The Konami Syndrome

No its not some new gaming disease, though it totally sounds like one, For some reason Konami has decided to sell out at an alarming rate. In the next Metal Gear Solid game tie-ins will be a heavily featured thing. A list of in game tie-ins include: Monster Hunter monsters, Assassin’s Creed collaboration, in-game Weekly Jump manga, in-game Mountain Dew and Pepsi, in-game Walkman, and in-game body Axe spray. All this will be seen in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP. I’ve seen crazy video game tie-ins before, but this is a little ridiculous. I know I’m a bit late on this, but I just thought how crazy this all was. Hideo Kojima eventually explained, rather strangely: "Concerning the current tie-ins, various things are being said in the news in the business sense, but I have singular reason," Kojima wrote via Twitter. "It's because I want to surprise players. If there's no surprise or freshness, then I'll stop the tie-ins. It's different from Hollywood-style merchandising."

It actually sounded better in words. It looks kinda disappointing in picture form now. Besides the tie-ins; other MGS: PW merchandise have made interesting appearances. If you head over this direction (slightly NSFW) if you get the MGS: PW CD single (or if you ever like getting Game OST’s) you will get this interesting packaging. Maybe its no surprise since its Kojima.

Another piece of MGS: PW merchandise is the announced PSP Big Boss Pack. Take a look:

If I was ever going to get a PSP-3000, I think the time is now. Besides this package, is the smaller “Spirited Green” pack. I don’t dig the spirited green color, if it even is a color (Must look at the official colors from crayola now). The Big Boss pack is the only Gamestop exclusive (of course) and both will be out the game date June 8th. All that's included in the Big Boss pack is pictured there, but the movie that’s supposedly a bonus, hasn’t been chosen yet. Guess they gotta find a movie that's either stealthy or fits in with Metal Gear Solid. Can’t think of one on top of my head. I’m also surprised that the PSP-GO hasn’t gotten much exclusives. But that's another argument for another post…no its not, the PSP-GO sucks.

E3 2009: Part 3 - Sony Conference

As E3 is slowly winding down here is whats covered so far for my E3 blog watch:

Microsoft Conference

Nintendo Conference

Now we continue on with Sony's E3 conference with whats to come:

I have to be honest, I am not the fan of Playstation I was when Playstation 2 was on top of the game. There were a few things that impressed me at Sony's conference that peaked my interest, but its not making me buy a Playstation 3 right away. Here's a few reasons why: It lost 2 major video games; Final Fantasy series and Metal Gear Series to Xbox 360. It basically copied Project Natal and Nintendo Wii's Wiimote and put then together, which didn't impress me at all. Here's the Conference Clip:

I mean look at the thing, it looks like both Natal and Wiimote combined. Think about it, your going way beyond Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" with Project Natal. Also when I saw the graffiti demo, I thought, they copied Wii. Wii is developing something similar and better called WiiSpray. The motion controller is quite odd with the sphere on top. I think that was the early design of Xbox's GameTrak controller as well. All copied stuff here Sony.

Lets see, I'm no Uncharted fan, but this is basically Gears of War and Far Cry mixed of the PS3. But what I really liked out of the whole conference was the introduction of MAG. What this monster lets you do is play up to 256 players online. I heard of this, but passed it thinking it was impossible. I was blown away:

After that theres some Hanna Montana PSP bundle coming, how lame. Now is the time when the worst-kept secret of E3 is revealed: The PSP GO. I'm serious they even name it that. They say it won't kill the PSP-3000 nor the UMD; it will someday. Here's a small pic of the new PSP. Its more than 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP-3000. Here are some of the specs:

• 16 GB of Internal Flash Memory
• Integrated Bluetooth
• No UMD Drive

And thats all thats known so far. Also a new PC application is made avalible today called Media Go, which is supposed to make things easier from their previous Media organizer. Also something called Sense Me is coming to PS3 and PSP to generate Playlists for you. PSP Go will be out October 1st for as much as a Wii which is $249.99. I'm getting a PSP-3000...

Gran Turismo PSP is previewed, how long ago was that announced? Anyways a new Metal Gear Solid Game was announce which looks promising. Its called Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP, and whats this? 4 Snakes!?:

That was cool. Also a Resident Evil Portable is announced, when will it come out? That is unknown so far. New PSOne classics are hitting the store to play on PSP and PS3 including Final Fantasy VII, finally!

Another Final Fantasy is also announced which is said to be online, and skipping a bunch of unimportant stuff we come to Mod Nation Racers which looks really cool:

Now a new Team ICO game is announced which is like a cross of ICO with Shadow of Colossus:

Its also a cross of "The Neverending Story's" Falkor and "Where the Wild Things Are".

Now to the last of the event; God of War III which is stated to be the last of the trilogy; its not:

You can continue to watch the Gameplay after the video ends by clicking the next part. Well, not sure what else to say. Metal Gear Arcade was also announced and 2 things I noticed was missing was the Zune HD and the PS3 slim. I would like to know more about the Zune HD and wither PS3 slim is real. Not sure what else still needs to be announced, but just in case if it needs a post I will update it here.