what's so hot about this
sprocket
that is all the PS2 has in the graphics department the DC has a long life
indeed. The pics show off some nice lighting and reflection effects,but
again nothing that hasn't been seen before. I wonder how much cashola sony
is throwing Konami's way to keep it as an exclusive. Oh yeah and it seems
that the jaggies are still there although not as bad as previous games. I
will still get a PS2 but I won't shout from the rooftops it's supposed
advantages over other consoles.
Hmmm Donuts
Whatever you've seen has got to be *early* and will no doubt go through a
lot of revising before its release.
sprocket <nspr...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:UPFS4.1493$ef....@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...
Alex Westley
DC, which is kinda what PS2 needs with it costing 2x as much.
The game, I have no doubt, will be amazing. I didn't buy MGS for its
blocky (compared to my PC) textures and cheap effects, I bought it
because it was a damned amazing experience. The same seems to be true of
MGS2. Ok graphics (you'd think someone could fix the jaggies...ick), but
if its even half as good as MGS then its worth the $50.
--
"I still believe that gamers enjoy shooting people so much because they
are so annoying and dumb and just get in their way." -Dave Perry
Alex Westley, aka Kragma
http://www.zoomnet.net/~otaku
JamesOC
Welcome to what will most likely end up being the best game ever on PS2.
E3: Game of the Show
We just saw what will be the PS2's best game ever -- Metal Gear Solid 2:
Sons of Liberty.
May 11, 2000
Today in a pre-E3 conference that was held at Universal Studios in Los
Angeles, California, Konami had the world premiere showing of its upcoming
PlayStation 2 game, titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The
conference began with the very humble, Mr. Hideo Kojima, introducing the
game, after he was finished, Konami gave us a sneak peak at Metal Gear Solid
2 in the form of a video preview.
The video presentation began with about four or five minutes of footage
complied from the original Metal Gear Solid game on PlayStation. It served
two general purposes: First, it was a tribute to the original game, which is
often regarded as the best game ever released on PlayStation. Second, it
served helped setup the forthcoming footage of the game's sequel as it ended
with the "To be continued..." text from the game's ending.
In what seemed appropriate given the cinematic quality of the footage we
were about to see, it opened up with the same green screen that comes before
movie trailers, except that this one stated "The following PREVIEW has been
approved for ALL AUDIENCES by the Gaming Association of Konami." What
followed was a preview demonstration that was more dramatic and stirred a
greater emotional response than any movie trailer that this editor has ever
witnessed -- even surpassing the first movie trailers for Star Wars Episode
1.
The video preview began with about 30 seconds of what ended up being the
only non-realtime rendered footage of the entire presentation. Everything
that followed was either actual gameplay action (played and edited by Mr.
Kojima himself) or cinematic sequences that were completely rendered in
realtime.
As the realtime footage commenced, we were introduced to a small tidbit of
the game's story by way of some Japanese speech and English subtitles. From
what could be gathered, the technological information on Metal Gear had been
sold on the black market after Shadow Moses and the Metal Gear epigones had
spread worldwide. While we don't know the exact details of the game's story
and its mission goals, it's safe to say that saving the world will be once
again in the hands of Solid Snake.
The rest of the eight-minute long video preview was filled to the brim with
some of the most amazing game footage that these eyes have yet seen. It's
really hard to describe in words the grandness of what was on display here.
The bottom line here is that based on what was shown, Metal Gear Solid 2:
Sons of Liberty will likely be one of the most cinematic experiences of our
time -- in a videogame or on film. Everything from the camera work, to the
music, the ambient background sounds, and the overall presentation just
screamed big budget Hollywood movie. In fact, most Hollywood producers and
directors probably could learn a thing or two from Mr. Kojima's work of art.
The game's graphics are simply the best we've ever seen on the system. Even
though the game does have some aliasing, it's not really a problem and
nobody in his or her right mind would dare complain about it. The characters
all move and animate in an extremely lifelike matter and many of the game's
action scenes look straight out of an action movie. What's more, the facial
expressions of the character models and overall detail of the faces have no
equal in the world of videogaming.
