Having played through it twice now, I can make a semi-decent review. If you don't want to read this massive review, just read the tl;dr version at the bottom. I've tried to make this as spoiler free as possible, and possible spoilers have been spoiler tagged-out.

I'll start with the story. As with all other Metal Gear Solid games, the story is a complicated clusterfuck that generally requires constant revisits/Metal Gear Wiki inquiry and even a few replays of past games to fully understand. While in Metal Gear Solid, this wasn't an issue because there were only 2 previous games to revisit, Metal Gear Solid 4's problem is that it tries to revisit every past game, randomly, and expects you to immediately click with everything it says. The story is very well written, especially for shooter (yes, shooter) standards, however the problem is that it throws too much at you, especially midway through, with constant cutscenes, codec calls, and flashbacks (which are arguably too quick to make out half the time) being thrown at you for every area you clear.

Graphics wise, it's not what I had thought from the first trailer many, many years ago, but it's still good. Tiny details, like 40mm grenade casings, shell casings, and your character reloading with a nonempty magazine reloading and ejecting the chambered around, make it fairly good.

Gameplay wise, it's what you'd expect from a Metal Gear game. Stealth is useful, but only for getting the drop on your enemy before you eventually kill them. Obviously it is possible to go through the game without a single alert or kill, but where's the fun in that? Konami didn't put 77+ weapons in the game so you could dick around with traqs and camo the whole damn time. As stated, weapons are numerous, but one will provide little advantage over its alternative; 1-3 shots to the head with anything generally kills most enemies. Some aspects of the gameplay do see heavily improved; the over-the-shoulder view for the weapons makes aiming much simpler, and the addition of Drebins shop is also welcomed.

However, on the issue of Drebins shop, I personally believe its implementation RUINED a lot of the game, not because of its presence, but because of HOW it was implemented. Now you can easily buy ammo at ANY point in the game, bossfight or not. Where is the ammo conservation found in older MGS games then? Nowhere to be seen. It only adds to the shooter aspect of this iteration of the series. I would have preferred it only be in between acts, at LEAST on higher difficulty settings, but noooooo, wherever you are, you can buy ammo for any of your guns, easy and cheap. Takes a lot of the skill away from the game.

I'm currently playing through The Boss Extreme (hardest difficulty setting) and you can literally play it like a shooter, with (virtually) unlimited ammo from Drebins shop, and the addition of shooter-like controls, stealth is no longer required, which greatly saddens me.

Boss fights are also meh. The Beauty and the Beast unit (BBU from hereon out) aren't the most creative bosses, with the exception of Screaming Mantis. Unlike past games, Kojima found it neccisary to make all the BBU a combination/remake of old bosses.

Some examples (spoiler warnings all around):


To be honest, the whole game feels like constant nostalgia-bait. There seems to be little new, or rather, lots of old rehashes, from the boss fights, to the chase scenes, to the final boss fight.

The ONE bossfight that was totally unexpected and amazing, however was;

Although it is certainly fun, and if you play for the fun of playing, rather than skill, you can still play it like the old games, sneaking around, knocking out and interrogating foes, although it isn't any longer required.

I attribute most of these flaws to Kojima shooting for mainsteam appeal and the Western fanbase, and frankly, overshooting the mark. It's no longer tactical espionage action, but rather tactical shooter action.

So overall (tl;dr version):

Story
Classic Kojima clusterfuck, certain to appeal to fans, but also certain to confuse any newcomers to the series.
7.5/10

Graphics
Good, not impressive (likely due to the PS3's lacking a decent GPU), but good. Lots of tiny details.
7.5/10

Gameplay
Decent, some new aspects ruin the original aim of the series, but still fun for the short while it lasts (cutscenes making about half the playtime).
7.5/10

OVERALL:7.5/10

Note that for the record, yes it's all 7.5, and no it isn't due to my hatred of math, it's simply how I actually believe it to be. Simple and effective.

so now that you have played it longer than 15 minutes you dont hate it lol... suprising...

Side_Scroll'R Wrote:so now that you have played it longer than 15 minutes you dont hate it lol... suprising...

Did I ever say I hated it? From what I remember, I've always mentioned it as one of the only reasons, besides LBP, to own a PS3. It IS disappointing, as past iterations have been far better games.

yes the Amo shop thing ruined alot of skill =/
And srrsly its just to many Cut scenes xP Maybe its fun if you know alot about the series but it is confusing for me.

SnakeTheFox Wrote:Did I ever say I hated it?

No, but that's defiantly the impression you gave off. :P

Besides I heard the Screaming Mantis is pretty much a rehash of Mantis from MGS

DeathNoteL Wrote:

SnakeTheFox Wrote:Did I ever say I hated it?

No, but that's defiantly the impression you gave off. :P

Besides I heard the Screaming Mantis is pretty much a rehash of Mantis from MGS

My hatred was directed at the cesspool of fanboys calling it the "Game of the Millennium" when it just turned into a decent third person shooter.

Anyhow,