New Online Metal Gear Solid for PS3

And there are still more announcements from Konami's celebratory bash.

Konami held a party in Tokyo on Tuesday to celebrate 20 years of Metal Gear. The event was hosted by series creator Hideo Kojima, who not only played some of his big new game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, for people but also revealed a handful of new games.

The first of these is Metal Gear Online, a standalone PlayStation 3 game that lets up to 16 players duke it out online. The game uses the new control scheme that will debut with Metal Gear Solid 4 and features characters and environments from the singleplayer game.

Metal Gear Online includes something Kojima is calling the SOP system, which lets players communicate with teammates through nanomachine networks.

Whether the game will come on Blu-ray disc or be released through the PlayStation Network is "still to be decided", said a company representative, who described the announcement as a "statement of intent". Konami is planning a closed beta-test for the game in August.

More solid are the details for the latest portable Metal Gear game. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is an update to last year's PSP hit that includes new levels and characters, including previous lead character Raiden and Old Snake.

The game will include both local and wireless multiplayer, and the singleplayer portion is boosted by a new feature called Infinity Mode, which Konami describes as an "endless collection" of singleplayer content.

Other titles announced at the event included a Metal Gear Solid cellphone game and a second graphic novel for the PSP. Konami is also planning limited edition packs that bundle together past Metal Gear Solid music and games.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo