Mario, Lara Croft, Cloud, Ratchet, Master Chief. Some video game characters have achieved celebrity. Solid Snake is certainly one of those video game legends. This Spoiler Free review is on Snakes newest adventure. The stealthy soldier of many Metal Gear Solid Games has had a long history with Playstation. (Snake has also been on PC and Gameboy).

Well now, older and wiser, Solid Snake has arrived on the Playstation 3, and he, like John Rambo is still kicking some major butt. Metal Gear Solid Four Guns of the Patriots was released on June 12, 2008, and it's already selling like hotcakes. My son and I got our copy early.

First Impressions

It takes about 8 minutes to load the game initially, but once loaded, you are in for a visual treat. The game starts off with you dropped into some unnamed war zone in the Middle East, complete with lots of weapons firing, burned and bombed out buildings and tanks roaming the streets. Voice overs tell us that the world has private armies fighting with modern weapons, many with sophisticated functions like ID tags that need fingerprints to operate.

The first cut scene looks like the CNN news on an HD broadcast. My son and I played the game on a 105" movie screen and the detail is so rich well done, that it appears like you are playing a movie. In fact the opening titles roll down the screen just like at the movies and we even got a Dolby Digital blurb at the beginning similar to those at the movie theater. David Hayter still provides voice narration for our protagonist. I will refrain from telling you the story line of the game, but I will tell you a lot about the features and the game play. Read on.

Old Friends

Yes, Otacon is still there to give Snake advice and information. The way he appears here is unique, he has built a small robot, the MK II, that has a two way video system built into it. Snake can even use the robot to scope out enemy territory. Driving the little MK II around is fun in and of itself, it can get into places Snake can't go.

Pay attention, Hideo Kojima has injected his usual sense of humor into the game. Fans of Metal Gear Solid know he always puts easter eggs and inside jokes into the game and MGS4 is no exception. I first noticed a large cardboard box (remember the boxes) and it said No Hideo Here. The aforementioned Otacon robot is controlled by a PLAYSTATION controller! My son and I both laughed out loud when we noticed it. Remember Meryl? I won't tell you when or why, but she is back! Perhaps some of Snakes other friends are back? Perhaps some enemies as well.

Old Tricks and New!

Snake is as stealthy as ever, you can crawl, stay still, hide in dumpsters, disguise yourself in a barrel, or just stay put in the shadows. Snake has a new octocamo suit that blends into the environment, and a meter tells you your level of camoflauge. It works best in the dark. What really makes the octocamo suit fun is that you can record the various patterns it mimics to the memory. At any time, you can manually set your camo suit to one of the settings. These include such useful things like dirt, aphsalt, dark grey and more esoteric patterns such as Deco Wall, Patterned Carpet and Tile Floor. Later, you even get face camo, which lets Solid emulate others even better than Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible!


Fans of the game will immediately know when they have been seen. ! will appear over a soldiers head with the accompanying noise that any MSG player knows means, you've been spotted. Fortunately soon into the game, Snake gets some of his favorite things back like his tranquilizer gun. Nothing like a little nap time to get those alerts to quiet down. Maps pop up, showing your location and destination. Snake also gets a cool new eye patch which also doubles as infra red and other cool high tech vision.

Sadly Snake never gave up smoking. He should know that smoking is bad for you! (being a private mercenary doing battle with untold number of foes, well....) You also still get handy things like the latest copy of Playboy magazine. It's to distract the guards!, not to read yourself!

Arsenal

Early in the game you meet Drebin and his ugly hairless monkey. Drebin is a sharp dressed arms dealer who will buy up all the guns that Snake can bring him. In exchange Snake gets points which he can redeem by unlocking ID weapons or buying weapons. Snakes robot can even carry out the transactions for him, no actually having to look Drebin up.

Drebin has one serious arsenal of weapons and upgrades available, most based on real weapons. Pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and machine guns are available in US, Russian, German, Israeli and other models. Uzis, Lugers, Desert Eagles, AK-47s, grenade launchers, whatever your pleasure, it is for sale. Not only that, you can outfit your collection with silencers, scopes, laser sights, grenade launchers, night lights and other upgrades. Night vision eye patch, laser sighted gun, Every enemy is scared of a well armed man.

