Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Review

Environments pop with sharp details as well, and there are subtle little touches, like dirt that will settle on the camera lens or water droplets that will lightly cascade down the screen. Further helping the game showcase its heightened visuals is the fact that the title performs a large basic install for eight minutes, with individual act installs at the end of every chapter. These secondary installs take only a few minutes, but are quite important. Once one stage installs over another, the replaced textures, levels and environments cut down on load times and transitions. That's not to say that the visuals don't come without some issues. While a few textures are flat here and there (with some low res issues now and then) and light framerate drops during gigantic explosions, these issues are generally overwhelmed by the level of detail shown within the game and the cinematic scope of the title, which highlights what a masterpiece this game is.

This is also supported with an excellent soundtrack, such as "Love Theme" which is one of the best songs of the MGS4 series. Haunting and melodic with a tone that evokes loss and remembrance, this song feels rather appropriate for the sentiment of this title. The soundtrack also covers the entire breadth and depth of the MG universe thanks to the included iPod functionality, which plays various songs that you unlock once you've discovered the classic songs throughout the game. Further strengthening the title is the fact that Snake and every other character also sound phenomenal within the game, showcasing a masterful delivery with their dialogue.

I haven't gone over all of the features within the title, such as the photo gallery which stores and displays pictures taken by Snake with his camera, or the virtual range which lets you practice with the various firearms that you have within the title. Nor have I mentioned the exquisite evolution of the control scheme, which is the best one yet. But the one other significant feature of MGS4 is the inclusion of Metal Gear Online, which provides a multiplayer feature to a package that is already solid (no pun intended) with its single-player campaign. Technically, Kojima Productions didn't even need to include this section within the game, particularly because it's a starter pack and will be expanded into a full online product by itself. But what's included on the disc is a good sneak peek of what to expect from the multiplayer realm of Metal Gear.

Similar to that of the beta test, Metal Gear Online features five multiplayer maps for up to 16 players to blast their way across. The starter pack now includes two additional stages not seen in the beta, Urban Ultimatum and Ambush Alley. Urban Ultimatum is a large stage that's more impressive due to its verticality than its various nooks and crannies that you can explore – many players can climb the ladders attached to the buildings and take up positions as snipers on rooftops. Ambush Alley, by contrast, is all about stealth and surprise, as the bombed out rubble and smashed buildings provides quite a bit of cover for players to engage and eliminate unsuspecting enemies.

While you will have to register for a Konami ID and register one character for your online play (sorry Beta players, all of the old accounts have been reset and your progress has been lost), the process is infinitely easier and runs much smoother than it did in April. A few minor adjustments have been made to MGO, such as a change of skill names to more descriptive terms. For example, the Throwing Skill that governed how well you could throw grenades has changed to Quarterback, while the Fast Movement Skill has changed to Runner. It doesn't affect the skill itself; it's only to help you decide at a glance which trait you want to assign to Snake. Another change is with the Clan creation. Whereas you could be level 2 in the beta with a light number of hours invested, in the full game you need to be at least level 3 with 20 hours of play before you can create your own clan.

One final change that we noted was with the online music selection; players can pick and choose from two original tracks or from songs pulled from all 21 years of the MGS franchise. It's pretty sweet to blast someone in Groznyj Grad to the Tara track from Metal Gear. During Sneaking missions, only Snake can decide the music selection, but that seems appropriate considering that he is the target of both teams. We did have reservations with the first two downloadable selections, however. One of them is simply a codec pack that allows players to audibly make comments during games, while the other sells additional characters for your Konami ID. The codec pack isn't crucial or useful, and the price for extra soldiers seems a little high right now. But considering that you don't need to buy either one of them to experience the action that is raging across servers right now, that's a minor problem that can be addressed by Konami at any time.

Closing Comments
Is it possible to give a game an 11? If so, this would be the game that would merit that score. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a title that exceeds all of the hype that was attached to the title. Regardless of whether you've seen every trailer and screenshot, read every preview and heard every interview, you won't get a full sense of how phenomenal this title is unless you sit down and experience it for yourself.

Legends die hard and deserve a heroic story that lives on when they are gone. Metal Gear Solid 4 is such an ending for the legendary warrior Solid Snake. Not only does it sum up the full franchise of Metal Gear, its depth and its complexity, coupled with its technical prowess, make it one of the best games of the year and, indeed, one of the best games ever made. Get some well earned rest, Snake. You've earned it. We salute you.