By: Drew Beausoleil 

After watching the Konami Pre-E3 conference today I am left with mixed feelings. The conference started with talk of Konami’s focus on mobile gaming and how they have large plans towards capturing some of that market. This may interest some, but for me personally that is not why I play games. Konami went on to talk about PES 2014 – Pro Evolution Soccer. With a new engine based of their newly announced FOX engine the company has been able to gather more realistic physics and bring the game to life more than before.

My real interest came when Hideo Kojima came on and started to talk about Metal Gear Solid 5 Phantom Pain. As a big fan of the series there is much to be excited for with the next installment in the series. However to everyone’s big surprise David Hayter (the voice behind Snake) will no longer voice one of the most iconic voices in gaming history. With no fault to David, Kiefer Sutherland will now be the new voice for snake as Kojima mentioned he was looking for an older voice for snake. The game takes place in 1984 and Snake will be 49 years old for this installment. The game will have a strong focus on race and revenge, something to keep closer with current world times.

Lastly Konami discussed Castlevania: Lords of Shadows 2. Dracula will be the main character who seeks revenge in a modern day setting, a first for the game. The game will have a large open world for players to explore and with the help of player-controlled-camera things will be much easier to see allowing the player more movement and freedom.

Overall the conference was very short, almost something that could have been done at E3 next week and not necessary as most of us knew all this information already (except Kiefer playing the role of Snake in the upcoming MGS5). They ended the conference with one of the worse and tasteless live Castlevania trailers. I could only think they thought it was in good humor but I disagree. Now it’s up to Konami to see if they can make a much needed better impression at the E3 conference starting Monday.

Stay with us as we’ll have much more to come in the next few days.