Guess who bought herself Metal Gear Solid 4? (And guess who was completely taken off-guard when she didn’t have to show her ID at the checkout. Whut?) So yeah, I’ve decided to skip Portbale Ops for the time being. The controls are horrible and while I definitely want to go back to it someday, right now I’m a lot more interested in how the main plot concludes in, da-da-da-doooooom, Solid Snake’s final game.

What is it with all this da-da-da-doooooming, by the way? The ad on the back of the box is all “A last mission. The greatest sacrifice. The final chapter in the life of this exceptional hero.” but you know what? The more it’s trying to convince me of the opposite, the more certain I am that the *cough* exceptional hero *cough* is going to survive the game. Or maybe I’m just in denial sticking my fingers in my ears an go “lalelulelola, I can’t heeeeaaaar yooouuu!” We’ll see. For now, welcome to a few notes about Act 1.

Sunny has two daddies.

The loading screen:
Yes, I’m serious. That thing deserves its own section. Or, well, technically it’s just the loading screen that’s displayed when you install the game onto your PS3: Snake’s seen standing around, smoking a cigarette, while the usual health and other assorted warnings (“Don’t play the game when you’re tired,” “Please make sure the room you’re playing in is brightly lit” etc.) are displayed next to him. There’s even a warning about smoking being hazardous to your health. It’s seven kinds of hilarious. XD (Snake, you old chain smoker. You got through three cigarettes and started a fourth by the time the installation was finished!) It is, however, slightly less hilarious when you’ve spent eight minutes staring at the warnings and Snake and realise how goddamn tired he looks.

Opening movie:
Scene: The cemetery where The Boss’s grave is, by now covered in the flowers from the MGS3 final battle against her. (The entire place, not just her grave) Hello Snake. Fancy suit you have there! But, uh, what exactly are you doing here? It’s not like the place has any special meaning for you… in fact, you shouldn’t even know about it! It’s, what? The grave of your mentor’s mentor? [Note: We do find out in a codec conversation later that Big Boss's story/the events of MGS3 seem to have become a part of pop culture in the last year or so, so Snake knowing something about it makes some sense, but still.] And– uh, Snake? What are you planning to do with that gun?

Oh no you won’t. Mark my words. *stares* *stares more* *stares very convincingly* It’s not like the MGS series as a whole is allergic to Happy Ends. It loves bittersweet endings, true, but such a downer ending? Pfffft. As if.

Mission Briefing:
Did anyone else watch the mission briefing and realise ten minutes later that they had absolutely no idea of the plot they’ve just been expositioned to death with because they were to busy going “awwww!” in Sunny’s general direction? Seriously, she’s adorable… and apparently a little computer whiz too. (She did grew up around Otacon after all. XD) Though I have to say that Snake and Uncle Hal aren’t winning any Best Parents Ever awards here and I hope they’re less negligent when Plot isn’t knocking at their door. <.< As it is, they pretty much completely ignore her when she tries to bring them something to eat, no matter how earnestly she tries.

So, they're… currently living on a plane, yes? And they have chickens that lay eggs that Sunny will then try to cook (sunny side up, of course *g*) and apparently the chickens are named Liquid and Solidus? Oh yey. And have I mentioned the adorableness that is Sunny? When she finds the full ashtray in the room upstairs and one of the cigarettes falls to the floor, she pounces and stamps on it before it can roll away and I can't be the only one who grinned and thought of Big Boss's stunt with the cigar, also on a plane. XD And then she goes and yells at Snake for smoking again, and stutters only a little when she does it.

(How old is Sunny, by the way? She should be six or seven, right, given that Olga was pregnant with her in the MGS2 prologue (2007) and that MGS4 takes place in, what was it, 2014? And she's been living with our two Philantrophists (does their organisation still exist, I wonder?) since she was about two. Must be interesting.)

There's an earlier scene, also with Snake in that same fancy black suit, also near The Boss's grave, where Otacon arrives with a helicopter and announces that The Plot has found them Colonel Campbell has something he wants to talk to them about. The conversation takes a brief detour when Snake asks about “the test results” and we find out about the whole accelerated ageing process thing, and that they know of no way to stop it, and that Snake has at most another year to live.

I love the direction of that scene. There’s Otacon who has his back turned to Snake and who, even when he turns to face him, can’t meet his eyes when he tells him about the results. Who can’t even bring himself to say the words out loud. It’s Snake who does, who looks at his now wrinkled hand and says “A year at best, right?” It’s all Otacon can do to confirm that and for a moment he just sounds so utterly defeated. No wonder he wants to grasp at straws a second later, tells Snake and tells himself that they can always try another doctor, right, this doesn’t have to be the end. Not that Snakes wants to hear any of that. He’s tired.

