Maybe not life but certainly larger than a Blu-ray

Mar 3, 2008 09:24 GMT  ·  By

Can anyone think back to the time when games were shipped on floppy disks? Does anyone remember the joy of receiving your set of 14 floppy disks containing Red Alert? I surely remember the monumental leap that was the CD-ROM, the joy at never having to switch disks in the drive for the first few years. And then, the CD-ROM was too small and when the DVD appeared we said to ourselves, like Mr. Gates in the years of his youth, "4.5 GB should be enough for any game". And now, we have Blu-ray disks that can gobble up some 50 GB of data. And there are some people that manage to fill those up, too.

Hideo Kojima is a legend among gamers, especially among PlayStation console gamers. He designed and directed arguably the most successful franchise in the history of that consoled system, the Metal Gear Solid series. Even though Kojima said he would quit the series after every new installment, he always stayed for one more show and, in the last year, he led a team that developed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the game that should wrap up the legacy of Solid Snake.

Kojima has always been recognized for pushing the envelope of technical possibility. His earlier games, even though top down and isometric, were highly innovative. As the possibilities of the hardware developed, so did the scope of Kojima's games. MGS4 promises to take full advantage of the gaming power packed into the PlayStation 3 and deliver impressive graphics and gameplay.

And while pushing game boundaries, Kojima discovered how to fill up an entire Blu-ray disk. His method: voice-overs. The series is renowned for the voice acting and many fans long for the Japanese original voice-acting. The developers wanted every player to be able to enjoy them, but, with the massive space needed for other MGS4 elements on the Blu-ray disk, there was not enough room to squeeze the Japanses voice-overs. So, fans will again have to deal with region-specific voices.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is due out worldwide on June 12 and it is promising to be a great game, despite the small space it's stuck in.