MGS3: Subsistence to include bonus DVD w/pre-orders
Kojima-san, creator of the wildly popular Metal Gear Solid series, will be doing fans a huge service by including a bonus-DVD for those who pre-order the upcoming PS2 update Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. Which already includes a tribute to fans in the way of the original two Metal Gear MSX titles! The second of which has never been released in America, included in the game as well as a bonus DVD that will be included in a limited edition set for early adopters that takes all the games movie scenes and puts them in order so you can watch the game like a flick, the disc is called MGS: Existence.
The bonus DVD you get for pre-ordering the game, called Metal Gear Saga, Vol. 1 (it’s to be seen if another volume is planned . . . nothing has been announced) will do the seemingly impossible by making sense of the storylines of all the main Metal Gear games, tying them all together. They will be explained in chronological order (story-wise): Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (released only in Japan on the MSX), Metal Gear Solid, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The DVD will be split up into five chapters over 30 minutes, covering the series’ overarching narrative, which makes us wonder how the entire story can be told in less than a half hour, when all of Sons of Liberty alone would probably take three and a half.
The documentary will also include candid interviews with the mastermind behind the Metal Gear Solids series and it’s creator, Hideo Kojima, who will comment on everything from the origin of the series to its conclusion in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (which will officially end the series and Hideo Kojima’s involvement with it). He’ll also talk about the infamous unofficial sequel to the original Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Snake’s Revenge, which was released in America instead of the real game created by Kojima, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, a huge disappointment for fans of the original game as it was created without the involvment of any of the original team members.
It’ll be sad to see Kojima and series illustrator Yoji Shinkawa part ways with the series, but I know I’m excited to see how Kojima plans to end it. Hopefully it’ll go out with the bang that the series deserves, and by looking at screens of MGS4, I’m sure it won’t disappoint. It’s still to be seen whether any more Metal Gear games will be developed without it’s creator, though it could happen, they could either build a new game around sub-characters like Raiden from MGS2, or simply build a brand new storline and characters and call it Metal Gear. This will see the end though of two beloved series as we barrel-into the next-gen, as both Metal Gear AND Resident Evil will have been ended by their creators parting ways with the new games, as is the case with Resident Evil 5, which is being created by Capcom without the involvment of series creator Shinji Makimi. But after 4 games, maybe it’ll be good to put the series out to pasture, and not milk it for all it’s worth.
