Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

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This article or section contains information about a computer and video games>computer or video game . It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically as the game's release approaches and more information becomes available.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (commonly abbreviated MGS4) will be the last iteration in the Metal Gear Solid series of stealth-based games, as announced by Konami in March 2005. Using the motto "No place to hide" and the theme of "Senses", the game is being produced by Kenichiro Imaizumi, with series creator Hideo Kojima co-directing the game with Shuyo Murata. It is being developed by Kojima Productions exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

Director discussion

Initially, Hideo Kojima announced that he would be retiring as director of the Metal Gear series after and would leave his position open to another person for Metal Gear Solid 4. As a joke, the new director was announced as "Alan Smithee", the pseudonym often used by Hollywood film directors who do not wish to be credited for their work. An early trailer for the game also displayed the words "No place to hide", and then the slightly-altered "No place for Hideo?"

In R, a 400-page book bundled with Metal Gear Solid 3s Japanese "Premium Package", the director was revealed to be Shuyo Murata, co-writer of MGS3'' and director of '. He has also contributed humorous easter eggs to ' and '.

However, on May 17 2005, it was announced on Kojima Productions' official website that Kojima will be co-directing the game with Murata, due to substantial negative fan reaction and even death threats. [link]

Plot

Set two years after the Manhattan incident (the events of Metal Gear Solid 2), MGS4 portrays a world where the restriction of military intervention on foreign soil has eased, leading to demands on mercenaries to fight proxy battles for business purposes, fueling the need for private military contractors and automated weapons.

However, the five largest PMCs are revealed to be owned by a single mother company, Outer Heaven (the name of Big Boss' mercenary company and fortified nation in the original Metal Gear), operated by Liquid Snake. It is revealed that Outer Heaven has amassed a military equivalent in power to the United States' own, as well as the rest of the world, and that the ArmsTech Corporation (the original manufacturer of Metal Gear REX) is supplying their weapons to both Outer Heaven and the U.S. military.

With the world once again in crisis, Solid Snake is deployed by the United Nations to infiltrate Outer Heaven's headquarters, located in the Middle East.Show Maybe, promotional pamphlet distributed at E3 2006. This time he will be pitted against mercenaries using the latest in modern weapons and perhaps even the local guerilla population (equipped with the more crude Warsaw Pact-era weaponry as seen in MGS3) after he loses his disguise as one of them.

Returning characters

Hideo Kojima has stated that unlike in MGS2 and MGS3, Solid Snake will indeed be the primary playable character.

Visually confirmed in the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo trailer are:

• Solid Snake
• Meryl Silverburgh
• Naomi Hunter
• Otacon
• Colonel Campbell
• Revolver Ocelot (and by extension, Liquid Snake)
• Raiden

Other confirmed characters include:

• Mei Ling
• Vamp
• Johnny Sasaki

The E3 2005 preview poster for the game also features Big Boss's body, but it is not yet known what role he will play.

As of yet, no new characters have been introduced, save a single child in the E3 poster; odd, given that all past series entries have brought in complex webs of new antagonists and relationships.

Gameplay

Kojima has stated the main new concept for MGS4 will be "No Place To Hide!" This theme does not imply that the trademark stealth gameplay of the Metal Gear series will be abandoned; instead, he suggests that many traditional ways of sneaking and hiding will change and that players will have to find new ways of using stealth. Walls may be destroyed, exposing Snake to the enemy, or elements such as trucks and crates may move.

While the Tokyo Game Show 2005 and E3 2006 trailers were rendered in realtime, it has yet to be revealed what the actual in-game gameplay will be like. Hideo Kojima has declined to discuss much about the gameplay, but it is speculated that it will be unveiled during either the Tokyo Game Show 2006 or E3 2007.

Sense

Kojima has stated that with the PlayStation 3, he will be able to focus on the things we can't see. In an interview, he explained that the things we can't see will be things like sound, and how they affect the environment. As such, if a building is severely damaged, the resulting sound from a nearby explosion could cause the building to crumble and fall. He also stressed what he referred to as "sense," which is also a branch of the "things we can't see" tag. As such, sound, touch, vision, and all the senses will help make up the game.

Furthermore, he is planning to consult psychiatrists on how to emphasize a "mental battle" between Snake and his enemies, so that "who controls the fear can decide the outcome". The game's trailer hints that the tactical Metal Gears featured in the game are designed to play with Snake's emotions: one unit paws the ground and growls like a bull while hunting for Snake, while another makes cicada noises to create a false sense of security.

Continuing with this theme, the soldiers Snake will encounter are not specifically friends or enemies at first - rather, the player's actions towards them will influence how they respond to Snake. In an interview in Edge, Kojima stated that he plans to allow players to have a greater effect on the enemy than just fighting them, allowing alliances and agressions to form and change between Snake and the other parties on the battlefield.

Metal Gear Mk.II

Snake will also be partnered with a robotic navigator, remotely by Otacon. Snake will use the Mk. II to communicate with him, serving as a substitute to the CODEC/ radio system from previous games. Kojima has also commented that the development team will experiment with the idea of controlling the Mk. II via remote control for reconnaissance using the Playstation Portable, although the feature might not be in the final game if it is not considered practical.

Kojima has also gone on record that there is no relation between a near-identical robot in his previous game Snatcher and the one Otacon manipulates.

Continuing the bloodline

The game is planned to utilize a new 360-degree third-person camera system in addition to the top-down camera used in the previous three Metal Gear Solid games. An experimental version of this camera system is included in . Another feature that debuted in Subsistence, an online battle mode, will also be featured in MGS4.

Continuing but simplifying the camouflage system seen in MGS3, Snake will wear "Octocamo" (named after octopuses' camouflage ability), which will be mimetic and will imitate the appearance of the environment it's in.

In a first for the series, the graphics will emphasize natural movement in actions such as an enemy's discovery of Snake, thus eliminating the need of exclamation marks or question marks as indicators. However, recent interviews suggest that they may be reinstated for nostalgic reasons.

Japanese cast

Character	Voice
Solid Snake	Akio Otsuka
Hal "Otacon" Emmerich	Hideyuki Tanaka
Naomi Hunter	Hiromi Tsuru
Colonel Roy Campbell	Takeshi Aono
Liquid Snake/Ocelot	Banjo Ginga
Meryl Silverburgh	Kyoko Terase
Raiden	Kenyu Horiuchi
Mei Ling	Houko Kuwashima

External links

• [Official MGS4 trailer] shown at the Tokyo Game Show 2005
• [Official MGS4 trailer] shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2006
• [Details from Kojima Productions]
• [Hideo Kojima Blog in English]
• [IGN]
• [GameSpot GameSpace]
• [GamesAreFun article containing Famitsu scans]
• [GameRankings]
• [Meristation article containing confirmation that Snake will not die (Spanish)]
• [Metal Gear Week on 1UP.com, with Hideo Kojima interview]
• [Gamasutra coverage of E3 2006]
• [Metal Gear Source, article on Metal Gear Solid 4]

References

 

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