes the same Campbell as the other Metal Gears, he now works for the UN in a 'special' capacity) informants, Rat Patrol Team 01. On the way to meet them you run into a guy called Drebin 893, he is a Gun Launderer. In the world of Metal Gear Solid 4 guns are ID locked to their users so they are useless to Snake when he picks them up, Drebin agrees to unlock these guns for Snake, he will also take excess weapons off your hands in exchange for 'Points' which act as currency you can use to buy other weapons, ammo and modifications.

After the Drebin encounter you head off and meet up with Rat Patrol Team 01. This is one of the first points where this game turns from being Metal Gear to Meta Gear. Understand though that this is not a bad thing, Metal Gear Solid 4 ties up threads from all previous Metal Gear games so there is lots of backwards and forwards here. In this case it is because the commander of Rat Patrol Team 01 is Meryl Silverburgh.

Snake and Meryl discuss their assignments and pasts for quite a while, during their talk the palace you are hiding out in is raided by Liquid's elite soldiers, the FROGs. Rat Patrol, with Snake's help, escapes the building. Snake continues towards the main Praying Mantis camp, where Liquid was last sighted, and prepares to assassinate him.

As you sneak through the war zone you get the first proper look at the 'Boss' characters of the game The Beauty & Beast Corp, a group of heavily traumatised women bolted into various munchkin mecha armour suits.

The Beauty and the Beast Corps serves as the central boss characters of Metal Gear Solid 4: its members are Crying Wolf, Raging Raven, Screaming Mantis, and Laughing Octopus. Their animal names openly reference the members of FOXHOUND from MGS, their emotions relating to the Cobras from MGS3, and their weapons taken from Dead Cell members from MGS2. A close inspection of Screaming Mantis reveals two marionettes of previous MGS bosses: Psycho Mantis and The Sorrow, both of whom were psychics.

All four of them are women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder that have become war machines. Their inner appearance is referred to as "Beauty", while their outer appearance is referred to as "Beast". Four models were chosen for their in-game appearances as their "Beauty" side: Lyndall Jarvis (Laughing Beauty), Scarlett Chorvat (Screaming Beauty), Mieko Rye (Crying Beauty), and Yumi Kikuchi (Raging Beauty). The voice acting for the characters is done by having the female voice actors perform the lines while a male voice (Shozo Iizuka in Japanese and Fred Tatasciore in English) overdubs on top of the female voices, creating a split-voice effect for the characters.

Before he can carry out his objective, an unknown force causes all of the soldiers in the area to collapse in pain and begin violently attacking each other. The nearby members of Rat Patrol are also affected. As Liquid escapes in his helicopter, Snake also collapses, but as his vision fades, he is given a syringe by Dr. Naomi Hunter and is carried away to safety by Johnny Sasaki, the lone unaffected member of Meryl's team.

Act 2 - Solid Sun

This act sees you relocate away from the Middle East to South America, Otacon has received an encrypted communication from Naomi Hunter revealing that she is being held captive in South America. Snake intends to use the cover of a rebel uprising to sneak through and into the facility where Naomi is held.

The initial sneaking in goes pretty much as you would expect, you can either sneak through and disable people where you need to, you can choose to avoid encounters completely and go around and away from patrols (the Octocamo works really well here) or you can take a much more zero tolerance approach and just kill whoever gets in your way (although if you're going to do this at least use a silenced weapon).

As you approach your destination you will again encounter Drebin, this time he has more to tell you. The Patriots are actually a network of five AIs. Four AIs are named after US Presidents: GW, TJ, TR and AL. These are controlled and regulated by the 5th AI named JD (John Doe), the core AI.

After a brief chat with Drebin you continue on your way to find Naomi.

When Snake finds Naomi, she explains that Liquid is planning to use Big Boss's genetic information to access JD and take control of SOP (Sons of the Patriots), the system of nanomachines and ID-authentifications which allow the Patriots to monitor and control soldiers. She also explains that Snake's aging is due to intentional gene manipulation of Big Boss's clones, and that he will have a shortened lifespan.

She also tells you (talk about a bad news girl) that the FOXDIE virus she infected Snake with in Metal Gear Solid is mutating and in a few months will become a super plague, turning Snake into a walking Biological Weapon who will wipe out who populations.

At this point you are interrupted by the arrival of Laughing Octopus, one of the Beauty and Beast Corps sent to kill Snake. This goes pretty instantly to a boss fight, you chase her around, locate her by sound and by paying attention to distortions in the texture mapping, then you shoot her a lot. After defeating the Beast the Beauty emerges and there is a nice little cut scene that illustrates exactly how crazy she is, then she comes for Snake, you have to kill her again. When you finally defeat both the Beast and the Beauty you pick up her mask (made of the same material as your Octocamo suit).

Snake and Namoi then escape with the assistance of Drebin. Although Liquid send Vamp in after you with a whole shed load of Gekko (mecha), just as it looks really bad Raiden appears looking Bad Ass as a new prototype Cyborg Ninja, he kicks ass and you escape. You just manage to swing in and pick up a severely injured Raiden as you escape, he tells you that you must get him to Dr. Madnar in Eastern Europe.

