KYLLÄ. Ehdin jo huolestua edellisen trailerin kohdalla, että mitä vittua se Kojima duunaa, mutta 1UP:in ennakko ainakin lupaa naurettavan hienoa kokemusta jälleen kerran. Myös rumble on pelissä mukana jonkun ihme Dual Shock 3:sen muodossa (joo olen out peli-asioissa tällä hetkellä) ja sixsux ohjaus on jätetty suosiolla mäkeen. Lukekaa!
Patiently waiting two years to get our hands on Hideo Kojima's ultimate entry in the wildly popular Metal Gear Solid stealth-action franchise hasn't been easy. A steady trickle of gorgeous trailers and impressive gameplay demonstrations (climaxing with the gleefully absurd new Tokyo Game Show promo clip featuring a diaper-wearing monkey and a monumental Metal Gear Rex-versus-Metal Gear Ray showdown) has millions of fans across the globe wondering if Metal Gear Solid 4 will deliver on the game's promise to "transfuse life into Sony's war machine, the PlayStation 3" (Konami's words, not ours). So many aspects of the MGS experience have changed here, from the setting (chaotic, war-torn urban battlegrounds replace the drab enemy bases and organic jungles of previous titles) to the hero (the edgy maverick Solid Snake has become an embittered, war-weary old man due to advanced aging), that longtime fans may wonder if this is still the Metal Gear Solid they've grown to love over the past decade.
We're pleased to report that they have little to worry about: While MGS4 surely represents a quantum leap in terms of accessibility and technology, it still retains the core elements that make the series so endearing. The Tokyo Game Show demo begins roughly 15 minutes into the game proper, dropping Snake (who's now jokingly referred to as "Old Snake" throughout) into the desolate, bombed-out city of Medina, Saudi Arabia on a mission to rendezvous with allies and search for Snake's nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Visually, the game instantly impresses. The stark, harsh sunlight beats down on richly detailed streets as clouds of dust carrying bits of debris waft by. The world itself looks stunningly realistic, with a vast array of detailed textures covering the surfaces, a multitude of objects (including Snake himself) casting lifelike shadows (including perfect self-shadowing), and highly effective use of depth-of-field and subtle motion blur which lends the whole experience a graphical blitzkrieg unlike anything currently on consoles. Sure, MGS4 still falls back upon the series' long-running trick of reducing the color palette in order to up the visual fidelity, but it's such an evocative world that you won't complain. Likewise, the immersive 5.1 sound design does a remarkable job of transporting you to the battlefield, as distant explosions crackle in the periphery and haunting melodies weave in and out of the mix.
Before you set out on your mission, Snake receives a codec call from his old pal Otacon. The new Codec screen offers a full-color wide-angle view of your caller (but no image of Snake this time) that you can pan around, just as in MGS2. The big change here, however, is the ability to either fast-forward the message (that'll come in handy if Raiden's ladyfriend Rose calls to discuss her favorite monster movies) or rewind to catch key details you may have missed. Also, these codec scenes now feature full lip synching, and the U.S. version will also match up perfectly.
Before jumping into the fray, it's crucial to wrap your head (and hands) around MGS4's seriously revamped control scheme. Moving Snake around the battlefield with the analog stick feels simple and responsive, and the new camera angle (a tweaked take on MGS3: Subsistence's third-person view) automatically makes you feel like a more active participant than the old-fashioned top-down view ever did. Aiming and firing have been simplified, as you now simply hold down L1 to aim and press R1 to fire. While holding down L1, pressing Triangle moves the action into a full first-person view from which you can play the entire game&though, admittedly, we can't imagine actually wanting to do this. R1 also doubles as CQC at close range, and every weapon now has some manner of CQC attack, even rifles and machine guns. Expert players will delight to find some truly advanced CQC combos that require incredibly precise timing to pull off moves such as the gruesome crotch grab and a crafty disarm that actually snags the foe's firearm. The X button still allows Snake to crouch (and from this position, he can now walk at a decent clip while hunched over), but in order to lay flat on the ground you have to hold X for a few seconds. This thankfully alleviates the problem the past games had that often found players lying immobile on the ground at inopportune moments due to a stray button tap. And you might actually want to lay prone in MGS4, as you can still fire freely from this position as well as use the surprisingly effective play-dead fake-out move.