Gah, I’m such a big mushball when it comes to these two and right now, they’re breaking my heart.

As for the actual plot, it looks like our cockroach villain has taken control over the kitten completely via arm possession and is now planning to do stuff somewhere and we’ve got to stop him. Uh, I mean, Liquid seems to have taken over Ocelot’s body and wants to create the world that Big Boss dreamt of back in his good ol’ villain days, were the world’s pretty much constantly at war. And oh well, I guess Snake still has some bones to pick with his obnoxious clone twin, so we’re off to another adventure. Or whatever.

Controls and Codecs:
You fire weapons with the right shoulder button. What. What is this insanity? <.< Seriously, I've played my way through the first act and I still haven't gotten used to the completely changed control scheme. I mean, it's not the mess that Portable Ops’s was, not by a long stretch, and it looks like it’ll play pretty smoothly once I’m used to it, but it’s… different. Different enough that I still find myself crawling around on the floor when I want to sneakily shoot some poor NPC. Whoops.

But: Cutscenes can now be paused! \o/ That makes up for almost everything. (I’m still wondering who thought it was a good idea to make you push Start at the loading screen after it has, well, finished loading to proceed to the following scene.)

So far, Snake has exactly one codec contact, and of course it’s Otacon. He is, however, no longer our safe person. What. WHAT. This. What is this. This is even stranger than the new button configurations. We no longer have safe persons. We save via the pause menu. Game! You can’t do that! I liked safe persons and all their implications! (see also: what I’ve said about this topic in my first MGS2 post)

As it turns out, I am just as worried when there’s no silly banter on the codec between Snake and Otacon as I am when Garcia from Criminal Minds has no witty remarks for her teammates on the phone. It just makes me want to give everyone involved a big hug and tell them that everything is going to be all right, because when Garcia isn’t joking, and when Snake and Otacon aren’t teasing each other, we know it’s bad.
I miss the “lighter” coded calls between those two from MGS2. I understand why they’re not there and it makes sense, but I still miss them. At times, they sound downright aggressive when talking to each other via codec. They’re frustrated. And who could blame them.

New faces, old friends and even older foes:
I don’t really have terribly much to say about Act 1 itself. I mean, there’s not much plot; we’re mainly running around to meat up with “Rat Patrol Unit 1″ and confirm Liquid’s whereabouts while we’re introduced to new gameplay mechanics and see how the world has changed in the last seven years. Let’s do bullet points for this one.

- The “Metal Gear Mk.II,” aka the little robot that Otacon built to have it follow Snake around on the battlefield is beyond adorable. (And I was glad for the scene it was introduced in because the clinical tone of the preceding codec calls had me worried; but the affection in their voices during the Mk.II conversation was clear as day.)

- Drebin is probably a walking Unfortunate Implication (what with him being both one of the few black characters in the series and a weapons dealer), but I quite like him anyway. For all that it makes him rich, he doesn’t seem all that fond of the idea of an “eternal” war after all.

- MERYL! That’s my girl! \o/ *cheers* I was somewhat neutral towards her at first in MGS1 but she quickly grew on me and I love her here. ♥ Major hearts for the rest of the Rat Patrol Unit too, even if except for Johnny, they don’t really get much character. I love how well they work together, even if it might mostly be a result of their NaNonanomachines. (Snake doesn’t like the idea behind the whole thing – 24/7 monitoring and possibly fiddling with people’s emotions to make them into more effective soldiers – and who could blame him, but, uh, I wouldn’t say it’s the soldiers’ fault that they were being born in this age.)

This is, by the way, the point where we all pretend that it didn’t take me the first five minutes of the Rat Patrol scenes to remember that Snake and Meryl where Designated Love Interests back in the day when they were the hero and the heroine and of MGS1. (Well, we all know how well that worked.)
The theme of Snake’s accelerated ageing and me going “:(” continues when Meryl doesn’t even recognise Snake at first. She reaches out to touch his face twice, he shies away both times (which is ore what I’d expect from Big Boss). So instead we go and talk about The Plot some more. Or about Meryl still holding a grudge against her uncle father. Or maybe more plot and exposition? Or we could introduce the rest of the team! It doesn’t get boring, that’s for sure.
tl;dr: My crush on Meryl, let me show you it.

- Cockroach!kitten shows up, says something (“Brrrrrother!”), talks to Naomi – Hello Naomi! Have you cooked up any more deadly viruses lately? – does plot-related things and leaves via helicopter, mostly because, uuuh… we can’t have our big showdown in act 1. “Plot-related thing” included, apparently, something to do with their nanomachines, or else I can’t explain why every soldier in the vicinity, including Snake, Meryl and her unit, broke down all at once.

