Playstation Home Review (PS3)

What an epic tale Sony makes for. Here's a company that was the undisputed king of consoles during the last generation that has been doing everything it can to sabotage its own success since the release of the PS3. Like Hamlet, Sony's strategy regarding its latest console seems to involve the death of everything associated with it, followed by flirtations with suicide. The latest player in this Shakespearean drama is none other than the greatly anticipated Home, touted as a virtual nexus of sorts for all of the PS3 denizens to gather, play games, watch streaming content, and design their own homes. Sort of a "Second Life" for the console crowd. Have two years of development and God knows how many millions of dollars invested been worth it?

Following a relatively brief initial download you have to go through a standard EUA and then you're prompted to create an avatar. The process is surprisingly limited in terms of options. There are several base models you can pick to represent your virtual self, but the options for fine-tuning those selections are relatively weak. You can manipulate a few specific parts of your anatomy such as your jaw, lips, etc., but in the age of the Sims and Second Life, to name a few, I honestly expected greater degrees of customization. I wasn't even able to create an avatar that looked remotely like myself, and I'm a decidedly average looking guy. Even worse are the options for hairstyles (bald, anime, goth, and punk are the only real options), and as far as facial hair goes you're out of luck unless you want a mustache that makes your avatar look like a 1900s villain who ties damsels to railroad tracks.

After you create your virtual self you're dumped into your own little studio apartment overlooking the ocean and a marina. To be fair, the graphics live up to a healthy standard. Everything looks like it should on a next-gen console, though the animations are a little stiff. For some reason in the dystopian world of Home the sun never sets, but unlike the British Empire this phenomenon is quite literal. Perhaps the world of Home is set in one of those small regions of the Earth where it's always daytime for six months, but it'd also probably be bitterly cold, and none of the avatars seem particularly well dressed for that kind of climate. After wandering around my tiny apartment for a bit the tutorial prompted me to visit the central meeting point for Home users, a nexus that connects the populace to a mall, a theater, and a bowling alley. Not one to want to disappoint the tutorial gods, I followed instructions dutifully, and was then prompted to download the nexus which took a good 10 minutes. What the hell? I just installed the damn program and all it provided me with was my own apartment? But whatever, we'll roll with it. After the lengthy download, I then had to load the actual nexus, which took another minute or two, but finally, I thought, now my patience will be rewarded.

After loading into the central meeting point I wandered around some more (detecting a theme here?), occasionally bumping into a crowd of equally perplexed Home citizens. This could be my fault, but I was unable to figure out how to get into the theater, but I recovered from that stinging defeat and managed to wander into the mall... after another download and loading session. After bumping into a few more avatars I went to the virtual clothing store and browsed a bit, eventually stumbling across an ugly cowboy hat that I could purchase for $0.49. And then it hit me... Home is entirely about micro-transactions. You can leave your tiny studio apartment and purchase a summer home for five bucks, and then pay $20 or so to furnish it. When browsing the furniture and nick-knacks store I noticed that a tiny model airplane decoration cost another fifty cents of real money. Who the hell pays for this shit? I'd be ashamed to show off my well-furnished house in Home that probably cost me tens of dollars to my friends - it'd be like having a neon sign nailed to my forehead that says, "I'm a consumer tool. Will you be my friend?"

Speaking of friends, during my jaunt at the mall I only noticed two people attempting to have a conversation, and it must have been using hunt-and-peck text entry through the controller, because the conversations looked more like text-messages fired back and forth through cell phones, "u r hot." There were a few dance troupes engaging in an informal breakout session, their virtual bodies tearing up the mall floor to the ambient, easy-listening-esque elevator music that flowed through the mall's invisible speakers. Off in a corner there were a few male avatars simulating oral sex with each other. This was truly worth the wait.

I can just picture the execs at Sony:

"Hey, I have a great idea - let's create a free virtual world for people, ala Second Life, only there'll be no user-created content and we'll soak the users with a Mississippi River of micro-transactions to do anything remotely fun."

"That sounds good - but we should have fun, free activities for users too. Throw in some arcade game ports and bowling."

"Ok, but only on the condition that we make the users stand in a virtual line before they can play."

"Done. Now how long will this take to develop?"

"Oh, about two years."

"Excellent. How much will it cost?"

"Millions and millions of dollars."

"Run with it."

