Metal Gear Solid V: Konami In Stealth Mode, Dodging Bullets


While this demo of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is incredible, not seeing “A Hideo Kojima Production” or his name (or his studio’s name) anywhere on the demo is a bit heartbreaking. Granted, Kojima does get credit for directing and editing the also great E3 trailer (which also has him properly credited as designer at the end):

But for some gamers the upcoming PS4/Xbox One/PC release itself may as well have “Alan Smithee” in the credits at this point. If you want a real laugh, watch the trailer with YouTube’s closed caption option set to ON. The messed up English that results is pretty damn funny considering the language being captioned in such a wacky manner IS English. Anyway, the game looks great and should sell quite well. But for some fans it’ll be a bittersweet play through with its creator ousted from what could be his best work.

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Konami Kills Silent Hills; P.T. Probably Gone For Good

P.T. RIPIf you own a PlayStation 4, love horror-related games and have yet to play P.T., get ready for a little shock. You only have a few hours before that title (which stands for Playable Teaser and was actually a concept demo for the Guillermo Del Toro/Hideo Kojima Silent Hills project that was to feature The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus as the lead) is probably gone forever.

Konami has canceled the project entirely and will be yanking the demo off the PlayStation Network on Wednesday the 29th. The company still plans to keep creating games in the long running Silent Hill series in the future, but the loss of this demo comes as yet another blow to fans of Mr. Kojima’s work. This latest business decision comes not too long after both Kojima and Kojima Studios’ name were removed from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain after still unrevealed disagreements between the creator and company. Both his name and his studio’s name were also chopped from the P.T. demo site in Japan and it seems that once the free demo is gone, it’ll not even be available to download even if it’s been placed in one’s PS4 queue for play at some point in the future.

P.T. Title Screen 7780S (Custom) 

As a bit of a gaming historian and big (but sometimes easily rattled) horror fan, this irks me to no end as well as shows how lousy digital distribution really is in terms of preserving content. Pulling a game demo may not seem like a big deal to many of you and it’s not really a huge deal at the end of the day. That said, given that P.T. showed off more creativity and genuinely freaky scares than some completed games, not having the demo around to show off in the future doesn’t bode well for any other demo or full game deemed disposable by companies who want to erase the past. Foo. Hopefully Konami will reconsider and at some point make the demo available at some point down the road. However, given the company’s kicking Kojima to the curb so abruptly after decades of service (no matter the reason, it’s a shame how things seem to be ending), it’s a bad sign of things to come if other games deemed doomed get dropped on the chopping block.

Anyway, if indeed the demo does disappear forever, there’s always YouTube for watching videos of people playing it. Konami’s official P.T. clips on its Japanese channel seem to be already gone, which is annoying because there were some reaction videos featuring gamers and non-gamers that were flat out hilarious. Oh well. Life goes on… but with a little less great scary as hell stuff to share with like-minded folks.

What a shame.

Silent Hills: No Scare-City of Screams In This Soon to Be Horror Hit…


 
Now that a possible few million people have been scared half to death or so from that P.T. demo which has since been revealed as a teaser for the latest Silent Hill game, I’d say Konami, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro have got the attention of horror fans as well as curious folks who just so happened to be handed a controller just to see what happens.


 
Naturally, the reaction videos here are priceless, but Konami proves it’s not sexist at all because below you get to see a bunch of guys and gals at this year’s Gamescom nearly peeing themselves while trying to play that demo. Yeah, I wasn’t there, but I did play it at a friend’s place and yup, it gets pretty effective at times. Of course, part of the scare factor is the looping around the same map that changes so randomly I’ve yet to hear of two people having the exact same experience.


 
With all that looping around, crazy changes to the area and yes, those incredibly realistic visuals that play with your fears (if you hate cockroaches, darkness, messed up ghostly faces filling your screen and a few other things, break out the adult diapers), it’s clear that Sony and Konami have got a pile of money coming their way once this game is released… Continue reading

Monster World RPG Update: Not QUITE Ready, But You Get An Ending, Anyway!

 

And I say HAH! To Max Team for “spoiling” their game for all of you. Well, not really. There’s a good ending in here as well, but I’m not going to spoil that for you at all. Actually, I got a note from the guys (or was it ONE of them? Hmmm. How come you NEVER see Fernando OR Massimo at the SAME time in the same place? Hmmmm?) saying that the game is still being bug tested, but should be done at some point. Hey, it’s a FREE download, so I say take your time, boys. Take your time. If it’s as good as it looks, I don’t mind the wait one bit.

Gamescom 2014: P.T. Is SH? Count Me IN!

I’d have to say the biggest new game news out of Gamescom was the surprise reveal of a collaboration between game creator Hideo Kojima, writer/director Guillermo Del Toro and actor Norman Reedus in the form of an all-new horror game called Silent Hills (currently) for the PlayStation 4. There’s a playable teaser (dubbed “P.T.”) up on PSN* as I type this and it seems that some players aren’t getting that it’s NOT supposed to be a demo of the FINAL game, but a teaser of what’s to come and may change entirely from what’s there. Then again, given the amusingly screechy reaction from YouTube user SoapyWarpig (the first person to discover what this mysterious P.T. was, congratulations, by the way!), I’m betting a lot of fans of that particular horror franchise will be plunking down some money towards a PlayStation 4 if they haven’t gotten one yet.

