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Review Scores

VGChartz Score
9.5
                         

Ratings

     

Alternative Names

メタルギアソリッド4 ガンズ・オブ・ザ・パトリオット

Developer

Kojima Productions

Genre

Action-Adventure

Release Dates

06/12/08 Konami
06/12/08 Konami
06/12/08 Konami

Community Stats

Owners: 1,996
Favorite: 208
Tracked: 27
Wishlist: 42
Now Playing: 41
 
9

Avg Community Rating:

 

Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)

By Karl Koebke 23rd Jun 2008 | 17,774 views 

One of the most highly anticipated games of the PS3, but was it worth the wait?

Hype is a strange thing. It can kill a game that was decent by creating high expectations before the game is even out. This has made many a disappointing game seem even worse because it had been hyped as a great game for so long. There is a positive side to hype though. When you spend months waiting for a game and hyping it up to be amazing, and the game actually delivers then you have one of the best gaming experiences you could ask for. I’m happy to say that Metal Gear Solid 4 lives up to its hype and delivers in almost every possible aspect.

In Metal Gear Solid 4 you play as Solid Snake, a covert operative that has been the main character for most of the Metal Gear Solid series. The storyline is the culmination of all of those previous games, so I highly suggest that you watch one of the story recaps to better get your head around all the characters and throwbacks you’ll be seeing while playing the game. The storyline is most definitely worth the effort, although highly confusing at points, and it is easily one of the most involved and interesting stories in recent gaming. The story is mainly told through cut scenes, during which you’ll be given the option to see flashbacks by pressing “x” or to look through Snake’s eyes by holding “L1” which often shows off just how much of a lecher Snake really is. With those options in mind, there is still an awful lot of watching in this game, and if that isn’t your cup of tea then this game might not be your thing, although given the quality of the game itself I suggest toughing it out or just skipping the cut scenes.


                                           Our hero being all dark and brooding and emo.

Some new features to the Metal Gear Solid world make their debut in Metal Gear Solid 4, and all of them really add something to the game itself. On the gunplay side of the game, you now have the ability to customize your weapons. At first this seems like an unnecessary addition, but I actually found it amazingly useful for changing up my favorite gun (the M4) for different situations. These customizations are either found on the ground, or bought from a mysterious gun vendor called Drebin, from whom you can also buy an assortment of weapons, ammo, and certain items. On the sneaking side of things you now have what is called “Octocamo”, which basically is an automatic system for using the same camouflage system used in Metal Gear Solid 3. During Metal Gear Solid 4 you will usually be wearing a suit that will automatically change appearances to camouflage you with your surroundings when you are pressed up against a surface and wait for around two seconds. Not only does this mechanic allow simple designs like grass or snow patterns such as were possible in Metal Gear Solid 3, but it also allows for some very interesting patterns when you are camouflaged into carpet or a steel grate. The suit can remember two patterns from wherever you care to take them from, which you can set the suit to manually along with several other preset options. Personally I saved a pattern from a steel grating and a tile floor.

The presentation of Metal Gear Solid 4 is near flawless. From a technical standpoint, the menus were simple and easy to manage, the game had no bugs that I ever noticed and everything just had a polish to it that you don’t often see in games. Beyond the game looking polished, it’s the little additions in the menus like a camera of what’s happening at your HQ at all times, and the Japanese symbols included before the English words on the menu that makes everything seem so perfectly well thought out. There was nothing menu wise that I thought I should be able to do but couldn’t. The only technical hiccup I ever noticed was a single guard that didn’t seem to know where I was even though everyone was on alert and there were many people already shooting at me. A single mishap in a 26 hour play through is nothing to write home about however, so I’m not really going to worry about that. There are a good number of loading times between areas, none more than 5 seconds to my recollection, and the game took a very strange route for its install times. There is a large install time (around 10 min.) at the beginning, and there are also smaller (around 2-3 min.) install times between acts. None of these were really an issue for me, but I can see where one might get annoyed by it, especially if they wanted to switch between acts a few times for whatever reason.

The visual presentation is very often breath taking, especially during the cut scenes and certain unforgettable moments of the actual gameplay. My only gripe is that the shadows during the cutscenes are very jaggy and it is actually fairly noticeable at points. That is an incredibly small problem though, and may not even be an issue for most. All in all the game looks beautiful.

The audio presentation of the game grabs you right from the main menu with one of my new favorite musical scores from gaming. The ambient noise works well during all of the sections of the game, and is especially noticeable during times when you are sneaking through a live battlefield. The songs are memorable and at points old songs from the MGS series are used to help the gamer remember a certain fight or event in the previous games of the series. The use of the old songs is incredibly nostalgic and really adds to the atmosphere of some sections of the game.

The gameplay is amazingly varied and gives you an incredible amount of choice for a decidedly linear game. During Metal Gear Solid 4 your job will usually be to get from one point to another. The great part about this is the number of ways that you can actually get to that point. If you feel like sneaking that’s certainly an option, with all kinds of different paths for you to take. On the other hand, if you’re a more violent type then you can run in guns blazing and just dash your way to your objective. The choice is yours and isn’t even kept to those two major choices since you can easily find a happy medium between the two. Personally I enjoy sniping, so during these sections I would often sneak through an area on my stomach and take out anyone that got in my way from afar with my silenced M4. Along with the aforementioned sections of gameplay, there are also boss fights and other random sections that you play that couldn’t accurately defined as shooter or sneaking. I am honestly impressed with the amount of polish that these sections got while being such small parts of the game. None of them really came across as a minigame, but instead a story driven section of the game that you got to play. Almost like a playable cut scene. All in all the gameplay was amazingly fun, with an amount of choice and diversity in what you do that I rarely see.


                                            Perhaps my favorite boss in the game.

The value of Metal Gear Solid 4 is far past the sixty dollars that you will spend to play it. Along with the main game, which can take upwards of 30 hours to play through the first time, you’ll also be given ample reason to play through again on harder difficulties (which I’m probably going to start doing myself fairly soon) as well as multiplayer options through Metal Gear Online. The online aspect of the game is a lot of fun, but my only gripe is that there didn’t really seem to be any game modes where sneaking was encouraged. Perhaps I just haven’t found these game modes, but until I do there will definitely be something missing from Metal Gear Online for me.

Overall this game is an incredible experience and a definite must have for any PS3 owner. Even if you’ve never played a Metal Gear Solid game before, I still suggest reading up on the storyline and picking this game up, you won’t be disappointed. That is actually exactly what I did since I had only played Metal Gear Solid 3 before playing the fourth installment in the series, so it is definitely possible to catch up on the story without too much effort.


VGChartz Verdict


9.5
Outstanding

Read more about our Review Methodology here

Shipping Total

6,000,000 Units
As of: May 2014

Opinion (1871)

Rob5VGC posted 03/11/2016, 07:09
We're back at this 5.99 thing, huh?
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Shikamo posted 14/01/2016, 11:37
ops 6M! haha
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Shikamo posted 14/01/2016, 11:36
GM! Deserves this! definitively my favorite ps3 exclusive so far ^^
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Rob5VGC posted 07/01/2016, 02:06
Why is it at 5.99m now? You mean to tell us it was overtracked?
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b00moscone posted 12/12/2015, 12:02
First year sales in Japan "666,006", hide yo kids.
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korn62586 posted 01/12/2015, 07:41
This is one of the BEST games ever made!
I'm happy it'll be (probably by the end of this year) the best selling game in the Metal Gear series.
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