Official confirmation that Kojima Productions has been disbanded

JunkerHQ, The Snake Soup, and others have reported it.  The news comes from the Japanese voice actor of Snake, Akio Otsuka on Twitter.  The translation is a farewell to Kojima Productions and a promotion of MGSV as their greatest work yet.

Some people were hopeful that the display of the Kojima Productions logo in the recent E3 trailer was proof that the company would be allowed to exist, but obviously that’s not the case.

It’s looking very unlikely that the “trolling theory” can still hold weight now, despite the outrageous level of coincidence and parallel with the themes of MGSV and its early marketing stunts.  Truly, we have to wonder what it all means, and how much decision Kojima himself had in it.

Official Review (MGS2: A Complete Breakdown)

PART I – PART II – PART III – PART IV – PART V – PART VI – PART VII

Part VII Review

Bottom Line: A legend in its own mind.

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

[Updated again: Kojima says the game is a “spinoff”, an “interpretation”, and a “parallel” universe in this interview.  Considering that he’s the final authority on the subject, I guess my initial review was correct after all (I knew he’d said that somewhere before!)  Either way, I’ll leave the review as it is, and you can see my take on the game no matter what they decide in the future.
Thanks to
JMG519 for having my back with the link — go watch his videos!]

Revengeance Review

Bottom Line: Platinum Games does their best with a failed experiment.

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Achievement unlocked: “Too Little, Too Late”

After four years of refusing to stroke your delicate little ego for shooting guys in the crotch, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will finally include achievements, this August.

I couldn’t care less about achievements, actually, especially if they’re as boring and straightforward as the ones included in the HD Collection which came out recently.  Instead of providing replay value or unique challenges, they simply acknowledge the completion of normal game missions.  Hopefully, after four years of waiting, these achievements will be more rewarding.

Much more importantly, this comic will no longer make sense to future generations, because the game will no longer torture players whenever they load a game from a new Act!  This laughable feature has infuriated me ever since I first realized the Act installs weren’t permanent and needed to be repeated whenever I tried to replay a previous area.  As you can imagine, writing articles and trying to figure out the game’s story by backtracking to specific parts became a nightmare for me.

Andriasang reports:

Select to give the game a full install, and you won’t have to wait between chapters for data to be cached to your system’s hard disc. This lengthy caching, which was accompanied by an image of Solid Snake smoking, was a major complaint by players.

I don’t know when Kojima Productions learned that the “full install” feature was possible for the game, but it doesn’t matter — nothing excuses such terrible, backwards game design in the first place, and this is too little, too late.  MGS games have always been leaders of pushing console tech, making use of every feature the system has to offer.  To sink to the lowest depths of shoddy workmanship with some half-assed endless re-installation scheme, was really underwhelming no matter which way you sliced it.

(Updated) Konami’s E3 Show features trailers, Mega64

Konami’s “Pre-E3 Show” is now available.  Interviews, trailers, and a great Mega64 skit are being shown.  We finally get to see more of Rising‘s gameplay, which looks very typical for this genre.  Sadly, level design seems to be ripped from the Nintendo 64 era.  Huge crates scattered around for no reason, allowing you to reach higher areas; generic wide city streets with nothing going on; a train chase; a scripted bridge collapse.  The rushed development schedule is evident, and so is the lack of ideas.

And in case you hadn’t figured it out, the theme of cutting everything and has been cut down as well.  The developers say that only enemies and certain background objects will be sliceable, meaning you shouldn’t be expecting to get too creative with your sword.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

I’ll be talking about the upcoming E3, Zone of the Enders, and a bunch more on my twitter.  I’ve started using it regularly, and I’ll be using it to announce new articles and such for your lazy ass.

Pictures of victory

Remember when I won 10th place in the Kojima Productions Fan Art Contest by drawing a depressed-looking Chrisopher Walken dressed as Solid Snake?  They praised me on their podcast, and promised to send me some cool stuff.

Well the time has come, and the cool stuff is here!

Art contest shirt prize

Getting jealous?  The shirt is limited edition, so you’ll never get one.  Never.  And I didn’t even have to pay for it, they just gave it to me for being such a talented person.

Can you see the prize bandana? It’s camoflauged!  Is it a bandana?  I don’t even know, it’s just a big square piece of cloth once you unfold it.  I don’t care, it’s neat.

In case you forgot what I won this for, here’s the prize-winning artwork again!

Originally, Shinkawa was told to model Snake's face after Christopher Walken's.

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