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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released on June 12th, a little over three months ago. Within a week of its release, reviews flooded the net. Now that it's been out for a quarter of a year and the initial hype has died down, we bring you the official OMG Metal Gear review.

There are spoilers in this review, but the game has been out for long enough that I would think someone who goes to a site called OMG Metal Gear would have picked it up already.

Hardly "Passive"

Reviewing Metal Gear Solid 4 is no easy task. Not just because of how huge of an event it is - though that certainly doesn't help - but because of the game's overall style. Gears of War 2 design director Cliff Blezinski recently called Metal Gear Solid "passive" entertainment. While I think that's an exaggeration, there is some truth to the comment. Metal Gear Solid plays like an interactive movie and Guns of the Patriots takes this concept to new heights with hours of cutscenes and an ending that's nearly 40 minutes, not including all of the credits.

This type of game isn't for everyone. Some people will always prefer non-stop action ala Gears of War over the slower, more story-driven gameplay of series like Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. While I enjoy action, I definitely lean towards storytelling, and for this reason Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is one of the best games I've ever played, hands down.

Kojima mentioned in an interview a while back that he sees Snake as aging in real-time. It definitely feels this way, as now he looks like a beaten, haggard old man. Though his appearance is due to his rapid aging, it still serves as a reminder of how long it's been since we've seen him. I was still in high school when Sons of Liberty came out and this feels like reuniting with an old friend. Cheesy as it may sound, due to Kojima's amazing writing and touching depiction of Snake, I've never felt more connected to a video game character, and I can't be the only one who feels this way. You aren't playing Snake on his last mission, you're accompanying him.

My major beef with referring to Metal Gear Solid as "passive entertainment" is that it ignores its unparalleled stealth gameplay that is nearly perfected with MGS4. The camouflage system that was introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is back, but the inclusion of Octo Camo - digital camo that takes on the color of your surroundings - makes it less of a pain in the ass and more of truly innovative feature. There are still moments where suspension of disbelief is necessary, such as when a guard walks directly past a man-shaped 3D object that matches the color of the street without so much as a glance backwards. That said, the series has definitely come leaps and bounds from its first outing, where every enemy soldier was plagued with such terrible eyesight that nothing short of a slap in the face would get their attention. The radar system has finally been perfected. It gives you a rough outline of your surrounding area but still forces you to move slow and cautious to avoid detection. The circle surrounding your radar dot, which shows how close guards can get before spotting you, was a nice touch. The same can be said about the circle surrounding Snake that distorts to show you the direction of nearby guards.

Stealth vs. Shooting

While I chose the stealth route, it's entirely possible to run and gun through nearly the entire game, though this approach is significantly harder. I watched a friend play through parts of the game and his impatience forced him to run into situations guns blazing and needless to say he died a lot more than I did. While the difficulty definitely ramps up, the option is still there and my friend was more than able to complete the game while pretty much kicking stealth to the curb.

The CQC system has been tweaked as well, giving you a few new moves. One of the most useful moves is the ability to run up to a guard and quickly throw him to the ground, resulting in a quick knockout. Searching an enemy for items is now done by patting them down, which makes much more sense than them simply shaking their items to the ground. The more detailed combat works to up the realism and the character animations look remarkable, especially when performing the new disarm move. This is the best looking game on the Playstation 3 in a number of ways.

The weapon handling is even better than before, with a few new techniques at your disposal. My favorite new feature is the ability to roll onto your back from a crawling position and open fire on enemies behind you. While Drebin is far from my favorite character (Snake doesn't seem to like him, either), if his presence means dozens of new weapons, then I'm all for it. The Drebin Points system, where you earn points for picking up fallen guns, allows you to purchase weapons, ammo, and accessories in his shop. You can access his shop at any time from the pause menu and load up. Some may argue that it's unrealistic, and they'd be right; it doesn't make any sense at all. But that doesn't matter. Forcing players to scrounge for ammunition would only detract from the main focus of the game and I welcome the convenience of a traveling arms dealer.

The End is the Beginning...is the End?

The boss battles climb in difficulty quite nicely, as I found Laughing Octopus surprisingly easy and my first encounter with Screaming Mantis made me want to rip my hair out. Despite my initial reactions, the boss battles are fantastic. The ones that require "special tactics" are very well done, forcing you to think while never getting frustrating. After defeating each of the B & B Squad, an excellent throwback to the original Metal Gear Solid, Drebin would call you up on the codec to supply you with that boss's backstory. Some of the stories got pretty outrageous, but the Metal Gear Solid series has always been larger than life in some ways, so it never pulled me out of the story.

As a whole, Metal Gear Solid 4 is nothing short of remarkable. You've heard people call it the best Metal Gear Solid game yet and the best game on the Playstation 3, and these are both true. While the story can get a little over the top and confusing, which is practically a staple of the series, everything wraps up nicely by the ending credits. Of course I want more Metal Gear, but if it were to never happen (which we already know isn't true), I wouldn't be disappointed by my experiences with MGS4. From the shock we got when we first saw Old Snake to the last brutal battle to the death with Liquid, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a fitting ending to a phenomenal series.

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