3.5/5 ★ – alcoholicgoat's review of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Finally fucking beat this. Too many cutscenes. Less to say here than the prior titles. Some clunky framerate and gameplay stuff but there is a good amount of depth mechanically. It could have been better articulated, though. I wasn't a fan of act 1. It was SO dark. It felt like whiplash. I can appreciate the risk and tone shift but it feels so alien to the rest of the series and not in a refreshing way. There is still some signature Kojima slop. One of the main characters and arguably someone instrumental to the world being saved habitually shits his pants and tries to grope women. There's a gun launderer who randomly shows up, accompanied by an albino monkey in a chrome diaper. There's a "piss your pants" QTE flashback. A CQC hug. Liquid Ocelot as a character. Hours of exposition. Poorly written female characters (heyo). But this game manages to limp across the finish line much like the microwave hallway. It has so much reverence for the series as a whole (maybe too much). Some stuff feels lacking in a logical explanation but it ranges from excusable with mental gymnastics, to "shut up it's cool". I'm good not revisiting the other titles. 1-4 is enough for me.