Sept 19 2007
Metal Gear Ray, Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Rex, Olga's daughter, Raiden... Konami really is aiming to draw the Metal Gear Solid series to a close, and MGS4 features all these characters/creations alongside a whole stable of brand new faces, revealed in this week's Tokyo Game Show trailer.
Japanese gaming bible Famitsu also has a huge feature on the game, detailing the many characters and their backgrounds. Unfortunately, we can't read kanji or speak Japanese. But thanks to an English language script from the trailer, given out by Konami, and our own detective skills, we've boiled down a quick info-burst:
Sunny
Young gal Sunny is Olga's orphaned daughter. We're informed in the script by Otaconthat she was taken by the Patriots at birth. How she fits into a wartorn middle east battlefield, we don't know.
Drebin
The script explains that Drebin is a gun launderer - he aquires weapons used by the PMCs (Private Military Companies) and removes the ID chips that stop them being used by enemy soldiers. We can't see him being a Resi 4 "What're buyin' stranger?" style weapon stockist, though. In the artwork, he's carrying a white hankerchief. Perhaps he's a non-combatant?
Little Gray
Little Gray is a monkey.A real monkey? We guess so. In the trailer, Snake has him dialled into his rifle sights, as the gravel-tinged simian slugs down a can of pop. Another shot shows him and Snake next to each other, accompanied by a white-coated woman (Naomi?). Perhaps he's a pet...
Eva
As we've already seen, MGS3 starlet Eva returns in a MILF sort of fashion. And now, we can confirm that she'll be making a warzone appearance,applauding Solid's CQC technique, and with theweirdly fitting codename of BigMama. Nice.
Foxhound squad
Not so new these guys (you can see them in head-clutching action in the E3 vid). The squad is made up of Meryl Silverburgh (from MGS1), mohawk-sporting Jonathan, balaclava-ed Johnny aka Akiba, and baldy Ed.
Most interesting was that in the E3 vid, Akiba was the only member of the squad unaffected by the weird brain-pain device triggered by Ocelot. We've no further info, but we're guessing that the Haven Trooper also shown in Famitsu is a member of the enemy group the Foxhound squad take out in the new trailer.
Metal Gears
It's a giant metal monster mash in MGS4, as Metal Gear Rex (MGS1), Metal Gear Ray (MGS2) and the newbies Metal Gear MkII (Otacon's mini-robot) and the Gekko variant get aquainted.
Fans are suggesting a Liquid versus Solid Metal Gear-riding showdown. Which would be awesome. But we were also interested to finally see the resemblance between the Gekkos and Ray - sepcifically the legs. Which suggests the Gekkos may be built by the US Army...
