GC: MGS4 bosses unveiled

Hideo Kojima unveiled four of the Metal Gear Solid 4 bosses during a packed press conference in Leipzig this morning, saying he wanted to top the bosses in all the previous Metal Gear games.

His answer to that appears to be a line-up of animalistic former soldiers whose post-traumatic stress disorders have warped them into savage killers in beastly forms. They're all black and robotic, as we saw in a new trailer.

The first we saw, holding up a bulldozer in a street while soldiers looked around confusedly, was a panther-like creature of supreme strength and speed with a big slashing tail. Called Crying Wolf, he did for plenty of the soldiers before someone shouted "Beast!" and everyone started to scarper.

Unfortunately for them cat-man was supported by a woman with big tentacles coming out of her head, which she used to crush one soldier like a python would asphyxiate its prey, cackling madly the whole time. Laughing Octopus, she's called.

Helping her out was a boss called Raven with a rocket-propelled set of massive wings for swooping around, but the one with the most savage impact was seemingly some sort of multi-armed hovering enemy with telekinetic abilities - enough to have one soldier spray his comrades with bullets and then snap his own arms behind his back. Screaming Mantis, kids, and Snake wasn't too chuffed at the link to his past.

Not that we saw much of our old pal, as he was skulking around in the dust trying to avoid being seen while flying man zoomed over him screeching "Show your rage!"

The trailer closed by reiterating the promise of a simultaneous worldwide release, after which we had to slip out to go and talk to Sony about PlayStations and that. Kojima seemed on good form though, holding his arms aloft at the start and delivering his introductory comments in fairly good English.

Look out for that GC Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer soon.