The storyline:
Alright, we know this is the final chapter in the saga, which started back with Metal Gear Solid 3 in the timeline, and moved forwards from there. From the trailers, we can confirm that a lot of key characters make appearances in the game, including:
- Snake (obviously)
- Meryl Silverburgh
- Raiden
- Revolver/Liquid Ocelot
- Hal 'Otacon' Emerrich
- Naomi Hunter
- Roy Campbell
- Mei Ling
- EVA
- Vamp
"War is the pillar that supports the global economy," says Roy Campbell in the E3 2007 trailer. Much as oil was (and currently is). From what we can gather, the year is 2014, and the Middle East is the location. Foreign governments now pay mercenary groups and insurgents to do battle for corporate means. In the game, the countries are referred to as A and B. Country A's PMC soldiers occupy the battlefield, fighting against Country B's militia. Snake can side with either faction, depending on the situation. It also raises a moral question - which side is 'good'?
Will some of the game take place on American soil? It's certainly possible.
According to the E3 2006 trailer, there are five major PMCs, led by a dummy corporation - Outer Heaven. This hints at the overall game structure; Snake will likely face off against 5 squad leaders, before taking out the main boss. Snake's overall mission involves the termination of Liquid Ocelot- the amalgam of Revolver Ocelot and Liquid Snake's severed forearm. It would seem that he is at the front of the major PMC groups in the game - and as such, is a threat to the interests of the US government and the economy of the larger world.
Meryl Silverburgh is heading up a troop of soldiers (FOXHOUND) sent in by the US government to take out Liquid. "Your cause is our cause now," she tells Snake. "I'm just an old killer, hired to do some wet work," he replies. Snake is basically a contingency plan, in case things go awry. Which invariably they do.
According to assistant producer Ryan Payton, Snake will also be travelling all over the world; that should hint at a bunch of characters and scenarios that have yet to be unveiled, since all the trailers released so far have dealt mainly with the Middle East. There has been footage of a military graveyard and a couple of other unidentified locations, so we'd guess that the US mainland is also featured.
Rumble implementation:
Word around the campfire is that Sony has been distributing new rumble-enabled Sixaxis controllers to key development houses around the world - and we're pretty sure that Kojima Productions qualifies. Will Kojima concede and introduce rumble back into the game? Or will its inclusion affect the reliability of the motion control, which is currently used to great effect in the game?
More texture copying effects:
We're guessing that there's more to the texturing abilities of the OctoCamo than meets our eyes. We predict that in the final game, you'll be able to copy facial textures from characters in the game, as well as uniform textures. Masks will probably be essential for some areas in the game, and, as seen in the TGS 2007 trailer, the game will include a youthful Snake mask (or is it? See below), for a dash of fan-service. We know, from the TGS 2007 trailer, that Snake can definitely copy blood, gore and wounds, so faces and uniforms wouldn't be a huge leap.
Will Raiden again be a playable character as well as an unlockable one? We have our suspicions.
This is delving straight into speculation-territory, which is always dangerous; however, we think that the biggest twist has yet to be seen. Like the tanker-scenario at the start of Metal Gear Solid 2, we're wondering if Snake will actually be the lead character for the entire duration of the game. Our reason for speculation includes the rather long emphasis on Raiden in Ninja-mode towards the end of the most recent cinematic trailer released.
The other reason is because it's been confirmed that
rumour has it both Raiden and Vamp are playable characters after beating the main campaign on different difficulties. We're guessing that Raiden may well factor into the main campaign as a playable character towards the end of the game, and his storyline might be retraceable via a different route than Snakes upon replaying the game - letting you see a different path through the story.
Finally, Snake is surely going to bite the dust during the game - be it before the end credits or as a post-script. He points out, in the E3 2006 trailer, that his final task is to end his own line, wipe out every trace of his genes, or 'MEME', as he refers to it. It may fall on another character's head to finish the job if he dies before the end of the story. It would be a poignant passing of the torch to get Raiden to take over. Or it might
suck. Who can say?
Or maybe Snake
won't die. Although it's easy to assume that the youthful snake in the game is just a mask, we wonder if there's more to it than that. Since we see Snake smoking a cigarette, and there are no lips on the outer mask cover, we're wondering if Snake perhaps gets an injection of fresh nanomachines, based around the third generation version that soldiers in the game carry. This could potentially repair or restore Snake to his youthful glory. Maybe. We're not geneticists though. So the jury is still out.
More crotch-grabbing:
Hey - because all the grabbing of statue-genitalia and soldier-nut-crushing make us wonder where Kojima is going with all this stuff.
The end of an era:
After twenty years of sneaking and espionage, this is the last Metal Gear Solid game. It's Kojima's last as producer and Snake's final hour. But is it the end of the series? With Metal Gear Online coming and the series' popularity as high as it ever been, perhaps the biggest mystery is whether Konami and Kojima productions will really let the series storyline end. We'll shed a tear and bid a bittersweet and understanding goodbye if they do.
And this concludes our breakdown of the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailers and hands-on footage. We're sure there are plenty of other points we've neglected that ardent fans have spotted - so why not leave your thoughts below?
aksizei omos pistepse me! dostou...!
Originally Posted by Proevofan
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