If there's one game franchise crying out for the full current-gen remastering treatment, it's Metal Gear Solid. The classic MGS titles have remained untouched since 2011's excellent Metal Gear Solid HD collection, with no sign of any Xbox One or PlayStation 4 re-releases - despite the emergence of MGS cutscenes apparently running on the Fox Engine on a Japan-only pachinko machine, of all places. However, there is some good news: the 2011 remaster is now backwards compatible on Xbox One, and as things stand, this is easily the best way to play these brilliant games on modern hardware.
Hideo Kojima's stealth-action classics Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, arriving in the form of the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, are the latest titles to join Microsoft's ever-expanding list of backward-compatible games on Xbox One.
Metal Gear alumni David Hayter has reprised his role as Solid Snake for a brief teaser that serves as both a celebration of the game's 31st anniversary, and an update about the Metal Gear movie from filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
Hideo Kojima's disturbingly prescient 2001 sci-fi stealth game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is now available on Android, provided you have an Nvidia Shield.
Flashback to the turn of the century and Konami stands as one of the most prolific publishers in gaming. From its 16-bit classics to its more experimental 32-bit titles, the red and orange Konami logo long stood as a seal of quality. PlayStation 2 had just launched, but the initial line-up of games was shaky - and there was a decided lack of a killer app. The reveal of Metal Gear Solid 2 at E3 2000, prior to the system's Western launch, was the turning point in the fledgling system's fortunes.
Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter may have been replaced by Kiefer Sutherland, but the classic Metal Gear Solid actor is sure getting a lot of mileage out of the role as he just reprised his most well known character in a Ford commercial.
Last month the Metal Gear Solid fan remake, Shadow Moses Project, was unceremoniously shut down, ostensibly due to legal pressure from Konami. But now the folks behind that, the Fan Legacy Team, have started a new MGS-related project with another person spurned by Konami: the original Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter.
Hideo Kojima surprised many when he announced that he'd recast the voice of Metal Gear Solid protagonist Snake with Kiefer Sutherland in MGS5 after nearly two decades of David Hayter providing the role.
It's no secret that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is a fan of John Carpenter's 1981 Kurt Russell vehicle Escape From New York. I mean, the main character in his beloved stealth series is even named after New York's gruff anti-hero and they even share the same mullet, eyepatch, five o'clock shadow and gruff voice. There's yet another reference to Kurt Russell's character in Metal Gear Solid 2 wherein Snake goes by the alias "Iroquois Plissken". The similarities were so close that the company who owns the rights to the film, CanalPlus, wanted to sue Kojima over it.
A diehard Metal Gear Solid fan is remaking the original 1987 Metal Gear in Unreal Engine 4.
UPDATE 08/05/2015: Konami has unveiled its Metal Gear Solid 1984 collection of clothes via the Insert Coin website.
There are a raft of £22 T-shirts and £40 jumpers and other bits and bobs based on the Metal Gear Solid franchise and, specifically, the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5. There's a lot of Shadow Moses, Foxhound and Snake gubbins going. The £55 Diamond Dogs 84 jacket, right, looks nice.
Here's a gallery of images. Tempted?
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UPDATE: Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection is now set for a September release in Europe, Konami has announced.
Update: Konami has finally lifted its lid on the rumoured Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection, which will be heading to North and South America in June as a PS3-exclusive.
Game developer legend Hideo Kojima doesn't like being thought of as “the Metal Gear guy”.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD has mysteriously been removed from Microsoft's Games on Demand channel on Xbox Live after having just been added to the service on 28th August.
Konami has announced the release dates for the digital versions of its high definition Metal Gear Solid games.
These dates take in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PlayStation 3, PS Vita and Xbox 360. Pricing will be announced later.
The release dates in full:
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Hideo Kojima has confirmed Metal Gear Solid 5 will be built using the Fox Engine - according to a new interview.
The legendary Japanese game developer told the July issue of French magazine IG (via Gamekyo) that Metal Gear Solid 5 is indeed in the works, and hinted that Solid Snake may be in it.