This is what Sony has been working on? Not making a competent online service that can compete with Xbox Live? Not improving XMB functionality? Not working on across-the-board PS2 emulation? Every day it seems more and more that Sony is doing everything they can to lose this generation's console war, and I honestly hope that they don't lose it to the extent that they get out of the console business, because frankly the only reason the Xbox 360 exists and is in as solid shape as it is today is due to competition with Sony, and it'll be a sad, gloomy day when there's only one console left on the market - but I'll be damned if I help support Sony with an endless deluge of Home micro-transactions.

And then there's the inevitable comparison to Linden Labs' Second Life. For all the flack Second Life takes in gaming circles, the beauty of it is that you really can do whatever you want. Sure, this leads to a vocal minority of pervs and furries, etc., but that's what they are, a minority. Sometimes it's fun to just find an ocean area in SL, whip out a schooner or a yacht, and go sailing with real wind physics and day-night cycles. Sometimes it's fun to work on building additions to your house while chatting it up with some friends, and for the more entrepreneurial, you can make serious real life cash in SL by designing and selling items. I'm not being a SL evangelical here, but the point I'm making is that Home is just Second Life with none of the freedom while constantly being elbowed toward paying fifty cents for a cowboy hat.

Oh, and finally, some people may criticize the harshness of this review using the excuse "But it's only a beta!" To which I say "tish-tosh." It's an open beta, and the reason it's subject to my ridicule is that it was released purely so Sony wouldn't miss another release date and thus approach the three year mark of Home's development. Desperate to get Home out the door to the unwashed masses before the end of 2008, Sony opens Home up to critique.

Fallout 3 Review (360, PS3, PC)

Fallout 3 is a game that's been a long time in the making. The original designers of the series have since bowed out of license, with the task falling to Bethesda Studios, best known for their work on the Elder Scrolls series of RPGs, and this is apparent at the very beginning of the game. The world of Fallout is a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has fled to the safety of a series of underground vaults throughout the United States to protect themselves from nuclear war and the harsh and radiated life thereafter. The player begins the game as a denizen of one of these vaults, and makes the usual RPGish selections of facial geometry, statistics, et al. through a short sequence depicting the protagonist's development from birth to adulthood. Eventually the player is released from the confines of the vault and left to explore the wasteland of Washington D.C. on a quest to find his father. On a presentation level, the game soars. It's absolutely beautiful, but this is somewhat blunted by the fact that you'll be spending 95% of your time either in a brown, flat, deserted wasteland, or in a grungy subway tunnel. This is an inherent limitation of the genre, and not necessarily a total fault of the developer. After all, a wasteland is a wasteland, and the developers only had so much to work with. It isn't bad, per se, but expect to see a lot of muted grays and browns.

A comparison with Bethesda's last RPG, Oblivion, is inevitable, so let's get that out of the way right now. Fallout 3 is very, very Oblivion-like, with some of the same issues such as NPC pathing, but it's improved in several areas. The visuals are more detailed than Oblivion which is saying a lot as Oblivion was one of the most gorgeous games to ever grace a console or PC back in 2006, but the most dramatic improvement is in the voice acting. Oblivion was lacking in that respect, and it always sounded like Bethesda grabbed three random people, tossed them in a sound studio, and forced them to recite endless lines of dialogue in an attempt to populate an entire world with a variety of voices. In other words, it fell flat. Fallout 3, however, is populated with a rich cast of characters with voices that seldom sound similar and this goes a long way toward extending the credibility of the world.

Fallout 3 is a game with guns. Lots of guns. What it's not is a first person shooter. Though you can aim and fire a gun as if you were playing Call of Duty 4, the results are all tied to statistics and skills, which only create the illusion of active participation in combat. This isn't a bad thing, as long as you know what to expect. A more popular way of playing through combat is by using Fallout 3's VATS system. VATS allows you to pause the game and use "action points" to target specific parts of an enemy's body with varying chances of success depending on factors such as distance and appropriate skills. As you progress throughout the wasteland, complete quests, and fell mutants and raiders, you'll gain experience which allows you to level up. With each level comes a number of benefits: You can increase your skills, and select a perk which grants you various effects such as bonuses to damage, more dialogue options in specific contexts, and increases to primary attributes. It's a simple system that works very well in contrast to Oblivion's arcane leveling scheme that requires a lot of forethought if you want to min-max your character.

