craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

Metal Gear Solid 4 spent the last year as the Playstation 3's flagship game. When I bought my PS3, this was the game that came with every PS3 you could buy. In a lot of ways, it's an odd choice: First, it only really speaks to people who played the earlier Metal Gear games in the franchise, which pretty much excludes the larger public in favour of 'hardcore gamers'. Much of the plot involves tying together loose ends from the previous games, which are constantly alluded to. And the game is very complex, taking time to learn how to play—potentially a lot of time for someone who hasn't played a Metal Gear Solid game before. So why include this title with the system?

At the same time, MGS4 was an inevitable choice as a pack-in title, since no other title so supremely shows off the incredible power of the PS3. The battlefield in MGS4 is so realistic that if it weren't for the heads-up display you could easily be fooled into thinking you're watching a DVD, it's that good. (The screenshot above is what the game actually looks like while you're playing it.) The cutscenes are also gorgeous, all while managing to avoid falling into the 'uncanny valley'. And the gameplay, plot, and voice acting are all on a par with the graphics. In a lot of ways, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best game I've ever played. It is, without question, a masterpiece.

The gameplay, as I said, almost requires you to already be familiar with the Metal Gear series, which is based on 80's action movies, most obviously Escape from New York. This is not just another shooter: Metal Gear is all about stealth-based gameplay. While you do have weapons, there is only one of you, infiltrating enemy bases with countless soldiers, so while you may have to fight your way out of a jam, going head-to-head with the enemies means certain death. Instead, you have to hide (in lockers, under tables, etc.—there are countless possibilities), create distractions (leaving a Playboy on the ground to trick sentries into bending over to pick it up, throwing an ammo clip across the room to create a noise elsewhere), and use techniques like choke attacks to render enemies unconscious without making noise—making sure to sneak up from behind so they don't have time to raise the alarm! There is a lot of depth to this: if you choke out one sentry, for example, you'd better hide his body somewhere before his partner comes along, or else that one will raise the alarm. All of this is what makes the game fun and unique—you're constantly finding new ways your character can hide, or tricks you can try—but it is also takes a lot to master.

All this sneaking creates a lot of tension, so the game balances things out by interspersing a lot of cut scenes, which bring the plot along and give you a chance to recover after the stressfulness of infiltrating another level. I like this a lot, it makes playing the game a lot more relaxing, and the plot of MGS4, which centres on private military corporations (rather like Blackwater), is at times quite thought provoking. At other times it's quite hokey, but it wouldn't be a proper hommage to 80's action movies if it wasn't!

Some of these scenes are fantastically epic and memorable; some of the gameplay levels vary the standard stealth in ways that not only add variety but make it even more fun, from tracking a trail through the forest on one act to tailing an unsuspecting spy through the streets of an Eastern European city under curfew in another. The bar is high to learn this game and its universe in order to get the most out of it, but the rewards are amazing.

When I bought my Wii, it came with Wii Sports in the box. The contrast between the PS3 coming with MGS4 and the Wii with Wii Sports could not be starker: one is easy for anyone to pick up and play from children to grandparents, even though no effort at all went into its graphics and depth. MGS4 is so hard to figure out how to play to the uninitiated that months went by before I really sat down and started trying to play it (and I had played MGS Twin Snakes before), and even then I had to acclimate on "easy mode" (which gives you a lot more weapons and makes the enemies fewer and stupider). Yet the graphics are so good that it can be mistaken for a DVD, and the amount of depth, both in the plot and the gameplay, exceeds anything that has come before it in the history of video games. The execution is flawless. I am so glad to have played MGS4, but at the same time I have no problem understanding why it is the Wii that is outselling the PS3 by a more than 2-to-1 margin. Five stars. It deserves them, even if it isn't a game for everybody.