HD Edition Title Update Incoming

After months of teasing, Hideo Kojima has announced that there won't be a Zone Of The Enders 3 in the foreseeable future.

Why have you forsaken us, Kojima? WHYYY?! Well, it's partly because the team plans to focus on a title update for the Zone Of The Enders HD Collection to improve the frame rate on PS3.

There was a bit of a furore when MGS4 didn't go multiplatform, but the logic was sound: it would have taken far too many discs. Such are the problems you face when you embrace a limited format such as DVDs in the face of much larger competition -- Blu-ray.

For the very same reason, don't expect to see Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection coming to Microsoft's current-gen console, though an appearance on the next one might be feasible.

This week we try to make sense of the Metal Gear Solid V reveal, wherein Kojima's explanatory presentation served to make everything even more characteristically confusing; we discuss Mitch Lasky's warning for EA regarding their console future; we pick apart the Battlefield 4 trailer, and lament yet another franchise skipping out on the Wii U; we take a look at Square Enix's change at the top as Wada resigns; and then we finish off by addressing Frank Gibeau's words regarding DRM...and kind of end up on his side.

Game Buzz | Episode 25 - Metal Gear Solid V. Recorded 29th March, 2013.

Parental Advisory: We've tried to keep it as conversational and informal as possible, and you should be warned that there may be some instances of strong language.

Click the banner or the title link above to play the podcast, or right click and select 'Save Link As' to download the file onto your hard drive.

Want more? Check out the rest of our PWNCAST posts onsite, hit us up on iTunes, or subscribe to the PWNCAST Feed here.

You've La Li Lu Le Lost Me

Oh come on now. A few days ago, Kojima Productions revealed Metal Gear Solid V, and we thought we could finally move past the confusion surround The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is both games combined, announced Kojima. Sorted.

Except that they're both separate games, and may well be distributed separately. Also, Ground Zeroes is the prologue to The Phantom Pain... not the other way around.

"From FOX, Two Phantoms Were Born"

Hideo Kojima has finally announced Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain during his GDC press conference. Precisely no-one will be surprised that the mysterious Joakim Mogren was Kojima himself under all those bandages, but you might be surprised to learn that Metal Gear Solid V is in fact Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain combined. We've got the details and a trailer after the break.

MGS Publicity Stunt Reaches Fever Pitch

In one of the most bizarre video 'interviews' I've ever seen, Geoff Kayleigh quizzed Moby Dick Studio CEO Joakim Mogren about The Phantom Pain, confirming that the mysterious title runs on Kojima Productions' Fox Engine. It's set for a full reveal at GDC, and not to put too fine a point on things, it's also definitely a publicity stunt for something Metal Gear Solid-related.

We've been making strangled noises of sheer ecstasy over Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance all week. Hell, we've been making them for months, but now they're fully justified, as you can see from our review of MGR. However, Hideo Kojima has told of his nervous expectations regarding the game, saying that he never thought the end product would do this well.

We've already delivered the first 20 minutes of gameplay in the latest episode of Opening Scenes, and our written review has already cut a path onto the site.... but we're not done yet. Despite my own protests, Matt and Jon insisted I tear myself from my console long enough to bring you this video review, which visually highlights the reasons why we had to give Revengeance a 9/10 score and our Editors Choice Award.

Please note, this video review does contain some slicing... okay, it contains LOTS of slicing.

Happy Revengeance Day everybody! Just a quick reminder that tonight is Twitter party night. We've got eight copies of the game to give away, and we're feeling funky. Grab yourself some popcorn for 6pm, make sure you're following @Dealspwn on Twitter, start swotting up on your Metal Gear history, and get practising those hashtags!

Altogether now...#winMetalGear Rising!

There'll be four rounds this evening - 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm - and a question will go live at the start of each hour. All you have to do is tweet us the answer along with the #winMetalGearRising hashtag, and you're in with a shout for that round. There'll be two winners per round, and we'll be contacting winners on the night, so make sure you stay tuned.

Click here to check out the first twenty minutes of the game: Opening Scenes| Metal Gear Rising Gameplay

Click here to read Carl's in-depth review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

And we'll embed the video review link here once it goes live later today.

We'll see you on Twitter later, you can get the full lowdown on how to win Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance right here.

Platform: Xbox 360 | PS3 (Tested)

Developer: Platinum Games / Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

I never knew it until now, but what I’ve always wanted to do in a video game is to do a guitar power slide on my knees in super-slow motion, whilst welding a high-frequency sword that slices up my enemies into as many pieces as I possibly can… for ten minutes. Continuously.

And to think, I nearly didn’t have the opportunity to find this out. When Kojima Productions quietly cancelled the action-orientated instalment of the Metal Gear series, nobody was expecting Dealspwn’s own personal heroes Platinum Games to swoop in and save the day, but that’s exactly what they did. Their previous work suggested that the project was in very safe hands, but the MGS fan in me had some slight reservations, despite the fact Hideo Kojima himself was involved in some capacity. However, after months of previews, copious amounts of trailers, and teasing the gaming world with a playable demo, I was given the finished product to finally see if the collaboration between Kojima and Platinum had been worth the wait.

