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Today we visited Konami's booth and saw a plethora of amazing games that Konami is bringing to the stage here in the next year. Click "Read More" for the full list (and pictures)!

They are as follows:
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, it's really gratifying to finally have a “real” Solid Snake game on the PSP where you can play inside of the Metal Gear universe/storyline again. Played the same as the classic Metal Gear titles for the Playstation 1 & 2 this title really brings Metal Gear to the PSP in a way we true Metal Gear fans have missed. You'll get to see a lot of your faves from the first game: Ocelot, Raiden, the return of Meryl, Sniper Wolf, and more. You can also play this title in Multiplayer… here is the catch; you can “recruit” people in the single player game to help you out in multiplayer. If they die however, they never respawn… you have to play the single player missions again to re-recruit that player into your ranks.



Steel Horizon is one of the new DS/PSP titles from Konami in which you take command of a powerful WWII naval fleet. With 20 missions in both Atlantic/Pacific regions the real meat and potatoes is in the gameplay. Rhandhali gave it a spin saying that the PSP version would win on “prettiness” but the real measure of these sorts of games comes in the gameplay interface, which could easily become superior with the right type of DS programming.

Gradius Collection is the collection of one of the best side-scolling shooters franchises ever. I can't even being to tell you how excited I am about having some really great shooters available for my PSP for a change. Hopefully this will have some nice quick-play value so you can treat the PSP less like a mobile RPG station and more like the DS's quick round style games.

Rengoku II is the sequel to the shooter Rengoku for the PSP. I was terribly glad to hear that Konami had finally fixed what I saw was a simple stumbling block that kept Rengoku from large critical appeal… simply being able to re-arrange your controls. I look forward to checking this one out.

Bomberman: Act Zero for the Xbox 360 and Bomberman for the PSP were up next making CyberUndead drool uncontrollably and add to his already numerous reasons to purchase an Xbox 360 in the semi-near future, it looks incredible, period. Bomberman for the PSP kept to the same style of play that we're used to seeing in classic Bomberman titles with the addition of wireless single UMD play game sharing with up to 3 additional players on a single player's UMD. This game sharing is something that Sony and other third party developers have really been lacking in exploring and I'm excited that Konami is exploring this. It's hard to make a company understand that every one of my friends may not LOVE their products enough to buy them… but they may like to casually play them and the Game Sharing for the PSP is the perfect option to do that.

Xiaolin is a game that our great Konami rep Shahed showed us that is based off of a cartoon (that admittedly I have never seen). However in the description of the title the magical words “Power Stone” came up as a way to describe this title…. I'm sold.

Coded Arms: Contagion is the sequel to the hit Coded Arms for the PSP which was critically acclaimed as the best portable shooter. There isn't a whole lot to talk about here… updated graphics, gameplay, etc.

Silent Hill… sweet Jesus… let's talk for a second about all the rumors around Silent Hill Origins. Let me dispel a few myths: 1) No this IS NOT AN ORIGINAL SILENT HILL REMAKE!!!! (Now that we've got that out of the way)… 2) What SH: Origins IS however is a whole new plotline based on a truck driver that wrecks in Silent Hill… but of course like all people that end up in Silent Hill we discover he has a history there. 3) There is some new gameplay; the “Barricade System” allows players to block themselves away from enemies while finding a new route out of danger. Analyze these screenshots in the many months till this comes to market in 2007.

Needless to say I need another Silent Hill game to obsess about like I need a hole in my head (or if this vacation would be the bar to set things by, a flaming sunburn on my head).

DDR games for pretty much every console were there… including a new arcade machine that will share it's data with the new PS2 version through some (as yet) undetermined method… though it will probably be through an online username/password at Konami's game servers.

Elebits is the first offering from Konami for the Nintendo Wii. There is a playable demo of it in the Nintendo booth but unfortunately only one of our crew has made it there and he didn't get to check it out. We got to watch the intro cinema and got a gist of the plot… seems like a fun game but I'll wait till I play with the Wii controller to really say anything for certain.

Death Jr. has a few new games coming to market. Having not played the original on the PSP I'm interested to see what kind of graphical improvements have been made but other than that I can't really judge too well on what's new in this version for the PSP (titled Death Jr.: Root of Evil). There is a DS version (Death Jr.: The Science Fair of Doom) which uses the stylus as the scythe to swipe... that seems pretty cool. I really have been meaning to check out this series.

Saving the best for last we are going to talk about the juggernaut that is Konami's newest Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. This is one that CyberUndead and I couldn't stay away from. We both handed off our various cameras and took to the DS's with un-ending glee. As I reported on earlier this new bit of undead-hunting goodness is set in WWII era but you can't really tell by the little bit that I played today. I can tell you however that the ability to switch between characters seems (at first glance) to be pretty awesome... having another weapon fighting beside you almost all the time is incredibly helpful. Not to mention we're not talking about idle character placement… we're talking about an active AI that will save you when you're in need of saving. I can't even begin to tell you how awesome this game is shaping up to be… I WISH upon all wishes that it had an earlier release date than Fall '06. =( Please Konami… give me something to keep me inside through the summer… I hate sunburns!

All-in-all Konami has a SUPER impressive showing for the next year with things like 3 PS3 titles in the works, a Wii title, a slew of DS/PSP/PS2/Xbox titles Konami has no signs of slowing or allowing any of their popular franchises to fall by the wayside in the next generation of portable games and advanced next generation machines. We at BlueAlien.Org would like to extend another heartfelt thanks to the people at Konami who really have been one of our first major publishers to work with us and for giving us a great booth tour. Thanks Konami… we love your games and it's obvious so do you!