Tag Archives: metal gear online

And here it is. There aren’t any spoilers there that we can see. Just character art and a picture of Hideo Kojima when he was young. Look, if you dare.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima’s given a gold-dust interview to IGN (watch it after the link), saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 has been made for those that have followed the series for the past decade, and admitting his relief that the game is about to launch.

“It’s been ten years since Metal Gear Solid was released in the US for the first time,” said the Japanese dev legend. “People who are experiencing Metal Gear Solid for the first time will enjoy it, but it also adds more enjoyment to the people who have followed MGS for ten years, because you can always look back and think about what you were doing ten years ago, or five years ago, and look back to your life, to yourself.

“I want people to play MGS4 and feel what they were doing ten years ago, or four years ago… I’ve chucked all those elements in there, so you could look back to your life, to yourself, so that you can absorb that and go beyond that in the future as well. That’s the part where I emphasise it is for the users. It is for the people who love the Metal Gear series.”

He added: “We finally finished creating the game, and also we got assurance that we can release the game simultaneously worldwide. That’s why overall I said I’m relieved not. But also I’m kind of excited and nervous and how [the game will] be perceived.”

Other topics covered in the chat are the inclusion of an iPod in the game, the Assassin’s Creed costume and lessons learned from the MGO beta. Must-watch.

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PS3F’s posted shots from today’s Kojima signing in London, showing why 8/10 scores don’t mean a fig to this bunch of people.

The site got an MGS Collection signed by Kojima, artist Yoji Shinkawa and “Beauty and the Beast model Yumi Kikuchi”. No idea why she was there, but one in the hand’s worth two in the bush. Take a look.

Read more about Kojima’s world MGS4 tour here.

Metal Gear boss Hideo Kojima appeared at HMV in Oxford Street today, alongside long-time Snake art-man Yoji Shinkawa, to sign stuff for fans, and a Konami UK rep told us the event was “very well attended”.

We’re getting pictures tomorrow morning, apparently.

The London signing was the first step in a global promo tour to support the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4, which Konami details today on a dedicated website showing locations and date you can get a chance to meet the Japanese master.

Click through for a look. We’ll post the photos as soon as we get them.

This is only going to get worse. According to this GameSetLinks piece, US paper-staple EGM has refused to score Metal Gear Solid 4 because Konami attempted to censor certain aspects of the review.

According to the site, quoting from the mag, the decision was made because of “the limitations Konami wanted to impose on our comments”.

This is just the latest in an ongoing meta-row about Metal Gear Solid 4 reviews, which is sending fanboys grade-A crackers on a global level.

Eurogamer’s 8/10 attracted a comments thread over 1,700 posts long, and the revelation that Konami told US reviewers not to mention install sizes or cut-scene length last week has only added fuel to an already exploding fire.

All we’re going to say is, “Oh dear.”

Someone’s scanned and posted up Edge’s entire Metal Gear Solid 4 review, joint lowest so far according to Metacritic, alongside Eurogamer‘s identical score. The pages are huge, so you may have to wait a while for them to load. Hit this and this for the entire thing.

MGS developer Hideo Kojima thrives on pressure, he’s told Reuters, but only if it’s the positive sort.

“Indeed, there is pressure,” he said, talking of Metal Gear development. “There is always pressure. But I’m not talking pressure in a negative way. I can use it to push up the bar for what I’m creating. In that sense there’s a positive pressure.”

The Japanese games supremo also gave the inevitable comment about the Metal Gear series continuing.

“MGS will always be around,” he said. “I feel a responsibility to continue this series as long as users demand it. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit in completely.

“I’ll probably take a different role in the next game. Maybe I’ll sit in as producer and let the young staff take control of the new series. I really want to go on to new things.”

Full thing through the link.

GamePro has called CVG out on a story this morning that said some of the cut-scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4 are 90 minutes long.

“I’ve beat the game twice, and am the author of the forthcoming [GamePro] review,” said mag staffer Sid Shuman.

“Ninety-minute-long cinemas in MGS4 sounds like an exaggeration. Like the other MGS games, MGS4 definitely has a cinematic quality. And yes, some of the cut-scenes in the game are elaborate and occasionally lengthy. But not a one, to my recollection, even approaches 90 minutes.

“I think it’s safe to say that the ’90 minutes cinemas’ claim is a pretty big exaggeration.”

Never saw this coming. No sir.

Oh dear. According to this CVG piece, Metal Gear Solid 4′s cut-scenes run up to 90 minutes a pop.

The info’s taken from the latest edition of UK mag PSW, who’s quoted as saying, “MGS4′s story is massive. The videogame equivalent of all three Godfather movies on one disc.

“As you’d expect, you’ll spend a lot of time watching cut-scenes, so if you found previous games’ story exposition laborious, then you’d better find yourself a nice cushion and plenty of teabags in readiness for MGS4′s.

“They can be skipped, but you’ll be missing out on some of the finally crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming.”

For the record, the only things we do for 90 minutes are write and sleep. Just saying.

