Konami’s unveiling of the “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” trailer at the Tokyo Game Show created quite a stir amongst viewers with its impressive graphics. Skeptics, however, wondered whether it was truly an in-game demonstration, or simply a pre-rendered trailer.

To prove the trailer’s authenticity, game director Hideo Kojima and artist Yoji Shinkawa held a stage event at the Konami booth showing a real-time MGS4 demonstration on the PS3 development kit. Kojima demonstrated to his audience the game’s impressive graphical capabilities, and paused the demonstration at strategic junctures to give more detailed explanations of the game’s key features.

• Real-time shadow and lighting effects – players can change the shadows in MSG4 in real-time, and place shadows the character himself, using the PS3′s self-shadow effects.
• Object-specific focus – players can give focus to specific things on the screen, and the rest of the background will become blurry, as if shot by a real camera.
• MGS signature look – Kojima and his team opted against giving MSG4 a movie-realistic look, which they say is possible with the PS3. Instead, they added filters to retain the Metal Gear Solid signature look.

Interestingly, Kojima has chosen to considerably age the game’s protagonist, Solid Snake. When asked why, he gave the following response.

“Old characters are better because their wrinkles can be used to show the rendering capabilities of the PS3. Young characters have silky skin, so it’s not as challenging.”

“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” will be released in 2006, following the release of the Playstation 3 next-generation console. Kojima has confirmed that MGS4 will be on display again at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show, and has said that next year’s focus will be on the aspects of the game which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Kojima has also said that MGS4 will be the last Metal Gear Solid title that he and artist Shinkawa will work on, preferring instead to move onto other projects.

Konami has released an official MGS4 trailer via the Metal Gear Solid 4 website.