Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Let me start by saying this game has a mature rating and is not intended for gamers under seventeen. With that said let us begin, shall we? Six years ago there was an incident called "Big Shell" and since then the world has become dependant on war. Enter solid Snake, an aging special agent with clone body thrown into the fire for one last hoorah. His mission: to terminate his twin brother, Liquid Ocelot. But wait...didn't his brother die in part one? Yes! His spirit, will, and drive have been infused with another named, Revolver Ocelot. If Solid Snake fails at his mission, the armies of the PCM will seize control of the free world. Aided by his good friend, Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, Solid Snake accepts his mission and goes of to save the world. Should I continue with the story or move to the gameplay? I'll move to the gameplay.

The controls for MGS$ are some of the smoothest around. The story is a free reign game, which means you have complete control of how you wish to proceed. This is a feature, I for one, love...as I often find myself delving off track. The style of gameplay is also left up to the gamer. You can go John Wayne style with your guns blazing....or, you can go James Bond style and slip past your enemies. Regardless of which style you choose to incorporate, the game will adjust to you. This is by far the best game thus released for the PS3 and if I had just one knock against it, it would be that it's a tad short. Other than that, this is the game that will keep you busy for one hundred plus hours.

The game is awesome, the the graphics are incredible, the action is superb, the improved controls are great and the story is exciting... there is no doubt that is one of the best games i've ever played! The reason i put 4 stars and not 5 is because of the cinematics: most of them are very long and sometimes very booring too. But that doesn't keep the game to be very enterteining.

SPOILER!!!: Going back to Shadow Moses Island with all this new graphics is something that i will never forget!

This game is heavy on the visual, light on the gameplay. When I buy a game I'm looking for an interactive experience. That's the difference between buying a video game and a movie. If you want to watch, buy this game. If you want to actually play a game, stay away from this one. The cut scenes can be up to an hour long. Sometimes, you have a 20 minute cut scene, followed by a 45 minute cut scene, followed by a 35 minute cut scene. I mean, it's totally ridiculous. I got so annoyed at waiting to play that I stopped and won't continue.

This game is a bit of a mess for a couple of reasons.

(1) Not enough gameplay. There's 7.5 hours of actual, hands to the controller, gameplay here. The rest is spent watching movies. These cutscenes are VERY VERY long -- sometimes up to 30-50 minutes a piece, then a brief bit of gameplay, followed by another 20-30 minutes of gameplay. The few gameplay segments there are are kind of interesting. For example, you'll need to use night-vision to follow footprints to lead you to a kidnapped hostage. However, the enemy has left decoy footprints, and you need to determine which footprints are real, and which are decoys -- the game will eventually give you a hint: the heavier the person, the deeper the footprint will be.

There's also a segment where you need to follow a resistance member of an underground society through a city. It takes about 15 minutes but can be kind of fun -- you need to avoid being seen and rescue him when he's briefly detained.

The other gamplay segments are boss fights. These are at least original, if a little weird. In this game, you have a camoflage suit that automatically adapts to your surroundings; so if you are up against grass, your suit will automatically morph to look like grass. The first boss in the game also has this ability, and will camouflage itself to ambush you. Kind of cool.

But there's just too little here.

(2) Story is just wierd. I don't want to insult Japan, where this game was made, but this culture is just not suited for America. The characters will talk for hours about things that even they admit doesn't really matter. You will see cutscenes about characters cooking eggs. Totally pointless. Also, there are really dumb attempts at humor. And the plot itself is just convoluted and assumes you know everything about the last three games -- and even then, it's just bizarre. There is a reason this guy is making videogames and not movies.

As an example, there are vampires that are basically invincible, ninjias with white super blood, women who never wear bras, special ops commandos with bowel problems, clones, an antidote to a virus FOXDIE that is called FOXALIVE (how clever) some woman with like eight tentacles who laughs a lot, etc etc.

It's all surreal and very strange. Not easy or fun to follow. And it's not because it's high brow or intelligent..it's just incoherent and weird.

So, not worth it. Tons of production values, but I wish it had been more intelligently designed.

People hate it because of the movie like length but that's what helps end the Metal Gear Saga. It's like an epic adventure and the length is definitely needed. I have been lucky enough to be at the end of movie scenes when I needed to leave or quit playing but who knows. I am going to play through a couple more times after I beat it(I'm on Act 4).