Explore Snake's Origins: Graphic Novel Metal Gear Solid Bande Dessinée Out Now on PSP

September 20th, 2006, 21:14 Posted By: wraggster

News from Lik Sang

Back in 1998, Konami released an Action/Adventure on PlayStation that was bound to establish the new "Stealth-Game" genre, as well as create a videogame character legend: Solid Snake. Metal Gear Solid offered an unique blend of engaging tactical action and a storyline steeped in a rich cinematic feel. As Snake, you found yourself facing the task to eliminate rogue members of the squad Foxhound and defeat a mech-size military fighting machine, Metal Gear Rex. The first remake hit the GameCube in 2004, with MGS: The Twin Snakes, which sported new game mechanics, cut scenes and replay options. Now, Konami invites you to revisit the original story once more, but it's not quite a game, you see. "Bande dessinée" means "comic strip" in French. To be able to re-examining the Shadow Moses incident for a third time, the developers around Hideo Kojima chose an interactive, animated Digital Graphic Novel format. Based on comics from IDW Publishing, written by Kris Oprisko and with artwork by acclaimed artist Ashley Wood, MGS Bande Dessinée is in short a fantastic digital comic that comes alive on your PSP with layered animations, score and sound effects.

Features and Exploring Modes

Since it's not exactly a game, what is it then? One could call it a visual interactive experience, that lets you re-examine the original storyline to the extent of finding out every little bit of background info and related events in the process. It's great for hardcore Metal Gear Solid fans, while for others interested it provides a great story told in a very unique and stylish way to say the least. There are three different modes, the VR Simulation mode, the Mental Search mode and the Memory Building Simulation mode. Running about two hours long, the VR Simulation mode offers a sort of cinematic telling in animated strip form. Illustrator Ashley Wood's images work incredibly well in this setup, and this artist sure knows the MGS universe well: he's drawn the official comic book for years. Whenever you like, you can switch to Mental Search mode and are then able to scan each page carefully to find over 300 points of interest (people, places, items etc.) from the Metal Gear Solid series.

More details at Lik Sang

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