Fans of Kojima Productions’ games have suspected for years that the various games directed by the Metal Gear creator were somehow connected, but for a long time, that connection remained below the surface, hidden only in easter eggs.

With the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 and the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database, Kojima has shown quite a bit of his hand, revealing connections to other games that most uninformed gamers might miss completely.

In this week’s column, we take a look at the World of Kojima, and finally connect the dots that have been milling around in all of our minds for years.

NOTE: Parts of this article will reference later portions of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Those who haven’t finished the game should steer clear from the rest of the article until they have finished the story portion of the game.

The Metal Gear Incident
It’s probably best to start with the most obvious reference. While the Metal Gear series has been full of incidents, the one in particular refers to the events of the original Metal Gear for MSX and NES. It is not only one of the most pivotal events in the Metal Gear universe, but it also affects the content of others.

The event is mentioned as a pivotal point in history in Snatcher (MSX, Sega CD, Saturn, PS1), and influences JUNKER mechanic Harry’s work on hero Gillian Seed’s robotic partner.

Metal Gear Mk. II
Metal Gear Mk. II actually does not first appear in Metal Gear Solid 4, but in fact makes its first appearance in Snatcher. Designed by JUNKER mechanic Harry, the Metal Gear Mk. II is an autonomous AI controlled partner for hero Gillian Seed.

It is unclear whether or not Otacon’s Mk. II is the direct precursor to the JUNKER Mk. II or their connection is merely an easter egg, but in both instances, dialogue specifies that they are directly inspired by the design of Metal Gear. The difference, though, is that the JUNKER Mk. II was inspired by the first Metal Gear, while Otacon’s Mk. II was inspired and modeled after Metal Gear Rex from Metal Gear Solid.

Mk. II, as it appears in Snatcher

Pettrovich Madnar
Madnar was a cybernetics genius that made his mark on the world more than any other character in the Kojima mythology. Specializing in Physiology, Mechanical Engineering and Systems Engineering, he used his wide knowledge base to develop the original Metal Gear with Big Boss during the events of Metal Gear.

Despite being rescued by Solid Snake after the events of Metal Gear, Madnar secretly began the “Snatcher Project,” using his knowledge of medical cybernetics to reanimate the defeated Big Boss, directly causing the events of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX). This is indeed the same Snatcher project that Kojima’s Snatcher revolves around.

After learning of his treachery, Solid Snake captured Madnar in hopes of turning him over to the authorities. After the events of Metal Gear 2, Madnar went into hiding somewhere in Eastern Europe, using his knowledge of medical cybernetics to develop a number of medical breakthroughs, including an artificial blood known as White Blood.

Sunny and Naomi Hunter go in search of Madnar’s hidden laboratory in Metal Gear Solid 4 to get a dialysis machine and enough white blood to restore Raiden’s cyborg body to battle-ready shape.

An unspecified time after that, well past his 90’s, Madnar is captured by his despotic son Elijah in hopes of using him to develop a perfect artifical skin for his army of snatchers, but not before Madnar is able to finish work on his sentient bioroid Random, a Snatcher hunter.

The late Dr. Madnar, as he appears in the ending to Snatcher.

White Blood
While MGS4 might be the first time you have heard of white blood, it is not the first time the substance has appeared in a Kojima story.

Shiroichi (白い血), literally translated as white blood, originally appears in Policenauts (PC-98, Saturn, PS1). When Jonathon Ingram pursues his ex-wife’s killer, he finds himself following a trail of white blood down an alleyway, all the way to the word’s “I’ll Kill You” written in the same blood. It is revealed shortly afterward that white blood is a synthetic blood substitute used most commonly by Frozeners, artificially conceived humans with altered genes. The first Frozener Ingram meets is Tony Redwood, aboard a shuttle headed for the space station colony Beyond Coast.