*Note: P.T. is a bit “tricky” to find on the PS Store if you’re just looking for it on your phone/tablet, laptop or desktop. However, if you log into your PSN account and use the search bar (type in PT), you’ll get sent to the demo page and all you need to is download away and get to playing. I think the jump scare stuff in that first video is funny because it might be Kojima poking fun at the endless stream of “let’s watch random guys and gals freak out!” videos that litter YouTube for every horror game these days. I found it more unsettling and bizarre than actually fly out of my chair frightening. Now, to find out if this is another PlayStation-only game or a timed exclusive that’s going to pop up on other consoles and/or PC at some point…

Shadowgate Hands-On: You’ll Be Dying To Play This Game Soon Enough…

SG_towerI had to stop playing Shadowgate after about the first ten minutes because my face was hurting. No, I didn’t get blasted by a real fireball coming from my monitor or anything like that. It’s because I was grinning so much that I think I was exercising more muscles than I’ve used in a while. Anyway, it was obvious from that short stretch of time and later on after about another hour of play that developer Zojoi Games has nailed the game they created back in 1987 as a perfect reboot on a few fronts.

The game manages to retain the same gameplay as the original while adding plenty of new content in an absolutely beautiful (yet suitably grim where required) art style as well as a grand, redone score by Rich Douglas that’s as stirring as the visuals… Continue reading

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Gameplay – 30+ Minutes of Kojima Productions Madness!

 
Konami Japan’s YouTube channel put up a few Kojima Station E3 videos during the show, but the one everyone wanted to see was of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in action. Let’s just say that boy, did they come through big time on that. Now you can slide that slider back and watch the entire broadcast that talks about the game and its assorted features and such, but if you’re just interested in seeing what the Fox Engine can do on the PlayStation 4, well you’re all set on that front at about 49 minutes in. The game looks fantastic, that offbeat Kojima sense of humor is in full effect (the “Phantom cigar”, cardboard box stealth and “Fulton” balloons are priceless!) and overall, this brief taste of the game shows what’s coming sometime in 2015 when the game actually hits retail and digital outlets. it may be madness, but it’s the best kind in action as far as seeing this game’s creative team outdo itself here…

E3 2014: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Extended Trailer: Keifer Of The Flame, I’d Say…

MGS_V_TPPJack Bauer as Big Boss didn’t thrill me much when I first heard the news, but Keifer Sutherland has acquitted himself quite nicely here, although I know the David Hayter fans are cringing and shaking whatever they have handy at the screen. Well, this latest Hideo Kojima and company (Kojima Productions, of course) epic looks to be the best 3D game in the franchise to date, adding a huge open world and I’d imagine the options for no two people to play the game exactly the same. as usual, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be cinematic and lengthy and denser than a year old loaf of Bisquick bread, but that’s Kojima’s style in action. You may end up watching more than you play at some points, but if you’re into it, you’ll end up playing more and taking notes because of all the stuff he’s dropping on your noggin.

As noted earlier, that FOX Engine is masterful across the board, so every version of the game will look amazing. I also see that the amount of mature content, blood and gore here means this one’s not for the kiddies at all, not that there was ever a Metal Gear Solid game made for anyone under 18 if you think about it. Okay, some would argue MGS: Ghost Babel on the Game Boy Color isn’t “mature” thanks to its visuals, but I’m not here to argue (*punt!*). Anyway, The Phantom Pain is coming.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II Update: New Screens, Beta Gets a Big Boost!

 
Nice. Neocore Games has released four new screens from The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II and added some new areas to the closed beta (which is automatically updating via Steam as I type). Excellent.

VanHelsingII_SteamPreOrder_001I was wondering what that other game was Steam was adding content to as I knew The Wolf Among Us was going to drop in Chapter Three as soon as I logged on. Of course, by the time I got to the email from Neocore announcing the beta update, it was about 70% done and I realized that’s what was up. Yeah, I think sideways from time to time, what of it? Anyway, May 22, 2014 is the new release date for VHII. Remember, you can pre-order the game directly from the developer or through Steam. I’ll have an updated hands-on shortly (most likely after the weekend)…

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Old Stuff Resurfaces – My Photobucket Account Lives!

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Yikes. I’d almost forgotten about Photobucket until I was digging through some debug console games to rephotograph and recalled I have a kind of inactive account there. “Thanks” to facebook’s nosy ass “Hey, you can and SHOULD connect to EVERYTHING so we can place ads all in your face in your feed that you KNOW you want to see!” (Oh, kill me now. Or them, preferably), I’m now reconnected to my old crap in photo form and it’s nice to see some of that old stuff without having to dig through the stacks.I think I’ve presented this stuff previously, but nostalgia is good for you, I say.

Anyway, that’s Rent-A-Hero #1 and Dinosaur Hunting for the Xbox (two games that never got an official western release) along with Stolen, an interesting and ambitious game that killed the developer that made it after it tanked at retail and among critics. The last image is Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers along with the “action” figure I got with the debug builds. It seems to look just like ex-President George W. Bush (as some who’ve seen it up close and personal have commented, usually while chuckling a bit). I’ve got a bunch more stuff here, but need more time to write about it, a helper monkey to do stuff so I have more time to write and yeah, a better camera to take better photos with…

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