Is the game fun, though? In many ways, yes. But the fun tends to come from random side-quests and odds and ends that you stumble across through exploration rather than by following the main story arc. For example, during one of my wanderings I came across a small settlement with the unlikely name of "The Republic of Dave." This guy Dave has declared this tiny town (population 5, plus children) its own sovereign nation. Apparently it used to be the Kingdom of Tom, who was Dave's father, but Dave decided to change the system of government to be more progressive once he inherited the kingdom. In this settlement, the dialogue options are hilarious, and you can attempt to rig an upcoming election and toss Dave out on his ear. Or you can walk through the Republic with an automatic shotgun cutting down its inhabitants like wheat (on a side note, if you make your intentions to take over the Republic clear, the person you're talking to will run away screaming "Communist! Help! He's a communist!!" Classic).

This is but one example of the quality of writing and black humor that's sprinkled throughout this massive world, and this makes the design decisions regarding the main quest even more perplexing. After a few side-quests I decided to follow the main story arc for awhile, and before I knew it I'd come to the end, and the kicker is that once you finish the game and the credits roll, regardless of what final decision you make at the end of the game, you can't keep playing. This is an incredibly poor design decision given that over 90% of the areas and quests in the game have absolutely nothing to do with the main story arc and can be completely missed unless actively sought out. This means that if you want the complete experience you have to force yourself to ignore the main story until the very end. It would have made much more sense to simply allow you to continue playing after you complete the main story arc like in Oblivion.

Morality plays a role in Fallout 3, and you're usually able to choose a "good" or "evil" solution to most of the challenges you face. While in most cases this doesn't have a significant impact on the world, in others it can change the world dramatically, and sometimes even the landscape itself. There's definitely a joy in being able to gun down virtually anyone you come across, and admittedly I spent a good hour reloading the Republic of Dave and murdering its population in hilarious ways just for my own amusement. This brings me to the combat: It's pleasantly gory. Limbs rip off from their sockets and fly across the room from the impact of bullets and explosions, and bits of bone protrude from muscle tissue. While it's a very satisfying experience, it's certainly not for children.

In summary, Fallout 3 is an exceptional game with a variety of flaws that detract from but don't ruin the experience as a whole. There are a lot of things I'd have done differently, but it's a solid game that should be experienced regardless of what system you play it on. Party faithfuls of the original Fallout games will no doubt complain that Fallout 3 is more like "Oblivion with Guns" than a true successor, but Bethesda treats the series with respect, and does a good job overall of blending the atmosphere and systems of the original games with its own RPG engine. I played both the 360 and PC versions, and if you have a rig that can run the game, I highly recommend the PC version for its faster loading times and potential modding possibilities if Bethesda ever releases an editor, but failing that the game is nearly identical on consoles and still provides a fun experience.

Mercenaries 2 Review (360, PS3, PC, PS2)

Mercenaries 2 is a somewhat-anticipated sequel to the original game that appeared on last-gen consoles four years ago. Like its predecessor it bills itself as an "open world" game, and obviously it'll be compared against the mother of all open world series, Grand Theft Auto. While that's definitely a burden it must shoulder, Mercenaries 2 is different enough so one can justifiably cry "apples and oranges," to an extent. The plot revolves around a mercenary (you) who's been contracted by a Venezuelan oil baron to kick ass and take names, paving the way for his ascendancy to becoming the President of said country. This baron double-crosses you, fails to pay you, and shoots you in the ass to boot, and of course you can't take that lying down (or sitting). Apparently the developers flipped through the New York Times and discovered that the U.S. really doesn't like this "Hugo" character, whoever he is, and thought they'd make a game out of it.

I'm being harsh, though. The game is beautiful with its stunning vistas, wide range of sight, and gorgeously rendered jungle environments that contrast well with large urban cities. The highlight of the game is that you can play co-op online with a buddy, and honestly, this is the way the game was meant to be played. That, combined with the game's other back-of-the-box feature, the fact that every single building in the game is destructible, makes for hours of mindless fun. As you play through the game on your road to revenge you'll encounter various factions, from Jamaican pirates to soulless Texas-based oil conglomerates and beyond. All of these factions have contracts for you to do, and unique equipment you can purchase from them. Of course, when you do a job for one faction it usually involves pissing off another faction, so you have to balance your relationships and decide who you want your friends to be and who can go pound sand.

