So it looks as though the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the Playstation 3 is upon us and more videos and screenshots have been released to fuel the hype of June 12th. After watching the English intro to MGS4, it just brings a lot of excitement and anticipation to play the game. We all know that creator Hideo Kojima is definitely a master storyteller and often utilizes the in-game engine to render the cinematic cutscenes in order to make the player feel as though they are playing an “epic” movie. However, recent reports mention that the final tale in the Metal Gear Saga will incorporate 90-minute cutscenes (notice the plural). That’s right, the game will have near movie length cutscenes…*pause*

I don’t know about you, but I cannot imagine a game having 90 minutes of cutscenes in the entire game, let alone having multiple 90 minute scenes. It was also rumoured that there is a possibility of a total of 10 hours worth of cutscenes altogether. Hopefully, it’s not just codec conversations with Otakon…those were dreadfully boring. No wonder Kojima mentioned that the game wouldn’t originally fit on a Blu-Ray Disc (50 GB capacity). Thankfully, Kojima also made it possible to pause and even skip scenes altogether. I don’t know about you, but I would think that many gamers would prefer to actually PLAY the game rather than just WATCH during a supposed “play” session. Like most working gamers, I can’t really afford to invest more than an hour or two to play games and then realize you’ll most likely be watching a “movie” rather than interacting with the game.

Anyhow, though MGS fans may anticipate watching an equivalent of a miniseries for MGS4, it’s probably necessary to end perhaps one of the finest gaming franchises/genres.

-Stephen