Well, all expect for Johnny. Johnny is the one who always panics, to put it mildly. He’s the weakest link in Meryl’s unit, the one who trips over his own feet and needs to have things explained to him twice when the rest of the team has the non-verbal communication thing down pat. He’s always breaking down, so when everyone else does, he doesn’t have to. Fascinating.

- One more thing, about the general setting for this act: It’s one that’s highly unusual for MGS. We’re in the middle of a combat zone where two seemingly unrelated parties are battling each with shots being fired at all times and people yelling and screaming; it’s very different from the silence of Shadow Moses, or the plant, or even the jungle. (The jungle wasn’t necessarily silent of course, but it was tranquil.) It fits in very well with the story’s general sentiment that “war has changed” and that it’s everywhere now and if Liquid has his say, it’ll surround everyone as much as it surrounds Snake. Heh. We should better go and find that cockroach before he has any more brilliant ideas.

Act 1: Fin

Immersion is one of the greatest goals every game tries to achieve. It is more obvious in what I call character based games. When you play Gears of War, you feel you are in Marcus Fenix’s shoes. When you play MGS4 you feel the drama of the dying hero as if it were your own. In Modern Warfare 2, every drop of blood on the screen makes you worry and get cover.

But it is also true for impersonal games; that is, the ones whose focus is not on characters. It is easier to notice it when I replace the word immersion for involvement. When playing Lumines or Tower Bloxx for example, you feel involved in the game: frustrated after a mistake, excited when a new level is reached, defiant when the score of a friend is beaten. Note impersonal and casual games are not the same thing at all. Chess is impersonal as are, heroes aside, most RTSs: replace one Zealot for another, there’s no difference at all. All sports games are like that too, with the exception of modes like EA’s Be A Pro.

Now, there’s a multitude of factors that contribute to how immersive a game is. I recently mentioned one talking about Demon’s Souls: challenge. A challenged player is an involved player. There’s also the connection between player and game at the fundamental design level: some people like puzzles, some like shooters. I will not get in the merits of each one, but if you like a type of game, you will be more into it. Style also plays a big role: when graphics and sound suit the game and your mood, they also improve immersion. In fact, I would say immersion is the reason behind most graphical updates in the games industry. From polygon count and texture size to shaders, in the search for immersion graphics chips are always evolving to provide better and more artistic or realistic visuals.

From here we get to the other facet of immersion I want to talk about: controls. No matter what game you are playing, connecting to it requires controlling it without trouble. You only get into Tetris when you learn how to move and rotate the pieces the way you want, you only appreciate Geometry Wars after getting used to moving the ship with the analog stick, you only feel like Sam Fisher when pulling all his moves gets easy, you only enjoy Fifa 10 when passing, dribbling and shooting becomes second nature.

Over the years, games became more and more complex. And with game complexity came complex controls. The Atari had 1 button. The NES had 2. The Genesis had 3. In the current generation, both PS3 and 360 have 4 face buttons, 2 shoulder buttons, 2 shoulder triggers and 2 clickable analog sticks. And I am not counting dpads, select and start buttons.

Most gamers are used to it. Hell, controllers could have more buttons and that wouldn’t be a problem, not to me. But with the last generation of consoles, we saw a big move in the opposite direction coming from Nintendo. The Wii has less buttons and makes up for it trying to detect something everybody knows how to do: move and point. When I first heard about it, I was very interested, both as a gamer and as a robotic perception researcher. To me, that meant games would become even more immersive, shooters would feel even more realistic.

It is curious that while it is true the Wii controllers increased immersion, that change did not affect most hardcore games. Nintendo correctly (from a business perspective) focused on using the more approachable controls to bring a new crowd to the video games era. And it worked very well for them.

Nintendo’s approach was so right that others have been following it ever since. After the success of the Wii, many game platforms started exploring new and more natural input methods. Touch screens and accelerometers became very popular.

But we will soon reach a new apex. Something I personally have been waiting for since I started studying computer vision. And Microsoft is the one about to pull it off: no controls. No buttons at all. If you haven’t heard of Project Natal before, go check it out. It is awesome.

The idea of a vision system in games is not new, the PS2 had the EyeToy. But there were many technical limitations: from sensor capability (one still eye won’t give proper perception of depth for example) to processing power, as robust computer vision algorithms require a whole lot of processing. Project Natal solves these problems in a very interesting way: a single camera is used for “texture” detection. And instead of stereo vision, they achieve 3D perception with a depth sensor. As for the processing power, Project Natal’s device features a custom processor, which is certainly there to reduce the load on the 360 hardware.

Like Nintendo did, Project Natal’s first efforts will probably aim the casual market and bring more gamers to the table. But that does not change the fact that immersion in video games will take a big leap. Imagine playing Lumines by grabbing the blocks and rotating them with your hands. Or simply using your empty hands to select your playlist. Wouldn’t it be cool? Heck, in Minority Report Tom Cruise needed cool glowing gloves to do what we are about to get with our bare hands. The future is here, my friends.