The game is incredibly buggy, though. Sometimes contracts wouldn't pay the amount advertised, sometimes missions would glitch, and there's lots and lots of pop-in. The experience can feel a little disjointed at times too, as it's easy to get lost and not know what to do next. When I was playing it, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to Just Cause (or as I prefer to call it "Just 'Cause"), but in fairness, even though Mercenaries 2 can be a bumpy ride from time to time, the sheer amount of pure, mindless fun it provides makes the myriad of bugs and glitches forgivable. It's a game that's certainly lacking in the polish factor, but somehow that seems to be less of an issue when you can order a Mi-21 Hind delivered to your location, jump in it with a friend, and proceed to level every building in a three block radius. You can also order in air strikes and artillery bombardments on positions that lay waste to the landscape and are almost erotic to watch.

The game is filled with several "Oh Snap!" multiplayer moments. Like the time I fired a grappling gun onto an enemy helicopter and was reeling myself in 300 feet above the ground when my buddy thought it'd be a good idea to fire a stinger missile at the chopper, blowing it up, and sending me hurtling ass over teakettle to the jungle floor below. And then there was the time a routine foray into a city to complete a simple mission turned into an epic half-hour firefight with Universal Petrolium's mercenary crew that leveled half the city before we finally escaped to safety. Mark my words, you can do some crazy, crazy things in Mercenaries 2. It's also a very forgiving game, in that you can take an absurd amount of damage before you finally buy the farm, and if you're playing co-op all your buddy has to do is swing by and give you the standard tap on the shoulder to bring you back to the land of the living again. It's very over the top, but in the context of the game it works.

If you're an anti-social type, or prefer playing games alone, Mercenaries 2 is a forgettable experience - but if you strap in with a friend, it's worth every penny of gorgeous, technicolor, bunker-buster destruction.

Bionic Commando Rearmed Review (360, PS3, PC)

Remakes are all the rage these days, and while on the one hand they can be shrugged off as a cheap way for lazy developers to cash in, occasionally they not only reinvigorate a franchise that's been dead for two decades, but also create a game that's a sheer joy to play. Such is the case with Bionic Commando Rearmed. The original BC was released in the late 80s on the NES and was a unique game for its time in that it was a side-scrolling shooter where the protagonist couldn't jump. Instead, the player navigated the game's levels via a bionic arm that could grapple onto various objects, allowing the player to swing from ledge to ledge horizontally and scale structures vertically in a Spider-Man-esque fashion. This allowed for a different kind of gameplay and level design than was normally found on the NES. A few sequels were made for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, but largely the series was thrown to the wayside.

The plot was a hilarious fusion of futuristic Nazis and 80s style. The colors were bright and full of contrast, the settings were absurd, and through a few twists and turns the game culminated with the player shooting a resurrected Adolf Hitler in the face with a bazooka. It just doesn't get any better than that. Of course, with Nintendo of America's censorship policies at the time the game was cleaned up when it hit the States. All references to Nazis were removed, and the persona of Hitler was changed to just some mousy guy with a receding hairline, glasses, and a mustache. The graphics were great for its day, and the soundtrack was filled with catchy tunes in typical Capcom fashion. So how does the remake stand up?

If you're a fan of the original NES game, you won't be disappointed. Every level and enemy is recreated in gorgeous 3d, fixed to a 2d camera angle. The animations are smooth and silky, the levels are almost exact replicas of the originals, and controlling the bionic arm is a snap after an embarrassing five minute adjustment period. The music is all remixed, with the original melodies intact but glossed up and modernized resulting in a beautiful sound that you'll probably find yourself humming in the shower for a few days after you play. What really makes the game stand out though is the style. GRIN, the developers of BCR, completely embraced the shlocky 80s stylization of the original in an over the top way that both pokes fun at the decade and yet revels in the spectacle of it all. The two-dimensional natures of the characters are celebrated, from the Ray-Ban wearing "Duke Nukem" protagonist named "Rad Spencer" (I'm serious), to the spunky female helicopter pilot that shouts "Hey!" in a confident, commanding tone every time she's got something new to tell you, to the ridiculous dialog that precedes every boss fight. The game is also littered with self-referential humor that pokes fun at little silly parts of the original and NOA's censorship policies. There are also secret rooms and items sprinkled throughout the levels for treasure hunters, and bonus challenge rooms that let you try and get the best time through various VR-style challenge mazes as an aside.

