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We had our first ever Tri-Annual ShowCast™ yesterday. Had a lot of fun, aside from lag and people acting stupid in the chat. Hopefully we’ll make a regular event of it.

Game Info

Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Konami
Release Date: June 12, 2008
Genre: Action/Adventure/”Stealth”(HA!)
Available Platforms: PS3
Modes: Single Player (includes “Metal Gear Online” for multiplayer, which will not be reviewed in this article)
Reviewer’s Experience: Played through the Campaign

Metal Gear Solid is a long-lived Action/Adventure series developed by Hideo Kojima. The “4th” entry in the series, called “Guns of the Patriots”, puts you in control of Old Snake: a young soldier who has suffered the results of rapid aging, causing him to bear the semblance of an old man. Snake’s mission is to find the man called “Liquid Snake”, and to stop him from taking over the world! In between Snake and Liquid lies hundreds of mercenaries and a handful of massive mechanical foes who all must be dispatched for Snake to succeed.

Gameplay:

The game supposedly centers around employing stealth to reach your objective, but the need to use stealth is not really necessary at all past the first level. Soon after the start of the game you are awarded a tranquilizer pistol with infinite ammo. In one shot, an enemy will be snoozing on the floor. By some rare chance another enemy actually notices his unconscious buddy on the ground, he’ll stumble over to it and stare at it for a good 10 seconds before actually doing anything… which gives you plenty of time to put him to sleep as well.
If, for some reason, you don’t want to use this tranquilizer pistol on every enemy in the game, never fear, because old man snake is able to hold and use all kinds of different weapons: from M4s to Javelin Missiles. For an old man, he sure is able to carry a TON of stuff (quite literally) and still remain quiet. So, if by some miracle an enemy actually detects you, you need not worry because they are as dumb as a pile of bricks, and you have a massive arsenal to use on them.
If you actually want to use stealth, then you can do that too! Old Snake is equipped with a neat suit of camo which blends in with every environment, which can easily fool and confuse enemies. You can also use cardboard boxes and metal barrels to hind under, but be warned: enemies magically seem to know you are under them, and if they so much as breath upon your cover, it’ll disappear.
Beyond actual tactics, the game has fairly fluid controls. The cover system isn’t that great, but you’ll hardly be using it anyway, and it’s a nice addition. Gun controls work well, and character movement is responsive most of the time.

Presentation:

This game looks and sounds good. The sounds are all pretty realistic, and aren’t overused or annoying (save for Snake’s grunt sound when he gets hurt). The sound design really contributes well to the atmosphere of the game. Now the graphics aren’t quite as marvelous as the sound, but they are pretty good. The models look fantastic, but some of the textures are really flat and blurry. The graphics don’t hurt the game, but don’t utilize the full power of the PS3, either (see Uncharted).

Story:

This game has a touching and involving story with believable characters (most of the time) and a number of memorable scenes. I’m not sure why Kojima tried to include a half-baked backstory behind each of the mechanical bosses in the game, because they really did not contribute anything to the main plot, and seemed really uncreative and redundant. Some cut-scenes also seemed to be redundant and generally useless in supporting the main plot. At times, the characters seemed to ramble on about the same thing over and over again, and nearly put me to sleep. The plot, on a whole, is intriguing and clever, and is one of the best in recent video game history.

Overall Impression:

Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great, and much-needed game for the PS3 library, and should be enjoyed by anyone who plays it. The first couple of hours or so don’t really draw you in, but once you get past that the game is really addictive and enjoyable, and will excite you from start to finish.

Welcome to Vidya Now.

What exactly is Vidya Now, you ask?

Well, Vidya Now is the latest gaming blog project from two industry vets—myself, Zac North, and my good friend Josiah Nethery.

Here, we want to offer our opinions on the industry—in the form of reviews, news, and editorial pieces.

Now, let me define what Vidya Now is NOT.

Vidya Now is not the next big gaming blog or gaming news source. We’re just having fun here, getting experience—we’re not competing with the big guys. Although we may, at some point, implement forums or grow more, we are still going to be the little guys for quite a while. That means a small staff, and possibly infrequent updates at times. We won’t be able to deliver news as fast as other sources. But if we see something cool—well—we’ll post about it.

Now, let me quickly run down our allegiances.

I am a diehard PC gamer, but these are trying times for one such as myself. For this reason, I currently own all three consoles and a gaming-capable PC. My allegiances basically lie with the 360 and the PC, but I give all games a chance. Cross-platform ports are almost always bought on the 360 (hey, I want my achievements!).

Josiah owns a 360 and a Mac and, like myself, is basically a 360 fanboy. Not much else to say about him here, except that he is slowly turning into a weeaboo, and he plays FFXI nigh-religiously.

So, there you have it. I believe Josiah has written an excellent piece on the System Wars of 2006, currently available for your perusal. 

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