In a press release for retailers, Konami has officially announced the release date for the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the PlayStation Vita. Costing $39,99, the day the game will be launched is June 12th 2012, which is exactly four years after MGS4′s release and also the day the MGO servers will shut down.
Keep in mind, this is the American release date, in Europe the game doesn’t have an exact date yet, and is planned for late June.
The final live action teaser video for Metal Gear Rising has been revealed. This one is called ‘Sword’.
In this video, Solidus (or at least the narrator, who has his voice) explains the ‘beauty’ of using a blade as opposed to a fire arm. At the end Raiden receives his blade, and you can see his cybernetic arm from a first person perspective grabbing the weapon.
The binary code at the end stands for ‘E3′, where the game will be playable.
With the E3 less than a month away, Kojima Productions is hard at work to prepare for the show. One game that will be shown extensively is Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, which will also be playable.
Today Hideo Kojima posted a photo on his Twitter of the title screen for Rising’s demo.
The screen isn’t very revealing, it just show Raiden against a black background. But who wouldn’t like to press start right now, and try the game out?
Update: Kojima posted some more photos of the title screen.
Hideo Kojima is touring Europe right now, attending UNIQLO signing sessions and masterclasses. In one of those, in Paris, he gave an interview in which he revealed some interesting information.
According to Kojima, the Fox Engine will be demonstrated the month after E3. Metal Gear celebrates its 25th anniversary this year – to be precise, July 1987 is the date Metal Gear came out in Japan – and for this occasion the studio will show what their new engine can do. Kojima mentioned it will probably be in the form of an ad, and it won’t be Project Ogre (which is running on Fox Engine), just a demo of the engine itself.
It is likely to expect this demo on July 7, which is the exact date the Metal Gear series reaches its 25th Anniversary.
Yuji Korekado, the producer of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, posted a photo on his Twitter of a single frame from the E3 2012 trailer of the game.
On the screen you can see Raiden holding a cyborg spine in his hand, which he presumably just ripped out of an enemy he defeated. Also notice the blue, rasterized vignetting on the screen. It could be the equivalent of the border of the screen becoming red in games like Call of Duty, when the player gets hurt. Of course, it could also be just a visual effect for the trailer.
It looks like Kojima Productions and Platinum Games are working together on the trailer. Maybe PG provides the footage and KP edits it into a trailer.
In any case, preparations for E3 are already being made. Rising is confirmed to be playable at E3, among other things Kojima Productions will show, so fans have good reason to look forward to the show.
Kojima Productions released a new episode of their podcast, this week being hosted by Sean Eyestone and Kendoza.
First off they talked about how busy they were right now, since E3 is coming up and there’s a lot to be prepared. They emphasized on the fact that people can expect plenty at this year’s show.
You guys have a lot to look forward to for E3.
We have some big things coming.
They also talked about the teaser site that went up recently, on which a new piece of content appeared yesterday, an audio file this time. This also got a separate teaser site called WarOnOurShores.com. This indicates that the game may take place in the United States, and that there’s a war going on there. Sean Eyestone noted that the questions the Rising teaser site may raise will be answered leading up to E3.
It all makes sense, it all comes together.
One listener asked whether the the live action cinematics that can be viewed on the site are part of the game, but Kojima Productions confirmed they are just to promote the title, and won’t be in the game itself.
In other news, Hideo Kojima is on a trip to Europe right now giving lectures and holding autograph sessions for the 25th Anniversary. He is joined by Yoji Shinkawa, among others, and he’ll be visiting UNIQLO in London next.
A picture posted on Kojima’s Twitter of cosplaying fans during the tour.
On the podcast it was announced he will also be touring the US shortly after E3. Details weren’t given yet, but he will probably be giving out autographs in the UNIQLO in New York, among other locations. He will also be touring Japan, but no further details were shared.
A few days ago, a mysterious teaser site has gone up for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. What can we learn from the information that can be found? This article aims at taking all the vague fragments of information and try to piece them together.
The most important part of the site are the two live action videos that you can watch, sharing the title ‘Make it Right’. They are seen from Raiden’s point of view, and it looks like he’s receiving cybernetic implants and brainwashing. The first video is a teaser for the site itself, the second and third are the more extensive ones.
In the videos, we can hear Quinton Flynn as Raiden and John Cygan as Solidus Snake, the one who trained him for his army of child soldiers. A map of Liberia (the country Raiden originally comes from, and where he fought as a child soldier) can briefly be seen.
It also looks like they are using videos of violence to brainwash Raiden, which is being mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 2 as part of Raiden’s training by Solidus: ‘Keep your eyes on the screen, Jack’. Here is a quote aid by Raiden, from Metal Gear Solid 2:
We were shown Hollywood action films every day. The kind with macho guys and big guns. They call it image training. They — they built us from the ground up, into killing machines…
In the videos it seems to alternate between Raiden as a child and Raiden as he is now. Konami’s description of the video is:
Subject’s personal memories may have become entangled due to trauma.
The doctors seem to be transforming Raiden into his cyborg form (the arm, the eye with HUD), and into his ‘alter ego’ Jack the Ripper.
The site seems to suggest the ‘intel’ is being extracted from Raiden’s arm: wires are running from its veins to the screens.
Another things that’s interesting is that one of the doctors is ‘repatching replacement memory units into your nervous system’. It could mean that one could access Raiden’s memories and trigger them, changing him into his ‘Jack the Ripper’ form. On the teaser site you can also find a picture of a ‘blueprint’ of Raiden’s cybernetic vertebrae, which is part of the nervous system, together with the brain.