Perhaps the biggest change to MGS4's control scheme is the addition of Triangle as a context-sensitive action button. Pressing it will make Snake jump into trash bins, hug walls (which causes Snake's cool new Octocamo to kick in), or grab onto ledges. The Square button toggles the game's surprisingly useful auto-aim feature on and off, but we found the manual aiming to be considerably more fun -- moving while shooting now feels a lot like Gears of War, and you can switch your firing position from left to right with another simple button press as in GRAW. We were a tad surprised that very little Sixaxis control seems to have made it into the final game: Outside of using it to pop up out of trash bins, we didn't spy any uses for the tilting mechanism. We did enjoy the various rumble effects employed by the new Dual Shock 3 controller, though: As explosions rattled around Snake, we could actually feel the direction from which they were coming based on what part of the controller virbated. Overall, the controls feel incredibly streamlined and accessible, while still retaining the precise movement and aiming fans have come to expect from the franchise.
Snake's HUD features a slew of new indicators in MGS4. Rather than traditional radar, you now use the "Threat Ring" -- a transparent circle around Snake that spikes into waveforms pointing in the direction of danger. This, coupled with a compass pointing you towards your objective and a subscreen map that can be viewed at any time, make navigating the more open-ended, multi-tier level a breeze. Although they didn't factor into the demo, you can also see two new meters beneath Snake's health bar: A Stress meter and a Psyche meter. Konami tells us that the Stress meter increases depending on how the battle progresses, and if Snake gets really freaked out he'll enter a "Combat High" that greatly increases his accuracy while halving all damage he receives. The Psyche meter represents his mental stability, and it lowers as you fight, causing Snake's accuracy to diminish. You can refill this gauge by looking at dirty magazines, but looking at the same page for too long simply won't work -- Snake must look at a variety of scantily-clad lasses if he wants to clear his troubled mind.
The demo's first objective is to meet up with Otacon's little Metal Gear Mk II robot, but a garrison of private military corporation (PMC) forces stands in the way. Taking these guys out isn't tough, as the demo outfits Snake with oodles of killer weapons including various pistols, machine guns, rifles, grenades, mines, sleeping gas, and an electrified knife. Several weapons feature alternate fire methods, and one gun in the arsenal demonstrated the new customization feature that allows you to graft a grenade launcher, flashlight, or other add-ons to a shotgun. These PMC troops do have some serious firepower, though: A Stryker armored personnel carrier armed with a powerful machine gun. Getting past this monstrosity requires nimble reflexes (or a little stealth), but once you're past it you get a nice reward. Otacon's cuddly robo joins Snake and delivers the new Solid Eye scanning device (which features three different modes that allow Snake to see what equipment enemies carry, see thermal signatures such as footprints in the sand, and zoom in à la the classic MGS scope), along with another sizable cache of guns, including the wildly powerful RPG and Javelin (a heat-seeking missile) that can obliterate those pesky Strykers.
The Mk.II itself is a blast to control (even if you can't steer it with the Sixaxis as we all expected), as it can quickly switch into full stealth camo mode, roll up behind an enemy and deliver a stunning electrical charge. After scouting ahead with Snake's robotic buddy, you press onward to find a local militia group engaged in a deadly exchange with the PMCs. You walk through some realtime scripted sequences of heavy artillery fire, then look up to see birdlike UAV drones screeching overhead dropping bombs. At this point, it's up to you whether or not to help the militia. Saving their sorry asses is enough to endear them to Snake (evidenced by cute heart icons above their heads), but you can take the cooperation even further by handing them your own rations on the battlefield, which will in turn inspire them to share their weapons. Once all the PMC troops are disposed of, the demo ends as you meet up with a mysterious group of soliders...who turn out to be the reformed Foxhound unit led by Snake's old flame Meryl Silverburgh (whose flame-colored coif has mercifully been reworked from its plastic appearance in previous trailers). She's joined by two hulking grunts (Ed and Johnathan) and an unlikely ally -- staple MGS joke character Johnny Sasaki (whose been given the new nickname "Akiba" as a reference to Tokyo's nerd mecca, Akihabara). Meryl and Snake have a bittersweet yet awkward reunion, but the drama quickly evaporates as Johnny's chronic diarrhea quite literally cuts the sexual tension in the room.
JOHNNY! En ole vielä nähnyt traileria, mutta toivottavasti saan sen vilkaistua viikonloppuna.
Aihe: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
