
With Metal Gear Solid 4 complete, all the details regarding the marketing arrangements in the game have come to light. It seems the game will be a vehicle for product placement on an unprecedented scale for an A-List title, with 10 product “collaborations” evident; but it is not so much the number as the prominence and lack of consideration for fit which stand out. Read on for the full details.
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According to the official announcement, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is now completed, so all that remains is to wait for the release. Whilst a variety of dubious marketing endeavours are underway (placing Regain into the game seems positively tawdry), the biggest change this brings is the opening of the official site, filled with movie based quizzes which you can “complete” for “Digital Download Points”, exchangeable for a variety of wallpapers and the like – how very original. Still the game movies are interesting enough.
Hideo Kojima may have put his foot in his mouth recently, and again just now if you read the drivel he spouts in the press conference comparing SCE to space pioneers, but this hardly has any bearing on what will doubtless prove to be the biggest PS3 release to date; it will certainly be interesting to see how well the PS3 fairs with the upcoming releases of its major titles – my guess is well.

There was something of a furore when Metal Gear Solid 4 creator 小島秀夫 / Hideo Kojima gave an interview to Edge and was quoted as saying “The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step”, amongst other negative statements about the PS3 platform. Now on his own blog, he denies all, and claims it was in fact a mistranslation; his humble and self abasing Japanese was distorted through translation and cultural misinterpretation, as well as shameless media exaggeration in pursuit of page views, and so he was grievously misquoted.
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