Act 3 - Third Sun

The briefing to Act 3 takes place, as ever, on the Nomad where Naomi lays down the bombshell that Big Boss is still alive, although effectively brain dead. His body was retrieved from a Patriots vault by Raiden and passed onto a rebel group called Paradise Lost. The first part of this segment revolves around Snake trying to locate this group and their leader Big Mama while Naomi and Sunny take Raiden to be fixed up by the good Dr.

The first part of this act is lots of fun, you have to sneak through the streets of an Eastern European city after curfew dodging soldiers and then find and track a resistance member to their base of operations. I really enjoyed this section of the game. By this point Otacon has fixed up the Octocamo hood you grabbed earlier to provide face camo, you can look like yourself, the young Snake or you can use it as part of the sneaking suit, increasing your stealth.

Eventually you track them to their base and have a chat with Big Mama, she reveals the origins of the Patriots, founded by Major Zero forty years ago. An army led by Raging Raven suddenly attacks the group's hideout, and Snake and Mama escape on a motorcycle, along with decoy vans to keep the attackers from finding Big Boss's body. At the end of the chase, the motorcycle crashes, and Mama is wounded. Snake is attacked by Raging Raven, and is forced to fight her.

This is the second Boss Fight with one of the Beauty and Beast Corps and the one I found least fun. Raging Raven is a flying opponent so they are constantly moving out of the building and into the skies so you spend more time chasing them than fighting them. However she is eventually defeated and you are left to fight the Beauty as she emerges from the shell, again you defeat her and this time you pick up her Grenade Launcher.

When Snake returns from the battle with Raven, he and Mama escape down a sewer connecting to the Volta River, where Liquid is waiting for them, and displays his power over SOP by incapacitating an entire army of American troops mentally, through his ability to lock down the system controlling their nanomachines. He incinerates Big Boss, and Big Mama is severely burned attempting to rescue him. The left side of Snake's face is badly burned as he rescues her from the flames. As Liquid makes his escape in a gunboat down the river, Big Mama dies in Snake's arms.

Act 4 - Twin Suns

Liquids End Game is revealed, his plan is to destroy JD, the Patriot's main AI, so that he may seize control of the Patriots' entire power structure with GW, which Liquid apparently repaired and took control of shortly after the Manhattan incident. To this end, Liquid plans to use the only WMDs not still controlled by the Patriots: the stealth warheads launched by Metal Gear REX's rail gun, to fire a nuclear warhead at JD, which is housed within an orbiting satellite.

So in order to stop this from happening Snake is sent to Shadow Moses Island (the location of the Original Metal Gear Solid game) to stop Liquid. At this point I was having more geek joy than any person should be allowed. :)

Now the game does one of those cool things, you get the loading screen but it loads into Metal Gear Solid, same graphics, same maps everything, you go as far as you can through the original infiltration but as soon as you are spotted the alarms all sound and you get the 'Game Over' graphic. At which point Snake wakes up on the helicopter approaching Shadow Moses.

You have to break into the facility again and make your way through, all the battle damage is still there from the events of Metal Gear Solid but no guards, there are some roving robots though and a few things you have to run and fight. Eventually you will get to the point where you previously dodged the Claymores and Raven in his tank, you have a fight here and make your way through to the next area, here you fight Crying Wolf (the 3rd Beauty and Beast Corps member), you defeat her and claim her Rail Gun as a trophy.

After defeating Crying Wolf and a squadron of FROGs, Snake finds that Liquid has already removed REX's rail gun. In the hangar, Snake is attacked by Vamp until the timely arrival of Raiden. Snake fights off a small army of self-destructing Gekko while Raiden finally defeats and kills Vamp, after Snake suppresses the nanomachines which give Vamp his apparent immortality. Naomi then appears and ends her life by suppressing her own nanomachines, allowing her cancer to overtake her. Otacon manages to reactivate REX, and Snake and Raiden use it to escape to the harbour. Raiden, defending from the rear, becomes trapped under some rubble, while Snake uses REX to fight Metal Gear RAY piloted by Liquid. After the fight Liquid reveals his ultimate weapon: a stolen Arsenal Gear prototype called "Outer Haven" onto which he has mounted REX's rail gun. Liquid uses the enormous vessel to try to kill Snake by ramming the dock he is on, but Raiden, having cut off his own arm to escape the rubble is able to stop its progress and save Snake, although he is nearly killed in the process. Outer Haven retreats to move into position to destroy JD.

The one thing I feel I have to emphasise here is how awesome it was to pilot Metal Gear Rex (especially given the history of the game) in a mecha-on-mecha battle with Liquid.