The second time White Blood is mentioned is after Raiden’s appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4. Having been tested by the Patriots and cybernetically modified to a cruel degree, Raiden’s outer body is no longer human. After escaping from the Patriots, he is saved by Madnar himself, who outfits Raiden with a cybernetic battle suit, and veins full of white blood.

Ingram and Redwood meet for the first time in Policenauts

Powered Suit Soldiers
This particular reference appears a number of times, but unlike Madnar, these don’t always have a story connection.

Powered Suit Soldiers (humanoid mechanized units) first appear in Policenauts, where the Advance Police (AP) unit within the Beyond Coast Police Department (BCPD) use them for a number of sensitive operations.

They appear again in Metal Gear Solid. When Otacon first meets Solid Snake after the Cyborg Ninja boss fight, he talks about his love of anime and manga, during which time, an animated video from Policenauts plays.

The exact same soldiers appear again in Metal Gear Solid 4 as Powered Suit Soldiers; mechanized ground units developed by ArmsTech Land Systems for the purpose of providing heavy artillery and supplies by travelling over long distances or through mountainous areas in a short time.

Meryl Silverburgh
The estranged daughter of Colonel Roy Campbell, Meryl played a pivotal role both in the original Metal Gear Solid, as well as in Snake’s finale, Metal Gear Solid 4. Before her appearance in Metal Gear Solid, though, Meryl was first introduced in Policenauts.

Assigned to Ed Brown’s Vice dept. in the BCPD, Meryl tells Ingram when they first meet that after spending time in Foxhound, she left the unit in favor of joining the ever-famous Policenauts. Unfortunately, considering how young Meryl is in Policenauts, it is near impossible that she would be the same Meryl in Metal Gear when one considers the time discrepancy between the two games.

Meryl was likely originally inserted into Policenauts as a simple Foxhound/Metal Gear easter egg in Policenauts before she was ever considered as a character in the Metal Gear series. Kojima likely liked the character so much, that he decided to insert her into Metal Gear Solid as well.

Meryl as she appears in Policenauts

The Truth is Out There
While some science and technology in Metal Gear might seem bizarre and invented on the spot, much of it, as well as some of its characters, appear far before the modern day Metal Gear Solid series, and the connections are almost endless. This article tries only to mention the most firm of connections, but a number of tenuous or iffy connections could be made, including connections to Zone of the Enders and even Boktai.

Did you like this article? Do you have any Kojima story connections we missed? Let your voice be heard by dropping a comment in the box below!

Prolefeed’s Josh Weatherford and I decided that, with the recent announcement of Diablo 3, reinstalling and restarting Diablo 2 might be a fun diversion until the flood of July games are upon us.

After a harrowing experience installing the game, I was met with a bit of freezing and a couple misfires. Josh, unfortunately, could not even start the game. Before even getting to setup, the game would give him and unknown error and quit.

Puzzled, he decided to reinstall the game, but was faced with the same nondescript error yet again.

Absolutely ravenous for Diablo 2 at this point, he decided to do a little research, and found that in a recent macbook pro firmware patch (10.5.3), Apple thought fit to remove the 256 color palette from the graphics drivers. This doesn’t affect newer titles as the pallete is outdated, but it inevitably broke a number of classic games; one of which is Diablo 2.

The list of games that currently cannot be played on a macbook pro is incredibly long, and includes a number of fantastic oldies, including Starcraft, Warcraft 2, Diablo 1 & 2, and Fallout 1 & 2.

Apple recently released firmware update 10.5.4, but there is still no return of the color palette. Those who have already upgraded to 10.5.3 might be out of luck until Apple releases a new update.

Hot on the heels of MGS4’s release worldwide, Kojima Productions has unleashed the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database. Available for download from the Playstation Network Store, the database covers absolutely every single tidbit of information pertaining to the Metal Gear universe, starting from Metal Gear for MSX and ending with Metal Gear Solid 4.

Fans of Kojima’s adventure game Snatcher will be happy to see that the database firmly ties the game into the Metal Gear world with a long-awaited confirmation.

