Headshot Radio 2.0

July 3, 2008 ... Review by Chad

This review contains a few spoilers.

Rarely does there come a game of this caliber. I don’t need to go into incredible detail about how amazing this game is. In fact, you’ve probably already read lengthy reviews about this game, so you know how great it is. I don’t think anyone out there has given it a “bad” score, and my review is no exception.

Since I beat the game in about a week’s time (and it took me about 22 hours to do so), that should speak volumes already. There was even a Sunday afternoon…or rather all day where all I did was play this game. Ladies and gents, it doesn’t get any better than this.

And this is coming from someone who just couldn’t sit through MGS3 for the PS3. That game had loads of issues like bad camera, the need for sneaking around, and a convoluted story (nothing new to the series really) that forced me to put it down after only a handful of hours. I’m a man with little patience, and thankfully, MGS4 is the jump in the series, and true sequel to MGS2 that I was looking for.

The camera system is completely fixed. In fact, the game adopts the Resident Evil 4 camera, and gives you free control of where you’re looking. And something that’ll excite all of those who have as much patience as I do, getting caught in the game isn’t the instant-doom that it was in MGS3. In fact, I played through a good amount of the game as an action game.

The entire presentation of the game is worthy of a Chase-long article in and of itself, but I’m just going to say that there has not been a game with a presentation of this level, ever. The graphics account for this as well. This is the first time I’ve seen a game on the PS3 and thought to myself, “They really COULDN’T do this on the Xbox 360.” I’m sure anyone who has played the game would agree.

One of the things about the game that I absolutely reveled in was the amount of nostalgia that Hideo Kojima and his team at Konami put into the game. In fact, it’s safe to say that if you’ve only played MGS1 and MGS2 before this, you’ll pretty much know what’s going on, and be drenched in nostalgic glory. It seems that 80% of the nostalgic points in the game were torn straight out of MGS1. There’s even a sequence in the game where you play a part of MGS1…PS1 graphics and all.

For anyone worried about Raiden being in the game and being the massive weenie he was in MGS2, don’t fret. The man went through a hell of a transformation from that game to MGS4, and I think anyone who likes badass things will appreciate what Kojima and co. have done with him.

I would go into depth even more about this, but Mike and I are planning a discussion podcast about the game, and we’ll talk about the best and worst parts of the game, and everything in-between.

One final thing that I’d like to say about the game is that the story isn’t nearly as confusing as the stuff in MGS2. MGS2 often left you feeling retarded. Guns of the Patriots goes out of its way to explain in great detail some of the more confusing things. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a free MGS Database download on the Playstation Network that clears things up with info from every Metal Gear game, with nothing related to MGS4 until you actually have a “game clear” save on your hard drive.

Konami has outdone everyone else in the business with this game. At about 20 hours altogether, I of course didn’t want the game to end, but was extremely satisfied with the way it did. Very few games can even be placed in the same league as this one. The story telling, graphics, gameplay freedom and character relations are all so well done, you’ll wonder why other games even try.


10	The Good	Best graphics on any console, ever. Presentation unequaled in gaming history. Kojima’s jokes are great. You can play stealth or action.
10	The Bad	The game ends. Story can be a bit confusing until you download the free database.
Kane & Lynch	The Verdict	Buy a PS3, and this game if you’ve played any of the previous games.

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