The boss fights have been reworked, which isn't a bad thing as they were a bit lacking in the original. Now instead of simply running behind a boss and shooting them in the back, there's a little trick to each boss fight which must be learned, usually involving the bionic arm. While the fights aren't overly challenging, they're more colorful and fun than in the original. The developers also took license in a few other small areas, and while the game isn't a 100% replica of the original, it's damn close. Notable changes include: You have access to every item and weapon all the time, unlike the original. You can actually save your game this time around, which I'm really thankful for. There's a co-op and verses mode, but sadly it's not online. The arm itself also has a few new abilities; it can grab objects like barrels and toss them, and later you can even grab enemies with it and use them as human shields. And finally, the neutral zones are still there, but they're allied zones instead which is a minor script change, but functionally everything is essentially intact. The developers are fully aware that Bionic Commando is born from an era in entertainment that was all about big guns, big explosions, and the one lone hero that could slaughter legions of enemy soldiers singlehandedly, and was the last hope to save the world.

If you're a fan of the original Bionic Commando, or are just looking for an inexpensive, gorgeous 2d shooter, you need to grab BCR now. This isn't a cheap knock-off remake intended to make a quick return on investment. This is a lovingly sculpted and crafted remake by a team that respected and enjoyed the original. For 800 Microsoft Points, or $10 USD for PS3 and $15 on PC, it's a steal.

Grand Theft Auto IV Review (360, PS3)

There are games that I become remotely interested in as they're in development, forget about, and am pleasantly reminded of a month after their release, causing me to casually wander down to my closest retailer and grab a copy for a late night coffee and vodka fueled marathon of gaming bliss. Then there are games that capture my attention two years before they're released and cause me to lose sleep in continual quests for new screenshots, trailers, or interviews. Grand Theft Auto IV is of the latter category. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Largely, yes.

The Grand Theft Auto series has followed a relatively predictable formula since its original inception on the PC and PlayStation, with that formula only becoming more refined with the release of GTA III and its following sequels. We all know what to expect: A corrupt anti-hero blazing his way through large open cities, climbing to the top through violent and sometimes psychotic means, and blowing away anyone and everyone who stands in his way. Driving is a major aspect of the series, hence the title, and relatively shallow characters and clunky gunplay are all accepted parts of the package. Grand Theft Auto IV completely reinvigorates and rebuilds the series from the ground up, and nails it. Mostly.

The protagonist is a former Eastern European mercenary by the name of Niko Bellic, who has arrived in Liberty City (GTA's version of New York City) at the behest of his cousin Roman, who's tempted him to America with wild stories of wealth, success, and a bounty of large American breasts. As soon as Niko arrives, it becomes clear that all is not as it appears. Far from promises of mansions, Ferraris and women, Niko discovers Roman to be living in a tiny, roach-infested apartment, struggling to hold onto a failing cab company, and seriously in debt to the mob. Niko, being the honorable man he is, steps in to try and clean up his cousin's mess.

This brings me to my first point: GTA IV has depth to it. The characters, and more importantly the script as a whole, are as well written and powerful as a feature film, and are the best use of exposition and storytelling I've ever seen in a video game. GTA IV is Hollywood summer blockbuster material. Niko is a breakthrough for the series because he's a genuinely sympathetic character. He can be cold, he can be ruthless, and he can be a murderer, but he has an undercurrent of humanity that belies his toughened exterior. Niko is world-weary, and his vulnerability comes through in both the script and the masterful voice acting of Michael Hollick. Other characters, while being ancillary in contrast to Niko, are far from two-dimensional as well. The script is also rich with social commentary which feels spot on, and never comes across as tired or pretentious.

The game is absolutely gorgeous, especially considering its size and scope. Doom 3 was a pretty game, but it's easy to crank up all the effects when designing what amounts to a simple corridor crawl. The amount of graphical beauty that comes to life in GTA's Liberty City is stunning, as are the reactions to the environment by NPCs. People run to clear the streets when it rains, traffic follows a logical flow with rush hours and clam periods, and you can play for long stretches of time without stumbling across the same NPC twice. Pedestrians will answer their cell phones, get into arguments with each other, and occasionally an accident will occur between two motorists, resulting in a frank exchange of words and the occasional arrival of a police cruiser or ambulance. You get the distinct impression that the game world isn't just a show put on for your amusement when you're walking by, and then packed up and put away as soon as you leave. It feels like a living, breathing city, and it does all this while maintaining a steady frame rate.

