Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the epic ending to the Metal Gear series, is a must-have game for Playstation owners.

My in-game experience...

A few weeks prior to purchasing the game I hadn't played a Metal Gear game; however, I had heard much commotion of this new release...so I decided it best if I went out to the local movie store and rent each Metal Gear. As I fell deep into the story-mode and completed each game I was only more anxious to experience what the final game would bring.

I pre-ordered it from Gamestop (which I don't support at all dude to the homosexuality and Xbox-bias of their employees) and picked it up around 10:00cst on Thursday morning. Since the purchase I have spent most of my time playing the Metal Gear Online moder; although, I did begin with the expansive single player mode. Playing previous Metal Gear games, I knew that Hideo Kojima would really display all of the talent that he had within the single player mode, and boy I couldn't have been more correct. From the detailed graphics, extremely-interactive environment, player attributes/accessories, to the amazing cut-scenes. As I previously mentioned, I haven't spent too much time offline, however those are just some of the things that jumped out at me within minutes of playing the title. For me, games really show what they have in the online mode, and for Metal Gear Online I couldn't ask it to deliver more.

Metal Gear Online features an open lobby system much similar to the Socom series games. MGO has multiple gamemodes that include the ever-popular Team deathmatch and Deathmatch modes, but also Capture, Rescue, Base and Sneak modes. Capture, and Rescue modes include a "fun" part of the game, where your job is to capture or rescue a duck named KAO, or a frog dubbed Kerotan and take them to your base. MGO features a great list of in-game detail, such as respawn, weapon, time, kill-limit, map, mode, and other options that are changeable. Not only does MGO offer a great in-game experience, but MGO has an amazing pre-game interface featuring detailed mail, friends list, player stats and rankings, clan management and ranking, and also skill and other character customization options.

Overall I would give my experience with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Online a 9/10...just because, no game is perfect!

The System For The Next 10 Yrs??

Let me start by giving you a quote straight from SCEA president Jack Tretton regarding the PS3, "We're into this for the next 10 years and beyond!" I believe that he should have changed this statement to read something like this, "We're into this for the next year...until your warranty expires!"

Everyone that has purchased a Playstation 3 around the time of the launch on Nov. 16, 2006 should be worried. They are sitting on a time bomb!(12/8/06 -- 6/7/08 - The Day My 60GB PS3 Died) Any day now your PS3 will mysteriously shut itself down. When you try to restart it, all of the colors of a traffic light will be seen(Green for a sec., then yellow, and finally a flashing red light that never ceases). Not only will you never be able to get your PS3 to start again, but your game that you paid $59.99 for will be stuck in the drive.

I am one of the lucky ones! Usually I would never buy any extended warranty on a product that I buy at a local store, but something possessed me on the day of launch to purchase a two year warranty through Walmart. Some unknown force told me that this new technology couldn't be trusted. Isn't it interesting that my PS3 decided to never work again only a few months after the one year warranty with Sony had expired? At the time that my PS3 broke, I was ranked #113 in overall kills in Call of Duty 4, adding to my frustration. I received two different opinions on what actually happened to my PS3. The Sony Support Center simply said that my PS3 probably overheated and that I should let it cool down for a few minutes and then turn it on again. This did not work at all! The second opinion was from the service center that is actually going to resolve my issue. They said, "The silicon that was used on the chip inside your PS3 became hot and melted". It sounds as if the service center knows more about PS3s than SCEA does! I continued to contact Sony Customer Support through the number listed in the PS3 instruction manual and had the operator tell me that they "couldn't release information regarding whether or not other people had the same issue." Sounds like Sony had something to hide! They continued to tell me that the PS3 must be in an area it can breathe. So, apparently you aren't supposed to place your PS3 in your entertainment center. That might have been an important piece of information to know upon opening the box!

All I can tell you is be prepared to pay SCEA an extra $150 for repairs when their faulty system that was overpriced to begin with craps out on you in a little over a years' time.