Alt-Controls.com

Metal Gear Solid 4: The Snake Is Creeping Ever Closer

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the much anticipated finale to the MGS series, is almost upon us. Snake continues his unrelenting hunt for Liquid Ocelot across five geographic locales, including the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe.

Snake has come a long way since his Nintendo days (that’s right folks, Metal Gear was a Nintendo game prior to the PlayStation manifestations). Innovations such as the stress and psyche gauges, the status of which affect your ability to maintain steady aim and agility, the SOP (Sons of Patriots) system, and a stealth agent’s best friend, the OctoCamo suit, add new dimensions to the typical creep-n-kill mechanics.

In addition to the MG third-person perspective with auto-aim and first-person perspectives of recent installments, an over-the-shoulder view has been incorporated as a targeting alternative. According to MGS4’s Assistant Producer, Ryan Payton, there will be two control setups, one “western” and one “Japanese.” While there are no specifics yet on whether there will be any further customization within these two overall schemes, the “western” option is supposedly intended to satisfy frequent frustrations with somewhat awkward button mapping of previous Solid titles.

The capture below shows some of the basic control assignments:

Although I’ve never been a huge MGS fan, due to both the control styles and the generally slow “stealth” pace of the previous games, I am looking forward to the new multi-player spinoff, Metal Gear Online. The up-to-16-player matches will incorporate the advanced SOP communication system, allowing one to stay fully informed of teammates activities at all times, and even, on the chance that you hack the opposing team’s SOP, let you in on their maneuvers as well.

An MGO “starter pack” will be included on the MGS4 disc, providing the gameplay basics and five maps. Expansion packs will include more maps, characters, and features, including locales from past entries in the Metal Gear saga, for an ever-expanding array of tactical options and combat scenarios.

This eagerly awaited wrap-up to the Metal Gear saga promises to deliver a new level of excellence in terms of story, cinematics, graphics and strategic game play. The pertinent question now is whether or not the control options will leave some of us out in the cold. With the release of the Metal Gear Online beta, hopefully we’ll be able to get an early look at the various control dynamics that will be implemented in the full MGS4 campaign.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm and is filed under PlayStation 3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.