As anybody who's been tracking Metal Gear Solid 4 should know, when you preorder the game you are given a bonus disc that gives you an overview of the saga up to this point, as well as providing you a slot in the Metal Gear Online beta that will be running from April 21st to May 6th. Herein lies my gripe.
The beta doesn't officially start until the 21st, but Konami has come out and said that the beta will be available for download a few days before the official beta starts. Upon downloading and trying to access, it is revealed that the game already needs an update. Not a big deal right? Ain't the first game that's done this. However, every time I have attempted to download this patch I have been greeted by a big ol' "Network Server Error" message.
At first this only cropped up during the download process (you can choose either peer-to-peer or http download, but good luck getting the http option to work). But after a while it wouldn't even let me get that far. I'd accept the TOS, wait, and like 20 seconds later I'd be hit with the server error screen. After another long while I was able to get back to the download, twice in a row with no problems actually, and both times I was hit by the server error within a minute of the download starting.
You'd think that, based on the fact this is a closed beta and Konami is handing out keys with preorder discs, they would have an idea of how many people would be downloading/accessing this and would be able to dole out the appropriate amount of bandwidth to deal with it. Apparently I gave Konami too much credit. I mean yes, the beta hasn't officially started yet... but you are already letting people download it. Do you not believe they'd try to patch it ahead of time so they could just jump into the game when it starts on the 21st? And even among those who have been able to patch, I've heard that it took anywhere from around an hour to up to 9 hours and counting.
The one bright spot? At the title screen when you can choose either 'Start' (which leads to the TOS and download) or 'Trailer', if you have a DualShock 3 you do feel a rumble when you pick an option. That at least gives me hope that the beta will support the DS3... if I can ever get into the beta. ARGH!