Notice the drawing in the upper right corner: a hand holding a detached spine. Now, compare it to this screen:
Raiden ‘harvests’ the spine of an enemy. Maybe he will somehow need it to keep his own mind in check?
On the other hand, it could even imply that Raiden’s childhood as is explained in MGS2 is fake, and is a ‘replacement memory’ inserted into Raiden’s mind to make him into a great killing machine. This seems farfetched, but it’s still a possibility and one the teaser video could hint at.
A second art work shows a blueprint of Raiden’s kidneys and spleen.
One this that can be said about the kidneys, is that these are probably the same kind as in Metal Gear Solid 4, the ones that need dialysis with a machine and synthetic white blood (notice the white veins).
Yet another art work shows the blueprint of a cybernetically enhanced heart.
On the teaser site, one more thing can be found.
A piece of paper with what looks like a child’s drawing, possibly made by Raiden as kid. What’s interesting is that you can see Raiden’s ‘Red Eye’, the same one that can be seen on his cyborg form in Revengeance:
The site also gives you the option to type a command in the box in the lower left corner. Typing in certain words unlocks art works. So far two have been discovered, both showing enemies from the game. Typing in ‘mastiff’ will unlock this artwork:
While typing in ‘RAY’ will unlock this one:
Typing in KA-120 gives you:
While entering FORCE XXI gives you:
Force 21 is the name of a VR Unit Campbell talks about in the briefing of MGS1, when talking about the Next Generation Special Forces.
After that they were merged with our own VR unit, Force 21, and re-trained.
It’s not certain this is the same ‘Force 21′, but it seems plausible.
The latest blueprint can be viewed by typing in ‘FOXALIVE’:
Of course, Fox Alive is the name of the virus Sunny and Naomi created to wipe out the Patriot system and free mankind. It meant the dawn of a new world, in which Rising takes place. Also, the figure on the blueprint strongly resembles Crying Wolf.
Entering the command ‘Big Shell’ gives you another picture of RAY:
Whether there are more inputs to be found is yet to be discovered.
There is also a status bar on the upper left, showing a percentage. The amount will increase by giving ‘likes’ to this post on the official Metal Gear Solid Facebook. When it reaches 100%, a new video will be released.
Update: The final live action teaser video for Metal Gear Rising has been revealed. This one is called ‘Sword’.
In this video, Solidus (or at least the narrator, who has his voice) explains the ‘beauty’ of using a blade as opposed to a fire arm. At the end Raiden receives his katana, and you can see his cybernetic arm from a first person perspective grabbing the weapon.
The binary code at the end stands for ‘E3′, where the game will be playable.
Update: a new video (or rather audio) file has been released, along with a separate website called WarOnOurShores.com.
In conclusion, here’s what the videos seem to point out: Raiden has memories of his child soldier past in Liberia, when he was trained and brainwashed by Solidus Snake into a killing machine. As an adult, he is being transformed into a cyborg, using memory units inserted into his spine to manipulate his memories one way or another, and unleash his alter ego, Jack the Ripper.
For more wild theories about Rising’s story, you can visit this page.
Launching in October this year, Hot Toys has added two new Metal Gear figures to their store. Both are from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Naked Snake in his sneaking suit and The Boss in her battle suit. Both are fairly large (1/6 scale), highly detailed and come with a lot of accessories, among which assault rifles, claymore mines and Davy Crockett launchers.
To order the figures or see more pictures, go here for Naked Snake and here for The Boss. Kojima has also left some photos on his Twitter.
The figures don’t come cheap though, in Japan they will cost ¥22,000, which is roughly $270, or €205. So if you want to reenact the epic battle between Big Boss and his mentor, you better start saving now.
From the VGA trailer we could already hear that Flynn will be reprising the role of Raiden in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. John Cygan is the voice actor for Solidus Snake in MGS2, and Cristina Pucelli is the one who voiced Sunny in MGS4. Is it possible these characters will have a role in Revengeance? It is possible, since Sunny was saved by Raiden before the events of MGS4, which creates a clear connection between both characters. Solidus in Raiden’s ‘foster father’, the one who raised him and shaped him into the killer he is today. It it possible that he will return in the form of flash backs, maybe voices Raiden hears in his head.
Of course, it’s also possible this is for something else entirely, and has nothing to do with Metal Gear. But it does seem to point in that direction. Kris Zimmerman is also the person who always directs the English voice acting for the games. In any case, we will just have to wait and see. According to Kojima Productions, we will get more information on the game soon.
During the Kojima Productions podcast #159, the staff members gave some more insight into the decision to not update the controls of MGS2 and MGS3 for the HD Collection, to something more akin to MGS4 or Peace Walker.
People have asked us: why don’t you upgrade the controls to something more modern? If we were to do that, it would change the game completely, and I think people don’t really realize that. We actually did do experiments with that early on in the project. (..) It didn’t work. You would basically have to rebalance the entire game, and it would be like creating a whole new game at that point.
The staff members explained that while MGS3 does have free camera control, adding control features like crouch walking and run and gun would make the game far too easy. For MGS2, adding these features would be even more problematic.
MGS2 was completely designed to be from the top view. If you were to suddenly put a third person camera in there, it’s very confining and very hard to control. We tried it and it does not work.
When we make the games, we basically only make what you see. It’s like a stage set. You see the walls around you, but beyond that, there’s nothing. It’s just this big black space. So if you suddenly give the player the ability to look anywhere at any time while moving around, they may see things that they are not supposed to see, and it will totally destroy the illusion of the game.
Since Kojima Productions’ goal was to bring the classics to current generation consoles, the decision was made to keep the controls as they were, instead of rebalancing and essentially changing the games.
Recent Comments