Konami has shown the integrity of their intestinal fortitude by promptly caving into misguided critics of their recently announced military shooter, Six Days in Fallujah. Whether the game was going to be good or not will never be known, but what is now crystal clear is that a few people can express their dislike of something and have it resonate with a game company, which sets a bad example.

So when can a game company make a simulation based on the urban battles in Iraq? According to the protesters, never.

From Asahi.com:

Jamin Brophy-Warren, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal and a specialist on videogames, reported that about 40 U.S. soldiers who saw action in Fallujah helped in the production of the videogame by, for example, offering their diaries and journals to Atomic Games.

The times of the battles, the locations of troops and other details in the game are extremely close to what had actually happened in Fallujah, Brophy-Warren reported.

The reporter also said several thousand photos, including satellite images classified by the U.S. military, were used in the production of “Six Days in Fallujah.”

The initial shock and awe of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has come and gone, and it’s now time to reflect on Hideo Kojima’s recently released opus. Though MGS4 is no doubt a stunning game and many would argue evidence for videogames being treated as art, it’s by no means perfect. Having just completed the game and spent some time in Metal Gear Online, I’m here to share my gripes about the game. Being a long-time fan of the MGS series, it’s frustrating to see MGS4 turn out the way that it did, but I suppose it is what it is. Be warned, I don’t have any criticisms of the story, but I do discuss the gameplay in each Act of the game, so if you don’t want anything spoiled, best to just move on.

1. No reason to be on the Playstation 3

Why is this game on the PS3 again, besides Sony likely throwing a ton of money at Konami to keep it exclusive? It doesn’t utilize the Playstation 3’s strengths at all. The previously shown SIXAXIS support is nonexistent in the final product, with only one small sequence that uses it, to poor effect at that. And don’t tell me they needed the storage space for Blu-Ray. We all know it was merely an excuse for Kojima to use uncompressed audio throughout the game. Throw some lossy compression at the audio (that 99% of users will never notice) and this game could fit on a single dual-layer DVD.

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I thought it unlikely to find a single gaming magazine or website display a little integrity, but EGM has showed some class in telling Konami to shove their MGS 4 review demands up their collective ass.
If you’re not in the know, Konami has a list of demands a reviewer must agree with before they will send you a pre-release copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. Usually, reviews only have a single demand in the guise of an embargo, but Konami is upping the industry ante by demanding reviewers don’t talk about install times or the length of cut-scenes. Why don’t they just ask for a 10/10 while they are at it?
Know this: Any review that appears on a major website or magazine days before MGS 4’s official release was possible because the publication in question was more than willing to sell their integrity for a few extra hits.
According toGameSetWatch:

It’s not the Metal Gear Solid 4 “review,” although that’s generating the most discussion online — the editors decided against giving out scores due to “the limitations Konami wanted to impose on our comments,” so they just printed a five-page roundtable instead, one mostly filled with praise but also throwing a few jabs.

Kudos to EGM for standing tall. All you other sites and magazines should be ashamed.

Getting a change to play through the earlier Metal Gear games with only a week to go before MGS4 might be a little tough for people. Thankfully, someone fromthesnakesoup.org has decided to make things a bit easier for those without the time or means to run through the Metal Gear saga. Here’s the schedule:

The Snake Soup will have a Metal Gear marathon starting Sunday, June 1st. Each day, I will be broadcasting myself playing through several Metal Gear titles. Here is the schedule so far:
Sunday, June 1 – Metal Gear
Monday, June 2 – Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Tuesday, June 3 – Metal Gear Solid
Wednesday, June 4 – Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Thursday, June 5 – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
?, June ? – ???
The starting time will be 1:30 PM PST. This might change so keep on checking this page for updates!

You can watch it on theirjustin.tv channel, or embedded right here.