5/5 ★ – whatever156's review of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

A great conclusion to one of the most influential game series, the game pulls no punches and grips you from the start to finish. the story is incredibly emotional from the get-go, learning about Snake’s unfortunate aging condition due to FOXDIE, our able hero of time’s past is long gone, what stands in front of us now is a withering, dying husk of a man that is (for better or for worse) as persistent as ever in his quest to better the world and deal with his father’s sins. While Raiden’s portrayal leaves a lot to be desired but his dynamic with Snake is quite a treat to witness, Snake initially arrogantly rejects his (and Meryl’s) help, because he idealistically believed the new generation shouldn’t have to take up arms and possibly die fighting for a better world, but ultimately both generations need to unite in order to solve problems, arrogant divide in the name of martyrdom helps no one. Harry Gregson William’s Music’s nothing short of amazing, it’s extremely emotional, fitting, and is used well throughout the entirety of the game. the graphics manage to hold up well even to this day, the character models look great while the environment and it’s overall design look even better. the gameplay mechanics are magnificent, Kojima always has had a keen attention to detail, and tried to tie in story and gameplay both as much as he could within the constraints of each time period, and it only kept getting better and better, you not only directly witness how an act as destructive as war has become routine, but in a stroke of pure genius you could also help shape it’s outcome by helping rebels out, which brilliantly ties into the themes I discussed earlier, and on a pure gameplay level they are amazing levels, full of branching routes and different ways to approach just about every situation, the stress meter serves to show you just how broken our hero had gotten, his brittle body no longer can handle the tenacity of battle, and the flashback system reminding us (and Snake) of our past adventures, the OctoCamo is perhaps my favorite videogame gimmick of all, being able to automatically blend in with the environment is something I will never get tired of. MGS4 also holds what is quite easily my favorite boss fight ever, Old Snake against Liquid Ocelot, the music changing each time you knock a significant amount of health from Ocelot with the MGS1 alert soundtrack reminding us of Liquid Snake and his actions in MGS1, and the subsequent Tanker Soundtrack reminding us of our first interaction with Liquid Ocelot, the Snake Eater theme hyping us up and the Old Snake theme bringing us to tears while we beat up the final remnants of Snake’s last brother, our loyal comrade from MGS3 and the best MGS character to death.