Solid Snake's gotten pretty old, you say? Not with Regain, the new in-game energy drink! We're not kidding though - a bunch of new adverts are out promoting Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and one advert has Snake promoting an energy drink. Well, even Snake gets tired now and again. A new trailer is also out for the game - talk about epic. Check out the vids in the full article.

Greenpeace has released their "Guide to Greener Electronics" which scores the 18 top manufacturers of gadgets and devices according to their policies on toxic chemicals and recycling.

Apple, which was under Greenpeace's black books for the iPhone, got a better score this time around. Among the three console manufacturers, Sony scored the best. Microsoft was third to the last and Nintendo was in last place (because both are new entries to the guide).

The Financial Times reports that Sony Ericsson is thinking about using Sony's PlayStation brand for its new high-end mobile phones. According to Sony Ericsson president Miles Flint, the PlayStation brand is "an area of possible future activity".

This sort of contradicts rumors that Sony Ericsson would not be using the PlayStation Portable brand for its rumored gaming phone. The company, which is half-owned by Sony, already has a mobile TV-capable Bravia phone being developed in collaboration with Japan's NTT DoCoMo.

While the PlayStation phone is indeed a possibility, Flint stressed that the tech needed for such a phone is still far from being perfected. "We need to make sure that it is a credible phone, and be sure we are justified in putting that identity on it," said Flint.

While PS3 fans are busy waiting for the last installment of Metal Gear Solid games to come out, Konami threw a Metal Gear 20th Anniversary Party in Tokyo Midtown Japan, where Hideo Kojima and crew gave never-before-seen footage of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Portable Ops +, and reminisced mostly about the good ol' times of Metal Gear Solid and its many sequels. IGN had one of its agents infiltrate the event with tactical espionage, and gave dibs of valuable information from the ground-breaking party.

A new game has also been announced for the PlayStation Portable (PSP): Metal Gear Solid 2 Bande Dessinee. This will feature full voice acting (awesome!) as well as an advanced digital comic. Some digital merchandise are introduced too, including the Metal Gear Solid Collection and Metal Gear Music Collection. Not much details were given, but we'll find out soon enough.

Read all the details in the Full Article, and check out the Via link for tons of screenshots!

Guardian Unlimited UK called up Leo Cubbin, "the Sony bod in charge of the forthcoming social network/game design platform," to ask a bunch of stuff about LittleBigPlanet. For this post, we'll focus on one of the questions which refers to customization in the game, because Leo's answer is highly suggestive of the game's future features.

The essence of the answers revolving around this topic is that creating content for LittleBigPlanet doesn't, or might not, even need to be limited to the PS3 at all, thanks to the Sony Memory Stick. For example, saith Leo:

The SixAxis PlayStation3 controller is amazingly sophisticated, but there are also other ways to input into PlayStation3. For example, you can take your Sony Ericsson phone, whiz out memory stick and put it into the PlayStation3, so anything contained on memory stick can be imported into the game. I can take a photo of you on my phone, pop it in and put the photo onto a character's face.

So it is possible to turn someone into a sock puppet, thanks to Sony Ericsson camera phones. And maybe not even just Sony Ericsson phones, for Leo mentions elsewhere:

If it becomes apparent (after the game has been launched) that they really want some type of offline experience other than on a PlayStation3, like on a PSP or other device, then we'd think about that for the community.

And then, Leo says "you can use your PC as well," and use either the MemStick or Bluetooth to get that to the PS3. (No standalone PC version of the game, though.)

Dear deity. LittleBigPLanet could unleash an explosion of creativity among the community it will nurture, and based on the laws of statistics, there's a very good chance someone's going to be (pardon the crudity) a d**k and create some age-inappropriate content, Guardian Unlimited fears.

Leo's response was to (a) note that the PS3 has built-in parental controls, and (b) bring up the YouTube analogy common to "Game 3.0" approaches. He speaks of "post-moderation" of content created by players, where the community themselves will judge and rate these user-created content for, again pardon the crudity, levels of age-inappropriate d**kness.

At the same time, he also mentions that Sony will be taking a sort of active role in content management. "There are tools which allow moderation very quickly, allowing Sony to scan a level for images and other content that's appropriate or inappropriate." They don't want to "nip" someone's creative bud, but they are also fully committed to "protect the users".