Hideo Kojima made a guest appearance at Konami's booth at TGS
today to interact in real-time with Solid
Snake's character model from the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer via a PS3 test system (apparently on-stage
looking "like a slightly oversized PC").
Watching any kind of trailer can cause us to raise both our pre-rendered defenses and even our hopes (for
MGS/Sony fans, at least) that the footage we just saw will be possible with the eventually released software.
This demonstration from Kojima (and MGS character designer Yoji Shinkawa) shows us that the scenes from the
vaunted TGS trailer can run in real-time, though 1UP's videos
don't show much beyond changing the lighting, colors, zoom, and camera angles while paused. (A video message from a
grateful Ken Kutaragi was also reported—though not shown—where he "thanked Kojima for making such a great showcase for
his new hardware." If learning Japanese isn't quite your thing, just keep in mind that the female commentator
repeatedly exclaims
sugoi
throughout the video, which means "amazing" or "awesome" in English.)
[UPDATE: The direct-feed trailer is now up
for streaming and downloading off GameTrailers. Thanks for the tip,
Ruari. This copy appears to have been cached off
of the official Kojima Productions MGS4 site,
which has finally gone live with the real thing, if only at a single relatively low resolution or bit-rate. To
alleviate technical difficulties, however, we recommend using IE over Firefox for
streaming off the official site, despite the use
of a fox for Kojima's studio symbol. We're sure that Snake
would appreciate the irony.]
[Further UPDATE: 1UP has taken down its bootleg videos
because Konami asked 'em to. Thanks,
brake, but… aw, shucks. At least the audio on
the direct feed's a lot better. See the GT
link here for a smaller version of a bootleg with
some audio. Try the official site to stay on
Kojima's good side.]
So if you haven?t downloaded one of those bootleg show-floor trailers yet, now?s (nearly? See mix below) the best time to do it. But a word to the wise: those streaming 56K versions really don?t cut it; at least go for the streaming broadband versions or wait patiently for the High Quality WMV or QuickTime versions to finish downloading. The High Quality versions will only take 5-10 minutes to download on a DSL, cable-modem, or T-1(!) connection at a low-traffic time, but the server-buffering at 1UP is a lot better than that of our prior trailer connection over at GameTrailers.com. Now if they could add the audio from the GameMeca/GameTrailers version of the trailer to the 640x480 (1500kbps?) video from 1UP, then we?d have a real winner. It is interesting?due to the E3-like audio extravaganzas going on all around the show?to see Snake sneaking to techno music, however.
