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Kojima to sign MGS4 sleeves in London

With Yoji Shinkawa on 2nd June.

While out on news patrol earlier we completely missed an enormously conspicuous press release lying unconvincingly across some flattened grass trying to fit a giant spinning ration box into its overflowing utility belt: it said that Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa will be at HMV's Oxford Street, London store on 2nd June.

They will of course be there to celebrate the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots later in June - 12th June, to be precise - and in the absence of boxed copies of the game will be signing HMV-exclusive game sleeves.

The duo will be there at 12 noon, but the organisers note that "access to meet Mr. Kojima and Mr. Shinkawa will be strictly limited", so "300 sleeves will be available from the store on the day of the event from 9.00am", and only people with sleeves will be allowed to queue. You can have a sleeve if you pre-order the game at HMV, which involves a GBP 5 deposit.

Still, we imagine 300 or so of the series' loyal fans will be ready to spend that much and do that much standing around waiting. If we were feeling uncharitable, we might point out that they spend far more time sitting around doing nothing while playing the Metal Gear Solid games. But we're not uncharitable, as you know.

As mentioned, Metal Gear Solid 4 is due out on 12th June, and is exclusive to PS3. We've already played it and finished it, and you can read our post-completion hands-on preview elsewhere on the site. Sadly though, we're tightly bound by an NDA so you will have to wait until closer to release to read our verdict. Look out for it.