If you've never played any Metal Gear Solid titles before this one, or if you just sampled a small morsel of the series, this game runs an incredibly high risk of tempting you to viciously spear your expensive Dualshock 3 into your even more expensive PS3. And though that will considerably lower your electric bill, you might find yourself spending even more money for therapy soon thereafter. You will shake your fists and bellow obscenities at all the reviewers who drooled slobbery praise over this game and convinced you, an MGS dabbler, to purchase it.

   There's a good reason for this. MGS has never been the kind of series where the number appended to the end of the title is largely irrelevant, like with the Grand Theft Auto or Final Fantasy games. MGS is a series that has a dense and intricate story line that is intertwined throughout every iteration, and MGS 4 is the culmination of all the story lines, the One Sequel To Rule Them All. As such, this game was uncompromisingly crafted for MGS fans seeking closure and makes no effort to sacrifice this finality in a belated effort to attract new fans.

   Imagine watching The Return of the King on the basis of it having won 11 Oscars - without actually having watched the other two LOTR films beforehand. That's pretty much how it is with this game. Sometimes a sequel is masterful not because it can stand alone, but because it completes a familiar fictional universe and your experience of it in ways that go above and beyond the call of duty.

Are you saying it's better than Call of Duty 4?!

   Are you saying you haven't really been reading my review?! This has nothing to do with CoD4!! Pipe down before I mow you down, buddy!

   Right. So let's leave story aside for now and talk about gameplay. Overall, the gameplay elements have been evolved magnificently. You can do, see, shoot, and sneak more than ever before. You can read Playboys, massage your own back, play dead, and squeeze an enemy's nuts until he passes out. But even in this wealth of improvement, some things in particular stand out:

   A.I.: The guards, human and otherwise, have gotten much, much smarter and have formidable eyesight (Goddamn $499 LASIK surgery!). If you thought the new completely maneuverable camera would make intrusion too easy, think again. In earlier games, the fixed camera was compensated for by guards who, though not unintelligent, couldn't see farther than their own noses. The new and improved guards not only work in squad synchronicity, but are blessed with much better senses, including a keen sense of smell. Did you hear that? They can smell you. If you find yourself upwind of a guard after having spent some time dumpster diving (you bloody anarchist), they will smell your stench and proceed to punish you for the olfactory crime you have committed. Hell, they even shoot dead bodies sometimes, just to make sure!

   OctoCamo: This stuff is just so much fun. You'd think it's cheating, but this kind of invisibility only works if you are hiding someplace that matches the texture your suit has copied. Even then, if you happen to move just a little too much while someone is looking, or happen to get stepped on, or leave too much of a shadow, the gig is up. You can also save any pattern you'd like, which is especially neat when you come across a unique Easter egg like a crop circle (not kidding about that one) so you can prove to your unbelieving friends that you actually did come across it.

   Allies: The fact you can choose sides in a shootout to exploit the situation gives the game a glorious amount of tactical elbow room. You can choose to ignore the conflicts, of course, but choosing sides makes some sections easier at the expense of making some sections more difficult. Small details make this experience just right, like the ability to see what emotional state individual soldiers are in via nanomachine emoticons. But above all, being encouraged to be a rabble-rouser of the worst kind is too hard to turn down. Deliberately making a mess of an already messy firefight is just too much fun to be legal, no matter how virtual it is.

Stop being such a fanboi. Tell me what's rotten about this game!

I heard there are 90 minute cut-scenes.

   Hogwash. Only two cut-scenes exceed the MGS average, and neither of them come close to being 90 freakin' minutes - not even if you put them together. So rest assured, you won't end up watching a feature-length film in the middle of your game. And if the cut scenes still annoy you, you can always pause them or skip them, or just spend some quality time screaming soundlessly in blind fury. Your shrink will be oh so proud.

   Most of the cut scenes are pretty interactive, as well. In the mission briefings, you can take control of the Metal Gear Mk. II and roam around. There are some hidden items that you can snag while doing this, too (sometimes by electro-shocking the characters), giving you more than enough reason to stick around for the mission briefings.