As the story unfolds there are plenty of twists and turns, some obvious, some not, but there's never a point where you are unable to suspend disbelief. Some of the missions are crazy, some wild, but all enjoyable, even though there are a few controller-hurling moments of frustration. While there are some incredibly tough missions, it makes eventual perseverance all the more rewarding. The gunplay is radically improved over its predecessors, sporting a Gears of War style cover system that makes jumping into cover, snapping off a few shots, and ducking back to safety effortless, and it's a much needed improvement for the series. The music is also fantastic, with several stations that hit every musical genre known to man, including a few talk radio stations that add to the game's notorious black humor. The jewel of the radio stations is Vladivostok FM, which carries several catchy Eastern European tunes, none of which I can understand, but damn are they good.

Though I'm ready to nominate GTA IV as a candidate for Game of the Year, there are a few nits to pick. As for the driving, you'll either love it or hate it. The physics seem a little floatier than in previous games, and an attempt to pull a perfect 180 degree turn will usually result in a spectacular impact with a storefront at mach 10. I wasn't a fan of the driving at first, which was an issue for me considering how damn much of the driving you have to do in the game, but after a few hours I got the hang of it and it became second nature. You're also saddled with a list of friends who call you incessantly on your cell phone wanting to do things with you like go to a strip club, a comedy show, etc. While this is a fun mechanic at first, it can wear on you after awhile because you're constantly trying to keep everyone happy because when you get on a friend's good side it usually unlocks a tangible benefit, such as free cab rides or access to a helicopter. This means that between each mission you usually feel compelled to spend fifteen minutes going on a mindless chore jaunt with one of these pricks just to stay in their good graces. I know it's something that I could just ignore, but I somehow feel the need to at least keep them from becoming mad at me.

This brings me to the multiplayer. Grand Theft Auto has never had a multiplayer component before, apart from a few PSP games that I never played and can't be bothered with, but in GTA IV they did multiplayer right. There's over a dozen different game modes representing old favorites like deathmatch, territory control, etc., plus some new ones like Cops and Crooks, where one team is made up of criminals that have to reach a designated escape route before the other team, comprised of cops, either destroys their escape vehicle or kills the leader of the crooks. It's an ingenious design as the criminals have the location of the escape vehicle displayed on their minimap, but not the location of the cops, and the cops know where the criminals are, but not their escape route. This leads to brilliant cat and mouse gameplay that will leave you screaming commands at your friends via your headset and looking over each corner for your rivals. Not only that, but there are a few co-op modes and though they mostly feel tacked on, they're worth playing with your friends at least once. Not only are there plenty of different modes, but each mode is very customizable, resulting in near limitless game types. The only lamentation I have for the multiplayer is there isn't an easy way to mute everyone like in Halo 3, and given the Xbox Live community, this is noticeably lacking feature. By the way, I only played the 360 version, but from all accounts the PS3 version is essentially identical, so go with what system you have and don't fret about it.

What more can I say? If you've ever had any interest in the Grand Theft Auto series, you owe it to yourself to buy this game. And if you've never expressed interest, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a rental. Who knows, it may be the game that changes your mind about the series.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Review (PS3)

Metal Gear Solid 4 is an interesting game to review because there really isn't anything quite like the Metal Gear series in the gaming world. It's a series with a rabid following and with moments of true brilliance and gameplay nirvana sprinkled throughout its history starting back in 1998. Over the past several years the titles have veered off into wildly different directions with varying results - some good, some lacking. While the first game in the series was groundbreaking, the second was lackluster on several fronts. The third game was one of the best examples of gameplay mixed with storytelling in video game history and is by far the best in the series, and this brings me to my point: Metal Gear Solid 4 is a bad game.

It's impossible to give a brief summation of the backstory which is incredibly complex and spans two decades, so I'll assume you're already somewhat familiar with the plot of the series. If you're not and you give a damn, feel free to wikipedia the franchise's history (prepare for three hours of reading followed by a migraine). For the uninitiated MGS4 is essentially a third-person stealth shooter starring an ill-fated hero by the name of Solid Snake. The series has a major emphasis on plot development and cinematic cutscenes. The controls are adequate and reasonably responsive, and though still somewhat cluttered are an overall improvement on previous installments.