The graphical wonder doesn't with the character models, as it's quite
arguable that the 3D environments are even more impressive. Not only are the
background objects extremely, but the ambient weather effects and general
lighting in the game are so amazing that they'll give you goose bumps when
you see it. The rain, for instance, is the most realistic looking rain that
has ever been included in a videogame. In this one particular scene towards
the end of the video where, you get to see some rain falling and splattering
off Solid Snake. This effect was so stirring that there was a collective "Oh
my God" from the viewing audience. This was just one of a plethora of highly
cinematic scenes that got strong emotional reactions from the audience.
The best part of it all was that underneath all of the cinematic excellence
appeared to be a lot of new features that should greatly affect and even
enhance the gameplay. For one, the realtime lighting effects and shadows not
only offer fantastic eye candy, but actually play a large role in the game's
gameplay. You see, the enemies will detect you and realize your presence
when if they notice your shadow. Moreover there could be instances in the
game where as you're sneaking around a dark corner there a flash of
lightning will create a shadow that alerts a guard to your being there.
In another improvement over the original, there seems to be a greater
importance to the aiming of your shots. Head shots can equate to instant
kill and in some cases the player will be required to aim at specific body
parts in order to take out the adversaries. For example, there was this one
scene on the video where we see Solid Snake shooting a horde enemies that
are holding riot shields. His attacks are fruitless, as the bullets do
nothing but bounce off of the shields (which happens to look incredibly
realistic). As a result, Solid Snake decides to aim low and take out the
kneecaps of the oncoming aggressors.
A further example to the depth that will undoubtedly be a part of Metal Gear
Sold 2's gameplay comes shining through in one of the game's new weapons, a
tranquilizer dart. The dart is used to knock out enemies silently and
without killing them. According to Kojima, skilled players will actually be
able to play completely through the game without killing a single enemy. Not
only will this please people who are against violence in videogames; it
should also give the players a special incentive to play the game more than
once.
Metal Gear Solid 2 appears well on the way to becoming what could end up
being the single best game on PlayStation 2, if not the greatest game of all
time. While the Electronic Entertainment Expo has yet to officially begin,
I'll go ahead and say it right now, "Konami's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of
Liberty IS the game of the show." There's just no way that any other
software title that will be shown on video or in playable form over the
course of the next three days will be able to top this, not on PlayStation
2, Dreamcast, or Nintendo 64 and definitely not on PlayStation.
If you're going to be at this week's E3, you owe it to yourself to check out
the presentation. Beginning at 12:00 PM on Thursday, May 11, 2000 at
Konami's booth, the company will be showing the video once an hour for each
subsequent hour of the show. If it weren't for the work that I'm required to
carry out, I would probably try to see each and every showing of the video.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is currently scheduled for a fall 2001
release for PlayStation2. It's going to be a long and painful wait, but I'm
willing to be that it'll be well worth it. For more on MGS2, you should
check out further impressions of the game from our newly hired editor, David
Smith, and look at the new screenshots of this gaming masterpiece in our
preview of the game.
NOTE:We will have the full video of Metal Gear Solid for you on our brand
new braodband site, IGNTV. The footage goes live at 2PM Pacific Standard
Time Thursday, and it is worth your time, no questions asked. We promise, if
this game makes a tenth of the impression on you as it did us, your life
will be different from what you now know it as. For more information, tap
into IGNTV now.
--Dave Zdyrko
JamesOC
The other Dave gets to express his love for Kojima and company's next
masterpiece.
May 11, 2000
"Life makes the species evolve by mixing genes and passing genetic
information on to future generations. Then how do things that are not part
of the genetic information - one's thoughts and spirit, culture and
history - get passed on? Why do the laws of nature not touch upon the
inheritance of such things? What are we to pass on by means of digital
recording methods unique to humans - speech, writing, music, visual images,
etc.? Moreover, are we obliged to pass on such things? The conceptual theme
of MGS2 is about leaving the soul and way of life to future generations."
- Hideo Kojima, on the theme of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Sometimes I miss working in print media. I had a chance at it once, in a
left-handed way, and it had its attractions, especially at times like this.
You have more time, you see. Sometimes you simply cannot express something,
or understand something, on short notice - you need time to sit, and think,
and digest the experience. You can't properly explain what something meant
to you by simply pouring forth all the details your fevered brain can
remember, and you can't analyze deep concepts and ideas with a six o'clock
deadline.
