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Category: Video Games
List Price: £49.99
Buy Used: £18.79
You Save: £31.20 (62%)
New (18) Used (23) from £18.79
Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 183
Platform: Playstation 3
Genre: espionage-action-games
Media: Video Game
Number Of Items: 1
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Playstation 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.4 x 0.7
EAN: 4012927050118
ASIN: B000E6DYXA
Release Date: June 12, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Definitely not Lipstick on a Pig November 10, 2008
Firstly, let me just say that, though I've played demos of all them, this is the first MGS that I've actually played through myself so, while I know what to expect roughly, I do not know the ins-and-outs of the games as a series. Also I know next-to-nothing about any of the games of the series before it came to the Playstation all those many years ago. Basically, I am not completely engrossed by all things solid and serpentine and so will pertain to some form of objectivity.
Initially, the game is set in an atmosphere very different to previous offerings; there is, in the first act (of five), an incessant battle ongoing between two different militias and the ricochets of their gunfire seem to hound you round the entire map, tricking you into believing that, despite your best efforts at inconspicuousness, you have been seen. It very quickly becomes apparent that the visuals of this game are achingly impressive and the war-ravaged scenery really does look good enough to eat. The detail of each character, each building, each vehicle is truly special to behold and the hair on a person's head, something that has always been notoriously difficult to render, looks remarkably life-like and usually behaves as such though the hair of a certain Redhead (trying to minimise spoiling the plot) seems never to move once regardless of being among vicious street-combat. So, all in all, the visuals are good, be it an urban landscape, a South American plain or an Eastern-Bloc city, and you'll certainly have enough time to admire them...
The gameplay on the other hand, while not really bad at all, is not quite so revolutionary. This is the game which basically invented the 'sneak 'em up' genre, and yet, as a greying albeit beautifully modelled Snake, you can shoot your way through the entire game. There are certainly times when hosing down anything that moves is not the answer, such as the beginning of Act Five, but for the majority of the game you simply can just pummel the enemy with lead, which is not very stealthy. You can buy a suppressor for most weapons but this doesn't make killing all the enemies you meet stealthy. I expected far more sneaking and waiting (which is not necessarily dull) yet it is unnecessary, especially when you're carrying a belt-fed machine-gun. Shooting all the enemies is not, in itself, a dull experience, just a hollow one since really you should be creeping past them. In addition, the weapons are, on the whole fun to use, but the control system is slightly irksome and is not particularly intuitive. Furthermore, the actual controls cannot be changed, only such settings as sensitivity and invert axes, leaving one to grow highly frustrated at times. On balance, the control system is at the very least adequate.
Now we'll (I'll) discuss the flaws of the game, beginning at the very obvious one of the length of the cut-scenes. I don't care that people claim it is trying to blur the boundaries between game and film; if I wanted to watch an hour of cut-scene I'd watch a film. Cut-scenes are quite necessary to most games and help the story along immensely, yes I concede those facts, but there is a point at which you just want to muller all the enemies with your newly-acquired assault rifle. I understand that the plot is somewhat intricate (I'm not even going to try to explain it) but more than half-an-hour for a cut-scene really is pushing things a stage too far. I also concede that I could have skipped them but, for knowledge of why I was mindlessly killing everything, I felt I had to watch them; I owed it to the developers to at least understand the story a bit.
My second gripe is that it seems to suffer from similar flaws to, coincidentally, a film. Shrek III, an enjoyable affair, is bogged down by having too many characters from the previous outings to truly give any of them any real character and MGS4 follows suit almost. Out of the previous MGS offerings, I know the original Playstation release most thoroughly (which is not saying that much) but I felt that the developers had gone too far in trying to name-check everything from MGS1, that it seemed a bit contrived for my liking. Also the fact that everything that happened in the first instalment actually didn't quite happen how you thought it did is rather annoying. You'll see exactly what didn't quite happen how you thought it did.