Act 5 - Old Sun

Aboard the re-commissioned battleship USS Missouri, Mei Ling plans to catch up with Outer Haven and launch a strike team consisting of Snake, Meryl and Johnny into it, in order to break into GW's server room and destroy it using a computer virus designed by Naomi and Sunny. Infiltrating the vessel, Snake defeats Screaming Mantis, and is forced to leave Meryl, Johnny, and Raiden behind to hold off the FROGs while he infiltrates the server room through a corridor lined with microwave emitters which nearly burn him alive. Though Snake is severely weakened by the heat exposure and overwhelmed by Outer Haven security drones, the Mk. III gets through to GW and uploads Naomi's virus. The virus infects and crashes all five Patriot AIs, disables all of Liquid's troops and defense systems, saving the lives of all surviving characters, and selectively alters the Patriot-controlled world infrastructure so that while the SOP system and War Economy are no more, benign functions such as the internet, telecommunications networks, etc. remain intact.

The U.S. Marines easily take over the now-defenseless Outer Haven, its unmanned units deactivated and its soldiers are overwhelmed by guilt for the things they did while emotionally suppressed by SOP. In the confusion, Liquid himself takes Snake to the sail of Outer Haven and thanks him for accomplishing Liquid's own goals. His plan to use REX's rail gun was just a diversion so that Snake's own attempts to bring down the system would go unnoticed by the Patriots, who had anticipated Snake protecting them by stopping Liquid. Ocelot had allowed the will of Liquid to live on within his body through the use of nanomachines and auto-suggestion, perpetuating both Liquid's own agenda against the patriots, as well as the feud between the two sons of Big Boss. Ocelot allowed Liquid's personality to carry out it's plan against the patriots, knowing that JD would be allocating it's resources into stopping Liquid and not into preventing the upload of the FOXALIVE computer virus via Old Snake, allowing him to once again manipulate all players into achieving his own ends.

After this revelation, Liquid's personality declares that they have 'a score to settle', and acts upon his final wish within Ocelot's body for the sons of Big Boss engage in one final fist fight on top of Outer Haven.

This fight is awesome, it takes place in phases, each phase mimics an Metal Gear Solid game, you start off with the music from Metal Gear Solid with the same range of movement and moves, from there it flows into Metal Gear Solid 2 and then 3 until finally finishing with the 'Snakes Theme' song from Metal Gear Solid 4.

The trauma and brutality of the battle causes Ocelot's original personality to peek out a number of times before finally being defeated by Snake. As he dies, he raises his hand in the same pose he saluted Big Boss with during the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, appearing truly as himself for the first time, and tells Snake, "You're pretty good..."

Epilogue - Naked Sin

In the epilogue, Meryl and Johnny are married. Their wedding, held on an airfield, is attended by the members of Rat Patrol, Otacon, Sunny, Drebin, Mei Ling and Campbell. Meryl reconciles with Campbell. Raiden's cybernetic body is reconstructed and made to look normal, and he reunites with his fiancée Rose and their son. Rose reveals that her marriage to Roy Campbell was a charade to keep her protected from the Patriots during the course of Raiden's mission. Snake attempts to commit suicide by gunshot in the graveyard housing the graves of Big Boss and The Boss in order to prevent his mutated FoxDie strain from spreading further, stating that killing himself is his "final mission." Drebin reveals to Otacon that the Patriots forced him to work as a gun launderer, and that Rat Patrol 01 (or RAT PT 01, an anagram for Patriot (PATR10T)) was also manipulated by the Patriots.

Debrief - Naked Son

Back at the cemetery, it is revealed that Snake didn't kill himself. Snake is shocked by a distinct voice, who turns out to be a resurrected Big Boss. Big Boss tells Snake that the body burned on the Volta was actually Solidus, and that he was reconstructed with surgery using parts from both Solidus and Liquid's bodies. He brings Major Zero along with him, now extremely elderly and confined to a wheelchair in a vegetative state. Big Boss explains Zero's motives for creating the Patriots, and subsequently euthanizes him by turning off his oxygen. He reveals that Ocelot and EVA had left the Patriots, and had since been working to destroy them. He also reveals that Ocelot used hypnosis and self-suggestion, as well as nanomachines, to mentally transform himself into Liquid's doppelgänger, assimilating his personality and will in order to fool the Patriots. Both Ocelot and EVA were killed by a new strain of FOXDIE injected into Snake (by Drebin, in Act 1). This new strain in Snake's body has also neutralized the older FOXDIE strain, meaning that Snake is no longer in danger of becoming a biological weapon. After telling Snake this, Big Boss also reveals that the newer FOXDIE is already affecting him, and that he, Big Boss, is being attacked one last time by the Patriots through Snake. He finally makes peace with Snake before dying on The Boss' gravestone, his last words being: "This is good... Isn't it?"

In the post-credits scene, Snake explains to Otacon that he will spend his remaining days attempting to simply live his life (and also plans to quit smoking). Otacon wishes to come with him in order to chronicle the last days of Solid Snake. Snake initially refuses but with some persuasion ultimately relents, allowing Otacon and possibly Sunny to accompany him.

The End


All together this makes Metal Gear solid 4 not only one of the best games I have ever played but one of the best franchise games ever full stop.

I give it a 9.8/10, it can't quite be perfect as there are a couple of tiny niggles, some times the cut scenes seem to drag without need but its not very often and easy to live with and some times the crawling controls have a massive ming and you end up pointing the wrong way.

However this game is amazing probably the best thing I've every played and in the way its presented, written and acted it is better than a lot of movies I've seen.