Very, very, very good when it wants to be.

But also very, very, very tedious when it wants to be.

Of course, I wasn’t going in blind. I’d seen all the fuss over the Internet about the length and frequency of the cut scenes, but I’m not sure you can really prepare for it. It’s only when you’re “playing” the game that you realise just how much talking there is. It’s not that the cut scenes are especially bad – they’re technically very impressive and are often interesting and exciting. It’s just that there are so, so many of them.

Which wouldn’t matter quite so much if the game itself wasn’t so good. It’s one thing to be pulled out of an okay game to watch some non-interactive scenes, quite another to be pulled out of a wonderful, marvellous, brilliant game like Metal Gear Solid 4. Because that’s what it is. It’s just superb. I’m playing on Easy, so it’s not as tense as it might otherwise be, but it makes up for that in sheer fun. I love it, when I’m playing it.