There were also a few moments of frustration. One of these was the boss-battle against Vamp. I admit that I took a while to remember that I had my syringe but, even when I knew how to finish him off, the control system made it so awkward (I admit I checked on the web to see what to actually press) that I must have killed him for more than forty-five minutes, knowing what I had to do but not knowing how to do it. Why couldn't Snake just inject Vamp when he was shot down? It seemed he'd suddenly turned into Guybrush Threepwood with his inability to do anything. Also the 'B&B' battles were rather easy (I played it on Solid Snake Normal since I'd never played much of them before)/samey and really was not very interested in what Drebin (you'll find out who) had to say about them.
I've given it four stars because, while it is visually a masterpiece, the gameplay at best is enjoyable, though not so revolutionary, and the length of the cut-scenes serve to foil this game getting any sort of five-star rating. Very good and very enjoyable but inherently flawed and possibly a bit too contrived.
Probably best Metal gear since Solid 1. November 17, 2008
I have played all the MGS games, and this is a throughly enjoyable edition. The biggest change is that all out action shooting is much easier to do and more successful as a tactic, and the wealth of weaponry is far more extensive and available. Consequently there are a lot more options in your approach to the game. It still makes more sense to be sneaky, but if you're in a tight spot you can shoot your way out of it. There are a lot of varied and impressive set pieces in the game, and it is technically very very good. The boss battles are slightly easier than in previous games, but the game is still reasonably hard, and you will benefit from the excellent guide. It loses one star because the cut-sequences are way too long (it never bothered me in previous games, but they seem even longer in this one), and the plot is not interesting enough to justify such a lot of cut-scene. Excellent game though.
 A Textbook Example of Taking Your Audience For Granted September 3, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
First off, I am a fan of the series and generally favorable to anything Mr Hideo Kojima is involved with. Metal Gear Solid 4 (MGS4) is considered his 'greatest achievement yet', but the jury may still be out on that, as far as I'm concerned.
GAMEPLAY wise, MGS4 is a step ahead of its predecessors. The control system is slightly tweaked to take advantage of the PS3's functionality and it works like a charm. Whether DualShock 3 or the SIXAXIS, the game uses both the rumble function and motion sensing ability. The new 'free rotating' camera takes some getting used to, however, and can literally mean the difference between life and death during a fight, or sneaking part. This is especially pronounced in MG Online, which can seriously detract from the experience. 9/10
GRAPHICALLY, MGS4 takes total advantage of the PS3's hardware and renders everything in near photo-realism, especially evident in Act II and III. I personally believe that MGS3 had the best graphics of the series, 4 just manages to trump its predecessor. You certainly cannot complain in any sense. The graphical effects are also as spectacular as ever. 10/10
STORY wise, I now caution you, is where the whole game falls resoundingly flat. Yes, it does wrap up Solid Snake's saga, yet uncharacteristically for Mr Kojima, in the most contrived manner possible. Imagine an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and you'll know what I mean.
If MGS1 was a Die Hard-esque 80s action film, MGS2 a thinking man's adventure epic and MGS3 a absolutely exhilarating old school spy thriller, MGS4 seems to borrow all of the worst traits of modern commercial trash cinema and wrap up the culmination of 3+ games in a utterly inexplicable, unforgivably convenient manner. MGS4 is clearly (sadly) a game of the times - soundbites, instant gratification and MTV style overkill editing. Leave your brain, and your dignity, at the door.
Raiden's inclusion and subsequent story arc in the game is definitive proof of the lazy, contrived vein, as is the utterly asinine (cop-out) handling of his fate in Act IV. Rose, Colonel Campbell and even Meryl fall victim to similarly contrived arcs. There's even a few characters who are given great fanfare and their own voice over credits, but never have any (marginal) development until the ending scene!
