Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

May 15, 2008

Last night's Konami Gamers Day event was an endurance trial. Laboring under the oppressive heat of an editor-packed auditorium during an uncharacteristically blazing San Francisco heat wave, dozens of game journalists sat through several presentations of Konami's upcoming array of games, fidgeting sweatilly. It was uncomfortable to say the least, but the pay-off at the end of the presentation made everything in the world right again: Hideo Kojima (creator of the Metal Gear franchise) walked us through the first hour or so of his magnum opus, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

War Has Changed

It all begins on a dusty Middle-Eastern road where balaclava-ed militiamen trundle along in the back of a beat-up old truck. Meanwhile, the booming voice of Solid Snake tells us that war has changed. Soldiers now have chips in them; their guns have chips in them; everything has a chip in it so that the captains of the ever-churning warmachines maintain rigid control over every aspect of their bloody business... typical Metal Gear Solid stuff: just shy of poetic.

As the truck entered a desert village, a hail of small arms fire crackled into life, peppering the truck and its unfortunate occupants. Militiamen pile out of the truck, most of whom get annihilated straightaway as another truck pulls up behind the first and begins disgorging its own payload of militiamen. Among all the carnage, one militiaman stands out... something about him seems familiar, even though he's concealed by a robe.

Of course, it's Solid Snake.

Snake takes cover as more truckloads of militiamen drive into the bottleneck of the town entrance and are summarily executed. If there's so much control over war these days, why are all these lives being thrown away? The tactics of this militia seem specious at best as truck after truck essentially dumps fresh meat for the grinder... to the point that they actually start crashing into each other.

As Snake weaves through the bodies of fallen (and soon-to-be fallen) militiamen, a whirring keen is heard that sounds reminiscent of Japanese cicadas. This buzz is accompanied by what sounds a little like a cow mooing, but is more likely the deep rumbling bass of metal stress. Curious militiamen join Snake in taking quizzical glances at the sky as giant Geckos (bipedal robot war machines with creepy mechanical tendrils for toes) drop onto the battlefield and commence the process of finishing off the militiamen.

Kojima mentions that he isn't going to fight, because he's played this part before and knows that he can't beat the Geckos. Instead, he jogs Snake around, moving from cover to cover picking up as much ammunition as possible before entering a rubble-strewn building. As a Gecko crashes through one wall of the building, Snake tosses his cloak aside to reveal a grizzled and ancient visage and strikes a pose for the camera. Unimpressed, the Gecko pursues Snake up a flight of stairs, or rather, tries to pursue him as he plants a foot against the machine and unloads a full clip into the Gecko's midsection. Snake retreats up the stairs as the Gecko attempts to follow, but the Gecko falls prey to structural instabilities in the stairs and crashes back to the ground.

Gecko Gallagher

Now on top of the shabby building, Snake continues to flee from the pursuing Gecko. The roof is similarly cluttered with rubble, and Snake assumes a sort of crouch, blending into the surrounding rubble while his dynamic Octo-camo does the rest by covering him in a marbled stone pattern.

When the Gecko finally reaches the roof, it scans the environment and discovers a cardboard box with an organic signature inside it. Wise to Snake's traditional trickery, the Gecko stomps on the box, splattering watermelons into a gooey mess. Apparently satisfied that the watermelons were actually Snake, the machine bounds off into the distance with the other Geckos.

Old Snake's New Tricks

With the first act (entitled "Liquid Sun") now well under way, Snake proceeds through the remainder of the battlefield, which seems like a fairly basic tutorial to familiarize you with Snake's basic controls and a few new tricks added since Snake Eater. The codec will now allow you to control the camera so that you can look around Otacon a little to see what's on his desk. Kojima skips through most of Otacon's spiel, however, both in the interest of time and presumably because he's seen it a few times already.

The idea is that, while open warfare is going on between the PMC and the militia, Snake must sneak around the battlefield, carefully choosing when and how to interact with the battle. As most PMC weapons are locked to the genetic identity of the soldier who carries them, Snake has to initially rely on his stun knife, which shocks enemies into unconsciousness. While crouching or holding still, Snake can concentrate on his surroundings, bringing up a halo around him that indicates the threat level of his environment; if enemies are near and feeling frisky, the halo will peak like an EKG in the direction of those enemies.

Most of the rest of the demo consisted of things that we have already seen, or expected to see. Playboy magazines are still in the game (now presented in high-resolution with turnable pages) and a meter in the upper right-hand corner measures Snake's "camo rate."

A few surprises, like the fact that Snake not only owns an iPod, but also loves the device so much that he carries it with him onto the battlefield and routinely listens to downloaded music, were revealed. Snake can give rations to the militiamen, who will sometimes reciprocate, though in Kojima's play-through it resulted in a simple "thanks" and nothing more (some soldiers are stingy). Snake can use his Solid Eye to engage nightvision, but this is also useful for spotting the footsteps of enemies in order to divine where they went. Rather than the usual cardboard box, Snake can use a metal drum as a hiding spot that provides superior cover and can even be rolled into enemies as a non-lethal weapon.

The best new feature was Drebin, an arms dealer with a hairless pet monkey and the motto "Eye Have You." Drebin provides Snake with a huge variety of weapons (for a price) and can also augment Snake's weapons with additional features like a laser sight or flashlight. Some weapons offered by Drebin are extraordinarily expensive and require numerous play-throughs for you to even begin to consider affording them, like the Tanegashima, an ancient matchlock rifle from fuedal Japan that occasionally unleashes a giant tornado that obliterates everything on the screen (even bosses!).

Admittedly, we've already seen a great deal of this content through Sterling's numerous previews, but watching them presented within the cohesive whole that is a completely finished Metal Gear Solid 4 felt like a vindication. The graphics still amaze and the classic stealth-based mechanics handle smoothly. June simply can't come soon enough.