This afternoon was an experience like that, and so please bear with me if I
fail to properly convey what happened when the lights dimmed, the green
preview screen came up, and Hideo Kojima unveiled the world's very first
look at Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty. I wish I could have simply sat
back, relaxed, and taken it all in. As it was, I had to film it, glimpsing
it through a viewfinder and one eye as my hand occasionally shook. Even so,
I was floored, like everyone else in the room. The show hadn't even
officially begun, and many swore they'd seen the best that E3 2000 would
offer.
Take everything that made Metal Gear Solid an unforgettable experience,
multiply it, and add everything else you could have hoped for. The visual
quality, and the realism of the environments, is breathtaking. Things like
weather look and feel just right. When Snake runs through the rain, drops
bounce and splash off him so realistically that, well, you'd swear it was
real. When he runs from a massive explosion, cinders fly and clouds of smoke
billow massively behind him. Lighting effects of all kinds are stunning.
Lightning bursts and throws shadows in all directions. In a darkened tunnel,
Snake catches a guard red-handed with a flashlight, startling him with the
bright beam and casting an eerie, perfectly-shaped shadow behind him. The
shadow even moves in sync with Snake's light, and the edges are round and
smooth.
More physical forces, concussion and gravity, also make themselves known.
Darted guards (yep, Snake will pack a tranquilizer gun, which enables a
completely nonlethal game) slump to the floor, and react when their fellows
kick them awake. My favorite scene above all, however, pops up in a heated
gunfight, as Snake unleashes dozens of rounds from an assault rifle. Switch
to a view of the floor, where the spent shells bounce and scatter in all
directions.
Human motion and emotion are captured with just as much fidelity. The many
characters are brought to life with precisely crafted animation, and the
amount of facial detail is obviously increased. Solid Snake is still the
lantern-jawed tough guy that he'll always be, but you can much more life in
his face than before. He also has more hand-to-hand combat maneuvers
(including a sweet rolling savate kick), and throughout gameplay and
cinematic sequences he moves with the fluidity of any other great action
hero. The supporting cast, including the ubiquitous teams of guards, looks
much better and moves much more realistically than before. Their camouflage
fatigues look far better than the roughly-rendered arctic gear of the old
Fox Hounds, and their red-lit low-light equipment leaves ominous glowing
trails as it moves.
Equally important as the rendering of the characters and scenes, if not even
more impressive, is the way the camera is directed to capture the action. In
cinematic and gameplay sequences, it moves with surety and clarity, never
failing to deliver a serious wallop. That conjunction of both cinema and
game is the key. MGS, more than nearly any other game, blended interaction
and a movie-like story in proportions that didn't bog down the plot or take
too much control from the player.
Elements of that already excellent gameplay have obviously been refined, and
much-hoped-for new features are in. In a flourescent-lit hallway, Snake and
a guard play hide-and-seek with each other's shadows, shades of the
footprint-trails from the first game. This is a great example of technology
in the service of creativity, special effects being used to enhance suspense
and create an absorbing gameplay situation. The first-person mode,
originally pretty limited, is obviously a much bigger part of the game. For
starters, you can shoot in it, aiming on both axes. When Snake takes on a
group of guards with riot shields, he expends a few ineffectual rounds
denting the thick plexiglass (with realistic bulletholes and particles
flying from them). This proves a poor strategy, so he switches to
first-person view, aims a little lower, and borrows a line from Ah-nold in
Terminator 2.
Speaking of which, the preview included a soaring action-movie score,
evidently by Harry Gregson-Williams (who worked on "Enemy of the State" and
"The Rock"). Prominently featured, of course, is an excellent remixed
version of the original game's theme. Also accenting a few moments were bars
of what I believe is "Can't Say Goodbye To Yesterday," an odd, but oddly
suitable closing theme by Rika Muranaka.