Let’s start by taking a quick look at the plot for Revengeance. The game takes place after a few years after the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, with cyborg ninja Raiden now working for a Private Military Company called Maverick Security. When a mission to protect an African leader goes south thanks to an ambush by a rival PMC with a much larger dastardly plan, Raiden barely makes it out alive. This leads to the silver-haired cyborg being given a new, more powerful body, one which is fuelled by the dispatching of enemy cyborgs. So begins an over-the-top adrenaline-fuelled action-fest that sees a rather angry Raiden deal out his own brand of vengeance (with some revenge crammed in for good measure) and confronting his past as a child soldier.

If you've been following our coverage of Metal Gear Rising and tuning in to the PWNCAST, you'll know just how utterly psyched we've all been here at Dealspwn for this game. Well, it's launch week, we have an entire day of Metal Gear Rising goodness for you coming up, and what better way to kick things off than by giving you a look at the first 20 minutes of the game.

We're proclaiming tomorrow to be the day of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. From the early hours of the morning we're going to have a fat chunk of uninterrupted gameplay footage for you as Revengeance gets given the Opening Scenes treatment. Then we should have the written review arriving somewhere around lunchtime, and you'll be able to hear the dulcet tones of Mr. Carl Phillips explode with what we can only describe as deeply erotic excitement in the video review towards the evening.

And then...well...we're going to have a big, fat Twitter party, in which we'll be giving away eight copies of the game!

Here's how it'll go down tomorrow: We have eight copies up for grabs. There'll be four rounds of questions, with two winners per round.

Every hour, on the hour from 6pm there'll be a question going up on the Dealspwn Twitter account.

All you need to do is reply on Twitter with the answer and the #winRevengeance hashtag within the hour.

For example, if this is the question:

Win MGR. Platinum Games were founded in which year? Reply with answer & hashtag before 7pm. #winMetalGearRising

You should answer like this:

2006 @Dealspwn #winMetalGearRising

Individual question contests will last an hour, after which two winners with the correct answer will be chosen at random for each question. You can expect the 6pm winners to be announced at 7.30, the 7pm winners to be announced at 8.30 and so on.

A few house rules:

• One entry will be accepted per account per question. You're welcome to compete in all of the question contests, but the maximum you'll win is one copy.
• One entrant per household.
• UK entrants only.

Good luck!

NB. This is just the first of a string of competitions, great and small, across social networks and onsite, that we'll be holding over the next few weeks, culminating in a massive joint Twitter party with HUKD for Bioshock Infinite in late March. There are some big games coming up in the next few weeks, and some big competitions too.

The latest trailer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance puts us on first-name terms with four of Raiden's most deadly adversaries: the Desperado Elite mercenaries. Mistral, Monsoon, Sundowner and Jetstream all pack advanced armour and insane abilities, which will probably test our reflexes to the limit if Platinum Games' previous works are anything to go by.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is out on February 22nd, and we're more than a little excited. Stay tuned for our full review nearer the time.

Not all of Raiden's foes will be as squishy as his fellow cyborgs, since Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will also field hordes of deadly unmanned drones to slice into scrap metal. This latest trailer shows off some of the robotic foes that you'll face in Platinum's upcoming brawler, including the mournfully-mooing Gekkos that pack a wicked kick.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will release on February 22nd, and a demo is available to download on PSN and Xbox Live.

Konami want to shove this game in our faces, hence the plethora of trailers that have been swamping the internet of late. But when Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is shaping up this nicely, we really don't mind.

This latest vid takes a look at Raiden's AR vision that provides a little overlay, marking objectives and other helpful tidbits of info.

Metal Gear Rising is out from February 22nd for PS3 and Xbox 360, read our preview here.

Konami sent over a message today announcing that everyone who picks up a new copy of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance from February 22nd will nab the Cyborg Ninja DLC skin for free. Based upon the design of Gray Fox, the skin will allow players to assume the guise of the MGS character, and get slice-happy with the upgradable FOX Blade. 

• What: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
• Where: Tesco Direct PS3 | 360
• Current Price: £29.99 (£34.99)
• Discount Code: TD-KFPW
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Hands-On Preview

Metal Gear's fast and brutal hack & slash spin-off is now less than a month from release, and once again, Tesco are offering the cheapest price around thanks to their voucher code. Revengeance has proven rather controversial over the last year, but after playing it several times (and getting involved with the new demo on XBL and PSN), we think that Platinum Games may well be onto a winner here. It could well be a 'cut' above, if you catch my distinctly unfunny drift.

Thanks and credit to dazzyp at HotUKDeals, who found this yesterday.

A short and sweet playable demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance went live on PSN and Xbox Live this week, and Konami have followed it up with no less than three new trailers. Each video expands on a different aspect of the experience: from Raiden's suit and the environments to taking a closer look at the Zandatsu (cut cut cut) mechanics.

If you've played the demo, let us know what you made of it. We've been having a blast, though it took a little while to adjust to the parry mechanics (which are very similar to Bayonetta's Moon Of Mahaa-Kalaa in gameplay terms).

We briefly touched upon some of the crazy bosses fights you'll find yourself engaged in when it comes to wreaking revengeance in Metal Gear Rising, and now Konami have dropped a trailer that shows just how bat-shit crazy things are going to get.

Jack's back, and he's pissed off!

There's a demo coming next week, and you can read our extensive Metal Gear Rising hands-on preview here.

There's not long to wait now until we finally get our hands on Metal Gear Rising, and Konami are et to up the anticipation with a demo drop next week that'll take place in the game's first level.

Konami have announced that the demo will arrive on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 23rd, and you can gear up for that by checking out the new seven-minute trailer, titled "Jack the Ripper".