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The UMD may or may not be dying as a movie format; to hear Sony talk it's still a viable medium, but abject reality shows that retailers and film producers think very little of the weirdly shaped discs that work only on a PSP. There have been close to five million portable Playstations sold in the United States, though, so while standard entertainment fare like films or television will ultimately "succeed" is an open question, there is a market of people that own the machines and will look for different ways to use them (unless they trade them in for Nintendo DS Lites).
It's the same thing, but different
One of those "different ways" to use the PSP arrives in the form of Konami's Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel, a nifty interactive comic book depicting a tale in the MGS universe. Its illustrative quality, engaging storyline, and unique audio style combine to make it a winner not only for fans of Solid Snake and his world, but also for gamers and comic fans in general looking for ways to spend time with their Sony portable that doesn't include mashing buttons or wishing desperately for a second analog stick. In addition, there is so much extra information about the backstory and the characters contained in the secondary modes to keep you occupied that MGS diehards simply should not be without it.
The tale woven in the comic is that of 1998's Metal Gear Solid title, a legendary epic in many gamers' minds. Known in the MGS world as the Shadow Moses Incident, Solid Snake weaves his way through battles, interrogations, shocking discoveries, and seemingly impossible situations - you know, it's only standard video game fare (but we like it). Over the years there have been "regular" comic books written depicting this story, brilliantly drawn by the Australian artist Ashley Wood, whose artwork is also used here to great effect. Some of the scenes are straight up cells, while others are "animated" through 3D movement of various parts of the art along with occasional sound-depicting TV-Series-Batman-like "Bams" and "Booms". The way that these are woven together, back and forth, sucks in the reader and presents an arresting interpretation of a standard graphic novel.
One thing we found a little strange - although considering the atmosphere and nuances used by the artists by no means bad - was that there is no true voice acting. Here are there, background voices are heard laughing or whispering, but the actual dialogue in the game is read-only. This is not really a negative aspect, either, but we would have liked to have heard what additional audio tracks would have added to the overall experience.
The comic is broken down into three parts - VR Simulation, Mental Search, and Memory Building. The VR Simulation allows players to sit back and just watch the comic as it unfolds. This is also the main hub of the UMD. There are a couple of different ways to view the Simulator, either by setting it to automatically move according to its own schedule (what I like to call "My Favorite Setting") or to allow manual, user-dictated movement from page to page. At any point, these can be changed from one to the other or vice versa. Moving through the tale this way from start to finish will clock in at around two well-spent hours, and it's so good that a few spins through will likely happen.
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