At last year’s PAX Prime, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima unveiled Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, an amazing tech demo that showed off Kojima Productions’ new FOX Engine.

A few months later, at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Swedish game developer Moby Dick Studios unveiled a trailer for a supernatural thriller called The Phantom Pain. It wasn’t long, however, before speculation began that The Phantom Pain was really Metal Gear Solid V in disguise.

At GDC 2013, those suspicions were, in fact, confirmed.

Read On

Rating: 7.0

I’m a sucker for a good Castlevania game, and even more so on a handheld device. There is something special about getting to sit down and kill zombies on the go. This time around Konami went for the 3DS promising a 3D-2D Castlevania. So how does this game hold up to it’s predecessors? Is this the next great handheld Castlevania??

Read On

It’s no secret that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance can feel a bit on the short side. But for those of you looking for more, Konami has you covered.

Exclusive to the PlayStation 3, Konami recently released the VR Missions DLC Pack, consisting of 30 different missions for players to test their skills on. And, if the idea of more content isn’t enough to get you excited, there’s one more detail that might. For a limited time, the VR Missions DLC Pack is free to all PS3 owners.

Read On

Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Developer: Platinum Games
Release Date: February 19, 2013
ESRB Rating: M
Pg! Score: 9

There was no shortage of skepticism when Kojima Productions handed off Metal Gear Solid: Rising to Platinum Games and rebranded it as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.  While not uncommon for publishers to outsource popular franchises after creative teams break up or to liven up a franchise that has stagnated – see Ninja Theory’s take on Capcom’s Devil May Cry and Silent Hill’s parade of hand-offs to various developers after Team Silent’s dissolution as examples – results have generally been mixed.

Knowing the design philosophy of Platinum Games’ prior titles, simply handing a story-heavy franchise over to the action-first, story-second studio might have meant bad news for Revengeance.  Fortunately, instead of a simple outsourcing, Revengeance is a full-blown collaboration between Platinum and Kojima Productions. This allowed the former to concentrate on fast-paced gameplay and the latter to handle the franchise’s trademark narrative style and cinematic tone, each playing to their strengths.

The result is beautiful to behold.

Read On

Publisher:  Konami Digital Entertainment

Developer:  Kojima Productions

Original Release Date:  November 8, 2011

ESRB Rating: T-M

Over the last several months and years, there have been several games that for some reason or another slipped by us here at Pixelated Geek. So as a result of those games that ended up going un-reviewed, I welcome you to Looking Back, where for the next several weeks, yours truly will bring you all series of reviews of games past. And for the inaugural review, what better way to start things off than by taking a look at a personal favorite of mine?  I am talking of course about the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.

Read On

With only a month left until release, Konami has released a new Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance trailer.

Titled “Jack the Ripper”, the new trailer showcases a new unmanned weapon type for Raiden to fight. Story-wise, the trailer focuses on Raiden’s descent into a more bloodthirsty persona, Jack the Ripper, his nickname from child soldier days during the Liberian Civil War.

Read On

With E3 right around the corner, it’s no surprise we’re seeing new announcements from different game companies.  In particular, Konami saw fit to hold their first annual pre-E3 event at the Sony Pictures Studio yesterday to showcase a few downloadable titles in the works and to make a few announcements.  Having been invited, yours truly and fellow Pg! writer Chris Toruno headed out to Culver City to check out what Konami had in store.

Read On

Hey look! I’m not dead!

It’s vacation time. Where do you want to go?  If you’re thinking somewhere tropical, maybe you’d enjoy the Bahamas.  If somewhere quiet and full of nature is more your thing, you could try the mountains. If you enjoy walking through an endless see of falling ash and running from distorted monsters with no hope of ever returning home, then Silent Hill, West Virginia is the way to go. But really, what the hell kind of person would want to go to Silent Hill?

Read On

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow hits stores today and, with it, an added bonus. Of course, I am talking about cheats. You know, those unlockable game options that make the game easier and are available by beating the game or using a special code. So, just what is the special code necessary to unlock some extra goodies? Given that this is a Konami game, I’m pretty sure many would find the answer easy.

That’s right. Unlocking the cheats is as easy as inputting the classic Konami code from Contra during the loading screen for a mission. For those of you that don’t know, the code is as follows:

XBOX 360
U, U, D, D, L R, L R, B, A

PS3
U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, O, X

Just what does this special code unlock? Oh, all kinds of things, but don’t expect to earn any trophies or achievements if you use them. Achievements need to be earned, people. Anyway, here is the list of cheats:

All Relics — Discover all Relics
All Combos — Activates all Combos without purchasing
All Gems — Discover all Magic Gems
All Upgrades- Discover all Weapon and Relic upgrades
No Damage- Invincibility

Have fun.

[via Ripten]

Metal Gear Solid 4 was to be Hideo Kojima’s final entry in the MGS series. Then again, he said the same thing about Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, so it’s no surprise to see him come back for one more last hurrah. Enter Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for Sony’s PlayStation Portable, the second MGS game for the PSP and title first true Kojima title on the system. Unlike the previous PSP entry, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Peace Walker was helmed by Kojima himself and meant as a true sequel as opposed to a side story like Portable Ops. In fact, during development, the original title for the game was Metal Gear Solid 5: Peace Walker. Now, I’m sure that statement is a bit confusing. After all, given that the last main MGS title was for the PlayStation 3, developing a full sequel to the series on a portable system seems a little…odd. However, despite the small package, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker does in fact feel like a full-on Metal Gear sequel. Read On