   As for the story, I think fans will be satisfied. I know for me it delved into an emotional core I had no idea could be exposed by a video game. I have never, ever been so emotionally involved in a game, and this in itself is testament to the power of Kojima's talent. There isn't much else I can say without spoiling a magnificent story with rich and nuanced characters that you simply must experience for yourself.

Meh. I like stories about as much as I like you, and that ain't much. What about the multiplayer?

   Oh hell yes. Metal Gear Online, despite being a relatively sparse starter pack barely into its 1.01 version, is quite simply astonishing. I have never had more fun playing a game online, which makes me very excited about what the future will bring for MGO.

   There are the usual modes: Kill Everybody, Kill Everybody of a Different Color, Impudently Annex New Territory, and two variants of Get the Tickle Me Elmo: one in which both teams are attempting to capture the two unclaimed Elmos, and another called Rescue in which one team tries to prevent the other team from stealing their Elmo. There is also a mode unique to Metal Gear, and that is the Sneaking mode. In this mode, one lucky (or extremely unfortunate) player gets to play as Snake, and, occasionally, one other player can join him as the Mk. II. Everybody else is either on the Red or the Blue team, fighting each other and trying to hunt down Snake at the same time. Snake's goal is to collect three Pokemon - er, I mean, three dog tags, which he can lose if he gets killed before finding them all.

   All of these modes are incredibly fun. But what makes them exceptional are two special features, the first being the nanomachine SOP system that allows you to connect with all your squad mates. Once you connect with your team, you can see them through buildings, which goes a long way towards wordlessly coordinating attacks and rescuing mates who are in trouble. You can also see where they are aiming and where they were killed or knocked out. All in all, the system is very useful and makes you feel as an integral part of the team without actually requiring you to speak to whiny 12 year olds who think they can pretend to be 20 just because they finally got pubic hair.

   The other fantastic feature is the skill system. Here, you are given four points you can spend on purchasing skills. When you first start a character, you will only have access to level 1 skills. As you use these skills in combat, your experience will increase and eventually you will be able to level up the skill to a maximum of 3. However, because each level costs one point, the moment you have enough experience to be able to improve a level 1 skill to a level 2, you have to sacrifice a skill level somewhere else in order to free up the point needed to purchase the upgrade. This makes for an incredibly balanced system, where players can have four skills at level 1 each, one skill at level 3 and one at level 1, or two skills at level 2. What you gain in mastery in one skill you lose in other skills, making it absolutely impossible for players to out-stat others and ensuring that the only things that determine a player's expertise is their own ability as a gamer.

What's the catch? There's always a catch.

   Shotguns. Shotguns are fairly underpowered and the cost of upgrading them rivals that of putting together a small wedding. Granted, if you shoot someone from a certain sweet spot, two shots will kill a man and deny him the ability to fire back. The first shot floors him, the second shot gets him while he's down. But try it from any other distance that isn't that magical sweet spot and your shotgun becomes a consistent liability. You might as well be shooting high-velocity clouds of mosquitos at your enemy, which would be just as effective but infinitely more fun. Besides, any gun that could do that would totally deserve the hefty price tag. I mean, Christ, you'd think you were paying to upgrade your buck shot to slugs individually hand-carved out of conflict diamonds.

I'm tired of you talking. Hurry it up so I can start spamming angry comments.

   Fine, I'll give you a bottom line: if you haven't played all the MGS games before this one, don't play it. You'll be doing yourself and this game a great disservice. If you played some MGS games and could never get into them, stay the hell away from this one, because it will not give you a change of heart.

   But, if you, like myself, have enjoyed the MGS games you've played and loved the characters, this game will deliver an experience without equal. This is without a doubt a true classic, a game that will be talked about for years to come. And, like all classics, it can inspire reverence or hatred; such is the risk of pursuing a unique vision. Don't take my 10 to mean this game will be beloved by all, because it most certainly won't be. In fact, it's bound to engender more rabid detractors than a mediocre game would, which is the irony of excellence. Think of it as a video game equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey: you may love it, you may hate it, you may fall asleep during it. But you cannot deny that it is a work of art that has gone where few others have even dared, with a passion, intentionality, and personality that will imprint it indelibly into our cultural and artistic memory.

       ... Rafael Gamboa