While MGS4 has already been released, Kojima Productions realizes that many have still not played the game. As a result in order to read about any people, technology or plot points introduced in MGS4, players must already have clear data from the game. Without that save data in hand, files are inaccessible, and words are blacked out like a confidential government file.

The database itself comes packed with a timeline of events in the Metal Gear world (intertwined with real life events, effectively blurring the line between fact and fiction), a database of all the people, technology and locations from the series, and a relationship chart that represents visually the tangled web that Kojima has wrought.

The most significant part of the database, is that it is free to download from the Playstation Network Store. This is not a limited time offer, either. The database is and will always be free to download from the PSN Store. Unfortunately, the database is only available currently on the US and Japanese stores. European players can download the database from the Japanese store if they choose, as switching to English is available.

Hot on the heels of the official worldwide release of Kojima’s magnum opus, Metal Gear Solid 4, Konami finally pressed and released the second Metal Gear Solid Digital Comic book. Unlike the original digital comic, the second is a straight DVD release, and is fully voiced. It also contains the original MGS1 digital comic on DVD.

When my copy finally arrived this evening, I was surprised to find that it didn’t come in a flimsy DVD case but in fact was housed within a meticulous and detailed tin case.

Much like the comic, Ash Wood’s signature art adorns the case, and a simple Kojima Productions logo is emblazoned on the case’s reverse. The whole package retails for ￥2880.

Fans of the first digital comic will find this to be much the same in pacing and in style, right down to art by Automatic Kafka creator Ash Wood. Avid fans of Metal Gear Solid 2 will also find that the script used in the digital comic is slightly different from the game, with events occurring slightly differently, and certain unseen events being fleshed out more. Fans of the game expecting a long sequence on the tanker will be surprised by how the events of the tanker incident are actually revealed. Since the comic was also made after the release of Metal Gear Solid 3, aspects from that title also make their way into the story.

Doubly surprising is the import friendliness. While the voice acting is done entirely in Japanese, the comic itself is in English, with all word bubbles ripped straight from the original paper comic. Because of this, fans that may not understand any Japanese can still enjoy the digital comic as a primer, or even post-completion supplement, to Metal Gear Solid 4.

The DVD is available at Amazon, as well as Konami’s own Konami Style site.

Western developers and media have been, for the last several years, foretelling the fall of the era of boss battles. In an industry that, in years past, was dominated by a simple level structure, the very designers of these games are turning their back on this tradition in favor of a more asymmetrical and perhaps more beneficial pattern.

Asian developers still bother to design evil and devious boss creatures for their games, sometimes spreading them through the game at a rate higher than a single one in each level. Japanese role playing games are famous for gauntlets of boss fights, while Capcom has become famous over the years for having players replay boss fights later in the adventure.

With all this talk of “bosses” and “level structure” though, perhaps we are alienating a portion of our readership; a portion more attuned and connected to modern western game design than the games of my childhood. Likely after reading the last two paragraphs, a single question leaves their bewildered lips: “What is a boss?”

Games in which bosses appear have levels that are usually designed like a traditional class syllabus. If you were to liken the the length of a game’s level to a semester of studying, learning the game’s boundaries and mechanics and the flaws of the enemies it throws at you, then surely the boss is the final exam for the class. Testing the skills you’ve learned on your journey to this powerful character, as well as the powers and weapons you’ve collected over time, the boss character is meant to be a milestone of achievement for the player. It offers structure where there might not be any. It is the personification of a climax.

The actual nomenclature for this unique game design mechanic likely comes from the beat-em-up genre. Because these boss characters are much stronger than the minions that populate each level, and often attack by themselves at the end of the level, story usually dictated that they were the highest ranking member in the organization the minions belonged to. Therefore, they were quite literally the “boss” of the minions you had already defeated. The rest, I suppose, is history.

With that information at hand, perhaps it is time to venture into deeper water, and look more closely at the design and implementation The Boss in gaming.

