At last, the debating, fighting, and arguing may be put to rest. In an unprecedented outpouring of messages, the forum line for the screenshots of the as of then unnamed Metal Gear reached over 20 pages in less than five days. Many different things were discussed: Can this really be Snake? What is going on with the robot from Snatcher? How is Otacon involved? What will this games tagline be?

Now, we have answers. Kojima Pro. has just announced the tagline of Metal Gear Solid 4 will be "Guns of the Patriots" in a new trailer which we all have already seen. This quizzical line raises many ideas involving the Patriots/Wisemen's Committee from MGS2, and 3. As for the smaller robot, it is seemingly a video platform through which Otacon communicates to Snake through (and provides ammo no less.) Otacon himself has yet to be seen in person. Little is yet known about the disturbing "Patroller Gears" that seem to be Metal Gear REX's with Metal Gear RAY's feet. Nor do we know the identity of the masked and heavily armed troops riding in on tanks.

One commonly asked question "What is with Snakes eye?" has also been answered along with a small debate over whether the term "Solid Eye" was AC!D 2 related. The mechanical eyepatch we've seen is indeed an optical enhancer. Whether this gives interesting abilites such as X-Ray vision...we don't know. All we know is that it does help Snake in some way or another (perhaps acting as the new Soliton Radar MGS fans have grown to love). Another question was why Snake was seemingly injecting something into his neck. Snake is in his older years now (the phrase "X years after Big Shell" appeared) and his health is declining, perhaps due to the FOXDIE injection administered by Naomi Hunter in MGS1. Snake is nearly brought to his knees by a coughing spasm and is required to inject himself with some sort of a serum.

Perhaps the largest question of all, if it seems it hasn't been answered yet, is "Is this actually Solid Snake?" Yes. Hideo Kojima has announced that this aging action hero is indeed our beloved chronic smoker. The gameplay portion of Guns of the Patriots is still moderatlely hush-hush, with the exception of a few tidbits. From what we know, Snake is now freelancing in his neverending battle against Metal Gear. However, the technology for creating one has been copied and sent to almost every powerful nation on Earth (thanks to Revolver Ocelot), and now war is breaking out. Snake is now caught in the crossfire. By fighting certain countries, he gains alliances with others, and vice versa. We don't know how this will translate into actual gaming, but we are sure that it will not be in the first-person perspective, at least not fully. A little joke showed a character in the first person, however it quickly changed back to normal in a "Kojima moment".

One more AWOL character that has been spoken a great deal about is Revolver Ocelot. The triple-crossing master of deciet has yet to be seen. An interesting note is that many were led to believe that the person seen in the Famitsu magazine article pictures WAS in fact, Ocelot. Neither Raiden, Vamp, the Mysterious Lady, or Meryl have shown their faces yet, but we can expect them to make some very grand entrances by the time the TGS is over. For those of you who were less than impressed by Raiden's performance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Kojima has announced that Raiden's character will now be much "cooler".

-- Article by Travis Whelpley