MGS4 = Anybody's Guess
-David, webmaster DVGI

E3 2005 carried with it a number of interesting announcements including many new games, the unveiling of 2.5 of the net gen consoles and of course many upcoming release trailers.  Of all the trailers shown at E3 the one that gathered the most attention was for Metal Gear Solid 4.  This editorial goes over what is shown in the trailer as well as raises some points concerning the content.  I'm sure when MGS4 finally is released I'll look back on this editorial and laugh but just the same, here we go.  If you have not yet seen the trailer you can grab it at IGN or use this direct link from MGS3 UK.  (link removed due to being outdated)  The trailer is about 26MB in file size.  So go download the trailer, watch it a couple times and then continue on here.

This is less of an editorial and more of some information to get your mind thinking about some key points that may or may not be important.  Really it's mainly about things that could have been hinted at in the trailer - and some disturbing stuff that you have to look a little closer to see.

First, notice the nowhere to hide thing.  Does this mean that the guards won't have set loop paths?  Maybe you won't be able to run out of range and hide during alert phase?  Guards with radar systems the same as Snake?

Second - and this is a big one - the part with all the chairs.  The guards run up, each sitting at a director's chair with the name of someone on the staff on the back of each.  Each time a guard sits down you hear a "ding."  That "ding" sound comes into play later.

Now Snake / Hideo ends up without a seat, "no place for Hideo?"  Then he pulls out a gun and wastes everyone, picks up a chair, sits, and it says "game designed, produced and directed by Hideo Kojima" on the back but there is NO DING SOUND.  Then three shells roll on the floor to make "IV" - Snake / Hideo pulls off his mask to reveal... that he was Raiden in disguise.

Next scene - Raiden and Snake (in Spinter Cell costume - GREAT, especially how he makes a bunch of noise in all the gear) square off with a directors chair between them with "MAIN CHARACTER" written on the back.  Eventually Snake tosses Raiden over the edge of the "stage" and sits in the chair.  It now says "Solid Snake in" and the MGS4 comes up.  However notice that again, THERE IS NO DING SOUND.

Snake then gets up, walks away and shuts the lights off.  Then we see Raiden climbing back up from the back of the "stage" and the screen goes back.  Then you hear footsteps, the rustling of someone sitting in a chair, AND THE DING SOUND.  However the trailer never shows just who sat down.

Now it could be just Kojima messing with us, or changing some things around, or having the next trailer build off of this one.  He expressed many times that he realized how much people love Snake after the reaction over MGS2.  If you understood the whole thing about how he was proving the point of the game's story of perceived reality and using an environment and series of trials to shape someone into something then you'd understand why you played as Raiden through essentially the same game outline as MGS1. - that's why YOUR name is on the dog tags at the end, Kojima proves his point by showing how he got you to follow along with a simulation of perceived reality - the game.  Just the same I don't think I'll use Raiden as a main character.

The press kit for Kojima Productions states that in MGS4 Solid Snake IS the star of the game.  It also states that MGS4 takes place after MGS2.  Well at the end of MGS2 Raiden had other things to take care of, mainly creating an identity and family with Rose.  Snake told Raiden himself that he has other things to do.  Kojima probably just put him in the trailer to screw with people - but that ding in the darkness at the end worries me.  It would rock if Campbell was in MGS4, my favorite part of MGS3 was the dialogue between him and Snake in the Snake vs Monkey mini game.  "I'm not destroying any more Metal Gears!"  Also Otakon will probably be in the game as well as he was there (at least in VO form) at the very end of MGS2.

Also in the trailer the "no place for Hideo?" is followed by "no replacement for Hideo!" - but "no place for Snake?" comes up later and isn't ever followed by anything else.  Quite possibly that's Snake at the end (IN DISGUISE) and this is supposed to parallel the thing with Hideo, and we all know there's no replacement for Snake!

I love the trailer but once I realized Hideo / Snake and Snake's chairs didn't have a ding sound when they sat in them - and the one you can't see at the end - it worries me more than entertains me.  Still the best trailer since the MGS3 one set up like a Bond intro.

So it seems (according to the Kojima Productions press kit) MGS4 will pick up where MGS2 left off with Snake continuing to unravel the truth about the Patriots.  Let's just hope it's all Snake all the time.  MGS3 was fine since controlling Big Boss was just like being Snake, I mean Snake is a clone of him.  What route will the series take?  Who knows.  I'd say it's time to play though the previous games again.  Kojima has yet to fail us, especially with MGS3, making games fit into history accurately.  The timeline at the end of MGS3 was one of the most interesting parts in the game, especially if you know most of the backstory from the original games - notice that Sigint goes on to help develop ARPAnet (which became the Internet) and Para-Medic went on to begin paramedic services.

Back to the trailer - I was glad to see Hideo Kojima decide upon the FOX logo from MGS3 to use as the logo for Kojima Productions, I think that's fitting.  Also toward the end of the MGS4 trailer if you pay attention you'll see that when MGS4 scrolls up the screen for the first time it's not configured as MGS4.  Instead it's "M 4 S G" with the M turned clockwise to look like a 3, so it comes up "3 4 5 6" with the ding sound on each one, like an elevator bell.  It's just there for the sake of presentation but I thought it was cool.

Eventually when I change my hosting model in late 2005 into early 2006 I will host the trailer here myself but until then get it from the above link or at IGN.com.  Either way, MGS4 is going to interesting.
 

Written on 06-05-05 by David, insanedavid@classicplastic.net

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