Anyway, as the number of buttons get close to the limit, after all we only have 10 fingers, new input methods are here to stay. I don’t have a Wii. But I will need a bigger living room when Project Natal becomes available.

See you space cowboys…

Inspired by twilight (great movie).

While I was watching it with my girlfriend I wonder to myself …who would win in a fight Kain or Vamp ,Tricky one huh? Both are bad asses and both have the craziest powers. If you’re undecided then ill bring on some facts to help you

In the red corner we have VAMP

Born in Romania, Vamp lost his entire family in a church bombing in which he was pierced by a crucifix and buried in the rubble next to his parents. In order to survive, Vamp fed off of the blood of his family; this is how he acquired a taste for blood. According to Solid Snake, his name is not a reference to his vampire like behavior, but to the fact he is bisexual

A legendary character in the metal gear solid series. Debuting in metal gear solid 2 as the ”immortal” vampire you could not take down .Tricks from running up on walls , dancing/fighting on water , holding his breath for a looong time , effortlessly balancing on railings and on top of that deadly fighting skills.Vamp proved to be difficult opposition for snake , but his rivalry with the character Raiden is the most famous.

In the Blue corner we have KAIN

An arrogant noble murdered and revived as a vampire, Kain embarked on a crusade to kill his assassins and then be restored to human form. When he came to revere his powers, Kain turned his back on his prophesied duty and became a vampire lord ruling over the land. Kain’s attentions later turned to averting his destined doom at the hands of his lieutenant Raziel. Kain’s manipulations of Raziel in the hopes of changing his destiny effectively set in motion the events that make up most of the Legacy of Kain series

 

Kain has the power of the dark gift , giving him mystical powers like turning into a mist form and nearly being invisible .When he drinks another vampires blood he gains their power , powers like jumping great distances  influencing the weak willed , super speed and telekinesis .all that = bad-assness.

Winner …

You decide

Auf einem meiner Lieblingsblogs (BasicThinking) ist ein sehr interessanter Bericht zu dem neuen Betriebssystem Google Chrome OS erschienen. Mit dem Betriebssystem möchte Google groß in den Markt einsteigen und den Trend Cloud Computing, also dem Speichern und Ausführen von Anwendungen/Daten direkt von Servern und nicht mehr vom eigenen Computer (toller aktueller Bericht auch hier zu finden), endlich sinnvoll einsetzen. Auch Microsoft hat nach langer Zeit den Trend endlich erkannt und möchte lt. Spiegel Berichten mit Windows Azure bald groß einsteigen. Dabei setzt Chrome OS auf das Design vom Google Browser und arbeitet viel mit Tabs und Overlays (Fenster die vor dem Browser stehen). Mal sehen wie sich das bei den Games so weiterentwickelt, kleinere grafisch nicht so anspruchsvolle Spiele lassen sich, wie auf dem Video (ab Minute 5:50) zu sehen ist, problemlos starten.

Spiele die viel Speicherplatz benötigen, werden sicherlich anfangs nicht per Chrome OS bzw. per Cloud Computing spielbar sein. Dafür sind die Bandbreiten noch zu klein. Vorgesehen ist das Betriebssystem eigentlich für den Netbook Markt, man kann sich aber fast nicht vorstellen dass es dabei bleiben wird.

Für weitere Informationen unbedingt den BasicThinkingBlog ansurfen, es lohnt sich wirklich.

Update 1#MetalGear#: Einen (wahrscheinlich) schönen Bezug gibt es in einer der Chrome OS Präsentationen bezüglich Metal Gear Solid. Big Boss ist eine Figur aus dem Metal Gear Universum. Es wirkt so als ob es einen Fan bei Google gibt, kann aber natürlich auch Zufall sein. Zum vergrößern einfach auf das Bild klicken.

“Next Friday is BLACK FRIDAY, the biggest shopping day of the year.  If you compare the 3 video game systems, How do you think that Sony releasing the new PS3 Slim at $299 will help them make up being in third place against the number of people that have Xbox 360’s and Wii’s?”

