Senior stealth citizen news now, with European Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots sales exceeding one million units in its first week. Konami has called the demand for the game "exceptional," noting that the final chapter in Solid Snake's spiraling saga has seen high sales in all European territories. The 25,000 Limited Edition copies made available to the continent were "almost immediately" sold out. Figures.

The PlayStation 3 sneak-em-up has seen similar success in Japan, outselling its closest competitor by a factor of 12. If you're among the million Metal Gears Sold and don't know your Gekkos from your Frogs, be sure to download the free MGS4 Database from the Euro PlayStation Network this Thursday.

"Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the inclusive, universally entertaining experience it could have been." (7) It "is a frustrating, fractured game" (2) that "feels ... like a genie struggling to find enough goodies in the lamp, slave to the demands of everyone but itself." (1) "Metal Gear Solid 4 is, in most senses, the biggest Metal Gear yet. But the best? Maybe not." (2)

"As the game starts, with its fairly generic next-gen textures and desert battlefield setting, you can't help feeling that you could be playing the latest Call of Duty, or Assassin's Creed." (3) "After a few chapters, [the] gameplay ... begins to mutate into linear action that feels like an afterthought amidst all the story." (4) "The relatively weak second act is more of the same in a much less compelling setting - a rather unconvincing, blandly designed South American backwater - and ennui starts to set in." (2)

"More intuitive controls could have made the overall experience a better one." (6) "A new feature called 'Stress' isn't explained quite clearly enough" (5) and "the new Stress and Psyche meters don't really gel with the flow of play." (2) "You'll also spend a good deal of time poking through your inventory in the middle of boss battles and protracted firefights, which can occasionally disrupt the dramatic flow." (5) "Because control is ... complex, it's very easy to do something you didn't want to by accident, and it's painful to see the perfect setup blown in an instant." (6)

In case you were thinking of skipping the approximately 8-minute install (which also translates to 4 or 5 cigarettes for our aged hero) and making a sandwich, consider the little bit of humor you'd be missing. If you're still undeterred and plan to ignore the game while it installs, check out our gallery for the sagacious and spoiler-free advice.

While some of it is a bit mundane, there are some rather humorous tidbits scattered about. For instance, how does one take a break every 15-minutes when cut-scenes run longer than that? [By pausing, you troll! - Ed]

This article contains enormous spoilers, just so you know.

Playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty again, after all these years, has had an interesting effect on my opinion of it. Which is to say, I actually like it now. I'm tempted to compare it to a maturing, fine wine, a substance I'm sure was heavily consumed during the game's development, but the truth is that Sons of Liberty remains every bit the unhinged and convoluted mess I remember it to be. A mess that, with patience and even the slightest idea of what you're getting yourself into, becomes considerably easier to navigate. Wait ... does that make me the wine?

Actually, the headline is headlyin' just a bit. Not only is Japan's forthcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 bundle not made of steel, it's not particularly cheap either. The latest issue of Famitsu reports (translated by IGN) that a steel-colored PS3 will join a special edition of Konami's highly anticipated senile sneaker sim in a Japanese Premium Pack.

Approximately ¥51,800 ($515) will net Japanese consumers an alloyring PlayStation 3, a matching controller, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the Metal Gear Online starter pack and a special video disc no doubt packed with making-of fluff. And before you start importing, keep in mind that the US is also getting in on the bundling brouhaha this June.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

There has been a love-hate relationship with the ability to snake (no, not him) in Mario Kart. For those unfamiliar with the (in)famous technique, it involves using the drift-boosting over and over again, causing a snake-like movement pattern across the tracks. It has been in the game since Mario Kart 64.

It appears that might have changed with the upcoming Mario Kart Wii. Go Nintendo reports on a passage from the Official Nintendo Magazine UK's review of the game, where it says, "[Snaking] has finally been scrapped, and now your speed boost is determined by how long you can hold the slide." IGN has also corroborated the lack of snaking with their build, although to us that sounds like racers will simply find a way to slide through the entire course as we did in back in the Super Nintendo Mario Kart.

An interesting Super Smash Bros. Brawl secret involving Solid Snake's famous codec can be found after the break.

It's not much of a shocker to learn the latest (and final) installment in the Metal Gear Solid series is a sizable one -- MGS games have a history of being big (and beautiful). However, a recent interview with series creator Hideo Kojima revealed a startling fact about MGS4 -- Kojima complained that a few features had to be cut from the game so it would fit on a Blu-ray disc. As format fanatics already know, that means the game takes up nearly 50 gigabytes of space.

If true, this is bad news for anyone who hoped to see anthropomorphic cow-bots on the 360 (unless that data was divided between about five dual-layer DVDs), but it could also mean a painfully long installation time for PS3 owners as well. We can only imagine that 49 of those gigabytes are taken up by thousands of variations on just three lines of dialogue -- "Snake? SNAKE? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!?"

[Thanks, Beau Kebodeaux]

Those looking forward to snapping the necks of complete strangers (in a game) should be pleased to learn that a Metal Gear Online "Starter Pack" is due to launch alongside Metal Gear Solid 4 in Q2 2008. Sony has announced that a beta test for the multiplayer sneak-em-up will start in late April, with pre-orders of Metal Gear Solid 4 giving gamers "guaranteed access." It's a great incentive, though given the anticipated nature of Hideo Kojima's latest opus, we feel a bit like donkeys wandering into a vast forest of carrots.

We have no idea what's being said in this trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops +, but it's a Saturday, we're sure somebody else has the time to translate. MGS: PO fans can probably deduce what's going on for the most part and we do have some basic information from the original announcement. You know, like we know it comes out on Sept. 20 in Japan, no word beyond that. What we do know is that there are a lot of multiplayer elements added and old Snake from MGS4.

Sure it took a few years, but the PSP has become a dandy little handheld with some solid games and some exciting future titles -- despite the anti-homebrew message. Sure, Sony kinda released the PSP-2000 all stealth this week instead of giving it the fanfare it deserved (a point made very clear in our podcast), but we're still hoping the best for the system. Now we just need an English version of this trailer.

Sony has officially announced the impending arrival of two more PlayStation Network titles, each of them boasting hyper-rainbow visuals that are likely to induce a mental state similar to that following ingestion of a hallucinogenic substance. Not that we have any experience with that sort of thing. We do have some familiarity with Snake though, which you may remember as that slithering self-extension exercise available on every electronic device known to man.

In Snakeball, you pilot a "bizarre hoversnake" across an "outlandishly dazzling disco floor," all the while devouring delicious spheres, blasting other players and whacking them with your bizarre hoversnake tail. The game supports online multiplayer, as well as the newly announced PlayStation Eye camera, ideal for plastering a face over your bizarre hoversnake pilot. Three Speech expects the game to arrive in July.



Super Stardust HD, to which the Sony blog gives a 15 June release date in Europe, is an arcade shooter built around the high concept of blasting defenseless asteroids to smithereens. A two-player co-op mode (it's unclear if this is local, online, or both), online rankings, 1080p resolution and a "seriously catchy soundtrack" are mentioned in the game's list of features. No word yet on what it costs to shoot at space rocks or pilot bizarre hoversnakes.

Scott Ramsoomair's VG Cats has a new page: a Metal Gear Solid MySpace profile for "David" Snake (screen name solidsnake34). Some of the jokes are subtle; we recommend a viewing or two of Metal Gear Awesome for some clarity. (MGA may in fact not help at all, but we still recommend viewing it for a few chortles.)

In case you're wondering and are too lazy to do some minor investigation, every link on the page directs you to VG Cats' real index. If you're viewing this after April 1, the page may be gone; feel free to use this gallery below as a time capsule for the event.

Snake? Snake? Snaaaaaaaaake! Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
SXSW: Writing for the Next Generation of Games
Today's juiciest game video: Fruit-for-blood sound effects

News
PlayStation 3s fetching less than retail on UK eBay
Romance of the Three Kingdoms conquers Virtual Console
HDMI- and 120GB-enabled Xbox 360 Elite: all signs point to yes
Dead Rising and Lost Planet to remain Xbox 360 exclusives
GTA-made-'em-do-it 'Nut Cases' gang leader sentenced
Project: Top Secret drops the men-in-tights, goes racing instead
New goodies, and baddies, coming to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Namco Bandai adopts Cell for arcades, Tekken 6 to be guinea pig
Square Enix party details make us want to buy a ticket to Tokyo
PS3 kicks off most successful home console launch in UK... ever
EB Games wants to sell you PS3 Time Crisis with gun
Ziff Davis Game Group still profitable but revenue declining
Ninja Gaiden Sigma > Ninja Gaiden, true or false?
Dragon's Lair bound for Blu-ray
Spotted! Xbox 360 Elite spied in assembly line
Details and pics of Wii Internet Channel final version
PS3 in Australia: AU $25 million in non-record breaking sales
The Darkness has a birth date ... June 25 US, June 29 Europe
EA launches Artwerk, 'full service' music label
Shivering Isles now on Xbox Live -- grab it before the downtime
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core trailer -- now with more ridiculous hair

Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: Namco Bandai hard at work on three... games?
Rumor: Microsoft will publish bargain-priced US Project Sylpheed
Rumorang: Gamefly says Beautiful Katamari this fall

Culture & Community
Arcade cabinets used to hide video poker machines
Top 20 freeware shmups
Nintendo 64 tech demo videos still make us cry

Konami gives us a peek at Japanese toymaker Medicom's Metal Gear Solid 4 Snake figure. Standing at 12-inches tall, the figure is imbued with Medicom's RAH 301 technology, making Snake posable in a variety of realistic body stances. Art director Yoji Shinkawa oversaw production of the figure, which is scheduled to ship in November. Just in time for the game's release, eh?

Source - click on "Metal Gear series" tab, then "Goods Page" under MGS4.

[Thanks, Aaron]

Mac OS X uses emacs as a text editor, which contains a number of hidden games including Snake, Tetris, Pong and a whole slew of others. Follow the simple steps included here, and you could be playing a boatload of games that you didn't even know were on your Mac. Granted, the games pretty much suck (the graphics make the Wii look like Super High Definition 2160iii), but if you're trying to kill 30 minutes while sitting in the library, look no further.

We're still exploring these and trying to figure out what the heck some of the games are.