Tactical Espionage Action at it's absolute finest! Perfection.
Graphically it looks gorgeous, with seamlessly intertwined game play and cut scenes and the textures look brilliant, even by today's ultra HD standards it easily holds up, pushing the blue ray disc to breaking point!
People complain about the cut scenes however there is usually always an option to skip through them... But why! Metal Gear Solid 4 has one of the most captivating, edge of your seat brilliant stories told in gaming history so far. The characters are all memorable, the bosses creepy and seductive and the ending scene really gives Snake the send off he deserves. It is a story full of emotions ranging from ecstasy to grief, all in perfect synchronisation.
The game play is flawless, everything is accounted for, you can kill how you want to kill, or you can even chose not too kill at all. Although technically linear the game is so broad in a sense that you have the freedom to play through the levels exactly as you want to.
The weapon customization is great too, allowing you too purchase weapon upgrades, or launder guns to Drebin (a travelling gun launderer) at any time throughout the game. Some say this makes it feel too cheap or easy, being able to do this in the midst of battle, however again the game gives you that choice, it can be as hard as you want it too be, depending on your game style.
The soundtrack and voice acting are both fine tuned and on a grand scale, complimenting the game play and cut scenes with epic compositions for epic battles, light background music, or no sound but your own footsteps during tense stealth missions.
Unfortunately I never got too play Metal Gear Online, but I did hear very good things about it. Either way it was a mere bonus, thrown in to an all round awe inspiring package.
Hideo Kojima has set the bar high with this one, perhaps too high, I will have to wait and see as eagerly await Ground Zeroes for my next fix of stealth action.
(... And Rising Revengance for some epic ninja cyborg showdowns!)