Das kommende Castlevania Spiel passt sehr gut zum letzten Post (Dante`s Inferno). Sind doch beide Spiele im gleichen Genre angesiedelt. Der Trailer ist nicht mehr der allerneueste, ist für mich aber immer noch einer der besten Trailer der letzten Jahre im Gamesbereich. Beim ersten Mal schauen hat der mich so umgehauen, dass ich den gleich sofort noch ein zweites Mal geschaut habe. Alleine die Sprecher sind es schon Wert den Trailer zu schauen. Hier geben sich Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men), Robert Caryle (28 Weeks Later, Trainspotting) und Jason Isaacs (Der Patriot, Black Hawk Down) die Ehre. Die Sprecher packen einen so, dass man fast das Spiel vergisst. Zum Glück können die gezeigten Spielszenen paroli bieten. Das sieht alles sehr flüssig und gut aus. Auch die großen Endgegner wirken toll animiert. Ich denke das Castlevania – God of War gefährlicher werden kann als Dante`s Inferno. Ich bin wirklich voll davon überzeugt, dass die Castlevania-Reihe Back ist. Man merkt das Konami wieder zu 100% hinter seiner bekannten Marke steht und einen großen Aufwand betreibt, um die Qualität wieder dahinzubringen wo sie sein muss – nämlich oben (die 2D-Teile für Nintendo DS sind davon nicht betroffen, die sind super). Release Termin ist irgendwann im Jahr 2010.

“Metal Gear Solid” podrá adquirirse con la actualización correspondiente del día 19 de noviembre a un precio de 9,99 euros siendo compatible con PS3 y la portátil PSP. Cabe destacar que este juego se encuentra disponible en el mercado japonés hace ya más de un año y en Estados Unidos desde el verano. Metal Gear Solid fue lanzado originalmente en Europa en el año 1999 y logró convertirse en uno de los mayores éxitos de la consola PSOne.

Este videojuego clásico de la primera consola de Sony no es el único que estará disponible en el catálogo de descargas ya que reconocidos lanzamientos como Final Fantasy VII o el primer Medal of Honor también se encontrarán en formato digital.

© Post original creado por Juegos.tv

Just five months after it’s US release, Metal Gear Solid is coming to Europe as a PS one Classic via PlayStation Network this Thursday. Costing £7.99 or €9.99, the 3D reimagining of Hideo Kojima’s classic elevated the lesser known series to a cult phenomenon and can now be played on our PSPs – finally. Five months is a long time to wait considering it’s a port of a PS1 game but at least now we can take a little bit of Snake with us where ever we go.

{Thanks The Sixth Axis}

Le ha costado, pero Konami acaba de confirmar que esta semana Solid Snake volvera a PlayStation con el clasico de PSone Metal Gear Solid.

Hace 10 años que el juego vio la luz, pero sigue considerada la mejor entrega de la saga. Ademas, es la unica entrega que llego a españa doblada a nuestro idioma y !que doblaje!. Quien no recuerda ese “¿pero, que coño?” de Alfonso Valles.

El juego saldra al precio de 9.99€, que parece que va a ser la tonica del precio de todos los “must have” de PSone en la Store, como ya fuera Fina Fantasy VII.

Para todos aquellos que no lo disfrutaron en su momento, ha llegado la hora de hacerlo y, viendo lo que cuesta del juego en ebay, a un precio razonable, ademas de poder usarlo tambien en PSP.

Parece que poco a poco, se ponen las pilas en europa. La cosa va despacio, pero este año ya hemos recibido dos joyas de la inmortal PSone y estan confirmados, ademas, Final Fantasy VIII y Vagrant Story, sin duda dos de las obras maestras de Square de aquella epoca.

Decir, que Konami tambien ha confirmado que las entregas de la saga en PSP veran la luz en la store. Portable Ops, Portable Ops + y Digital Graphic Novel tambien se dejaran ver en descarga digital, aunque no se ha confirmado fecha y precio.

Sin duda, los fans de la saga estamos de enhorabuena.

The legendary PlayStation game that is Metal Gear Solid will finally be arriving to the European PlayStation Store. It’s been available for quite a while on the Japanese and North American Store but it has been confirmed to be coming in the next update for the EU store.

Apparently it will cost 9.99 Euros but no word on a pound price yet. Either way this is good news to European gamers as this is one of the finest PlayStation games ever.

Dear Sony,

As I am sure you are aware, you own the film rights to any adaptation of Metal Gear Solid, the outstanding brainchild of video game auteur Hideo Kojima. I have no doubt that since the property became a gaming icon after Konami brought it to the Playstation in 1998 many have tried to get a film adaptation off the ground. I’m sure you’ve heard pitch after pitch, and maybe even solicited some of your own, so I appreciate that no ground has been made on turning the beloved series – arguably the most cinematic game of all time – toward the big screen.

Fan Rant: Please Don't Let Paul W.S. Anderson Direct 'Metal Gear Solid'

Yet I fear that with a big budget adaptation of Prince of Persia on the horizon, you might start getting antsy about making a big budget video game movie of your own; and if that’s the case, please do not take up Paul W.S. Anderson on his desire to be the man who brings Solid Snake to movie theaters around the world. For the love of all that is sacred to gamers, please, please, please do not allow that to happen. I could rattle off a handful of different directors better equipped to bring the sweeping world of espionage, intrigue, double-twists, and giant robots than the man who simultaneously rendered two beloved franchises irrelevant with Alien vs. Predator.