The Metal Gear Online Beta has now closed it gates. If you try and log on you get this short but rather informative message:

The “METAL GEAR ONLINE PREMIERE ß” test is now finished. We would like to thank players who took part and hope to see you on 12/06/2008 when full service starts with the release of “METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS”.

So that’s that.

By Mike Bowden

According to this official US PlayStation blog post, the top Metal Gear Online clans are about to be invited to play Konami devs at the beta.

For those lucky enough to be selected, the matches will take place between 7pm PST and 9pm PST tomorrow night. We’re assuming this is all just for the US, and there’s no word on anything similar happening in Europe at the moment.

SCEJ’s announced a “Welcome Box” MGS4 bundle for Japan, to include a 40Gb PS3, a DualShock 3, the game and a Sixaxis for 49,800 yen (£240).

“They can’t even give them away!”, etc.

Press release after the link. Still no word on whether or not we’re going to see any MGS4 bundling in Europe, but hope spring eternal.

Update: There are shots of the boxes on Watch Impress. It comes in three colours.

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Just like Halo 3, Metal Gear Online – and most likely the forthcoming Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons of the Patriots – runs at a sub-HD resolution.

Tech expert Quaz 51 – infamous for “outing” Halo 3’s technical shortcomings – has said that the Metal Gear Online beta runs at 1024×768, equivalent to 665p or a 15 percent drop in resolution compared to native 720p.

Similar to Devil May Cry 4 on PlayStation 3, the game also blends and blurs two frames together to achieve its anti-aliasing effect – a technique that worked to varying degrees on the Capcom game.

Quite why Konami opted to use a sub-HD detail level in the latest Metal Gear is unknown. The 15 percent drop in resolution allows Konami more resources for maintaining the game’s solid 30 frames per second, but Quaz 51 also reckons that the resolution drop allows Kojima’s code monkeys to more easily handle Metal Gear’s impressive post-processing effects.

So there we are.

According to this DarkZero story, the Metal Gear Online beta is now live in Europe.

The test was delayed earlier this week due to huge demand, so it’s great Konami’s been true to its word and actually got the bloody thing working. Go shoot people!

This is either going to be great or a complete disaster: or both. Konami’s released a version 1.2 patch of the Metal Gear Online beta client ahead of a scheduled start for the test tonight in Europe, the US and Japan. Get it while you can. The start of the beta was delayed earlier this week due to high traffic, so it’ll be interesting to see if Konami can make the magic happen. Good luck with that.

We missed this last night, but the Konami ID registration site is now back up. There’s a “quick registration” bit for the Metal Gear Online beta, should you not yet be weary of having to sort out three exclusive IDs and watch everything explode every 10 minutes to play a test version of a game that’s going to be released in a couple of months.

We’re not sure how anyone did this, but you can find seven movies of Metal Gear Online being played on N4G. We’ve put one of them after the link.

They’re from the Japanese version of the beta, from the look of it, which has now been pushed back to Friday.

Take a look.

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Sony’s made a statement on the Metal Gear Online beta horror on its US blog, and from the sound of it the revised dates Konami published last night are now global.

“The MGO team in Japan is currently working around the clock to stabilize the servers, and is aiming to launch gameplay this weekend of April 26th,” said a spokesperson. “We must note, given the current situation, this is subject to change.”

The MGO beta was supposed to begin yesterday, but was postponed due to high traffic (dur). Konami then appeared to not have the best clue about what was actually happening, issuing a series of statements yesterday that culminated with an apparent confirmation of a European date for the start of the test.

Probably get more on this today.

Konami’s just updated the official MGO site to say the game’s beta will now run from April 25 to May 11, delayed from April 21 to May 5.

We would like to thank all players for their keen interest in taking part in the beta test.

However, we regret to inform you that due to extraordinary levels of traffic from all around the globe, we have been unable to run the service to the level we expected.

As a temporary measure, we will be deferring the European public beta test and start it once we stabilize our server.

We would like to apologize for all inconveniences as well as confusion caused.

We would like to add that due to the above reasons, we will be making the following changes to the schedule:

1) Start date: Planned for 04/25/2008 24:00(PDT). While the start is planned for the weekend, it may change due to unforseen circumstances.
3) Beta Test closure: This will now be on 05/11/2008 at 24:00(PDT) rather than 05/05/2008 at 24:00(PDT)

The beta was delayed this morning, due to the fact that 20 billion people tried to download the client at the same time.

We’re still unsure what’s going on with the US and Japanese betas. Hopefully Konami US will clarify the situation in the coming hours.

Update: The April 25 date now appears to be global.

Just got this from Konami:

“The interest in the Metal Gear Online Premiere Beta is incredibly high, with an extremely large number of users downloading the software from the PlayStation Store today. The Konami ID servers may not be able to meet all the demand and Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH recommends users try the Game ID/Konami ID registration process over the following days. Do not worry if you do not complete the registration today, as the play time will not start until Monday 21st April, so everyone who wishes to join the MGO experience will be able to register the necessary Game ID and Konami ID in the next few days.”

Sounds as though everything could happen as planned on April 21 in Europe, at least. Fingers crossed.