Boss Battles

It's a good thing you have a great arsenal of weapons at your disposal because more colorful characters appear in boss battles!. As in previous MSG games, boss battles are long and challenging, but very satisfying once you win. They also look very cool! I will tell you this, once again, the boss battles are long and hard. We did have to refer to the guide book a couple times to learn valuable information to defeat a boss.

HUD

Like previous MSG games, the Heads Up Display tells you pretty much everything you want to know. Camo level, compass, health bar, evasion level, gun equipped, ammo remaining. The R2. L2 buttons bring up anything else you need to use items or equip different weapons. I also liked the radius wave around Solid Snake. It is a sort of circle that surrounds Snake to show where enemies are approaching. The HUD even measures Snakes stress levels. I guess now that Snake is older, his doctor is concerned about Snakes blood pressure, so it is monitored.

Controls

Despite the controls being many and varied, they are simple to use and operate. Game play stops when you go into menus, and you can just navigate to the various functions you need to manage such as upgrading weapons, eating rations, calling Otacon, examining your maps and paying visits to Drebens shop. You can also scroll through all your camo patterns!

In game play, the standard left analog stick to move, right for camera applies. Click L1, then the right analog stick aims your weapon. Once you have laser or dot sights, this is really a piece of cake. Triangle button triggers many actions as indicated on the screen. For example, standing next to a pillar, a little diagram will indicate that Triangle will make Snake hide by the pillar. A couple quick taps on X will have Snake hit the floor and then he can crawl. Snake can also do a crab walk! Rumble shock controllers will also shake when appropriate, but I haven't yet seen the Six axis motion control used yet. However, we haven't played through the whole game yet. Needless to say, if you've played the older MSG games, you will feel right at home here, if not, you will pick it up very quickly.

Sound and Vision

The game looks and sounds great, in part due to the PS3s great graphics and in part due to the voice acting, which is better than most standard video games. I've always liked David Hayter as Solid Snake and everyone else does a good job voice acting, no insipid video game dialogue here. Detailed lengthy cut scenes advance the story and although I am not going to tell you the story, I can say I found it as interesting as any of the previous stories and it kept me at attention. My son wasn't as enthralled, he wanted to skip the cut scenes, I enjoy watching them to see what the games all about.

Graphics are up to PS3 standards and the game looks very good. Blood isn't too graphic, just a bit of red spray. The weapons look very realistic. Environments and characters have always looked good in MSG games for their time, and MSG4 is a fine addition to the PS3 game library. Textures in buildings and in the streets are quite realistic. The game isn't as visually stunning as Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, but it certainly holds its own in the world of PS3 games. Cut scenes on the other hand are as visually stunning as any, with the characters looking like motion capture animations.

Sound is also very immersive and helpful. Sounds surround you, and if you pay attention, you can use this to determine where enemies are. The soundtrack draws you into the game, using a classical type score that matches the scene you are in. Sometimes the screams of people can get a bit repetitive, but aside from that, I loved the combination of environmental sounds and the orchestral score to create the total feel of the game.

Cut Scenes / Ending (No Spoilers)

Cut scenes are used throughout the game and usually are interesting and quite fascinating. My son and I were rather disappointed at the end of the game however. As you may know, with games of this type, to keep all the goodies you've unlocked in your first play through, you have to watch the game to the very end to SAVE your data. That means all the cut scenes and credits. Well, the final series of cut scenes made the several endings of Lord of the Rings - Return of the King seem snappy. I liked a couple cut scenes, but when they dragged on for over an HOUR and a HALF, I thought enough was enough. No, I won't tell you what happens in any of them, you can sit through all 90 minutes yourself, just don't forget to save when they are finally over.

Online

The fun doesn't stop with the game, log on and join up to 15 other people in various online games like death match, base capture and rescue missions. The online maps are every bit as detailed as those in game. Online play is a lot of fun, although you don't get to wear full octo camo (unless you get to play Snake himself in one game). You also cannot heal.

My Thoughts / Summary

The game has been worth the wait. We defeated the game once so far on Solid Snake level (mostly my son, I didn't get to actually play as much), but the story was enthralling and the stealth and action were excellent. The final scenes were in need of some serious editing though. It is a game one can play through again as you couldn't unlock all the secrets in just one play through. Snake may be getting old, but he's back and he looks better than ever! Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a solid five star game.

If you get stuck, there is
Metal Gear Solid 4 - Complete Strategy Guide

Want to get the most from online play? Try the Motorola Slider Blue Tooth Headset




Recommended: Yes