Now I’m not opposed to making Metal Gear Solid into a movie. Though Kojima’s storylines for MGS have become more twisted and entangled than a snake orgy at this point, I have no doubt that a competent screenwriter could make an excellent script out of the series’ latest episodes. But it’s going to take a director with real vision to transform Solid Snake from a game icon into the film God he deserves, and Anderson just doesn’t have the minerals to do that.

Should you be actively exploring how to bring the stealth superstar to cinemas, your starting off point must be hiring David Hayter to write the script. Sure, he’s been the English language voice of the Japanese game star for over a decade, so he knows the property like the back of Snake’s eye patch, but with helping pen the scripts for X-Men, X2, and Watchmen he’s proven himself more than just a man with a talent for killing it with a gravely voice.

You don’t have to go with Hayter as your sole and final screenwriter, but at least give the man a shot. I’m sure he’d be willing to forget the draft he wrote for Konami in 2001 and start fresh, so even if you don’t go with him as the writer, you’ll at least have a nice jumping off point established by an insider to the franchise. But like I said, I’m less concerned with the script than I am with the director.

Metal Gear Solid is big. It’s a big story with big characters fighting bigger villains who sometimes hide in even bigger robots. It’s going to take someone who can handle spectacle to bring all of that to cinematic life and nothing in Anderson’s career has him capable of tackling such a project; and this is coming from someone who actually enjoys some of Anderson’s work. He’s not an awful director, he’s just wrong for this project. And to show you how wrong I think he is for it, I’m going to throw out a name I never, ever, ever would have imagined suggesting for MGS: McG.

Yes, McG, the man behind Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation. While I was, as a whole, unsatisfied by Terminator Salvation, his delivery of the first hour or so has me convinced that even he would be a better match for global stakes than Anderson. And if I’m willing to concede that McG is a better at something than someone, well, that should only go to show how ill-suited said someone is. [Clarification: I'm not saying I'd like McG to do MGS, I'm just saying that even he - another safe, commercial director - would be a better choice than Anderson.]

Back in 1998 I first envisioned Metal Gear Solid as a perfect vehicle for someone like John McTiernan, but I realize that you’re likely to eventually (and I do believe that a MGS is not a question of If, but When) want to go with someone who has a recent record at the box office. I could easily assemble a fantasy list of who I’d like to see do it today, but that’s not necessary. All you need to know is that Paul W.S. Anderson, though willing, is even more unnecessary. Let him stick to the Soldiers and the Death Races of the world. Let him stick to movies without congruous tone, characters, and scale. Just please let someone else usher cinema’s future-favorite spy to the big screen.

I beg you,
a Nerd

by Peter Hall (cinematical.com)

Ah, here were are again with another edition of Brentunes! I think it’s time we get right to the truth of the matter: I LOVE video games. I love them so much that I own some of their music on CD. Yeah – game soundtracks. Let’s roll.

Final Fantasy VIII – The Extreme (Black Mages Ver.) [PS1]

This is the one that instigated this particular post. I was looking up tour dates for Video Games Live, then YouTubing some of their past performances when I came across some live Black Mages stuff. Man, they rock it out. I own their first two CDs, so I hadn’t heard any other tracks of theirs. Until this one! I’m actually replaying FF VIII now, so it made this even better!

Final Fantasy X – Via Purifico (Piano Ver.) [PS2]

Okay, so technically this is NOT the original song, but from the FFX Piano Collection CD. It’s so beautiful! I listen to this track quite a bit at work to just generally keep calm around a bunch of idiots.

Final Fantasy Legend 2  – Save the World [Game Boy]

Final boss music doesn’t “work” for me unless it has a certain feel. I can’t describe it any better than “no second chances, if we fail now everyone we know will die.” That particular emotional connect with me happens in the first 10 seconds of this track. It’s from a friggin’ Game Boy, too! I mean, damn.

Lost Odyssey – Dark Saint [Xbox 360]

Dear Mistwalker – Please make another game that isn’t Blue Dragon-related. See how amazing Odyssey turned out? WANT MOAR!

Let’s end on an emotional note. If you’ve never played MGS4, you may want to play the ENTIRE DAMN SERIES so it’ll make sense. This song is the culmination of 20 years of suspense and cliffhangers for me. Literally – 20 years. Metal Gear came out when I was wee lil’ gamer.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Love Theme [PS3]

There’s got to be a word for this punch-in-the-gut feeling this song gives me. It’s sad, but on a level I can’t really describe. This might be – and probably is – because I’m directly connecting it with the moment in the game where the song is played (arguably one of the greatest gaming moments ever). This track makes me think “we’re going to fail, things are going to get bad for those left behind, now they’re on their own.” It’s strange how I can’t connect music to emotions – I have to connect them to fictional events that I make in my head. Perhaps that’s due to how emotionally and structurally complex music can be. It can’t be easily simplified.

