Returning to MGS4 in 2025: A Retrospective

[NateDog]

Looks like I forgot to update this again a bit. Before I go on to my final thoughts on MGS4, here's a small bit on Metal Gear Online 2.

"I'm being attacked, I can't see the enemy!"

I can't really review MGO2 because it's been long dead (unless you've been keeping up with the people behind SaveMGO and have a PC or a jailbroken PS3), but I'll do it anyway. It was a mess. It had one of the absolute worst sign-up and login systems I've ever known; it was full of cheaters that were never dealt with; survival mode was full of assholes where 90% were using exploits if they weren't cheating; Konami's servers were abysmal (and for the record, they still are); Konami charged for codec voice and dialogue options. But I absolutely loved it and miss it terribly. 

There was simply nothing else like it on the market and there hasn't been since. Team Sneaking (TSNE) was a unique mode that gave one team stealth camouflage and a knife with the aim of stealing and bringing back to base a GA-KO or Kerotan from the other side that had a full armoury to utilise, and it was a blast to play. Playing as unique/legendary characters was as it should be: they are overpowered and so much fun to play as but it is a challenge, given every other player on the field is against you no matter which team they're on. You could pick from a plethora of music tracks from the series to play as background music during the match and could change any time you began a new match or respawned. There were so many customisation options and it felt great to finally earn something that was expensive and difficult to get to show it off. It really encouraged team play and having a group of people to play with that you understood and could work with properly. It even eventually introduced a training mode where you could either teach newbies or you could learn from more experienced players. It was supported regularly with solid expansion packs (altogether giving players 10 new maps and 6 new legendary characters, alongside new modes like tournaments and Survival. 

It was 4 wonderful years of something that had no right to be as addictive as it was. We can only hope that Konami understand just how loved it was and what made it stand out when tackling the new online mode in MGS Delta.

[Dirty Duck]

I thought MGO2 was brilliant. Such charm and character. I feel like the PS3 gave us the most exciting glimpse into a world of varied online multiplayer modes that were then quickly snatched away from us.

Maybe we should get that SaveMGO guy who was on MGL on here to teach us all how to play it again...

[NateDog]

I thought MGO2 was brilliant. Such charm and character. I feel like the PS3 gave us the most exciting glimpse into a world of varied online multiplayer modes that were then quickly snatched away from us.

Maybe we should get that SaveMGO guy who was on MGL on here to teach us all how to play it again...

I tried to get it working on my PS3 years ago when you didn't have to brick it but it didn't work no matter what I did. Didn't want to brick my PS3 given my PSN is used still now and as I still played some online games on it like RDR.

[NateDog]

OK, final conclusions.

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"The sun. It's rising again."

The bad

MGS4 has over nine hours of cutscenes which is an incredible achievement. There's a lot of wasted time within those 9 hours. Talking about how nanomachines were effectively the root and cause of everything, Drebin giving us over-dramatised backstory to a boss unit that was never given any actual time for anyone to feel anything about, mission briefings that seem to go on forever. Coming to an end-point for the series was inevitably going to result in more time dedicated to closing things out, but throughout the game there feels like an insistence on closing every possible loop and tieing up every single loose end, which feels more than unnecessary especially for a series that generally often loved to be vague and leave things open to interpretation.

Act 3. It sucks. Even trying to speedrun it is problematic as you're dependant on the moronic resistance NPC's movement to complete it, and the smallest thing can delay or impede his progress. It is such a painful section to play through.

Mei Ling is in the middle of leading the meeting discussing how to take on Outer Haven, and - rather unsurprisingly - Kojima contrives a way to get her to get down on all fours and give us multiple close-ups of her ass, even throwing in Johnny doing his best to grab it as she walks by. Quiet in MGSV is obviously utterly ridiculous from a design standpoint, but I actually think MGS4's collective female cast is the height of Kojima's absolute worst tendencies with the way he writes and uses female characters. The B&B Unit's designs and the weird fluid that drips all over them along with their overly sexualised approaches towards Snake; Naomi and Big Mama's breasts being on display in almost every scene; the player having the option to get Snake to not only stare at Naomi's legs but also try look up her skirt; Johnny trying to grope Mei Ling. That's all without even mentioning the Playboy tie-in, calling Rose to jiggle her boobs with the DS3 or looking at Akina Minami posters to improve Snake's psyche and stress levels, or the fact that the B&B Unit actors were nude when their scenes were recorded, but eventually weren't used in that manner in-game. If there's one thing I've never missed from MGS4, it is the way it treats all of its female characters, perhaps excluding Meryl (and even she is reduced to falling in love with Johnny what feels like minutes after he reveals himself to be a handsome buffoon).

The good

I thought I'd find trudging through this game again would be quite a laborious task. But I was genuinely surprised and honestly feel that this is a fun game. There are absolutely some irritating and unfun sections (once again looking at you Act 3), but I honestly had a blast playing it again and am actually looking forward to returning to it down the line. Once you're not taking in the entirety of the 9 hours of cutscenes on top of it, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had here. I've gone from overlooking MGS4's boss battles to feeling that this game has the most enjoyable set of boss fights in the series.

