Do you own a PS3? Find yourself a bit bummed that there aren’t many games to play? Thought Heavenly Sword was too short? Found too many bugs in Warhawk? Granted, there are some great exclusives coming out this Holiday season, but then there’s Metal Gear Solid 4.

Put simply, if you own a PlayStation 3, Metal Gear Solid 4 is shaping up to be completely worth whatever price you paid for your console. If you don’t like MGS, stop reading now. You aren’t cool enough to be part of this club.



This was an English version of the Tokyo Game Show demo and if you’ve seen Kojima’s demonstration and video from TGS, you’ve seen what there was at E For All.

Playing it, however, was definitely an amazing gaming experience. After a 5 minute briefing from producer Ryan Payton on the demo’s controls and objectives, we got to play.

Thankfully, they gave us some great noise-canceling (Sony) headphones that drowned out the (not-so-loud) noise of the show floor. The first thing you’ll notice about this game when you finally play it is how amazing it sounds. Yes, yes, it looks really good, but you’ve seen what the game looks like. You haven’t heard it yet.

The controls are greatly improved over MGS3 and the over-the-shoulder RE4/Gears of War aiming mode is amazing. We think it’s how all American gamers are going to play the game. The context-sensitive triangle button works well and simplifies the controls, but it would have been nice if Snake could take cover on a wall from more than a step away. The feeling of sliding into cover that worked so well in Gears of War is sadly missing.

Snake’s new ability to roll onto his back and aim from lying down is awesome. Crouch running might just be the greatest addition to the series. Looking back at the previous MGS games and realizing that you could crouch, but only crawl forward, it’s hard to figure out how this feature didn’t make it into MGS2. It explains why Old Snake’s back hurts so much, though.

The “threat ring” is confusing at first, but after a few skirmishes, it’s easy to figure out. It is effective and a good compromise between the full radar of MGS and MGS2 with the lack of anything in MGS3.

The AI was lacking and there was a lot of scripting going on, especially toward the end of the demo. Hopefully this is just due to the fact that the game is still very much in development and not the final level.

The worst part of the demo was that it ended. Having a Konami employee tap you on the shoulder to tell you that your time was up with Metal Gear Solid 4 and asking you to fill out a survey was terrible. We wanted to keep playing dammit!

Ask your questions and we’ll answer them.