For those of you that played it, what did you dislike most about Twilight Princess? Was it the bloom and brown that’s run the gamut of every title last year? Was it the completely useless items that muddled the reason as to why anyone would even call it a Legend of Zelda game? Was it the mind-numbing linearity and lack of side-quests outside of collect-a-thons? Or, perhaps, was it the lack of difficulty?

Well, chances are it was all of those things combined, but the whole easy-mode thing probably stuck out the most. There’s a mass of games falling prey to this idea, theory, and concept that games need to be far more accessible to help penetrate the market more. Developers around the world are doing research groups in order to meet the demands of people who will never play their games anyway.
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2008 is forever going to go down in history as one of the greatest years for the gaming industry. No matter which platform or genre you follow religiously, there was something for everyone. To the casual gamer to the hardcore, there is something that will appeal to you. This is just one person’s modest opinion of what stood out in 2008.
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For those of us who’ve been given the opportunity to see the last chapter of gaming icon’s life – i.e. Solid Snake’s last operation, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the Sony PlayStation 3 – you might have noticed something missing, amidst the stunning revelations, the awesome graphics and the word “nanomachines” being thrown about here and there.

It was a bit subtle, since they made sure we got so much new content that it was hard to keep track of everything, but it was there – or rather, it wasn’t there. Yes, I’m talking about the classic Metal Gear Solid theme, the one we would all hum to ourselves while we’re on a sneaking mission to the ol’ refridgerator at the kitchen, to grab some delicious rations before the parents found out you were staying up late to play Kojima’s goddamn epic. And yes, they left it out of MGS4. Why?

The answer is as simple (and as rage-inducing) as you might think. It seems that some russian composers have gotten wind of the MGS theme (composed by Tappi Iwase and not Harry Gregson-Williams) and have noticed its startling similarity to a piece written by composer Georgy Sviridov. Long story short, accusations of theft were thrown around, and after some legal brouhaha Kojima had to leave it out of the PS3 sequel. Here’s the exact quote:

The truth is, Konami [had legal problems with] Russian composers who said we stole their music. They didn’t [steal their music], actually. But Konami was too sensitive about the situation and just decided not to use that music in the game.

You’ve got to love people being overprotective of IPs when everyone’ s obviously taking creative cues and references from everyone these days.