I just realized that Nobuo Uematsu was three of my choices. Must be good, right?

- Brent

From AceShowBiz.com

Paul W.S. Anderson, who is currently shooting “Resident Evil: Afterlife”, has planned to keep himself busy after wrapping the movie. His partner in “Resident Evil”, producer Jeremy Bolt, recently told press that the helmer, who has been set to produce “The Three Musketeers”, is circling two upcoming movie projects.

According to Bolt, Anderson has once again eyed the helmer position for “Castlevania”, in which James Wan has been attached to direct. Additionally, he has put his name in the unofficial bidding for directing “Metal Gear Solid”.

“Castlevania”, based on classic video game with the same title, will follow Transylvanian knight who leads his men into a gothic castle to seek refuge from the Turkish army. The knights soon discover the castle is controlled by the original vampire. Paul W.S. Anderson will serve both as producer and writer of the 2010 movie.

As for “Metal Gear Solid”, the action sci-fi movie will serve as an adaptation of Konami’s video game series centering on Solid Snake, a retired soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons disposal facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit, in an attempt to liberate their two hostages. Produced by Michael De Luca, it is scheduled to be released in 2012.

Amazon Specials!

Metal Gear Solid uno dei giochi più appassionanti oggi è protagonista delle nostre scene per msn

Snake scena per msn

Metal Gear scena per msn

Parece que fue ayer cuando tuve mis primeros Recuerdos de los Cetra. Pero lo cierto es que ha pasado otra semana más y ha llegado el día de volver a recordar.

Aunque el tema principal de esta semana ha sido la oleada de “baneos” en Xbox Live, creo que es mejor recordar otros artículos que nos alejen un poco del complejo mundo de la piratería y las copias de seguridad.

Veamos que artículos recuerdo hoy:

• Vamos a empezar con un recuerdo escrito en la lengua de Shakespeare, des de GamesRadar, Dave Meikleham nos invita a descubrir los Juegos para adultos adaptados para Wii. ¿Os imagináis como serían GTA o Soul Calibur en Wii? Entrad en este recuerdo y lo descubriréis

• Por su parte Gamboi sigue demostrando que “es un jugón” y vuelve a la carga con una de sus retrospectivas, esta vez el afortunado ha sido Rhythm Tengoku. ¿Estáis listos para seguir el ritmo?

• Irisar, des de Dandel, pide a gritos que Quiere una secuela de algunos juegos que por desgracia se quedaron sin tenerla. Cinco títulos salen en su lista, pero seguro que hay muchos más que podrían salir. Yo por mi parte sigo esperando un nuevo Skies of Arkadia.

• ¿Sois del club de los nostalgicos? Si vuestra respuesta ha sido afirmativa estáis de enhorabuena. Pedja, des de su pixeblog, nos trae una recopilación sobre la publicidad en los videojuegos de antaño. El articulo consta de dos partes y des de aquí recordamos ambas: Parte I & Parte II.

• Y sin alejarnos del factor nostalgia, Eldritch des de Fase Extra nos trae un Homenaje a Alfonso Azpiri. Y este recuerdo es uno de esos que se te queda grabado, ya no sólo por la información que te ofrece sino también por lo agradable que resulta visualmente.

• ¿Quién dijo que las segundas partes eran malas? Eso se pregunta nuestra compañera Nancy Callahan y nos ofrece un pequeño análisis sobre lo que nos ofrece Half-Life 2 y las aventuras y desventuras de Gordon Freeman.

• Amorin Uzuki sigue con su interés en descubrir el Top 10 de los mejores juegos de Mega Drive según los lectores de Pixfans. 20 títulos son los que se disputan un puesto en la lista y además de votar, en el articulo encontraréis también información sobre los títulos en cuestión.

• Y para finalizar con los recuerdos de hoy, ¿que mejor que unos Minutos Musicales de la mano de Gusku? Esta semana nos invitan a sumergirnos en la banda sonora de Metal Gear Solid y tres canciones han sido las elegidas para representar esta saga.

Estos han sido los Recuerdos de los Cetra de esta semana, espero que os sean de interés y recordad que si tenéis un blog y queréis ser recordados, no dudéis en poneros en contacto con nosotros .

Espero poder llenar mi memoria con muchos recuerdos para la próxima semana

Paul W.S Anderson, the person behind Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat (Film), Resident Evil (Films) and plenty more wants to direct the Metal Gear Solid movie. Judging by his work with other video game films, I don’t want him. His other movies based on games are pretty much just crap and I don’t want Metal Gear Solid to go down to this level.

