Above all else, Solid Snake is a highly accomplished smoker. There's a small band of cultural icons who make sucking on a cancer stick look the coolest thing on Earth, regardless of what public health posters say. Snake is one of them. Bruce Willis could have been fighting Alan Rickman in a shellsuit and still have looked cool with a fag between his lips. If Clint Eastwood was brandishing a waterpistol, punks would nevertheless have felt unlucky.
There's something about the way a flinty hardman's eyes squint and how his jaw hardens when he's puffing away, which makes you think you wouldn't like to bump into them in a dark alley - or that if you did happen down a dark alley, he was at least on your side. Snake knows this. That's why through various cutscenes, Snake does his damnedest to keep his fag clamped firmly in his gob. It might make his eyes water, it might make him skew his shot or cough when he's hiding, but it's still hugely important, even when it's a little bent like he's sat on it or dropped it in a puddle.
He drops it once in that opening, but soon picks it up again. That is the only thing dropped in the entire game. Everything else is in there - everything. Answers. Ideas. Questions. History. Closure. When Snake picks up that cigarette again, it's MGS4 picking up the baton and running with it, hell for leather.
In short...
It's hard to know how to sum up MGS4 in a single word. 'Epic' could be used, but that might imply that small details are out of focus when they're not. 'Gargantuan' is a possibility, but then 'bloated' would also have to be strongly considered. Excellent? Definitely. Awesome? It's awe-inspiring in many respects. Extravagant? Oh yes.
So I'll do my best to sum it up, to give you a brief idea of how good it is, in, oh, about two and a half thousand words. That way I might just about scratch the surface of the content Kojima has jam-packed into this particular Blu-ray.
MGS4 is a not a game which devours 100-plus hours, like something like Oblivion; nor is it a multi-faceted, truly revolutionary title, like... well, we're still waiting for that. It's a peculiarly Japanese game in some respects; more accurately, it's peculiarly Metal Gear. It manages to be contradictory, traditional, regimented, outlandish all at the same time. It is overblown, too, leaving your senses feeling like your belly would after a sumptuous seven-course meal.
You've had far, far too much of a good thing, but you can undo your pants, have a kip and then get stuck into it once more. It tastes too good not to.
Paris was the city hosting my play-through of the game, and everybody knows that Paris is very lovely. MGS4, however, is lovelier. In the basement of a hotel the size of the moon I was stationed in front of my own plush telly with my own virtual surround-sound headset and a steady supply of strong coffee. I felt no need to leave. The Louvre? Meh. I'd rather have a war-torn South America thank you very much.
Tightlipped
Konami and Kojima in particular have been fastidious to the point of neurosis in their quest to safeguard MGS4's plot twists and turns from being spoiled, and to be honest, even if I were that way inclined there's simply not enough paper in the magazine to print them all. As with every MGS title, a huge chunk of the thrill comes from discovering what lies around the next corner. MGS4 consistently packs the series' hugest punches yet.
MGS4's story is massive. The videogame equivalent of all three Godfather movies on one disc. You're probably familiar with the opening segment of the game thanks to the trailers that have already been released. They show a battle-ravaged Middle-Eastern town with Snake flitting between street skirmishes and bombed out buildings on his way to a confrontation with his brother, Liquid.
Like the rest of the game, the story is full of so many nuances and subtleties that it'll take a good two or three full run-throughs to appreciate them all, and even then, you'll miss some references unless you've got a doctorate in Snake studies. Needless to say, after the Cold War diversion taken by MGS3 to give us the singular, more focused story behind Big Boss' fall from grace, MGS4's sweep is enormous, as it strives to complete the numerous threads thrown up by previous games. The result is a story arc potted and more piecemeal than MGS3's, more similar to the storyline in MGS2.
As you would expect, you'll spend a lot of time watching cutscenes, so if you found previous games' story exposition laborious, then you'd better find yourself a nice cushion and plenty of teabags in readiness for MGS4's. They can be skipped, but you'd be missing out on some of the most finely crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming.
Uncut
Putting aside the fact you'd be missing out on all that plot, to skip through the cutscenes would be to lose a massive chunk of MGS4's iconic character. If you are a fan of Metal Gear, then you are generally inherently appreciative of its cutscenes; a good deal of Metal Gear's knowing humour is contained therein for starters.
And while Kojima has most definitely been at times self-indulgent, dwelling perhaps too long on one or two more minor aspects, the general effect is damned impressive. I only wish some of them could have been more interactive (see the Secret Art Stash panel).
Despite its significance, MGS4's story still very definitely plays second fiddle to its gameplay. This is no 'interactive movie', more a highly watchable game. Yet, much like the plot, it's initially bewildering, offering you a wide-ranging toolset to get the job done, however you see fit. It's so big that much of it can remain unused for the entire game.
Other games would instantly render much of its arsenal and inventory redundant by including so much - not so MGS4. There is so much variety that, allied to everything else that's so accomplished in the game, you'll be itching to start a brand new game as soon as the final credits have stopped rolling to try a different tack.
The initial MGS masterstroke is the stunning segueing of chaotic, shock-and-awe cutscene into chaotic, shock-and-awe gameplay. Here the full glory of MGS4's technical mastery is concentrated into those first few seconds of complete and utter disorientation.
You can hear the sound of multiple assault rifles cutting loose off to one side and the hum of hovering attack choppers off to another. You, in middle, are caught in a vortex of dust, debris, zinging lead and screams. More effective than that though, is the split-second of horror that descends as you realise that it's not a
cutscene; you've been dropped right into the action. You've got to do something.
And the first thing I did? Dropped to ground faster than Didier Drogba felled by sniper. Just for a second, to take in the dirtied-up visuals, slightly green in tint, and the overwhelming Dolby 5.1 surround soundtrack telling me that a gaggle of deadly Gekko were busily, noisily, crushing a band of militia in the streets to my right.
