* BrokenBase: The plot. Some criticize the game based on its GainaxEnding and see MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots as a way to make sense of everything that happened. Others instead find the climax extremely complex for a video game and find that the message of reaching your own answers was ruined by the expositions of ''Guns of the Patriots''.
* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler: The Patriots if they have sentience. They manipulated ''everything'' in that mission, even going as far as to plant the seeds in several of the members into making it seem as though they were rebelling against them without them ever knowing they were truly being used. Their entry over at the Monster/MetalGear monster page contains the full details.]]
%%Do not add Fatman back in per the Cleanup Thread's decision.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: In the Tanker mission, Otacon will eventually mess up one too many Chinese proverbs and [[spoiler: Mei Ling]] cuts in to correct him.
** [[spoiler: Otacon and Snake piloting a helicopter with Raiden providing ground firing support versus a ''Harrier Jet'' is easily the most awesome fight ever.]]
** Raiden [[spoiler: taking on ''six to nineteen Metal Gear Rays'' '''''three at a time.''''']] Unfortunately, it's rather undercut by his subsequent CutsceneIncompetence, but all the same.
** There is also the slaughtering of two rooms of ninja-like soldiers back to back with Solid Snake inside Metal Gear with a katana.
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: The Colonel's "conversation" with you if you snap a pic of Jennifer's underwear.
** [[ButtMonkey Johnny Sasaki]] makes an audio cameo in a couple areas. In one scene, we can hear him having at it in the toilet. During the SnipingMission / EscortMission, [[spoiler:he holds Emma at gunpoint... and lets her go, warning her to [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid "stay away from good-looking women when [she's] fighting, otherwise [she]'ll get hit with diarrhea."]]]]
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: After [[spoiler:[[TearJerker Emma's death]], Snake hugs Otacon, showing that he really does care about him.]]
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: [[AwesomeMusic/MetalGear See here.]]
* DamselScrappy: Emma for some (yet [[spoiler: her death is usually STILL a {{Tearjerker}} for them anyway]]).
* DracoInLeatherPants: Vamp. A DepravedBisexual KnifeNut [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampire]] [[TheWoobie with a tragic past]], [[HoYay a penchant for getting up close and personal with the resident]] {{Bishonen}} and [[MrFanservice dark hair, a seductive voice and a agile-muscular build]]. [[SarcasmMode I'm sure the fandom hated him after he crossed the]] MoralEventHorizon.
* EvenBetterSequel: Most people seemed to think the gameplay was an improvement over the first game's. As for the story...
* FridgeHorror: At one point, Pliskin mentions that the Big Shell lacks lifeboats, and that its far enough away from Manhattan to make swimming to it and back not an option for rescuing the hostages. Bear in mind that the Patriots orchestrated the reasons behind the development of the Big Shell as well as the takeover and eventual destruction of the Big Shell, which strongly implies that the Patriots intended to have the hostages killed when Arsenal Gear was activated.
* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Near the beginning of Raiden's section, the Colonel talks about how oil leaking out of the Big Shell would be the worst ecological disaster in history, killing all the marine life and ruining the coastline for generations. After the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf, a bit of oil leaking out of the Big Shell (as opposed to rushing up from the sea floor) doesn't seem quite so bad in retrospect.
** Similarly, the reason why Raiden was designed as a bishonen character is because a particular fan-letter from a fangirl stated that she didn't want to play as "an old man". Come ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots''...
** Substance has Raiden wearing Gray Fox's Cyborg Ninja outfit for VR missions. It seems fun now, right? Well, it won't be fun or amusing after playing ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'' where Raiden does become an actual Cyborg Ninja under painful and extremely tragic circumstances.
* HarsherInHindsight: Snake's warnings about the dangers of "turning war into a video game" can seem even more chilling today that they did in 2002, now that military-themed first person shooters (often praised/criticized for their unprecedented realism) dominate the video game industry, and facing off against real people in virtual death matches has grown into a common hobby.
** Alternatively, an IKnewIt on the part of the game.
** The issue of censorship and intel concerning the Patriots, then the PATRIOT Act of 2001, effective 2002. Possibly an IKnewIt on the part of the game as well.
* HilariousInHindsight: The premise of the game being a computer program with implied sentience manipulating all of humanity and causing a lot of atrocious deaths via a terrorist group all for an "experiment," and that program being voiced by Paul Eiding, gets ''very'' interesting when ''DirgeOfCerberus'' does something VERY similar for its plot.
** Also, Raiden recalling that [[spoiler:he never actually met the Colonel even once]] will sound pretty funny after ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', where Raiden's {{expy}} in that game, Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, definitely knows a colonel.
