On a hot summer Thursday in June, throngs of eager MGS4 fans spent hours in front of UNIQLO’s flagship SoHo store in wait for a glimpse of the creator of the famed Metal Gear Solid franchise, Hideo Kojima. As part of the MGS4 world tour, Kojima Productions and Konami made a stop at the UNIQLO store to promote limited edition MGS4 t-shirts, and to promote the highly anticipated game.

Catering to the fans, Kojima and voice actress Yumi Kikuchi dedicated 2 hours to signing over 300 pieces of fan memorabilia; including everything from the original Metal Gear cartridge for the NES to a bag of wasabi-flavored Doritos! Kojima, being very humble and gracious, penned his signature and shook each patrons hand. Yumi Kikuchi was as equally kind, smiling and thanking each fan to pass through. For those lucky enough to make it, it was a very rewarding experience.

If you missed the event, be sure to check out NYT’s own photo gallery after the jump!

You may remember our posting from some time back about Kali’s veiled tribute to Mega Man 3 on Big Dada, and now another indie MC named Random has made an entire album in homage to the the blue bomber. Entitled Mega Ran, Random takes loops from some of the most beloved tunes from the original Mega Man Series, and adds some pretty beefy production underneath clever and endearing rhymes. It’s clear this guy has some major love for Capcom’s classic series, and even Capcom themselves have thrown their support behind this guy! Having given him an official license to promote his work, it’s now available for sale on iTunes and CDBaby.

Random’s “Mega Ran” is Blowing Up (via Capcom Blog)

By Jesse Mann

For those of you who are not familiar with Sandy O, Sandra Day O’Connor is an American jurist and was also the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Since the average American apparently can’t even name the three branches of the United States government, many may not know her. But they will soon. You know why? Sandy is going to change the face of entertainment and politics; by creating the most politically and socially concentrated video game ever.

On June 4th 2008, Sandy had spoken at the Digital Games For Social Change summit regarding the opportunity to open up the average Americans to explore social / political issues through video games. Alongside video game education advocate James Paul Gee of the University of Wisconsin, Sandy is planning to release Our Court by next fall.

No real information has been released yet but you can imagine that it will be something along the lines of Final Fantasy meets Judge Judy – replacing the monsters and battles with laws and cases. But who knows, maybe Sandy will include some surprises here and there; like a First Amendment case in which a magical unicorn is being accused of promoting illegal elixir use. Seriously, that would rule. I love unicorns.

Sandra Day O’Connor: Game Designer (via Wired)

By Taeko Saito

Metal Gear Solid 4 hits this week and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this unbelievably stoked for a video game. Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game of all time and this final entry in the MGS series looks to answer every question and tie every loose end that’s been brought up since the series first began. But if you’re like me, it’s also been a while since you’ve played the entire series through. And given how complex the series’ story has gotten by this point, a refresher would be most welcome and thanks to an incredibly comprehensive post over at the influential NeoGAF forum you can have just that. This sucker’s got everything you could want to help prepare you for MGS4 with story recaps, character bios, screenshots, trailers, control scheme rundowns, avatars and so very much more.

And if that wasn’t enough Metal Gear for ya, be sure to check out the exceptional retrospective that Gametrailers has put together. The first five parts can be found here with the sixth and final part airing today.

MGS4 Primer (via NeoGAF Forums)

MGS Retrospective (via Gametrailers)

By Stewart Smith

Legendary video game creator Hideo Kojima will be on hand Thursday June 12th, at the UNIQLO Soho Store in lower Manhattan for a special autograph signing session! This session is to celebrate Konami’s North American Launch of the highly anticipated tactical espionage action series Metal Gear Solid®4: Guns of the Patriots and to commemorate UNIQLO’s LIMITED edition series of MGS4 collaboration t-shirts. Exclusive details after the jump.

New York-Tokyo is giving you a chance to win one of six EXTREMELY limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 posters, signed by series creator Hideo Kojima himself! Kojima will be in NYC next week to celebrate the worldwide release of his magnum opus, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. He will also be on hand for an autograph session at UNIQLO Soho! More info on that HERE, and for all contest details hit the jump below.