Though, if we had the choice between Uwe Boll and Anderson then I would happily let Anderson direct the film. Konami have stressed that Uwe Boll will have no involvement with the film so Anderson is out of luck.

Can’t somebody please stop Paul W.S. Anderson? I mean tie his shoe laces together or something. Just gently usher him away from a video camera to a nice cozy padded room someplace.

It appear the “auteur” is keen to film an adaptation of Konami’s best-selling video game Metal Gear Solid. Columbia Pictures hold the rights to the franchise which centres around the exploits of Solid Snake, a retired soldier working to neutralise the threat of Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit.

Not content with leaving the video game adaptations there, Anderson is also rumoured to be working on Castlevania for Rogue Pictures. The movie is set to focus on the origins of Dracula and the uprising of the Belmont Clan, a vampire-slaying family who supposedly become humanity’s last hope. Thankfully nothing has happened to date as they are still waiting on a script.

Now I’m willing to forgive the man for Resident Evil, as it wasn’t bad. And for Mortal Kombat, as that was pretty much unfilmable to begin with. However, despite making the underrated Event Horizon, I am still unwilling to forgive the cinematic travesty  that was Alien vs Predator, which butchered two brilliant franchises. Also his last movie, Death Race, was pretty damn awful.

Could be worse though, it could be Uwe Boll.

The Meaning And Culture Of Grand Theft Auto – Critical Essays – Nate Garrelts

Play-Fighting: Understanding Violence in Grand Theft Auto III – Tanner Higgin

-       Recent games in the GTA series have often been utilized as the primary examples of a trend of excessively illicit and deviant content saturating the medium. In conjunction, many now fear that this content will manifest itself in the player’s behaviour.

-       As James Paul Gee and other theorists now argue, the video game is more than a playful diversion, it is a tool within which incredibly intricate and highly effective processes of learning get exercised.

-       When someone plays a Grand Theft Auto game they are learning something, but how and what they are learning is still, for the most part, elusive.

-       If the proliferation of violent video games is contemporaneous with a drastic decline in violent crime, then why not study those connections too? Regardless of whether players experience more, less, or indifferent amounts of aggression during or after playing, the fact remains that the actual violent expression of this behaviour is significantly reduced outside of the game world in almost all cases. In fact, according to the US Department of Justice, violent crime rates have been steadily declining as games sales have been experiencing enormous growth

-       GTA provides a space for the player to act out and stage a performance of this type of violence in situations which reflect, distort and exaggerate those of real life yet are contained within the safety of the virtual sphere.

-       Gaming is not only a primary space of pleasure for the cultures but a space where performance is more and more a part of the discourse (Burrill)

-       Often lost in the consideration of GTA’s translation of the real world into virtual performance is the satirical critique of society that it engages in. When regarded as a tool to satirize culture, the violence of GTA suddenly seems less dangerous to individuals in society and more dangerous to the mythologies of society

-       To this end the game immerses the player in a carnival of caricature

From Stompin’ Mushrooms To Bustin’ Heads: Grand Theft Auto III as Paradigm Shift – Laurie N. Taylor

-       Popular action based games are often stripped of social relevance and divorced from their potential political and social contents, GTA3’s satirical examination of society presented a needed entry in gaming. Its satires were also important because of their myriad references. The satires did not target one particular group or event, instead acting as an inclusive social satire akin to other popular texts like South Park, with GTA using satire to critique contemporary social structures like the criminal justice system, relationships, contemporary music and capitalistic society.

Everyday Play: Cruising for Leisure in San Andreas – Timothy J. Welsh

-       The industry push to make video games more immersive has, for many producers, meant making games more true to life. Hyper realistic graphics sophisticated real world physics, expansive, fully interactive environments free from the segmentation of load screens and separated levels all serve as strategies for eliminating anything that reminds the audience that they are playing a game. This trend toward immersion through life imitation has also meant the inclusion of common, everyday activities

-       The unique freedom supposedly offered by video games has been a central, and often politicised, issue revolving around the question of who controls whom. From one perspective, when a player picks up a controller, he accepts a design, meaning system and purpose not his own, hailed in the full Althusserian sense. This is particularly true of narrative based, progressive games.

-       The product is more toy than movie, more sandbox than story. Video games are evolving into a grand anti-authoritarian laboratory. – Kevin Parker

-       In regard to the freedom the game makes available for its players, GTA offers players a great deal of activities without restricting play to any particular goal. The game contains a definitive narrative and teleological progression that they player cannot influence

-       Against the backdrop of the everyday, from which video games supposedly transport those engaged in them, GTA immerses its players in a world that resembles the monotonous daily life of modern capitalism but releases them from its pervasive responsibilities, restrictions and requirements