Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

aka: MGS4
Moby ID: 34773
PlayStation 3 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the fourth major game in the Metal Gear Solid series developed by Hideo Kojima. It ties up all of the loose plot points of the previous games while bringing back a number of characters from the earlier games in the series such as Colonel Campbell, Naomi Hunter, Otacon, Meryl Silverburgh, Mei Ling, and many more. The game's main antagonist is Liquid Ocelot. Most of the story and the relationship are explained through cut-scenes with a considerable length. Due to the series extensive history, knowledge of the prior games is recommended to fully understand the story.

As the story begins Solid Snake, now looking like an old man due to accelerated aging, is being deployed in the Middle East on a mission to stop Liquid Ocelot. The game is set in 2014, five years after the Big Shell Incident of Metal Gear Solid 2. Liquid aims to take control of the Sons of the Patriots, the nanomachine system used to enhance the capabilities of the mercenaries of different factions. By this, he plans to assemble an army. The game is divided into five acts followed by an epilogue and a briefing. The various missions bring Old Snake to more than one location, including the Middle East, South America, Eastern Europe, and a few more that can surprise the players familiar with the franchise.

In this game, all of the actions of the previous game have been included along with some new ones such as the ability to roll on your back and fire and the ability to hide in bins scattered around the environment. Similar to the Subsistence re-release of MGS3, the player has full control of the camera rotation on one analogue stick while walking with the other. Shooting is now enhanced to support a new shoulder camera not seen in the franchise before, much similar to that of Resident Evil 4 which will help you to easily counter-attack the enemy without having to fire randomly or switching to 1st-person perspective. The Close Quarters Combat system has been redesigned and players are now able to interrogate guards for information or supplies. The earlier camouflage system has been replaced with Octocamo that allows Snake to blend into the environment. The stamina meter from Snake Eater has been replaced by a stress meter. Based on the fighting and the climate conditions it can offer additional accuracy and reduce sustained damage. The other meter, Psyche, reduces accuracy and can be replenished by reading an adult magazine, eating, or drinking.

Snake has access to the largest arsenal of weapons ever made available in a Metal Gear game, with a large array of pistols, rifles, and explosives, along with the ability to mod the weapons adding scopes, suppressors, lights, and other equipment to create custom weapons.

Other gadgets in the game include the Solid Eye, which is an electronic eye patch that can be used as binoculars, night vision goggles, or just a device for displaying information about enemies and items scattered around the levels. There is also the Metal Gear Mk. II, which is a small robot that can be used to scout levels and electrocute enemies knocking them out for a period of time.

The game also features a complex multiplayer mode, simply entitled Metal Gear Online. Aside from the usual suspects of multiplayer shooter modes, such as "deathmatch" and "capture the flag", there are some original modes that are based on the stealth aspects of the single-player games. "Sneaking Mission" mostly plays out like a standard team deathmatch, with the exception that one player is assigned to control Snake, who is equipped with his radar and Octocamo. Snake's goal is to tranquilize his enemies in order to acquire their dog tags, without getting spotted. If there are enough players in the game, one player will also control Metal Gear Mk.II to assist Snake. "Team Sneaking" is basically "Capture the flag", in which the attacking team is equipped with stealth camouflage and non-lethal weapons. The defending team can only see the attacking team's shadows and weapons.

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Credits (PlayStation 3 version)

983 People (928 developers, 55 thanks) · View all

Old Snake
Hal "Otacon" Emmerich
Roy Campbell / Drebin / Zero
Meryl Silverburgh / Crying Wolf
Johnny (Akiba)
Ed
Jonathan
Vamp
Naomi Hunter / Rosemary / Laughing Octopus
Sunny
Raiden (Drama)
Raiden (Action) / Little Grey
Little John
Big Mama / Screaming Mantis
Liquid Ocelot
Mei Ling / Raging Raven
Big Boss
Missouri Crewman
Soldiers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 93% (based on 104 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 81 ratings with 5 reviews)

Finales are hard.