Watching Snake suffer throughout the final two acts in particular is a sorry sight to see and feels much more harrowing than I remember, but it packs the punch it aims for. I can't quite remember any other game with an elderly, dying character as the protagonist and it was a unique and brave creative decision to go with. Judging by his later performance in Peace Walker, David Hayter clearly did a number on his voice portraying a version of Snake in this condition, but I think it is perhaps the biggest example of his dedication to Snake and how much he has given to the series. Throughout, he completely sells Snake's devil-may-care attitude as he plunges himself towards the endpoint of his life, and he is absolutely superb.

"Snake... had a hard life." One of the most endearing facets of MGS4 is Otacon and Snake's friendship. They have both clearly struggled to connect (and stay connected) with other people over the years, but their friendship since they met at Shadow Moses has been everlasting. Otacon's and Snake's stewardship of Sunny had the potential to be as goofy and silly as, well, a lot of other things in MGS. But in the end it feels quite sweet. Otacon keeps her very sheltered (for his and her protection) but comes to realise at the end that it's no real life for her, and that with The Patriots gone, much like Snake tells Raiden at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2, perhaps it's time for them to "start living".

Part of that, though, is also down to his acceptance that Snake won't be around for much longer. He has to learn to let him go, alongside everything else that has made him feel safe over the years, perhaps in turn so he can learn to become a father for Sunny and can pass on what he has learned "to the next generation".

There's an impressive sense of finality with this game, perhaps undone to a degree by the epilogue and the nonsense from Act 4 onwards, but overall the sense of an impending end of an era was clear. There's a sense of irony in the fact that, given the manner that the series has progressed (or regressed) since it released, Metal Gear Solid 4 feels more like the point of finality that it was intended to be for the series now than when it released in 2008.

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Thank you to anyone that went to the effort of reading this. I may edit the first post down the line just to put it all together so apologies that it is a bit messy, although I guess I made this thread initially to help put my own feelings and thoughts on the game together so maybe it's best as is. Perhaps after Delta I'll tackle Ground Zeroes again.

[Aragorn]

They should have gone with the original ending. I’ll die on this hill

[NateDog]

They should have gone with the original ending. I’ll die on this hill

Don't think you need to die on it, thought a lot of people (myself included) feel that way. The Sacco & Vanzetti reference with "Here's To You" doesn't have the impact it should have really.

[Dirty Duck]

They should have gone with the original ending. I’ll die on this hill

Why do you think it’s better than what we got? It feels a bit bleak and needlessly harsh to me.

[NateDog]

They should have gone with the original ending. I’ll die on this hill

Why do you think it’s better than what we got? It feels a bit bleak and needlessly harsh to me.

For me I guess I felt it just gave the ending that extra dose of reality to it. It was very harsh for sure, but so much else about the ending felt so fanservicey and overwhelmingly positive in a very bleak world that that ending to me felt like it fit better. 

Plus death of the author and all that sure, but the idea that Kojima wanted to do this and purely didn’t not  because he changed his mind but because he got death threats and pushback from his team because of feedback feels wrong. That felt like it was the type of thing that drove a lot of story decisions that didn't feel quite right in the MGS universe.

[Aragorn]

They should have gone with the original ending. I’ll die on this hill

Why do you think it’s better than what we got? It feels a bit bleak and needlessly harsh to me.

In a story about soldiers being disposable tools of war, it feels right that the ultimate soldier meets a soldier's fate.

[starschwar]

I find the ending to be beautiful (if sloppy in certain aspects). Snake was created to be a weapon. Being given a last chance by Big Boss of all people - who had a change of heart after his years of burning the world - is pretty moving. Instead of being a mere soldier, he has the chance to spend his last days enjoying the newfound peace he helped usher in. While his lifespan is tragically short - he gets to die peacefully of old age. An absolute luxury compared to those who spent (or as Big Boss himself put it, 'wasted') their lives in violence. When we first met Solid Snake - at least, the version that had a voice and 3D model - he was a loner. Living with the wolves, as off-the-grid as can be. Disconnected from humanity. But in the end, he has a best friend, a daughter-like figure in Sunny. And all those he met along the way who lived to see it, too - they got their own happy endings - Meryl, Raiden - even Johnny Sasaki. He was very much connected to all of them, one way or another.

Of course, Nanomachines being the answer to virtually everything was a bit much. Especially the Ocelot/Liquid connection. The son of The Sorrow being possessed by a ghost makes sense. Weird that they went with the hypnotherapy thing instead.


I assume the version of "Here's to You" they recorded was meant for the original ending? Snake and Otacon being executed ties in to the lyrics well enough. If there's one word I wouldn't associate with Zero and Big Boss, it would be 'innocent'.

Not that they could have afforded it, but I think the perfect end song would have been The Beatles' Let it Be. Connects perfectly with the 'let the world be as it is' mantra, as well as the notion of a departed mother (The Boss) giving some much needed guidance.