Swan song for Snake? Metal Gear Solid 4 is convoluted, complicated and pretentious, but still a lot of fun.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Snake has returned to complete his final mission: settle the score with his 'brother' Liquid Ocelot and stop him from conquering the world. I say 'brother' because Liquid is comprised of Snake's cloned brother's arm grafted onto the body of a former Russian army major, who for some unexplained reason speaks with a South American drawl. Confused? You should be. Metal Gear Solid 4 doesn't bother to provide a back-story, dumping you right into a dense, convoluted and fourth wall-breaking plot that makes very little sense at the best of times. When you are watching in-game movies that can last for forty-five minutes, this is not a good thing. Of course, it is possible to make sense of Metal Gear. It's also possible to chew through a coconut with your teeth, but that doesn't mean you should do it.
The story is one of nano-machines, biotechnological shenanigans and detailed weaponry descriptions. In short: it's a Metal Gear Solid game. I'm sure the story would be very hard-hitting if there were actually nano-machines inside our bodies that limit our abilities to act of our own volition, but since we live on Earth and not Fantasy Land it goes down faster than a priest delivering a sermon to a room full of atheists. That said, it ties up a lot of loose threads that have been running throughout the series and provides a satisfactory conclusion for Metal Gear fans.
There is but one target audience for Metal Gear Solid 4; people who have played every previous game in the series and analysed every facet of their plot. There are no tutorials or hints beyond a bare explanation of what button on the controller does what. It's like travelling back to 1998, when you were expected to read through the instructions before playing a game. It borders on unacceptable when a game of this calibre lacks any kind of handholding for newcomers- if you think I'm being unnecessarily harsh here, two games that do provide a comprehensive back-story before playing are Metal Gear Solid and its sequel. For the record, I've played most of the first two games and didn't have a bloody clue what was going on until several trips to Wikipedia later. Where Metal Gear Solid was a collection of clever set pieces connected with cut-scenes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is collection of lengthy cut-scenes stapled together with fragments of game.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is so heavy on narrative that it squashes the underlying game like a fat man riding a child's bicycle. There are at least 12 hours of cut-scenes here; many of them dull and some with little bearing on the plot. The worst part is that the game teases you with fleeting moments of action before thrusting you headlong into hours upon hours of cinematic tedium. However, support is included to listen to the codec sequences with a Bluetooth headset and give your eyes a rest. Thanks for caring, Kojima!
When you get to play the game, you'll find Metal Gear Solid 4 is actually very enjoyable. On the surface it seems like a lot has changed: much-needed improvements in the weapon aiming and camera system turns it into Metal Gears of War, complete with cover mechanics and grenade lobbing fun. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here; Metal Gear on MSX2 was the grandfather of the stealth genre and Metal Gear Solid 4 still emphasises 'tactical espionage action' above all else. Even though it's fun to tear through soldiers with assault rifles, you'll eventually resort to hiding in bins and cowering under masonry to avoid the enemy soldiers. Luckily Snake has a myriad of gadgets to achieve this ranging from the Octocamo, camouflaging Snake in any nearby surface, to the wonderful Mk2 robot, which is controlled in a stroke of genius by a Playstation controller. The problem is that due the ease of tackling enemies with guns, there's plenty of emphasis on action but not nearly enough on tactical espionage.
There is a constant juxtaposition of cutting edge technology with dated game mechanics. The more soldiers you kill, the faster you come to the realisation that they are going to continually re-spawn until the end of time. Metal Gear Solid 4 puts heavy emphasis on how your actions mould the battlefield. Except… they don't. Soldiers will spawn in the middle of doorways constantly until you run out of ammunition or patience; blow up a helicopter with a rocket launcher and another will rise up to take its place. With the mind-boggling stupidity of the game's artificial 'intelligence' and inconsistent approaches to level design like invisible walls and invincible enemies, Metal Gear Solid 4 feels like a 1998 game stuffed into a 2008 graphics engine.
A mention deserves to be made of the truly stunning graphics in Metal Gear Solid 4, which is a good thing considering how long you'll be looking at them without doing anything. The motion-captured animation and superlative special effects really show off what the Playstation 3 can accomplish. It matters little whether the graphics are often pre-rendered movies or generated in real-time, when they are very impressive either way. The accompanying soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams is, truth be told, better than the game itself. It will occupy a special place on my iPod longer after the game itself has been left in a box in the attic.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the best game ever made. It's not even the best Metal Gear game ever made. It's a shame to see some genuinely thrilling and entertaining action lost in a tribute to the majesty of one man's ego and many hours of downright boredom. Although there's just too much narrative to take in, the dialogue is peppered with in-jokes and uniformly excellent voice acting. It simply could have used about 4 hours of scenes being cut out.
Ask yourself the question: do you like playing games? Or would you rather sit and watch a very long movie instead, with bits of game in between to break it up? If you answered with the latter, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the game for you. Everyone else should approach with caution, or perhaps just hide under a cardboard box until the hype subsides.