* GameBreaker: The M9 tranquilizer handgun, or the silenced SOCOM. Take your pick. Both are capable of instantly incapacitating headshots from distances that only a Sniper Rifle would remain accurate at in RealLife, the ammo is extremely common, and abusing them almost guarantees you never being seen. The M9 is arguably the better of the two since you don't aim it down the iron sights, meaning the gun takes up less of the screen in first-person view, and the laser is much easier to line up shots with than the SOCOM. Plus, your endgame status is better if you don't kill anyone. Extra points since it's a DiscOneNuke. The silencer for the SOCOM comes literally about an hour into the game later though.
* HoYay: It's a Metal Gear Solid game.
* ItWasHisSled: By the time of the release of the PC port of the game (around 2004, three years after the game first came out for the PS2), reviews of the game had already abandoned trying to keep the game's DecoyProtagonist a secret. That, and everyone knows that the game's ending is, err... rather ''demanding'' of the player.
* MagnificentBastard: This was the game where Ocelot became a true MagnificentBastard. By the end of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', he was one of the most magnificent bastards ever created.
** Solidus may be a lesser example, but he still counts all the same. [[spoiler: That he orchestrated most of the events in the first MetalGearSolid and deftly manipulated many of the players in the second help greatly. Unfortunately, going up against near VillainSue Ocelot tends to leave one OvershadowedByAwesome.]]
* MemeticMutation: "I NEED SCISSORS! 61!", Raiden [[{{Narm}} "MANAGING TO AVOID DROWNING."]]
** And to a lesser extent, the way Stillman "KILLED HIS SOUL!" and has to "DEFUSE HIS SINS!"
* {{Moe}}: Emma Emmerich.
* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler:Vamp's murder of Emma Emmerich.]]
* NightmareFuel: Everything that happens after [[spoiler: Emma's death]] is so fucked up that you cannot tell what is real and what is not anymore. The FissionMailed screen is particularly disturbing - with the obviously twisted English words and you still fighting alright.
** Especially consider the meaning behind the words FissionMailed, along with "Emit" and "Continent" - all those words carry an ominous meaning toward the villains' next move...
** The [[spoiler: AI!Colonel's last words to you before you fight Solidus are a hideously rasped and digitally distorted ''"Our beloved monsters -- enjoy yourselves."'' All the while, it flickers between it's recreation of Campbell's face, and a skull, which leers at you]].
* OlderThanTheyThink: [[spoiler: ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'']] was acclaimed for its deconstruction of the concept of linearity in video games, but this game beat it to the punch by six years.
* PortingDisaster: The PC version. You know you've screwed up when you fail at porting a game that worked perfectly fine on the {{Xbox}} to PC, when the architecture is nearly identical between platforms. It was so bad, in fact, that no ''MGS'' game since then was ported from its original console until the HD Collection in 2011 (a full seven years after ''[=MGS3=]'''s initial release), said collection is not available on PC, and ''[=MGS4=]'' is still exclusively on PS3.
* ProtectionFromEditors: Might be the reason why the game turned out the way it did. Apparently Kojima's original script was over 800 pages long.
* RecycledScript: An InvokedTrope. Metal Gear Solid 2's plotline is almost a clone of VideoGame/MetalGearSolid's plot, which in itself was recycled from the MSX games (Specifically VideoGame/MetalGear2). Unlike Metal Gear Solid, however, the game makes it a point to mention the similarities between the events in it and the events of the previous game, which ultimately ended in a deconstruction of the very concept of sequels having suspiciously similar plots to their predecessors.
* ReplacementScrappy: Raiden was loathed by fans for replacing Snake, but MetalGearSolid4 [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap Rescued Him from the Scrappy Heap.]]
* RomanticPlotTumor: Ye gods, Rose.
* {{Squick}}: The implied incest. As [[spoiler:Emma dies]], she mentions that she [[spoiler:wanted Otacon to see her as a woman]]. Add in the vibe that she gives off while she talks about playing "house" as a girl, where [[spoiler:Otacon]] played the husband...
* TheUntwist: Iroquois Pliskin is actually [[spoiler:Solid Snake]]. Word has it they made it as blatantly obvious as possible just to see if anyone would fall for it anyway.
* ValuesDissonance: Part of the reason for Raiden's lukewarm reception in the West. In Japan, there isn't nearly as much stigma against [[{{Bishounen}} men with feminine features]], and it's actually very traditional to cast them in heroic roles.
* VindicatedByHistory: Though its gameplay was generally praised, its story was seen as convoluted. However, as years go by, [[BrokenBase many]] are finding it to be an excellent early example of post-modernism in the video game medium, as well as a decent deconstruction of ButThouMust games...two traits that would later be championed by the critically acclaimed VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}.
* {{Waggle}}: The pressure-sensitive firearm controls are highly awkward (at first), especially for the assault rifles (even after you're used to them).
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