Hideo Kojima said he would show Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots gameplay soon - and he was true to his word. At Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation Premiere press conference in Tokyo today, he gave a 20-minute gameplay demonstration of the title. And yes, as if you had to ask - it looks great.
First things first - it still looks like a Metal Gear Solid game. The weapon and item inventories are present on the sides of the screen as before, and the main view is a third-person, top-down perspective. Graphically, however, it's a big leap forward.
Kojima's demo was played in the same Middle-Eastern location we've seen in the trailers. The buildings are all uniquely damaged and so the environments look that much more believable. There was a conflict taking place between a military presence and civilian guerrillas and Snake is able to help either side - or neither if you prefer. We still don't know how this will affect the story - whether taking sides will produce entirely different plotlines - but it's an interesting inclusion.
Metal Gear Solid's former art director once said he spends "a lot of time fussing over the details of the characters' backside since that's the side the player sees most in-game"
In 1997, Hideo Kojima said the "one thing" he wanted to avoid in Metal Gear Solid was "tedious" cutscenes with characters "blabbering at each other for 4 or 5 minutes"