The Good
Metal Gear Solid 4 is a strange beast. Upon its release, it was a hot-selling title which earned rave reviews almost across the board, as with the previous games. But these days it seems to be a title that is strangely forgotten and rarely discussed anymore, except when discussing which PS3 exclusives are the best to start off with. It feels half-forgotten even amongst its peers. Even the earlier games in the series seem to be brought up with more frequency on internet discussions. This disparity between critics reviews and overall impact made this the game I was most looking forward to playing when I started my journey with MGS. Afterall, how can a game which earned a 10 from two of the biggest sites in gaming be forgotten about so quickly?

MGS4 begins about five years after MGS2. It’s the future (well, it’s really the past, since the game is set in 2014) and war has become a profit machine, where countries hire Private Military Corporations, to fight their battles for them, regardless of ideology. The PMCs are monitored and controlled by a network of nano machines and AI handled by the Patriots, referred to as the “System”. This allows for things such as battlefield support and stress regulation. Most notably, soldiers can only fire guns and drive vehicles of their own. Meanwhile, Solid Snake has begun aging rapidly due to his nature as a clone, but is tasked with his final mission to stop Liquid from taking over the System and mounting an insurrection of the world.

The gameplay of MGS4 retains some of the better ideas of Snake Eater while adding in a number of new elements of its own. Camouflage is still a factor in this game, however Snake has a unique suit called the OctoCamo, which is automatic camouflage that matches the texture of whatever it is pressed against. However, you have to hold still for a second or two before it actually changes, making moments where you must crawl over different textures very tense. It also makes it easier to hide if you end up getting spotted, as enemies have to come quite close to you before they actually notice you. In addition, enemies are more sensitive to sound, and can even smell you if you’ve been hiding in a dumpster.

Early on, Snake acquires a pair of really cool new gadgets, both of which become important to the game. The first is the Solid Eye, which acts as a radar, binoculars, and night vision goggles all-in-one. It also lets you see which side soldiers are on and what items are laying on the ground. It’s an extremely useful device, and you will likely have it equipped for about 90 percent of the game, though there are times when you’ll need to unequip it so that it can charge, which can be very tense. The other major new gadget is the Metal Gear Mark II, an adorable miniature Metal Gear that serves as Snake’s support unit in the field. This little robot can scout ahead, grab items, and can even knock out or distract guards with its stealth camo capabilities. There are a couple of other neat uses that it has, but I would be spoiling some great moments if I told you about them.

The other major addition is the weapons shop owned by Drebin 893. Drebin is an arms dealer that you meet early on who can remove the ID restrictions on weapons that you find in the field. Finding multiples of the same weapon will allow you to sell the surplus to Drebin for points, which you can use to purchase new guns, ammunition, and weapon licenses. What this means is that you’ll rarely have to worry if you forgot a weapon for any given situation, as if you’ve got the points, you can simply buy it. Of course, it’s easy enough to find weapons out in the field, however, and you can play the game ignoring the weapons shop entirely if you wanted to.

This is all backed by great level design, which is pretty consistent in allowing the player to either shoot or sneak their way through. Levels typically offer multiple paths, and thorough exploration will earn you some of the best goodies, just like in MGS3. There are a ton of unlockables throughout the game, ranging from unique weapons to additional soundtrack songs and face skins for Snake.

Perhaps the greatest change is the new, shooter-style control scheme more in-line with contemporary games such as Gears of War. This control scheme offers a much smoother experience, especially when it comes to dealing with occasional shootouts Even the boss fights and setpieces, which are expected from every MGS game, are better than ever here thanks to the revamped control scheme.

The last interesting thing to mention is the game’s structure. While previous games mostly centered around specific settings over a small area, MGS4 offers a true globetrotting adventure. What’s even more unique is that it allows the game to offer much more variety than any MGS game in the past.It honestly feels like Kojima Productions made five different games and threaded them through with the storyline.

Upon release, MGS4 was hailed as having the best graphics in any console game up to that point in time. While the graphics were quickly surpassed, even by later PS3 efforts such as Uncharted 2, I have to say that game’s visuals are still quite good by today’s standards. In particular the character models are visually spectacular, with great detail and excellent facial animations that help to really bring the personalities to life, and I dig the slightly plasticine look that they have. Compare these to the faceless models from MGS1 and the difference is really quite stark. Video games really did come a long way between 1998 and 2008, and MGS4 was proof of that. Details exist in this game that I’ve never seen anywhere else - you’ll actually see dust and sand particles on the camera when sneaking through the middle east, and aiming down the iron sights when laying on a ledge actually distorts the camera view to reflect what Snake is looking at. About the only thing that isn’t up to modern standards are the environmental shadows, which are horribly blocky and unconvincing. In addition, the framerate can take a nasty hit during heavy, high-octane action sequences, of which there are quite a few throughout the course of the game.