Before I begin tearing MGS4 to shreds, I have to say that it is a very pretty game, but like most very pretty people I've met in life, it's severely lacking in other important areas, and the Achilles Heel of the MGS series has always been the writing, and with eight hours of voice acting and cutscenes this is the one aspect of the game you would hope they'd get right. MS4 is a game absolutely dripping with pretension and "message," yet the messages are delivered with such absurd dialogue, redundant exposition, and ridiculous metaphor that it makes you want to take a large-bore drill to your skull. Our tough and grizzled hero seems to have some sort of verbal disability that forces him to repeat whatever phrase was last uttered in front of him, half the characters are impossible to care about and yet are treated as if the balance of the universe hangs on them resolving personal problems in the middle of a battleground, and some character motivations are inconsistent at best and completely schizophrenic at worst.

Let's talk about one example of bad storytelling: In the game Snake encounters a team of four bosses he must defeat, each suffering from their own set of psychological problems brought about by a traumatic childhood where they were forced to both do and suffer inhuman acts of war. This is powerful storytelling the first time you encounter one of said psychotics and have to listen to her life story which takes ten agonizing minutes after you end her pain. By the fourth fucking time you have to suffer through this you start to feel traumatized and just cease to care about how this person was anally raped by chimpanzees and forced to drown midget babies or whatever when she was a toddler, and thus became some sort of frenzied psychopathic war machine. Why not counseling?

This is the biggest problem with MS4 - it's far too cluttered and tries to do too much, thus reducing the impact of the game as a whole. You just stop giving a shit after the 6th hour of cutscenes. The game also loads you out with far more firearms than you'd ever possibly need (who needs a dozen different pistols to get the job done??), one-trick-pony boss fights that remove all replay value, and a level of fan-service that detracts from the overall effectiveness of the storyline. And let me tell you, these cutscenes I keep bitching about? They drag on, and on, and on. I was warned about their length before playing, so at one point I actually timed how long it took to go from Act II to Act III: 49 fucking minutes. Some scenes are so long Konami actually provides save points in the middle of them.

The worst part is it could have been a brilliant game. When I finished playing it I was left with the same uneasy feeling I had when watching the new Star Wars movies. With some severe editing and substantive rewrites it could have been succinct, lucid, and powerful with a razor-sharp plot, leaving the player with that rare euphoric feeling one gets after experiencing a masterpiece of fiction. So much needless dialogue could have been cut, redundant exposition could have been removed, and those 8+ hours of cutscenes could have been reduced to 3 which would still provide an cinematic experience lengthier than a feature film and yet not have outstayed its welcome. But enough about the cutscenes. The gameplay itself is a mixed bag. Apart from the aforementioned control issues, the sneaking aspect is fun but wholely unnecessary as it's usually quite possible (and sometimes easier) to kill or subdue everything in sight, or simply run past enemies who engage and attack you with all the fervor of a geriatric who's overdosed on kolonapin. In fact, MGS4 is a very easy game, which only serves to throw the entire stealth mechanic out the window.

This isn't to say that there aren't moments of pure bliss in MGS4. A few of the vehicle sequences are absolute gold, and the final boss fight is a work of genius that blends cinematic sequences with hands-on player interaction flawlessly. The voice acting is incredible, but you can't help but lament the fact that all of this vocal talent was handed a script that an 8th grader could have produced. I suppose the reason I'm being so critical of MGS4 is due to the history of the series and the anticipation and hype raised by it. It also puts me in an awkward position because of the perplexing consensus by the professional reviewing community that MGS4 is the game that will finally liberate us from our tired, tragic little lives and lead us away to the promised land. Here's a taste from Metacritic:

Metascore: 94/100

Playstation Official Magazine US/UK: 100
Gamepro: 100
Game Informer: 100
IGN: 100
Gameplayer: 100
GameSpot: 100
G4 TV: 100
Giant Bomb (for shame): 100

I haven't seen that many zeros since my last college senate meeting. I'd be less harsh if this was an underground game without 200 developers and a PR campaign behind it of size and scope that rivals Germany circa 1933.

To wrap up, if you're a fan, then you'll either love it, or convince yourself that you love it despite a sense of doubt that gnaws at your heart while you try and tell your friends with a straight face why MGS4 is the best work of philosophy since Descartes. For those of you who are contemplating buying it, remember that playing a Metal Gear game is akin to making a deal with series creator Kojima where he so aptly states, "I'll give you a game, but in return you have to watch and listen to all my bullshit."