Metal Gear franchise has been around for a while, but I have only played the latest one, Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots. Not knowing the back story is a good thing for this review, unbiased, and not one sided, strictly reviewing the game and not the franchise.

I am getting the graphics department out of the way right away. Yes it looks VERY good, sometimes you may think you are watching discovery or a movie. And the cut scenes look just as good because while you’re frying an egg or drinking some rum, you think you can just reach into your TV and grab a drink.
Not knowing the back story and other games doesn’t have as much as an impact as you may think. Kojima has integrated things called “Flashbacks” with a dozen taps of the “Triangle” you will quickly get flashes of the back story, in cases where the back story is needed to understand a joke, who someone is, or what the person is talking about. The story itself (for your protection I will not mention any names or events which partake in the game), Metal Gear has by far one of the best stories in any game so far. Not knowing the story, I still felt compelled to finish the game, and quickly figure out, or do what I needed to do to get to the next part. The acting and voice-overs are impeccable; they did an excellent job translating, you never get that feeling of watching a really bad foreign film. Now this takes me to one of the bad parts. In Metal Gear solid, you better like the acting or you are going to have the worst experience. Metal Gear, just like their trailers, has the longest cut scenes ranging anywhere from 5-20 minutes. This is a good thing since staring at High poly, HD characters never looked so good and there’s Oscar winning acting to boot. However, the game doesn’t last long – I finished it within a weekend, and if I skipped the cut scenes probably in one day.

Metal Gear Solid has very unique game play. Having played Splinter Cell, I have to admit that having a camo-suite is a blessing, but when it gets out of hand you know your playing a game. For example, when you use the camo-suite, you have a percentage of camouflage, meaning how easily you can be spotted, when you reach 99% you are just a blade of grass to the AI, but when you hit negative 99% , you light up like a Christmas tree, and even enemies which were far away will somehow know your position. Having the ability to go from 99% to –99% very quickly due to changing terrain or firing a shot can pose a very real and annoying threat. While playing on easier levels, you may be able to get away and heal yourself, then come around a pop a couples guys but while playing on the harder difficulty you may die in a matter of two shots. Be prepared to spend a good 5 minutes looking around before you even take the first shot. Shooting in any game has never felt this good, where one-shot-one-kill is achievable. Unlike Call of Duty the hit detection is dead on, where a head shot is death, and getting shot in the leg will make you feel crippled. Along with the good hit detection, you have an assortment of weapons to detect, like AK, M-16, and the usual pistols, but there are also special guns, which I won’t mention. Metal Gear gives you the opportunity to customise weapons, but the down side is that you only have one weapon which you can HIGHLY customise (M-16) and the rest you can add the usual knick-knacks, like a silencer and a laser. However, with the M-16 you can add a grenade launcher, shot-gun attachment, flash-light, and scopes. While you can do all these things in Metal Gear while playing the mission and getting yourself to the boss, you may not even have to push the trigger once. The game does a very good job of playing out the way you want. You want to go Rambo, spray and pray, the game allows you to do that – just make sure you have the enough food left to heal you. But if you are the patient type, you don’t mind spending a good 5 minutes scoping out the land and scoping out your path, the MGS lets you do that as well. Unlike other games, Metal Gear has a population, where if you kill everyone, everyone is dead, there isn’t going to be an army just around the corner again or people popping up behind you. If you do get killed by a sneaky enemy then it was your own fault. In true Metal Gear fashion, MGS4 has dozens of puzzles to solve, while pumping lead into one boss may do something, you may have to figure out a different way to kill the others. Having the Marc II comes in very handy. The Marc II is a little robot which you can control and move around to see around corners without giving yourself away. While I used the Marc II to scope out the situation, you can also use if for incapacitating the enemy. You can knock out enemies on your own as well by taking them hostage or doing other “things”. The hand-to-hand combat in MGS is very deep because you have to press the aim trigger to shoot your weapon, but if you press the trigger without aiming you will do a melee attack. You can get up behind your enemy to hold them hostage or hold them up and take their belongings.

Now Multiplayer, Metal Gear solid has a very in-depth multiplayer. Having the ability to customize your weapons, upgrade your skills, and rank up to play better opponents is excellent. First let’s start with the customizing. Customizing in MGS is not persistent, meaning if you personalize your gun, the next time you play it will not be in the same state. You will have to restart your customization every game, you will have to earn points and upgrade your weapon every single game. While this may be fine for some people, having played Call of Duty, this feels very annoying for me and I just didn’t bother upgrading anymore, I just buy a few things likes pistols and grenades, and when I can buy a better gun I will do so, but I will not buy a scope or attachments, since doing so will drain my points fast. Skills are also used in this game, like Call of Duty’s percs, skills are just character based. For example, if you want to snipe, roll with “Sniper”, if you want to use an assault class, use “Assault”. Then there are other skills, like having the ability to see the enemies you have shot or seen, being able to throw a grenade further, or being good at close-quarters-combat; in total you can have 5 skills. Ranking up is self explanatory, as you kill more you gain rank, the higher your rank the more difficult and better opponents you will have, and trust me, you will notice when you rank up. Jumping from slaughtering everyone to being on the bottom of the pack occurs within one game. Shooting aspects and moving controls is all the same as single player.

Raping all this up, this game is a must buy for fans, and a most rent for all PS3 owners. This game will definitely keep you up all night and will having you wanting more. Do to the lack of single-player, this game is only a rent for those of you who are stuck with offline gaming. The videos you see online where people finishing MGS in one hour is no joke - the game is very short, but you will have a blast, short and sweet.