Death Stranding - ESCAPE

Hideo Kojima's exciting courier game is a little closer to release than expected. Death Stranding launches November 8th promising massive play areas, Mads Mikkelsen's slime boys and an America that has apparently fractured not just politically but in temporal and geological terms too. Basic interaction seems to tend towards sneaking around, fending off package snatchers and topographical problem solving.

E3 - BIONIC WOMAN

Hideo Kojima's latest offers the opportunity to wander the kind of untouched, prehistoric landscapes seen in Prometheus or Interstellar as actor Norman Reedus (complete with accurate tattoos). Gameplay wise, Death Stranding appears to be asking players to transport contraband across various examples of science fiction topography whilst avoiding the attentions of fossil fueled ghosts. Reedus' twitchy injuries and hesitant nail surgery would seem to point to a body maintenance mechanic, similar to the one seen in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater too. I hope so anyway.

E3 2016 - Death Stranding

Despite his move away from Konami, Hideo Kojima has retained the services of former Silent Hills partner Norman Reedus, casting the actor as his latest mullet muscle man in Death Stranding. This being a Kojima joint, actual info is scant. All we really know is that Death Stranding is an action game and (regardless of early word that the game designer was keen to get his next game out quick) we shouldn't expect it anytime soon.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - NUMBERS TICK UP

Chugging ever closer to a mid-80s completion percentage on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain I started rooting around YouTube for some details on the hidden tasks I was expecting to be lumbered with. Instead I ended up stumbling on this video by Super Bunnyhop in which he talks about falling down Konami's resource management hole and how the game's optional tasks actually direct you to approach missions from unforeseen angles.

E3 2015 - DIAMOND DOGS

Perhaps Konami have finally twigged that Metal Gear Solid as a brand is indistinguishable from Hideo Kojima? As if to allay fears that the interaction auteur had been snatched off the project, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's big E3 tease runs with a front-and-centre direction and editing credit for Kojima.

FULTON RECOVERY SYSTEM

Screened for the press last week, the E3 gameplay demo of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shows off a game primarily concerned with being an exciting toy. This is actually a bit of a shock - story trailers have so lasered in on grim dark themes like child soldiers and genocide suggesting something a little more constrained and directed. On the strength of this, The Phantom Pain is nothing of the sort. Kojima and co selling on an idea of an interactive GI Joe playset with all the gadgets and vehicles tucked away in the code just waiting to be discovered, then airlifted back to your customisable base.

E3 2014 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - DIAMOND DOGS

Four minutes of absolutely bonkers cutscenes taken completely out of context? It must be Hideo Kojima's trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain! With a horn shaped lump of shrapnel lodged in his head, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater hero Naked Snake jets around the world sticking his nose into genocide, getting himself covered in blood, and wiping the ashes of his fallen comrades all over his face. Hideo Kojima is tackling serious issues!

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - SECRET SAUCE

Hideo Kojima talks IGN through the opening cinematic for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It's amusing to hear that the distinctive lens flare effect used throughout is nothing more than a visual affectation inherited from Japanese pop music videos. Internet snoops had convinced themselves that the images were a clue to deeper, hidden meanings.

"Looks like an enemy recovered the car, so..."

It's hard to get a handle on what Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is going to be. All released footage has revolved around the infiltration of this particular POW camp. The emphasis on rescues and recruitment recalls Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (itself intended to be the fifth series instalment at one point), suggesting a hub based collect 'em up? Systems and gameplay feedback are also front and centre, looking delightful. The ability to create a solid, working foundation of interactive expectations is an undervalued ability. The best games allow players to generate a sense of security through basic calculations - cause and effect is everything. In that sense, Zeroes looks like it's got a rugged, but flexible machine pumping away under the hood. Out in March and budget priced, Zeroes would seem to be a slimmed down, chaser experience, with the real meat to come later in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Vid

20XX's Seventh Gen Favs #18 - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Saddled with a story best described as disastrous, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots instead excelled through incident interaction. With his evil twin causing trouble in the Middle East, a prematurely decrepit Solid Snake eases his broken bones into a muscle suit to go off after him. Series director Hideo Kojima involves us with the character by inflicting a stress bar upon him that fills rapidly if he's left out in open conflict for too long. Fill the anxiety gauge and Snake must retreat to the shadows and smoke a cigarette, or slap an ice pack on his aching back. Kill too many PMC stooges and Snake will vomit his guts up, disgusted. Although nowhere near as involving as series highpoint Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, MGS4 is notable for its forward-thinking approach to difficulty scaling. Lower settings could be played as a Rambo sim, while the expert difficulties demanded a fractional pace with movement dictated through learnt enemy patterns and ballsy opportunism. 