Put another way, if MGS1, 2 and 3 were Terminator 1 plot wise, MGS4 is Terminator 3. An utterly shameless obliteration of everything MGS had promised and had given to its fans. A betrayal of the wonderfully grandiose president defined by the earlier game, MGS2. How could Mr Kojima do this to a series he professed to love? 4/10
(And don't get me started on the colossal waste of the much loved CODEC...)
With that in mind, I cannot in good conscience give MGS4 5 stars. It deserves 5 stars for fun, but perhaps only 3 overall.
Hideo Kojima's greatest game was MGS2 in terms of plot and the sheer scale of it, and MGS3 trumps all of its brethren in terms of fun. MGS4 is thoroughly eclipsed by its predecessors and blights Hideo's once flawless series.
To those new to MGS, I recommend you play the first three games before touching this, if only to make sense of the story and the entertainment factor, and those already fans, this serves as a good example of how to squander a legacy even if it is fun for a time.
All that said, I still hold MGS1, 2 and 3 dear and will probably still play them for years to come.
A gradually diminishing gaming experience June 22, 2008
14 out of 26 found this review helpful
I'm really really suprised to see so many reviewers being so overally gushing about this "game". I've got to say the game play in parts is absolutely excellent (and the graphics probably the best on the PS3), especially for the first two acts - which really blew my socks off! However, gradually as the game progresses (I've now completed the single player game) the amount of actual gameplay involvement diminishes to be of secondary importance to the cut-scenes. Hey, I could have skipped the cut-scenes but then I wouldn't have understood the storyline and the gameplay would have been disjointed. In fact, after beating the final boss the gameplay through to the end of the game is nearly non existent - it's little more than an interactive DVD movie, except for a brief interruption of very poorly done hand-to-hand combat. And then the final cut-scenes go on for so long (hours!) they actually turn into a form of torture - I enjoyed the storyline, don't get me wrong, but my goodness don't they know when to stop! I'm sorry but I really hope this is not the future of gaming - gaming should be about a highly interactive experience and cut scenes should be there to tell a story and not be the overwhelming dominant feature. I think the best way to integrate a story into a game is by using the in-game engine, much like Half-Life 2. Without the cut-scenes then the length of gameplay is actually very short and disjointed, with two many gaming set-pieces.
As for MGSO, I've played the online game a few times but feel I need to spend more time on it. Things that are apparent - the graphics are excellent as with the single player game. One let down for me is that the running pace seems so pedestrian - why couldn't they have included a sprint feature. Sometimes when battling an opponent it feels like it is in slow motion. Perhaps I just need to get used to the gameplay (or find a sprint option that I'm not aware of) but initial impressions of MGSO for me are mostly positive - for what looks like several weeks/months of casual gameplay - but I don't think MGSO is a COD4 beater!
A Narrow Experience June 26, 2008
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
I have completed this game and viewed it to the (bitter) end. I would not claim this type of game to be my favoured genre but approached it with an open mind in view of the visual presentation, the hype and the (gushing it has to be said) reviews on this site.
It certainly had its moments but as an overall experience it falls below the status claimed for it. The statements which abound in these reviews, including `masterpiece', `outstanding cut scenes', `story line is truly life like' (What kind of a life does this person have?) and `greatest saga ever made' speak more to the breadth of the reviewers' experience than any attempt at objective criticism.
The cut scenes at times are simply mind numbing. This comment is not based purely on their length (and my god they are long) but the quality of the content as well. To describe a fair element of the dialogue as `cheesy' is an understatement. Kojima is obviously a frustrated director but the chances of him ever producing a `Seven Samurai' are slightly above zero. It would be a brave producer indeed who would let him near funding in the expectation of a `real' film.
The game itself is decidedly linear with the options to deviate from the required route few in number. At times certain sections felt like no more that a short, straight obstacle course to the next cut scene.
The final incarnation of this series was obviously never intended as cross over hit between genres and on that basis it will delight the established fans. Anyone else tempted to dip their toes in new waters may not find the enhanced visuals ample compensation for their time and money.
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