The Bad
While much of the gameplay is the best it’s ever been, there is one slight drawback to it all- the AI doesn’t seem as smart this time around. They aren’t nearly as ruthless in searching the place out as they were in 2 and 3. They can detect you pretty easily, but aren’t quite as aggressive enough in coming after you or scouting you out. I was able to end an alert by simply hiding behind a car, where the guard never chased me I think the developers were aware this, as Snake takes a lot less hits this time around before he kicks the bucket. Now granted, I only played on Solid Normal, and I’ve heard the game is much harder on the other difficulties. The again, this could be the result of the controls. Whatever the case, the game simply doesn’t have quite the same level challenge of the last two games, though it still remains enjoyable thanks to minimized frustrations.

The major thing when it comes to MGS4 is the story, which is given a much more increased emphasis here than in the previous entries. MGS4 is infamous for having some of the longest cutscenes in gaming history. There are parts of the game where you will spend over an hour until you can actually play again, and the ending cutscenes alone are nearly feature length. The reason for this is pretty understandable, since MGS4 is all about giving closure to a 20 year story, plus the games were always known for having a lot of cutscenes and dialogue. Hideo Kojima really wanted to wrap everything up here, so he tried to give closure to just about every major character in the Metal Gear series. Of course, this is hardly the last game in the series, which does take out some of the story’s weight.

The story is torn between trying to develop an alien new world while trying to somehow involve every major living character from the MGS series. The game goes to great lengths to explain things like the war economy, the nanomachines, and the system, before shoving in references from half-forgotten events and characters from previous games. As a result, the story ends up unfolding in ways that feel inorganic. Characters and events are included not because they make sense but because Kojima is trying to please the fans. MGS4 suffers from some serious fan service overkill, and while it makes for some very engaging moments if you’ve played the previous games, the story ends up suffering as a result.

The split desires between reveling in past glories and expanding the Metal Gear universe ultimately hampers the storytelling. Moments that were supposed to be mind-blowing or emotionally gripping sometimes ended up eliciting a “who cares” response from me, because either I couldn’t quite grasp what was going on or had little interest in the characters. That said, the fan service was still enjoyable at times and made me recognize just how epic of a journey I’ve been on, and there were some truly wonderful surprises and easter eggs to be found within the game. Ultimately, I suppose MGS4’s story is okay enough in the end, but just okay doesn't cut it when you have a legacy of over 20 years of iconic stories to live up to.



The Bottom Line
Upon finishing MGS4, I recognized that I had played a very good game - one of my favorite PS3 games, in fact, It's an improvement over the previous game in many ways: graphics, gameplay, and acting, except where it matters most: the story. While MGS4 is great as a video game, it doesn't quite hit the mark as a conclusion to one of gaming's grandest sagas. MGS4 leans too heavily on nostalgia for its own good and as a result doesn't satisfactorily wrap things up, even with its long cutscenes. MGS 4 should have ended with a nuclear-sized bang, instead it explodes gently like a legal firework. The end result is still worthwhile and entertaining, but not quite what you are hoping for.

PlayStation 3 · by krisko6 (814) · 2015

Can’t explain the pain away.

The Good
The Metal Gear Solid narrative is really starting to wear on me. Perhaps playing the games in the series back to back was a bad idea, because it has been a constant string of stories full of bloated exposition, overblown dialogue, and horrendous endings that seem to go on forever. Worse yet, the game’s narratives are all remarkably similar, and many of the same themes have been hammered on throughout. Thinking about going into Metal Gear Solid 4 actually gave me anxiety. It’s a game that holds a reputation for extraordinarily long cutscenes, even in comparison to the previous titles in the series. To continue on, I had to remind myself of two things: the Metal Gear series has, with some exceptions, provided enjoyable gameplay, and this is the last core game of the series I have to tackle before I can give it a rest.

