Metal Gear Solid 4 Shows its Bits and Pieces

By Tyler Barber















Three nights ago, Hideo Kojima showed off to the world the first glimpse of actual gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. After watching the video on gametrailers.com (check it out here), it was obvious that Kojima has been taking notes on Western game development, which has been a recent trend in games coming out of the Land of the Rising Sun.

The demo starts off showing some sneaking bits and Snake's new Octo-Cam suit. One thing that really caught me off-guard was the number of homo-erotic jokes thrown in the demo. Now, Japan is known for its quirky humor, and Kojima himself has always understood the value that humor adds to cinematics, but given that of the five-to-six jokes thrown in the demo, three of them are a bit gay. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense -- rather, Snake grabs some sausage and biscuits twice, and once performs a "judo-choke-hold" that looks more like a man-love-hold. Still, this is Metal Gear, and things like bisexual enemies and effeminate leads are standard.

The demo heats up when Snake goes into MGS4's biggest innovation: stealth on the battlefield. Here, Kojima showed two sides having a fierce fire-fight including not only ground troops, but also un-manned bombing raids, artillery fire and armored vehicles. All these, added to the ballistic hailstorm that showered down on the battlefield with sound effects, are as engrossing as the visual stimuli.

Overall, being a big fan of the Metal Gear series, I'm excited for this title to drop. It is the game that will make me, and many others throw down on a PS3. And while I think the whole rumor of MGS4 coming to the Xbox 360 carries weight, there's no way in hell I'm going to wait one extra hour to play this game. Especially since this is the last Metal Gear. It's fitting that the series which brought me back to gaming (Metal Gear Solid, PS1), is now bringing me back to Playstation. Good on ya' Snake!

Good Day Nintendo

By Tyler Barber



I've gone from feeling let down by Nintendo at their recent E3 2007 press conference, to being a born-again Nintendo zealot. Today, I received two shirts that I ordered from The King of Games. You may remember I featured this website in last year's Christmas buyer's guide.

This time, I ordered the white Zelda 20th Anniversary shirt, as well as the Super Mario Bros. 20th Anniversary shirt (with clutch back design). Note the awesome packaging! The Japanese are so hip. Seriously, they even sent me a little K.O.G. notebook. Too bad it's not 'Merican-ized.

Yeah, Nintendo really dropped the ball this year at E3. Reggie Fils-Aime kept reiterating that while Nintendo is expanding to the mass-market, they're still making games for the hard-core, and that they've been delivering great online gameplay. Too bad we haven't noticed. I can see where you're coming from Reggie, but get a fucking clue. When we say we want online play, we mean that we want Metroid deathmatches, we want Mario online co-op, we want what you haven't been delivering. Gamers are sick of Nintendo's antiquated approach to online gaming.

To play Nintendo online with your friends, it's not easy like it is with PS3 or Xbox 360 -- where all you have to do is enter their gamer-tag and then suit up for gameplay. Nintendo's idea is that each game will assign you with a random 16-digit code for that particular game -- meaning, you'll have to give your friends this random-ass code to meet online. And, as if the codes weren't enough of a hindrance, you're telling me there are going to be different codes for each game? Nintendo, wake up! It's 2007, people have more internet capabilities in their cellphones than they do with your consoles.

Nintendo also repeated that they haven't turned their backs on delivering games for hard-core gamers, but the games they hyped up the most were all non-games and casual games (like Wii Fit, which I'm sure will be on Good Morning America, Oprah, you name it). Gamers don't care - we want solid games that test our logic, hand-eye coordination, give us autonomy, and give us the chance to master something difficult.

In their press conference, Nintendo breezed past Mario Galaxy to talk in depth about Brain Age 2. And while I'm glad Brain Age got my parents playing videogames, the fact that they chose to talk about that rather than their system-fucking-mascot is direct evidence that Nintendo is going down a dark, dark road called the mainstream. What's worse, this column is printed in a mainstream media paper, not one dedicated solely to games. So, when I'm schmoozing with bigwig gaming journalists and I tell them I write for mainstream media, it's like I'm Judas, and our gaming savior Jesus (Nintendo), has just been crucified by me.

Well, that's all for today folks. Enjoy the pics from my online purchase, and if you feel so inclined, stop by the King of Games website and peep their shirts.

Clutch-time.

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