I love the Metal Gear Solid games. Metal Gear Solid was one of the first games I bought with my PS1, and after holding out on the PS2 for over a year, the release of MGS2 had me running out to the local branch of Game. So now I’ve finally got a PS3, MGS4 was a must-play.
Following on from MGS2 (Metal Gear Solid 3 being a prequel that filled in some of the backstory) the action picks up several years later. Snake is suffering from accelerated aging as a result of being a clone, but is pressed back into action when Liquid Ocelot finally resurfaces.
For people familiar with MGS2, you’ll find yourself in familiar territory. The plot is fantastically complicated. I hadn’t played the MGS games in years (thinking about it, possibly a good 8 years or so), so trying to remember everything that happened was a bit of a struggle. I’d played the game through a lot, so most of the stuff about the Patriots I could remember, but I eventually had to cave and check wikipedia to figure out who Sonny was for example. The other stalwart of the series is the long cutscenes. In Metal Gear Solid 1 every boss took about 20 minutes to die, as they had to tell you their life story first. In Metal Gear Solid 2 the cutscenes got even longer, especially in the later parts of the game as Raiden starts to find out about the Patriots and Arsenal Gear.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, there is, at least, one new innovation in the cutscenes. A pause button, and its so very welcome. I remember playing MGS2 and thinking “I’d better switch it off in 5 minutes” only to hit a cutscene and be trapped until it was finished (or risk having to go back to an earlier save). In MGS4, if you hit a cutscene (and some of them are incredibly long – on completing the game, I was sitting for about an hour watching the various cutscenes at the end of the game) you can at least pause it to nip out to the loo, or if you’re replaying you can skip them entirely.
To help make the briefings more interesting, there’s also a really nice level of interactivity. While the main characters are chatting, you can flick to alternate security cameras, or even to the Metal Gear that follows you around in missions and then drive it around the area. Its a really nice feature, that helps underline just how nice the graphics are as these highly-detailed cutscenes are just being rendered on the fly with the graphics engine rather than the pre-rendered scenes you used to get in games.
However, while the cutscenes can sometimes give you the feeling you’re watching the game rather than playing it, what about the gameplay itself?
Well, its classic Metal Gear Solid. Enphasis remains on stealth, but with a few new wrinkles. As opposed to the contained environments of Shadow Moses Island and the Big Shell from the previous games, there’s a much bigger feeling of openness in the areas in this game, and the ways to avoid being detected aren’t always as obvious as a result. Whereas previously there would be a convenient stack of boxes to hide behind, now the scenery doesn’t always lend itself to obvious hiding places. To help compensate though, Snake’s got a new trick in the form of a suit which can automatically change to appropriately camouflage against whatever surface you’re standing beside. Its a nice, dynamic system and again, you can see the camouflage patterns remaining on Snake’s outfit even through the cutscenes which is a nice touch.
The soliton radar from the previous games is absent this time, replaced by a new invention of Otacon’s called the “Solid Eye”. Taking the form of an eyepatch, it provides a new radar system, which while it doesn’t provide the cone of vision of the old radar, does come with various settings, including night vision. The only limitation though, is that using things like night vision will run down its power, leaving you without a radar until it recharges. Also, having the solid eye means that Snake looks that much more like Big Boss, which is a nice touch.
In addition to the solid eye, you also have your own Metal Gear following you around which adds another aspect to the gameplay. Normally its invisible, however you can activate it and use it to access areas Snake is unable to access on his own, or sneak past enemies that Snake wouldn’t have been able to get around. I must admit, playing the game on easy, I didn’t use it a whole lot, but I can see how it could be very useful on the higher difficulty levels, and on my second play through I’m determined to try and get more use out of it.
It goes without saying that the graphics in this game are fantastic, however there’s also a real atmosphere to what’s going on. Whether you’re trying to sneak around the war-torn middle east, follow someone around a city or the climatic fight against Liquid Ocelot these things are perfectly realised, with the final fight especially having a real epic and dramatic quality that you’d expect from the series.
As the conclusion to the Patriots (and most likely Solid Snake’s) storyline, its also nice to see all the returning characters. Most of the MGS cast turn up throughout the game, and Vamp’s storyline from MGS2 is picked up on. However, brilliantly there was also the return to Shadow Moses Island in the fourth act. There was a real nostalgia buzz to being back in those familiar locations and it all builds to you getting to control Metal Gear Rex, which amazingly still works despite the kicking it took in MGS, and then fight Ocelot who’s in MGS2′s Metal Gear Ray. Complete fan service, but so much fun and one of my favourite sequences from the game.
All in all, I really enjoyed the game, but that was always going to be a given. I’m keen to go back and replay it on higher difficulty levels so I get more out of the gameplay now that I’ve seen the cutscenes and know the story. While a side of me still prefers running around facilities like Shadow Moses and the Big Shell to some of the open areas of this game, there’s a lot of new aspects to the gameplay here that I’m looking forward to playing with more.
I am wondering, if we can expect an expanded edition like MGS2 Substance. I always loved the VR missions and that kind of thing. And if they added in some trophies that’d be good. Having played a few games on my PS3 now I missed them popping up.