We've had our French colleagues at Eurogamer.fr (Sweden lol) look over the report and they told us the following:
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The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for PlayStation Vita brings two of the most highly regarded PS2 titles ever made onto Sony's beautiful new handheld, scoring highly by default owing to the underlying, timeless brilliance of the original games. They were stunning on PS2 and beautiful on the HD consoles - only the overly compromised 3DS version of MGS3 proved disappointing.
The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection will be released for PlayStation Vita on 29th June, Konami has announced.
Niftily, this version communicates with the PS3 version, allowing you to transfer saved games and make progress while from your living room. Kojima Productions calls this process Transfarring, which is really clever.
On Vita, the MGS HD Collection sports touch-screen and rear touchpad controls. These allow you to zoom in or out during cut-scenes, peer around corners, interrogate enemies, cycle weapons/items and stab people.
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Konami's yearly accounts are out, whoopee, and the big success story is games for social networking services (SNS).
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection launches on Vita in "late June", publisher Konami has announced.
The portable version of February's console release adds a rebalanced user interface and debuts Kojima Productions' Transfarring system that lets players share data between the Vita and PlayStation 3.
Unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, the Vita release doesn't include PSP title Peace Walker. However, it will feature Metal Gear 1 and Metal Gear 2 alongside touched-up takes on Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
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The Vita version of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection does not include Peace Walker, Konami has confirmed to Eurogamer.
Trophies "transfarrable" with PS3 version.
Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has pledged to keep on making games until the day he dies.
Revered by many as some of the greatest games ever made, Konami's PS2 and PSP era Metal Gear Solid titles have returned, remastered - or rather, ported - to run on newer, more technologically advanced consoles. Sons of Liberty, Snake Eater and Peace Walker are available in pristine high definition versions for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while the Nintendo 3DS version gets its own stereoscopic version of Metal Gear Solid 3.
In this article we'll be looking at all three products, cross-referencing them with the original versions as they appeared on PlayStation 2 and PSP, discussing their technical make-up and the quality of the ports onto the current-gen platforms. Have these classics been well-handled in their transitions across to new hardware? And from a Digital Foundry Face-Off perspective, which HD Collection is the one to buy?
Let's kick off with the compilation high-def remix for the Xbox 360 and PS3 - an intriguing release that sees accomplished HD remastering house Bluepoint Games (God of War Collection/ICO and Shadow of the Colossus) take on the task of porting across MGS2 and its sequel, while Japanese developer Genki tackles the unenviable task of bringing PSP Peace Walker to the HD consoles.
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The biggest resolution jump of all the Metal Gear Remasters - PSP 480x272 to 720p.
UPDATE: Konami has confirmed that Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on Vita will launch in the West in the summer.
The PlayStation Vita version includes HD remasters of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3, complete with trophies and controls designed with the handheld's touch panels in mind. No mention was made of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
There's also a "rebalanced user interface", and support for Hideo Kojima's Transfarring system - more on that below.
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Sony has announced a raft of new PS Vita games for launch in Japan.
Among them are Phantasy Star Online 2 and Persona 4 The Golden.
Phantasy Star Online 2 was previously a PC exclusive. According to Andriasang, series producer Sakai Satoshi said the PC and Vita versions will be played on the same server, and you'll be able to play the same character on both versions.
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Kojima Productions has dropped strong hints that the next big Metal Gear Solid game - presumably MGS5 - will be a next-generation game.
Metal Gear Solid 5 - the game Hideo Kojima expects he'll have to make - will launch at some point during publisher Konami's fiscal 2014, according to a Japanese investment analyst company.
The PlayStation Vita version of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection will utilise the handheld's rear touch pad controls.
Last week's release of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection poses an interesting question - why is the assemblage of Snake's adventures incomplete? While MGS2, MGS3 and Peace Walker are all present and correct, the original Metal Gear Solid is conspicuous by its absence - and what of its Nintendo GameCube remake, The Twin Snakes?