The Japanese tradition of video game boss design has almost always found pattern based gameplay to be the most rewarding. The Pattern school of thinking is probably the most well received and the most often used, finding a home in countless games, including Castlevania, Contra, Metal Gear, Super Mario, and most notably, The Legend of Zelda. The mechanic is simple. Either based on the environment or based on the player’s position and status, the boss character has a variety of attacks that they will perform. The player’s job is to discern the pattern from the seemingly random cacophony of action, and use the abilities and tools available to him to exploit the pattern.

Depending on the game, this structure can be rather rewarding. Some games, sadly, beat the player over the head with the mechanic required to defeat the boss, either offering overly obvious visual cues, or having the voice of the developer in the form of a sidekick telling you what exactly to do. What becomes so unrewarding about this design is the fact that with the little intelligence the developer assumes the player has, the fight devolves into a slightly more digital incarnation of paint-by-numbers: duck here. Use the grappling hook here. Maybe you should try using this weapon.

We also land up with an entirely different problem: choice. When the game starts to remind you how you should be defeating the boss, the player isn’t rewarded for solving the encounter, nor are they rewarded for playing the way they want. Suddenly, after mission after mission of letting the player choose what they want to do, the developer decides to stick a funnel at the end of the pipe, and force the player to defeat the boss using an exact list of instructions. Why even have a boss encounter at all?

More action-oriented games, like Konami’s Metal Gear and Contra series, boss battles are still designed in terms of patterns, but the methods by which each boss is defeated is not immediately apparent. Suddenly the player is forced to do something they’ve never had to do before: use their brain. While games like Okami and Zelda hint at a specific set of tools to be used on a boss encounter to test the player’s ability to use said tools, Contra tests a player’s decision making skills. Not only does the player have to use a specific weapon or skill at a specific phase of the boss’ attack, but they have to choose which weapon to use.

While this offers an unprecedented amount of choice for the player, it can also create unprecedented anger and frustration. While the game may not tell the player which weapons to use, the player has no idea of knowing if a variety of weapons and strategies will be equally viable against the boss, or a single precise chain of movements and attacks is required.

How the game handles the experimentation therein becomes the main point of contention at this point. Some guys welcome experimentation and even lateral thinking to defeat a boss, even offering multiple ways to defeat the boss depending on strategy. The Metal Gear Solid series is famous for this. Any player familiar with the famous sniper fight with The End in Metal Gear Solid 3 will likely remember the initial frustration of fighting him, the slow but methodical deduction process involves in detecting him, and finally the incredible satisfaction in reigning victorious over the aging sharpshooter.

Players could use the directional microphone, thermal goggles, The End’s parrot and a variety of other tactics and weapons. Because of the sheer variety of solutions to the fight, the game ends up being incredibly rewarding, as each player manages to arrive at their own solution without too much assistance.

The converse would be a boss fight from the recently released Ninja Gaiden II for Xbox 360. Each boss encounter has very few options for success. Bosses often come equipped with abilities that immediately and violently counter the most powerful attacks of certain weapons. Like its predecessor on the original Xbox, bosses mercilessly brutalize players for mistakes, taking off exorbitant amounts of health. This negative reinforcement prods players to try entirely new strategies, but it also doesn’t promote changing strategies mid-battle. Often because of the excessive health loss, and the boss’ merciless attacking, players are forced to forfeit and start fresh from the beginning of the battle with a new strategy. This hearkens back to an older style of gameplay, where retrying was the norm. It has its place, but in this day and age, it simply looks archaic when compared to more organic learning processes presented in far more forward-thinking games.

Bosses are not going anywhere. While developers who have yet to figure out how to properly implement them have largely given up on trying to use them, it would truly be a tragedy if the art boss design were truly lost. Thankfully, there are still quite a few developers that know how to make them, and hopefully that rings true for a long time to come.

We hear it all the time from our enthusiast gaming friends. We see it everyday on the gaming forums. We can’t avoid it in the game stores.

“This game has aged badly.”

