Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriot Kindle Edition

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots, written by Project Itoh, is a novelization of the bestselling video game of the same name. To any newcomers, I highly recommend reading the (not-too-great) novelizations of the first two games. The premise follows Solid Snake for one final mission as he sets out to stop his twin brother Liquid from taking control over every nanomachine in the world. The story is a lot to take in at first, but once the ball gets rolling it's impossible to put this book down.
The lines are funny, and most are taken straight from the video game. The characters actually stay in character, unlike in the other two novels by a different author. But most importantly you can tell that Project Itoh was a fan of the series. The book, instead of being told in a third person manner, is narrated by Otacon the entire time, which adds depth to a fan-favorite character. It also shows Snake through a different light.
I highly recommend this book to any Metal Gear Solid fan, especially if you were disappointed by the other novels. It is a shame the author passed away so early, as he was slated to write a novelization of Snake Eater and Peace Walker.

Since the universe will not allow me to play this game on my 360, I am forced to read the book to find out what happened. I can’t speak to the differences between the game and the book, but from reading the afterword by Kojima it’s clear that Project Itoh (Is that really his name? Sounds like a public-works organization that builds interstate bridges or something.) has retold the story using Otacon as the narrator. It’s easily the most understandable and conclusive of Metal Gear narratives. Managing to summarize and wrap up everything while clearing the slate for the future. Sadly, the author of this book passed away in 2009, it’s too bad because he had a unique relationship with Metal Gear and Hideo Kojima in particular. This is a solid book (sorry) and it is revealing that Kojima let the author filter the story and retell it in his own way.

This book is a narrative recounted for the most part by Otacon. There are NO boss fight recounts, like they never happened. You do get a little more background into other things while missing some others. It's a pretty good read for the fans, maybe a little confusing to others.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots by Project Itoh -- 5/5 stars

I was impressed, to say the least. I didn't have very high expectations for this novel, after my experience with the first two Metal Gear Solid novels. The first two novels weren't bad, by any means, but they read like very accurate representations of the first two games, and although I enjoyed those novels, they lacked a voice of their own, in my opinion.

This was different. From the outset the novel was a unique read. I enjoyed the explanations because I felt they did well to tie the first three Metal Gear Solid games in with this novel. The explanations acted as a bridge to understanding. However, a new reader to the Metal Gear series would probably be a bit flummoxed with the number of new characters introduced in this story, which could put them off.

As I continued to read the story slowly unfolded. The action speeded up and there was more to make this story stand out, on its own merits. It had a voice, and a unique message to readers, which felt characteristic of the Metal Gear video games, and which I liked greatly.

The feeling at the end was of satisfaction. I have never played the Metal Gear Solid 4 videogame, but I felt this book answered the questions posed in all three previous games. The same feeling of elation and absorbing interest that I had experienced with those three games was mirrored in this novel. If you want to read a great Metal Gear novel then this is the one. If new readers can get used to the unfamiliar names in the first half of the book then they will probably be interested in the conclusion in this story, which is very interesting and well ... epic.

The Metal Gear Solid series has a very densely layered story to it, and much of the satisfaction in the story of Guns of the Patriots is in seeing all the plot threads from MGS 1-3 find a conclusion. Thankfully for readers unfamiliar with the previous games, Project Itoh gives descriptions throughout this book to explain the significant events from those games. His approach to the adaptation is also very thoughtful (the book's Afterward explains his process). Rather than telling the story through an omniscient narrator, he focused on telling it from Otacon's perspective, with the reasoning that the tales of great men are usually written by their disciples (i.e. Jesus, Socrates, etc).
A couple things to note: this book is translated from Japanese, but it only shows in the grammar (which isn't ungrammatical, it's just a little off at first. Otherwise it reads perfectly well). Also, Itoh decided to cut the Beauty and the Beast Corps from the narrative in order to give more focus to the main characters, and while I think this makes the story more cohesive, I was disappointed not to see them.

I haven't played the ps3 game of this novelization. But this book is so well written that it is almost (kind of is) better than playing the actual game. The description of the book puts you right next to Snake on his missions and through his struggles. When I first started reading the book I noticed that the whole book is narrated by Otacon... to tell you the truth I was at first wary about this, but it turned out to be really great. You learn a lot about Snake and Otacon and what they have been through together since metal gear solid. Also the book helps explain a lot about the different metal gears and historical events within the metal gear series (which is great when one has only played mgs, mgs2, and mgs3).