5:45pm
the game is in my hands, and it looks beautiful. but king of the hill is on in fifteen minutes. the game can wait. bobby hill will not.

6:30pm
i'm inviting alex over. he's still pretty sick, but he's going to go pick up the game in a few minutes. atleast i won't be alone online.

7:00pm
king of the hill is over. the okami demo is in the latest opm, and i've been dying to try it out. i'll squeeze in a little japanese painting wolf game before i hop online in mgs.

7:30pm
opm sucks balls. the demo timed out in the middle of explaining what this sword thing was. i soooo want okami to just eat that bouncing fairy...

8:00pm
well okami is awesome, but neither of my metal gear solid discs fucking work. they are stuck on an endless menu loop. i'm gonna shit in the mouth of whoever let this bullshit happen. it goes to the camo splash screen of snake disarming a guy, and tells me to hit the start button. i do, and it brings me to a screen with options. i select an option, and it reroutes me to the splash screen. times fucking infinity. this is a huge letdown. i feel like killing, crying, throwing up, or a little bit of all three.

8:15pm
i get a call from alex. i tell him my problem, and since he's had more "metal-gearsperience" than i have, he tells me kojima-san kept the japanese control scheme, where circle is confirm and x is cancel. i slap my forehead, and realise that my import white psp is the same. of course, america had to change it, because we are stupid roundeyes who can't handle the concept of x meaning cancel. damn you hideo, for being so effing rad.

8:30pm
i am set up, and logged on. at the moment there are over 2000 players plying online, 982 in the "snake" server alone. i start it up, get my controls right, and i'm completely and utterly lost.

9:00pm
i'm never live blogging again. it sounded like a good idea for this, but i should have just recapped. this shit is so lame, i see why nobody reads them. anyway, i've finally got most of the little nuances, but i'm still getting creamed. i've killed my share of reds, but nonetheless, if this game were ranked, i'd be in the negatives. unc_tarheel has found a sweet little hising spot, and he's been sniping our team off every round. i'm hiding in a cardboard box at the moment. this is just too fucking cool.

11:00pm
so i just tried team deathmatch, the frog thing, and now sneaking mission. they are all totally worth the low price of this game. as a guy who didn't beat metal gear solid 2, didn't play metal gear solid, and waited til now to play metal gear solid 3, i must say i'm quite impressed. the camera still perplexes me, as you don't aim with it at all. after a while i got used to it, but it's still a little wacky. it feels just like metal gear solid. multiplayer gets an A- from me. as a multiplayer game, it's not that great, but as a multiplayer metal gear solid game, it's well done. what can i say? it's fun. so far i haven't experienced a bit of lag, and the online modes and options are varied and many. if only for the persistence disc, i'd say go for it. the price, at around $29.99, is a bargain for this and the original game.

overall: 9.5/10; you will either love it right away, or learn to.