Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots [Review]

It feels so rewarding to follow a series of games and see how the story ends. To see so many open threads being carefully finished with impressive attention, almost all the times being fulfilling and well done, with one of the best action adventure games that was ever made. This was Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for me.

So far, the Metal Gear Solid series was a mix of future-proof gameplay and narrative ideas. It is a bunch of games committed to tell a story with memorable characters and unique gameplay. Clearly growing up with technology, with the first two being more arcade-ish and the third one more realistic, MGS:4 mixes both styles of gameplay: the maps are surprisingly vertical like 2, with rations and simple healing/gearing like 1, but more action sequences and better gun fight like 3. While each prior game felt that was trying to “compromise” something to achieve other things, the final chapter of the franchise adds everything on the gameplay together, stitching a masterful, concise and balanced experience, with gorgeous maps, very intelligent enemies and great exploration overall.

Everything is very well done. Be it the way Snake moves or how the maps are displayed and organized, the gameplay on MGS:4 is fantastic because it nails so many aspects of Metal Gear, and makes the player that played the previous three games feel like a god, as every mechanic is just perfected stuff that appeared in the other games, so there's a feeling of progression on the gameplay and I really loved playing them in release order for the first time for this marathon.

Every map has more than one way of traversing to the objective. And not always the paths are equally easy, so dying and trying again is super common, since this is by far the hardest game in the series. Snake moves joyfully really, finally we can walk while crouching or aiming in first person, and enemies will also walk and run in realistically ways. Every enemy formation and group makes sense, they talk to each other, help each other, look for places, and it feels that they use the same tools as Snake has, or at least some of them, to find me if I ever make a wrong noise. While in the previous games the stealth was good, enemies were a bit static sometimes, and it is not a problem in 4. Snake also can climb more, go to weirder places and if it feels if I thought that something would be possible, it will be: most of the things presented to the player are relevant, even the minor ones.

Every aspect of the scenario matters as now Snake can use special camo tech to disappear in any kind of area and surface, including his headgear, so taking the time to analyze the area and think what to do is key to be able to go to the next stage with enough health items. Ammo and guns aren't an issue here, as I had access to a store to buy any of them whenever I wanted on the pause menu, but health and recovery items are a rarity, and given enemies strength, most of the time doesn't matter how well equipped I was, the enemies were capable of killing me with no sweat. And what enemies! Metal Gear Solid 4 has the best bosses in the series on the gameplay front, with so many battles, all of them mixing different aspects of the franchise to present something new and many times frantic and hard. The mechanics are spot on, the arenas are impressive, and many fights are challenging and fun.

Guns can now be customized with mods and different from other games that have something similar, these said mods often are only a net positive, so it is always nice to find a weapon that support mods, and finding rare ones is always nice. I think I wish more weapons had this feature. Even considering so many systems, MGS:4 cuts all the bloat, there isn't anything that is overly difficult on the gameplay, the menus are easy to navigate, the commands are an evolution of 3 (so even more similar to any other modern game, but better), there's a good auto-save feature and save anywhere as well.

This “everything is here” feeling of the gameplay repeats with the story: everyone is here! Every story and plot point opened in the previous 3 games are almost dutifully answered, with bombastic set pieces and long cutscenes that try their best to accommodate so many open threads. I was super happy to see characters returning, like Maryl, Eva and Mei Ling. And while I loved Maryl on the first game, I liked ok Eva on the 3rd: here I absolutely love her, she's amazing as every other returning character. There's a problem, though, with non-important characters: lots of empty and honestly gross fan service on some villains characterizations, and some (at least, not many) gross moments with women overall. Because of the other strong, nice, full-fledged complete women that the game presents, this issue is less felt, but it is still there, and tarnishes a bit of a great story with some icky character designs “stored” for generic enemies. Unfortunately, although with great fights, these said shitty generic and overtly sexual character designs appear in some bosses of the game, that have maybe the only contrast of quality in the whole experience of MGS:4 between their character design and gameplay.

The longest game of the series so far, I wish it had more of everything, only because it was so fun, not because it lacked them: MGS:4 is packed, has more weapons, stages, game modes, enemies variety and collectibles than any other game of the series so far, in worldwide travel that goes to so many places and vistas. Immense surprises and nice twists both in gameplay and story kept me going relentlessly, wanting to advance and see how almost every plot point raised in the previous games were being solved. During my playthrough I changed how I felt about many characters, and always for the better, even ones that were overtly shoehorned in and felt like retcons at first.

It is hard not to love Metal Gear Solid 4. It is easy, though, to ignore the three previous games and play this one thinking that it will be enough: it is not. Every game of this series is better because of what happened before. MGS:4 is great because it pays off the commitment of playing what came before, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, knowing that it all ends here. Amazing experience, necessary for everyone that has a slight interest in the series.

MGS:4 is not accessible, though. It is a PlayStation 3 only game. I played this game on RPCS3 under GNU/Linux (Ryzen+Nvidia) and it ran flawlessly, in 4k with FSR and 60 fps. It was a somewhat difficult setup, but after some trial and error, it worked. So of course that everything that I felt with this game was regarding this “improved” emulated version that I've come across. I'm sure that when Konami re-releases this game will be with similar if not improved execution, and for that, I'll be there to play it again.

10/10

P.S: AI's to control feelings, images, sounds, and emotions of humans is the first step to AI control of the battlefield. The aim of modern, real world AI is to become part of war capitalism. MGS:4 makes the point clear, and it is foretelling what is starting to happen right now.

All the captures here are from IGDB.