To my surprise, Metal Gear Solid 4 begins without a single mention of nuclear weapons (stick around, they do show up). According to Snake’s introductory narration, war has changed and is becoming routine. He’s sent into the middle of a “proxy war” with the mission to kill the bizarre amalgam of Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot, now abbreviated to Liquid Ocelot. It’s a strangely straightforward task compared to his previous missions, but to complicate things, premature aging has set in for him and he’s slowly dying. Faced with becoming obsolete in a changing world, Snake has to keep things together for long enough to finish the job so he can finally rest.

While the wilderness setting of Snake Eater has been dropped in favour of a globetrotting adventure, a few of the mechanics introduced in the previous game have been retained in slightly altered states. Most notably is the camouflage system, made possible by Snake’s new Octo-camo suit. Lying on the ground or pressing against a wall changes the colour and texture of the suit to mimic the environment around Snake, and allows him to hide in plain sight. It’s actually a pretty interesting adaptation of the camouflage system, and adds greatly to the stealth gameplay.

The change of setting is also an interesting one. While the environments lack the personality of the locations in previous Metal Gear games, the battlefields that Snake must traverse add another interesting layer onto the sneaking gameplay. The proxy wars that go on around you are left largely unexplained – just another routine battle in the war that has changed so much, according to Snake. With no background to the ongoing battles, it creates this surreal sensation like you’re crawling past some entirely different game. It’s as though Snake is passing through some multiplayer skirmish in a modern war game; it’s an interesting sensation.

Unfortunately, even more than any previous game in the series, the gameplay isn’t the focus of Metal Gear Solid 4, and any interesting ideas it brought with it is left bleeding out in a ditch by the beginning of the third act.

The Bad
Metal Gear Solid 4 sits as an attempt to bring conclusion to Solid Snake’s storyarc, and there’s an attempt to tie up all the lingering loose ends. Perhaps fittingly this means it’s also the most verbally cluttered of all the Metal Gear Solid storylines. The culmination of all the conspiracies, character arcs, and soft science is a tough load to carry, and having sat through every single game in this series, my mind was ready to buckle under the weight of contradictions, retcons, and mangled continuity. I wouldn’t know where to begin in fully analyzing the narrative’s problems; it’s such a tremendous mess that it’s difficult to process.

Even if you were somehow able to swallow every drop of farfetched information that’s constantly poured out of the game’s cutscenes, the series still hasn’t evolved past its inability to convey its story in any sort of succinct or interesting way. It tries, at least. Codec sequences have been cut down significantly, and through the use of setpiece action sequences, the gameplay seems to be reaching out to meet the narrative halfway, but the cutscenes won’t be upstaged. The length of the cinematics have ballooned to such extremes that the game now features mid-cutscene save points, controllable picture-in-picture, and the much needed ability to pause during them. Worse yet, most aren’t even told in an interesting fashion, consisting of nothing more than characters pacing around the room, touching their faces thoughtfully, which is only marginally better than the codec sequences that plagued earlier games.

Pretty much any character who hasn’t died (and even some who have) reappears in Guns of the Patriots to get their storyarcs tied up. Each is given a significant chunk of screen time, whether the role they play in the plot is significant or not, and the result is some of the worst dialogue in the series. Few conversations carry on for long before a switch goes off in somebody’s head and they start talking in sickeningly bad metaphors about some nonsense like lightening shining through the darkness. Some characters pop up for no reason, only to die for sometimes contrived reasons later on, complete with the series’ standard death monologues. Stick around for the very end where every surviving character’s arc is tied up in one super-massive, disgustingly happy ending. Wow, it is really bad and it goes on forever.

What’s worse is that it doesn’t have the same laid back attitude of Snake Eater or the self-awareness of Sons of Liberty. There are clever moments of breaking the forth wall, but most of the time it doesn’t seem to know how ludicrous it really is. The writing seems to be totally in love with itself, devoting a disproportionately massive amount of screen time to blatant fan service and heavy-handed visual metaphor. In such a mad rush to appreciate the series’ long history, it has the inability to focus on any message, theme, or character arc. It doesn’t even provide an appropriate send-off to some key characters. Instead, it constantly props them up for some glorious heroic sequence with no actual purpose for their sacrifice, while less interesting characters are resurrected for some hollow redemption. The writing in general sometimes emits the whiff of fan fiction; far too wrapped up in making its favourite characters look cool to actually tell a fully cohesive story.