As if it were a fine wine, gamers talk about older games as if their properties were somehow different in today’s gaming environment than the moment they first jumped onto shelves. These games do not change. Some mold, or break, or crack; but they never age. Electronic media is binary: it works or it does not. Why then do we speak of games as if they each grow thick white beards over time?

What does it mean for a game to age? When we pick up Dragon Quest III years after its release, what makes it still so much fun to play, while games like Shin Megami Tensei can seem grueling, trying, and even painful?

Most gamers likely eventually settle on the preferred definition of a game’s good age:

A game that has aged well is one that retains the properties that made it so enjoyable when it was first released.

If we were to accept this as the be-all end-all explanation for what it means for a game to age well, then the opposite of such a definition would obviously be that a game that has not aged well is one that is somehow missing the properties of features that once made it great.

Yet, how is this possible? We have already accepted as truth that a game does not change. One could muddy the discussion with talks of revisions and patches, but as any well versed gamer knows, none of these largely PC-centric features were ever available to classic console games. With that in mind, we find ourselves at what seems to be a contradiction.

That is, of course, if we completely ignore perception. Fans of famous French philosopher Descartes will tell you that he was an expert on the concept of perception. His theory was largely that what we perceive is not the same as reality. As Descartes himself deduced in his unnecessarily titled book Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction Between the Mind and Body are Demonstrated:

“[P]erception … is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. … [R]ather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone.”

To take this entire article on a tangent to prove the existence of consciousness will probably do nothing but confuse all of us. Instead, this simple quote provides some simple illumination into the concept of game aging. Our perception is a function of the mind, and not necessarily an interaction with reality.

Could it not then be said that what changes over time is not the game, but ourselves? It would certainly clear up our initial contradiction.

Now, the average forum poster will probably read the last 4 paragraphs, and think me an idiot for going through the trouble of digging up Descartes’ work in order to prove what we already knew. Indeed, if this were the only reason to quote a long-dead French philosopher, it would be a waste. It does serve another purpose, though.

A week back, I happened upon a Twitter post by a friend who could not understand why people say they cannot play a specific set of games anymore. She asked herself and her friends what impeded their enjoyment now that did not years ago?

Naturally, if we follow the words of our French friend, it is a modification of our minds that has made our perception of the material to alter and contort. What can possibly be powerful enough to change our very view of a static object? Everything, potentially. Lifestyle changes, age, differing gaming taste, and even contemporary game design improvements can all contribute.

Shin Megami Tensei as a series is possibly one of my most beloved. Despite jumping onto the gnarled and demonic wagon rather late when I picked up a rare original print of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the game was so captivating in mood and gameplay, that I was determined to play through it and its siblings in their entirety if need be.

At the time, I was a college student with low demand job and and even lower demand class schedule. The majority of my spare time was spent drinking with my friends and playing video games until red blood vessels were practically invading the whites of my eyes. I played Persona 2 for sinfully long hours until its epic conclusion, and enjoyed every moment.

Skipping a few years until the months before Persona 3’s release, I went back to Persona 2 to get in the mood. I probably should have chosen a newer game in the franchise to play. To my horror, Persona 2 was just not that much fun to play anymore. The battle system was frustrating to navigate, the game relied too heavily on grinding, and while the story was fantastic, its pacing left a bad taste in my mouth.

“How could this happen?” I screamed to myself. Had my beloved gateway drug been nothing more than a sugar pill placebo? It took some time to realize that my feelings when I first played the game were indeed true. At the time, I had enjoyed the game fully, but circumstance, the refinement of systems through other games, and my own change in lifestyle all played a part in changing my perception. To me, the game had indeed aged badly.

So then, what does it mean for a game to age well? Chrono Trigger is a prime example of an RPG that, despite the passing of years, is still not just playable, but downright enjoyable. In Chrono Trigger’s case, it was its refreshing world. Not only did the game have time travel, but it had its fair share of variety in both environments and characters. It also had a streamlined and simple battle system that, after years of convoluted and overcomplicated Playstation era RPGs, was a joy to return to.