METAL GEAR SOLID (KONAMI COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SOUND TEAM JAPAN - WARHEAD STORAGE)

E3 2013: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

So far, the most impressive thing at this year's E3 has been Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Shown at the head of Microsoft's game heavy presentation, The Phantom Pain depicts a cybernetically augmented Big Boss sneaking around Afghanistan putting lumps on Russians; Rambo III by way of Red Dead Redemption. Franchise bells and whistles aside, the most exciting thing about this new game is the sense of scale it seems to be implying. Unlike the relatively linear paths of previous instalments, this Phantom Pain clip suggests a world teaming with detail and incident. The Metal Gear series has always been a playground - a set system for you to play with, and a variety of interactive options that each create different outcomes. This 80s set Snake Eater sequel looks set to be the most elaborate yet.

LIMB LOSS

Metal Gear Solid games are always fun and maddening to speculate about. Fun since Hideo Kojima never lacks for imagination, maddening thanks to series continuity being slippery at best. In this tease for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain it seems like we're seeing an older, late 1970s Big Boss taking hits fending off an imperfect clone and slipping into a coma, only to be rescued by Psycho Mantis and Revolver Ocelot of Metal Gear Solid's FOXHOUND unit.

It's interesting as well that in what appears to be a post-coma, pre-rescue sequence Big Boss has injuries similar to those he picks up during the original MSX Metal Gear game. Set in the mid 1990s, Metal Gear sees the player cast as Big Boss's clone son Solid Snake, out to thwart his father's apocalypse attempts. Given that mainstay Snake voice actor David Hayter has apparently been dropped in favour of Kiefer Sutherland for this instalment, it got me thinking that Solid Snake might pop up a minor, perhaps adversarial role? No such luck if Hayter's twitter feed is anything to go by - he denies even being approached to lend his gruff talents to this game.

REVENGEANCE CALLS

Just in case people weren't excited enough for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Producer Hideo Kojima has cut together a 7 minute hysteria trailer to get us hyped.

SNATCHER

JACK THE RIPPER

Platinum Games bounce back after the Anarchy Reigns Sega shit out with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. This Raiden stand alone started out as Kojima Productions tech demo, in which users got to precision slash gigantic stationary fruit during slow motion super state sequences. Completely unable to tease a game out of the dicing concept, Koji Pro handed off the title to Platinum Games for a rescue. Not only have the studio delivered a title that looks like the spiritual successor to the wonderful Vanquish, they've managed to weave the precision slash mechanic into gameplay WHILST UPSIDE DOWN. Show offs.

XOF

Well, this is all I'm going to be thinking about from now until the day it's released. Details are scarce, but it certainly looks like Big Boss is back in this ten minute hype reel for Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Awesome things to look out for include: a kid with a microphone port in his chest, a chap with the skin and mouth of a snake, and rainy contra compounds full of angry dogs. Maybe we're finally getting a game inclined to wade into the moral gray of Latin America's secret wars? Series fans may also notice that this sequence is basically a this-gen upscale of Snake's arrival in 1990's Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Listen out too for an Ennio Morricone track last heard in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

PRESS START

WALL RUN

After this week's VGA reveal, here's Hideo Kojima and Kojima Pro staff openly discussing the circumstance that lead to the original incarnation of Metal Gear Rising getting shitcanned. Also of interest is Mr Kojima's brief outline for a possible Metal Gear Solid 5 - what were MGS3's Cobra Unit up to during the D-Day landings? A title focusing exclusively on this fictional World War II outfit is an incredibly exciting proposition. Formed in 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad, and espionage active throughout the rest of the conflict, the multi-national Cobra Unit would be a great framework to interactively examine the shifting battle lines of the Second World War. Look out for more sneak peaks at Platinum Games hyper-caffeinated recalibration too.

VGA 2011: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

After more than a year of radio silence, we finally get a new look at the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Looks like the rumours were true; this troubled title has been handed off to extreme action stalwarts Platinum Games. Ludicrous subtitle aside, Raiden's solo adventure seems to have finally graduated from a slice mechanic tech-demo to a hyper combat game in the vein of Platinum's Vanquish. Is it me or does Raiden sound more than a little like Willem Dafoe too? Although Revengeance appears to have zero in common with the usual Metal Gear tactical espionage, it does scratch an itch every series player has had since 1998 - we finally get to play as a cyborg ninja.