Despite all the anticipation which has surrounded the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, the inclusion of Metal Gear Online as part of the complete package has been widely overlooked. Konami haven't forgotten about it, making some changes and releasing a patch to fix some bugs.

It's a tiny change list, and a relatively small download. If I could caution a guess it would be that the majority of us are still playing through the single player game and haven't really looked into the multiplayer element yet.


Metal Gear Online is now at version 1.01, having had the following changes:

- Lighten the strain the game places on our [Konami's] server.

- Adjustments have been made to the character's moving speed.

As I said, it's a tiny changelist, and I'm sure that there will be more to come. Having played it for about 15 minutes last night, Metal Gear Online looks promising, but definitely needs many issues to be addressed. Despite "beta testing" having been done - it looks as though there is still a lot of work to be done to make Metal Gear Online a truly entertaining experience.

For example, Spawn camping definitely needs to be fixed, though it can be argued at current it is a very flawed game design model utilising set spawn points, it makes for a lot of spawn then die ad nauseum gameplay. Currently, it simply doesn't have the maturity as other online gaming experiences. Time will tell whether or not it will mature though, and we can only hope that patches will do this.