Caffeine-Fueled

The question of whether or not a Metal Gear Solid movie will ever leap from café napkin to silver screen has been a matter of constant speculation for several years now. While Kojima and Konami have all but confirmed that such a project exists, the exact details remain elusive as ever, with only the occasional sigh of relief to indicate that things are happening.

It would appear that one more of these things occurred last night, at Spike TV’s Video Game Awards. No, seriously — there are actual first-hand accounts of people who aren’t Samuel L. Jackson showing up and talking about video games which aren’t Halo. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? “And you were there, and you were there…”

But no, as tales of folklore would have it, Hideo Kojima was indeed among the show’s attendees, no doubt drunk as a skunk just like the majority of the poor souls in the gaming press. Perhaps due to the liquor, Mr. Kojima took a moment to clear some of the stagnant air surrounding the topic.

Via his translator, Kojima said that the movie is “brewing, and it’s moving very slowly.” Asked how much of a hands-on role he plans to take with the movie, his translator relayed that “obviously he’s not going to be in the director’s seat, but he will be very, very involved with the project.”

The good: with Kojima onboard, there’s very little chance of some hotshot director taking too many creative liberties with the Metal Gear film. The bad: with Kojima onboard, there’s very little chance of some hotshot director taking too many creative liberties with the Metal Gear film. Hmm. We appear to be at an impasse.

Source: Collider (via 1UP)

Fans of Rock Band, astute readers, and stalkers (come say hello!) may remember how last July, a Canadian man sought to play every song in Rock Band on drums in one go. He succeeded in doing this in slightly over a day’s time and was left with blisters and presumably fatigue. But evidently, the semi-recent release of Rock Band 2 left him with another lingering feeling: the idea to do it all over again.

Between January 2 and 4 he plans to play every song available at the time, and considering that the current tracklist has exceeded 500 songs, he estimates a playtime of 48-60 hours.

Given that the original Drum Hell garnered more attention than anticipated, he’s looking for world record status this time around, and is encouraging viewers to donate to the United Way of Canada. To this I say godspeed, drum hero… godspeed.

Remember how for all those years we were making jokes about what would come first: Chinese Democracy or democracy in China? Well, we’ve got our answer, and those of you who put your money down on the political state coming before the album are going to be extra sad right now:

China’s government-owned music-importing monopoly has signaled that local record distributors shouldn’t bother ordering the GN’R production. Anything with “democracy” in the name is “not going to work,” said an official at the China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corp., part of the Ministry of Culture.

The Ministry of Culture forbids imports of music that violate any of 10 criteria, including music that publicizes “evil sects” or damages social morality.

Given the state of China’s piracy laws, I’m sure copies of the album (perhaps without its titular track) will be showing up for sale on street corners any minute now. The Chinese government then faces a conundrum: by trying to protect its interests, they’ve only made things worse. Rock fans will look to the underground to get their fix and will end up being schooled in the art of revolting, rock n roll style. The final showdown will take place in Tiananmen Square where the leader of the revolution will face off against Hu Jintao. In this battle both opponents will rock out really hard until lightning shoots out of the neck of one man’s guitar and strikes down the other. What will you do then, China?

So, thinking about taking a nice little pleasure cruise in the Gulf of Aden? Before you go ahead and rent yourself that fancy yacht, you might want to take a quick glance at this Live Piracy Map care of the International Chamber of Commerce. There’s no treasure marks to be found, but it might at least help you rethink your vacation plans.

The upside to using Google Maps technology to track the rising numbers of pirate incidents are numerous and varied. First, you’ve got a quick and easy way to keep tabs on dangerous waters, consolidate reports, and look for patterns visually. Then once you’re done, you can scroll northwest and try to find Waldo in Vancouver.

Memo to the pirates: now the ninjas know where you are.

It was just a matter of time until a post about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (appropriately tagged as “wingnuts”, joining some fine company alongside articles regarding the Westboro Baptist Church) finally appeared on our quiet little blog. What took so long? While PETA has flirted with the entertainment industry before, this is their first incursion into videogame territory – in more ways than one.

It started with Samba de Amigo, one of the delightful little oddities which sprang-up during Sega’s Dreamcast era. Like a few other franchises from those days (Jet Set Radio still not one of them, much to continued annoyance), the anthropomorphic corpse of Samba has recently been exhumed and given new life on the otherwise safe and pedestrian Nintendo Wii.

Like many of the Sega’s experiments with the bizarre, no one really noticed aside from the old hardcore gamers… or folks like me, who still have Gunner’s Arsenal jerseys with Dreamcast sponsorship hanging in our closets. Oh, and PETA, who have somehow mistaken the title for some kind of virtual animal abuse. To the dismay of reasonable human beings everywhere, Sega caved to PETA’s demand to pull advertising. They received chocolates for their compliance. Vegan, of course. Probably carob.

As if the incident with Samba de Amigo wasn’t ridiculous enough, the upright citizens at PETA have now turned their eye towards Majesco’s Cooking Mama, which they have parodied in the form of a flash game. The goal is to convince Majesco to develop an entirely-vegetarian edition of their cutesy chef simulator – even offering to help promote it.

I have to wonder: if it weren’t for the virtual nature of the “offending” material, would PETA be taking such an outwardly-cordial approach in this case? Afterall, it’s exceedingly difficult to splash buckets of fake blood on a collection of pixels and polygons.