Hundreds of Metal Gear devotees braved moderate temperatures and clear skies yesterday to be the first to get their hands on a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4... on the West Coast, that is. Southern Californians also had a chance to rub elbows with some of the game's talent, including producer Kenichiro Imaizumi, associate producer Ryan Payton and the voice of Solid Snake David Hayter. Also making an appearance to scribble their names on mint copies of MGS4 were Patrick Zimmerman, the voice of Ocelot, and Khary Payton, who plays Drebin in the fourth Solid Snake adventure. Blow by blow after the jump.
Guess who was first? This guy! And his girlfriend! Good news, eh? Well, unfortunately, he was robbed a few weeks prior to the launch and has no PlayStation 3 on which to play his coveted and signed Metal Gear Solid 4. We told them they should've gone to the GameStop just two doors down as they were having their own midnight launch event, raffling off a Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle. Chances? One in seventy!
He didn't care. He was high on life!
Imaizumi, Hayter and Zimmerman braved silver ink Sharpie fumes and the excited stutters of Metal Gear superfans as the patient queue filed past, having one thing only(!) signed. They posed for photo ops, obliged in the impromptu voice over and were generally gentlemanly.
At one point, associate producer Payton even informed a fan that he did not work on Metal Gear Solid 2 and that his signature would make little sense on the game's poster. We're not sure how happy said fan was about that.
However, the talent didn't blink when crazy people started showing up in cardboard boxes. This one was fresh from a Dumpster diving adventure at the adjacent Target!
The autograph session was planned to wrap up at 1 AM—as was the VIP party that went down in the nearby courtyard. Needless to say, things ran a bit over as the monstrous line, still stretching around the length of the Hollywood Best Buy continued to demand things be signed.
Here's the start of the line, circa 1:15 AM Pacific Time...
...and the end. We really hope some of these kids got some sleep.