Our mystery has been solved in a most ceremonious manner. We know more now about the games that we play, and the ones that we once enjoyed. Perhaps some are best left in the past, and enjoyed via our memories than anything else. After all, it is not the game changes, but you.

After news got out that Street Fighter IV was going to be once again playable in Osaka this month, most gamers living in the area knew where they were going to be spending their weekend, regardless of prior engagements.

The location test, which ends today, took place both in Osaka and in Tokyo. The Osaka venue was the Sega Avion (ハイテクランドセガアビオン) in Osaka’s Namba (なんば) district. The test was four cabinets linked up back to back, with a fifth cabinet on its own for others to test out the arcade and event modes.

The game uses the IC card system that all Japanese fighters today use, but so far its only use is to record wins, and for the player to purchase “costumes”, which so far are only alternate colors for existing costumes.

As I arrived in line to try my hand at Capcom’s new fighter, I was taken aback. The game looked truly beautiful. Character detail was crisp and visible, while background lighting was well implemented and subtle. Darkers stages like the Buddhist temple offered an interesting change of pace, as a single light source at the middle of the stage serves as the only illumination. Corner games are drowned in darkness, which lend an interesting mood.

Similarly, the game preserves the original teaser trailer’s sumi-e brushstroke style, but uses it sparingly unlike the teaser. Certain powerful moves leave a trail of black paint splatter as the character moves towards their target. The effect is not only beautiful, but it screams artistic confidence. Street Fighter’s art style is very cohesive and determined.

Once I hopped on a machine for the first time, a surge of excitement mixed with nervousness coursed through my body. Not only was this going to be my first time playing Street Fighter IV, but it would be in front of throngs of people who, instead of standing in line to play the game, were happy to puff on cigarettes and gander.

Being a shotokan player for most of my life, I chose my staple character Ryu, and headed into the fray. My first battle was against a player controlled El Fuerte, a lucha libre character making his first appearance in Street Fighter IV. Despite being a Ryu player for the better part of my existence, I was still convinced I was out of my depth. There had been several location tests for the game in the same arcade, and this was my first time playing the game.

When I finally defeated my opponent (with an Ultra move no less), my moment of victory was downright palpable. Sure, I was able to squeeze a win out of my first game of Street Fighter IV, but there was something more gratifying than that: Ryu still played like Ryu.

That would be an elementary train of thought for most gamers looking in from the outside, for those following Street Fighter IV’s development from its first announcement, this will naturally come as a relief. From the introduction of the revenge bar, to the exclusion of parries, Street Fighter fans have been on a roller coaster from day 1.

The revenge bar is, surprisingly, is a great addition to the game. Separate from the character’s Super bar, the Revenge meter (which fills as the character is hit) is used to either execute a saving attack (an offensive move from a block akin to a parry), or a full one can be used to execute the character’s highest level attack, known as an Ultra.

The super bar fills based on hits dealt to the enemy, and can be used to augment regular attacks, or can be used in full to release a super attack, which are less powerful than Ultras. With these two bars in tandem, Street Fighter IV becomes a much more offensive based game, as turtling (blocking incessantly without an offensive strategy) has little reward, especially when an aggresive player has more options open to him as he attacks, whether he’s particularly successful or not.

After roughly 4 hours at Avion, I finally called it quits around 8pm, bid farewell to fellow gamers, and made my way back home. On the train home, I made a few quick notes in a notebook that had been sitting in my satchel, woefully ignored:

1) Animation feels like Street Fighter. Character movement is fast and snappy, rather than the more fluid followthrough you see in Virtua Fighter.
2) I don’t know what it is, but I’ve come to love the art style, perhaps because I’ve now played it in person. Little touches really make it. (eg. in the Inland Jungle level, slamming a character on the bridge will cause a small ripple in the water below.)
3) Abel, a character I thought would be super boring, based on his design, is one of the coolest characters in the game. His MMA fighting style is absolutely brutal, and while much more down-to-earth than other characters in Street Fighter, he really does feel like a Street Fighter character.
4) El Fuerte is weak as hell. He’s fast, but the damage compensation is too much. I got caught in his throws a LOT as Ryu, and still was usually leading in health by the end of the match.
5) Dictator is ridiculous. He’s got the power you would expect out of him, but there are very few openings in his moves to punish a careless player. Players that have a good defensive game become incredibly difficult to defeat
6) With 16 characters playable, only three of which were new, I can’t help but think (and hope) there is a stable of characters we haven’t been shown yet.

