Tag: metal gear solid

The Sony PlayStation: A 2×12-Year Retrospective

Well, it's September 9th, 2019, which means its time for another 12/12 console anniversary. Yes, today makes 24 years since Sony's very first PlayStation console was first released in North America. Though Sega and Nintendo pretty much owned the home console landscape at the time they decided to enter the frey, a combination of smart business decisions and key partnerships, in addition to some pretty massive missteps by the competition helped Sony to quickly become the dominant force in the industry. A position they have continued to enjoy for the majority of their console-making career.

​Sony first began their foray into game consoles in the late 1980s when they entered into a partnership with Nintendo to create a CD-ROM add-on called the Play Station for the upcoming Super Nintendo console. The partnership was rocky though, particularly when Nintendo went behind their back to form another partnership with Sony's competitor Philips. At one point Sony even approached Sega with a proposal to a similar partnership to the one they had with Nintendo, but Sega, unfortunately, declined. Eventually, Sony decided to abandon the project altogether in favor of creating their very own gaming system for the next console generation. This, of course, is what would go on to become the PlayStation.

After settling on engineering the console to specialize in handling three-dimensional polygonal graphics, Sony then had to figure out how to get games made for its system. For this, they mainly relied on securing hundreds of deals for third-party games, both exclusive and multi-platform. In addition, they also acquired the British video game company Psygnosis which, along with creating the fantastic wipEout series for them (one particularly excellent entry of which appears on our list below), also had the unintended benefit of resulting in a more economical, dedicated game development system for their new console.

Finally, Sony needed to figure out how to get a jump on the already long-established competition. They accomplished this in two ways. With Nintendo, they primarily did this simply by beating them to market, since their next generation Nintendo 64 console wasn't even ready for release until the following year. And with Sega, they simply found a way to capitalize on their blunders, particularly by undercutting them on pricing. By selling the PlayStation for $100 less than Sega's Saturn, they made it a lot more attractive to otherwise undecided console shoppers who couldn't quite see the additional cost benefit of Sega's offering.

Even with a leg up though, without the right games, the PlayStation brand wouldn't have lasted for very long. But great games are something that every PlayStation console has always had in spades. Read on for our list of 12 of the best ones the original PlayStation had to offer.

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New Steam Store Releases: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Sorry for the late post. I was dealing with computer issues all weekend. What did we miss? Oh, right. For the second time, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was the highlight of the past week. It was in good company though, as there were quite a few other interesting releases on the Steam Store. Mad Max, Raiden IV, a new Company of Heroes entry, and a '90s adventure game featuring digitized actors in a comic book setting (to name a few). Do a double-take, then proceed further to see more of this past week's new releases.

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Butt WRUP Solid

Metal Gear Solid is out. Mad Max is out. What a great time to be sick.
I went for MGS and what I got wasn’t exactly what I expected. It’s more Ubisoft than MGS. Splinter Cell meets Far Cry meets Assassin’s Creed, with plenty of silly sprinkled in.
A great game, no question about it, but not story driven and therefore not Metal Gear Solid. Where are my hour long cutscenes? Whats up with all the collectible shit? Hundreds of side missions?

The gameplay is great, the amount of content you get for the money is outstanding for a game like this, you can listen to Kids In America while your horse takes a shit on civilians that got burnt to a crisp, and there is enough Hideo Kojima (non)sense in it for me to love it, but as someone who fucking adored MGS2, I feel this little speck of “disappointment dust” in my eye, and the more I try to rub it out, the more it itches.

But what is everybody else playing this weekend?

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New PlayStation Store Releases: MGSV:TPP

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is now available on the PlayStation Store. Ostensibly, the last Metal Gear game by series creator and longtime custodian, Hideo Kojima, The Phantom Pain has already been released to both rave reviews and a fair amount of controversy. Also out this week, the somewhat highly anticipated Mad Max game (especially after how great the new movie was), "STFU!" (that is to say, Super Time Force Ultra), and a digital card and dice fantasy tabletop role-playing strategy board game (as described by Wikipedia). Play Metal Gear Solid again for the last time, then proceed further to see more of this week's new releases.

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