Quiet details like that, however, are almost overwhelmed by the preview's
most powerful impact, the arrival of the titanic Metal Gear Ray. A seemingly
half-organic descendant of its grandfather Rex, it thunders through city
streets like a mechanized Godzilla, screaming and spewing fire. Looking at
the pamphlet that was presented at the press conference, whose centerpiece
is a three-panel gatefold illustration of the Ray, it seems like it
transforms from a walking tank into a Kraken-esque sea creature. Or maybe it
's the other way around. I'm betting we'll see a literal Godzilla homage, as
Ray swims into New York Harbor and goes on a nuclear-powered rampage.
Or maybe Ray isn't the only Metal Gear. Kojima was adamantly tight-lipped
when asked about the details of the game's plot, but the preview gave a few
bits and pieces away. If you remember the loose threads from the last game,
the test data on the Rex experiment survived the Shadow Moses incident. That
has evidently fallen into (ominous music) the wrong hands, meaning
mass-produced Gears could be a factor in the game. Solid Snake will also
have to deal with more personal threats, though. A new cast of enemies, the
titular Sons of Liberty, will replace the renegade Fox Hounds from the
original Solid. One of the Sons (a Daughter, actually) appeared in a
sequence blending Hard Boiled with The Matrix, a slow-motion Mexican
standoff pitting Snake against a surprisingly cute knife-throwing commando.
To go along with the new villains, there's at least one holdover from the
old rogue's gallery. Revolver Ocelot, who revealed some strangely divided
allegiances in the epilogue to Solid, made his implacably bad-ass return to
loud cheers from the audience.
Finally, the game seems to include all the little idiosyncrasies that mark
Metal Gear. Snake can catch a cold, with potentially fatal consequences
(this bit of the preview movie I really shouldn't spoil). The question marks
and exclamation points that express the guards' states of mind are back.
Speaking of which, the guards might not be such easy marks this time around.
When asked about the unrealistic behavior of the first MGS' guards, Kojima
stated that in the sequel, fully thirty percent of the Emotion Engine's
processor time is dedicated to artificial intelligence routines, including
squad and command structures to guide the opposition. Forget such trivial
things, though. I had a chance to ask him what everyone really wanted to
know: will the cardboard box come back? Kojima chuckled and replied, "Many
cardboard boxes."
I'm ranting like a madman here. Unfortunately, the vast majority of you,
unblessed with a pass to the show or a broadband connection (to check out
the upcoming movie downloads), won't understand that there's a reason I'm
this excited. Metal Gear Solid 2, though it's still at least a year and a
half away, has entranced me - I'm looking forward to it more than any other
game. Hideo Kojima and his KCEJ team have many times before brought together
technical artistry, excellent game design, and deep, mature stories and
themes to create some of the best games I've had the privilege of playing.
In the fall of 2001, I get to play another one, and from what I've seen, it
may be the most valued privilege yet.
David Smith
Also check out our Metal Gear Solid 2 preview, complete with images.
JamesOC
screenshots and try watching the movie. It's already been called the Game of
the E3 by both IGN and Dailyradar (but wait, they're both bias, right?").
reastlack
JamesOC wrote in message ...
>It's IMPOSSIBLE for the Dreamcast to make a game like MGS2. Forget the
>screenshots and try watching the movie. It's already been called the Game
of
>the E3 by both IGN and Dailyradar (but wait, they're both bias, right?").
Ummm... it's not coming out until fall 2001, and that's if it makes
schedule. We can decide at NEXT year's E3 if it's really the best game ever
made. Although come to think of it, it probably won't be finished by then,
either.
mega
actually need a playable game not just a video.....
JamesOC wrote:
>
> It's IMPOSSIBLE for the Dreamcast to make a game like MGS2. Forget the
> screenshots and try watching the movie. It's already been called the Game of
> the E3 by both IGN and Dailyradar (but wait, they're both bias, right?").
>
gar...@earthlink.net
>It's IMPOSSIBLE for the Dreamcast to make a game like MGS2. Forget the
>screenshots and try watching the movie. It's already been called the Game of
>the E3 by both IGN and Dailyradar (but wait, they're both bias, right?").
>
>"sprocket" <nspr...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
>news:UPFS4.1493$ef....@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...
>
It's only fitting that the "Game of E3" is nothing more than a movie
and a distant promise - the hype just keeps on coming.
-G
(Signature under permanent construction)
www.g-pix.com