Graphically, the game is all there. There are a lot of tweaks to be made before the game ships to arcades in mid-summer, but these location tests exist for a reason. Past location tests have been hugely beneficial (such as Zangief losing power, as well as certain graphical changes), so hopefully this one follows suit. We do not have much longer to wait to find out, though.

NOTE: Unfortunately, picture taking was not allowed at the location test, so my only shot of the arcade cabinet was secretly taken with my mobile phone camera.

Back in October of 2006, I posted photos of Kazuma Kaneko’s second artbook in a set of three, and to myself, quietly cursed his name for delaying the third artbook, which was set to include some of his best art: that of Shin Megami Tensei III. The book was set to release December 2006, but December came and went, winter turned to spring, yet no artbook revealed itself.

Over this past Golden Week, while in Fukuoka with Josh of Prolefeed, I came across the elusive third book. It had apparently released secretly and quite covertly, yet not secretively enough to evade my capture. The book itself is surprisingly thin in comparison to the second book in the collection, especially considering the mish mash of content it boasts.

The book squeezes art from the Playstation remakes of both Shin Megami Tensei I and II, Shin Megami Tensei NINE for Xbox, as well as art from Shin Megami Tensei II: Nocturne into a page count roughly two-thirds the size of the second installment.

Despite its size, the book still dedicates full pages to illustrations, and when compared to the second book, offers excellent evidence of Kaneko’s evolving art style over the years. This is especially apparent when comparing art from the second book with the third book’s SMT II Remake art

Publisher: 新紀元社 (Shinkigensha)
Release Date: Thursday, February 28, 2008
No. of Pages: 208
Price: ￥3150

The book should now be available at all Japanese bookstores and import bookstores outside of the country. Be sure to contact your local import book distributor for details.

I have always been a fan of both city building simulation games, and I of course have a soft corner for the Final Fantasy franchise. It seems odd, though, to see the two finally come together.

While Nintendo’s Wii console has had their retro catalogue available on the Virtual Console service since the console’s launch, but it was not until they revealed their WiiWare service that they offered the chance for gamers to download new, specially designed titles. Among the first batch of titles available to Wii owners with an internet connection are titles like Lost Wind, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - My Life as a King.

Now, unlike past FFCC titles, My Life as a King is in fact not a multiplayer action RPG. Instead, the game is set in the FFCC universe, and puts the player in the role of a child king who must rebuild his fallen kingdom, bring back villagers, and send adventurers out into the murky depths of the outside world to retrieve treasure and building materials.

The game starts slowly, but gives a lot of information in steps that make it easy to understand, even for those who may not be acclimated to a city building simulation. Before long, players are placing homes and a bakery. Homes recall a couple citizens, while bakeries make citizens happy. While some citizens remain within the kingdom’s walls, going about their daily grind, some have higher aspirations.

Every so often, new citizens will approach the castle and ask the player if they can become an adventurer. The interesting view the game gives is the financial side of the Final Fantasy universe. While past games have always placed the player in the role of the hero, travelling and battling, My Life as a King forces players to deal with the finances and management associated with groups of adventurers.

The King must hire adventurers, but each comes at a cost to the royal coffers. The player issues behests each day; quests for adventurers to undertake. Now instead of taking a quest and going about your business, you are giving such quests to brave citizens, while you maintain and expand your town.

