Metal Gear Solid 4: updated impressions

More impressive still was weapon customization, which you can do courtesy of an arms dealer named Drebin (the guy with the monkey from the trailers). See, while you can pick up any weapon you see in the field, including those dropped by enemies, most of them will be useless to you, because they're genetically locked to their owners. Drebin, however, can "clean" the locks from the weapons you salvage, which are automatically ferried to him by the Metal Gear Mk. II (Snake's tiny, remote-controllable robotic sidekick) in exchange for "Drebin Points."

Drebin Points, in turn, can be used to buy the "cleaned" weapons back, or - even cooler - buy custom parts for your guns that range from scopes, silencers and grips to laser sights, taped-on flashlights and under-barrel grenade launchers. All of these can be manually fitted to, or removed from, your guns in a pause-screen menu. Best of all, Drebin also sells a few exotic firearms, like the super-advanced XM25 rifle, which actually displays the distance between it and large objects, enabling you to better judge grenade-lobbing distances to targets.

But even the XM25 pales next to the Tanegashima, an old Japanese flintlock rifle that sells for a cool million points. It might sound like a silly, impractical novelty, but if you fire it, there's an excellent chance it'll summon a massive "kamikaze" tornado to destroy absolutely everything in your field of view. You'll also get the added bonus of watching Snake go through a comically sped-up reloading animation after every shot from the black-powder relic.

If the remainder of MGS4 is as good as what we've played so far - and from most accounts, it is - PS3 owners have an incredible experience to look forward to when June 12 rolls around. Keep your eyes peeled for a full review in the coming weeks.

May 15, 2008