Yet even if I discount the storyline entirely from my critique, the gameplay itself suffers from its own problems. It’s insanely schizophrenic, loading you down with tonnes of stealth and combat options before spending over half the game pushing you through action setpieces. From the third chapter onward, Octo-camo might as well have been thrown in a bin since sneaking is rarely required. It’s baffling to see the game suddenly taken up by restrictive objectives and on-rails sections; reduced to gameplay that is barely more interactive than its cutscenes. The whole second half of the game winds up feeling like moments of mindless action sandwiched between excruciatingly long cutscenes, while the game’s stellar stealth is left buried by the onslaught of mind-numbing exposition.

The Bottom Line
I honestly and sincerely hate to spit so much venom at a game, but Metal Gear Solid 4 is the culmination of everything I’ve begun to resent about the series. As I’ve progressed through the Solid series, the many weaknesses in its over-arching story have become more intolerable while the few strengths that it had have become so buried that I sometimes forget that they’re even there. I feel that the biggest reason I detest it so much is because it carries the considerable weight of the previous titles. The cutscenes are bloated beyond reasonable limits, filled to the brim with absolutely ludicrous exposition that attempts to tie up every dangling loose end but only succeeds in punching more holes in a plot that is already more perforated than a Tetley teabag. Even if you could somehow extract the game’s problematic narrative, the gameplay itself is fantastic until it’s mysteriously dropped halfway through in favour of numerous tiresome setpiece moments. It’s BAD. It’s the worst the series has been, and I can only hope that because closure has been given to the overarching plot, future games can begin anew, free of the horrible wreck that has become of its continuity. At least, it can’t possibly get any worse, can it?

PlayStation 3 · by Adzuken (836) · 2015

Konami does another masterpiece

The Good
It's been over 2 years since the game was released. Since I have managed to beat it multiple times, I can confidently say that Metal Gear Solid 4 is one of the best games ever. The first you notice when you play the game are the graphics. They are truely breathtaking. The cutscenes are amazing, and it constantly feels as if you are playing through a movie instead of a game. Moving on to the story, this is where all the Metal Gear Solid game are the best at. This game is divided into various chapters, where each chapter explains more of the storyline. The story is presented in cutscenes, which makes it very addicting to watch, and makes want to know more about it. Looking at the gameplay, Metal Gear Solid has always been a stealth game, and there are many different ways to play it. You can play it as stealth, or as an third person shooter. Unlike Metal Gear Solid 3, where you have to match your environment with your clothes to avoid being seen, here you get something called octo camo, which will change your camo to the surrounding. All in all, I can say that the gameplay is better than it's predecessor.



The Bad
The only thing that let me down, where the install times. Between the acts, there will be install times, which is pretty annoying, even if you can watch snake smoking.

The Bottom Line
I can say that Metal Gear solid 4 is as close to perfection as any game could ever be. From its amazing interaction between the story and gameplay, to the amazingly deep characters and plot, to the much improved stealth and mechanics, to its improvement in graphics and sound. This is a game that I deeply recommend to any PS3 owner.

PlayStation 3 · by Deleted (381) · 2010

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

References

A limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 can be seen next to the kitchen radio during the briefing missions on Snake and Otacon's aerial transport.

Soundtrack

Metal Gear Solid's main musical theme is not present in the game because of legal issues. Russian composers had found it too similar to music written by Georgy Sviridov from the 1970s. Konami was too sensitive about the situation and just decided not to use the music in the game.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2006 – #3 Best Trailer of the Year
    • 2007 – #2 Best Trailer of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2008 – #9 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – #3 PS3 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – PS3 Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2008 – PS3 Action Game of the Year
  • Golden Joystick Awards
    • 2008 - PlayStation Game of the Year

Information also contributed by piltdown man and Sciere.

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Game added by Paul Johnson.

PlayStation Now added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Sciere, MegaMegaMan, Solid Flamingo, —-, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger.

Game added June 26, 2008. Last modified December 5, 2023.