There’s an incredible new sense of connection to each adventurer, as each one’s emotions are visible to The King. As I approached the Frog Board on the morning of the 8th day, and found an adventurer waiting to undertake a quest, I actually felt a sense of regret. They were determined to take on my behest to slay a Goblin King to the east, but I knew better. The denizens of the cave were Level 4, while she was merely level 2. When I ordered her to instead gather more EXP in an easier area, she looked dejected, walking slowly to the town’s gate to undertake a rather boring and dull mission.

City folk even express their wants and needs. I traveled by the crystal centerpiece of the kingdom to find an adventurer who looked worn and disillusioned. Upon talking to him, I found that he had feelings for another citizen, but felt that without a relaxing place like a park, there was no hope for him. It is this kind of organic suggestion that brings the game to life, and finding such suggestions among villagers is so much more rewarding than merely getting anonymous notices via the in-game interface.

Because of the game’s small size, the story will likely be fairly short. HDRL will try to have a full review of the game available by the end of next week! Stay Tuned!

WIth the beta for Metal Gear Online wrapping up, players have been squeezing as much play time as possible out of the last couple days before the game goes into hiding once again. Despite being an online competitive shooter, the game has a personality all its own, reaffirming that even when taking notes from other games, it is still firmly rooted in the world of Solid Snake.

Gameplay is not the only death sentence an online competitive game can contract. Especially today, the genre is highly competitive, with fickle players and a demanding community. Having a well designed infrastructure, reliable servers, and a wealth of community features are just the beginning if a developer wishes to compete with the best and most experienced developers in the industry. It is quite obvious that Kojima Productions is new to the online gaming space, as they make a number of these elementary mistakes.

Take notice developers, for the commandments have spoken:

Thou shalt not silence players.
Always provide voice chat. This is not only for when playing games. Offer voice chat in lobbies, and let players talk to each other even when not playing together. Don’t provide the option to completely disable voice chat. Teammates cannot use pre-recorded commands to mount a successful assault on the enemy. If players do not want to hear others, provide a mute button.

Thou shalt celebrate congregation.
Allow players to form parties. If a player wishes to play with a group of friends, let them stick together. Allow parties to participate in both matchmaking and custom games. When the game is made, do not split the party between two teams. They are in a party for a reason. If parties are large, give players the ability to create individual teams within the party before the matchmaking begins.

Let players follow friends into games with a simple option. If they are not part of the friend’s party, add them.

Thou shalt not segregate choice and faith.
Do not split matchmaking and custom servers. This is especially bad if players cannot choose to join a friend’s party if they are participating in matchmaking. It makes it totally impossible to meet up with friends.

Thou shalt provide choice when searching.
When matchmaking, do not only provide game type and skill level as search criteria. Let players choose game size, map preference, weapon preference, or even special gravity preferences. Just because a player is looking for a random game to play doesn’t mean they want all their options randomized.

Thou shalt allow modification.
Let players create their own game types using existing game types and options. When they do edit said game type, allow them to save and rename it for use later.

Thou shalt not celebrate addiction.
When calculating a player’s skill level, do not reward time played. This forces some players of lower skill who play a lot into higher tier games that may be too far above their skill level.

Thou shalt not limit character creation.
If your game allows players to create a custom character, offer multiple character slots, so guests can try the game without messing with the owner’s win/loss record. Additionally, after creating a character, let players edit the clothing to their heart’s content. Some of us had ADD.

Thou shalt not region lock servers.
There’s no question that language is a large barrier when trying to form a strategy as a team, but that should not stop developers from having one unified network. Provide different lobbies for different languages and regions as an option, but allow players to switch lobbies to play with friends in other countries if they so wish.

While there are others, these are the most important. With companies like Infinity Ward, Bungie, Epic and Valve continuing to deliver excellent content and community features, new contenders like Kojima Productions entering the fray will have to hit the ground running and check off each box if they expect to survive.

What this article helpful? Do you agree? Do you disagree? What is most important to you in online games? Let us know by post in the comments box below!