It's this latter release that is the most intriguing. Released in 2004 in collaboration with Nintendo, The Twin Snakes was the original Metal Gear Solid remaster - an alternative take on the classic PS1 game, featuring a bounty of graphical improvements, re-recorded audio with new translations and gameplay elements from MGS2 - such as first person shooting - retrofitted into the original game.
Konami and Nintendo masterminds Hideo Kojimo and Shigeru Miyamoto were said to be involved in honing the gameplay, while Canadian outfit Silicon Knights were drafted in for the main coding duties. As The Twin Snakes was released after MGS2, which did get included on the HD Collection, we couldn't help but wonder... how would it look rendered in high definition? A remaster of a remaster, if you will.
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Final Fantasy 13-2 has entered the UK all-formats chart in first place, ending FIFA 12's reign on top.
Japanese developer legend Hideo Kojima has shown off the Vita version of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.
UPDATE 3: GAME removed Metal Gear Solid HD Collection from its website "as we reached out [sic] pre-order allocation," the shop said. "Your order is safe and should be shipped today."
Konami has launched a new Metal Gear Solid website that attempts to explain the series' complicated plot.
Zavvi's Limited Edition of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection - what used to be the PlayStation 3 exclusive Ultimate Edition before it mysteriously disappeared - is available to pre-order now. It costs £69.99.
Online retailer Zavvi has announced that its altered the contents of its advertised Metal Gear Solid HD Ultimate Edition set.
Zavvi's world exclusive Metal Gear Solid Ultimate HD Collection has disappeared from its website.
Editor's note: Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is released in Europe this week. Here we present our review of the North American release of the game, first published in November last year. To the best of our knowledge it's still accurate with respect to the European version.
Metal Gear Solid's Snakes may resemble Escape From New York's hero right down to their names and eventual eye patch; however, their penchant for ideological musing about the nature of war reminds me more of another mulleted eighties action hero, Dalton, the bouncer with a philosophy PHD from Road House. And much like that 1989 cult classic, in Metal Gear Solid, it's never clear when the creators are in on the joke.
More esoteric and cerebral than the pro-war action movies from which they draw so heavily, Metal Gear Solid games are equal parts melodrama, political thriller, science-fiction, whimsical meta-humour and surreal theatrics. They're as much war games as Twin Peaks is a police procedural.
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The Xbox 360 Achievements for Metal Gear Sold HD Collection and Peace Walker have been revealed.
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection launches on 3rd February 2012, Konami has announced.
The five-game high definition compilation releases on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
HD Collection includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, all in full HD.
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Silent Hill: Downpour has been delayed, Konami has confirmed to Eurogamer.
Superstar video game developer Hideo Kojima hopes the Metal Gear series will continue after he's dead.
Konami has announced a limited edition of its forthcoming Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.
The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection won't fit on one Xbox 360 DVD disc - Konami has had to use two.
The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection will be released on 23rd November in Japan.
Hideo Kojima has confirmed the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection and Zone of the Enders HD Collection for PlayStation Vita.
The PS3 and Xbox 360 remakes of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker support four-player co-op on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
The Metal Gear Solid Ultimate HD Collection adds Metal Gear Solid 1 and Metal Gear Solid 4.
UPDATE 1: It appears MGS1 may only be included in the Japanese version of MGS HD Collection. We're checking with Konami UK now.
Hideo Kojima has said the high definition remake of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will run at 60 frames per second.
Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has announced a new project: a radio drama.
It's called Sdatcher, and it's from bonkers No More Heroes man Suda 51.
Sdatcher is inspired by Kojima's Snatcher series, which began before dinosaurs roamed the earth in 1988.
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Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima will never be completely satisfied by the games he makes.
Snake leaps from PSP to your TV screen.
NES made Metal Gear famous but series creator Hideo Kojima abhors that version of the game, calling it "pitiful", an "abomination" and a stain on his career.
Nintendo has approached Kojima Productions about working on a title for the Wii U, the Metal Gear Solid studio has confirmed.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD, announced last night as part of a Metal Gear Solid HD Collection due out this year, is the Subsistence version.
Hideo Kojima has just announced Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
