Solid Snake will be back in 2007--exclusively on Sony's PlayStation 3. Konami announced at E3 today that the hit Metal Gear series would appear on Sony's forthcoming console as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Though there isn't a playable demo of the game on the E3 show floor of the LA Convention Centre, an extended trailer is giving attendees an eyeful of expectations.

The 15-minute trailer includes loads of what looks like in-game footage, all of it drop-dead gorgeous and including a few key plot developments likely to leave long-time fans of the series categorically reeling.

The clip establishes that America is facing a war with five mercenary groups called Private Military Contractors, or PMCs. Together, the organizations form a shadowy group called Outer Heaven, which is under the control of Liquid Ocelot, the villain from both the first MGS and its sequel (in different bodies, but that's a story best reserved for the hardcore MGS fanboys).

Full details of the plot are deliberately vague right now (they don't call them "teasers" for nothing), but it seems as if Solid Snake, all gray-haired and haggard in the handsomely carcinogenic Marlboro sort of way, goes to the Middle East to fight Liquid Ocelot and his Outer Heaven allies. Further, Snake seems to be running on borrowed time, as the trailer reveals the FOXDIE virus present in Snake's body since the original MGS has finally gotten around to causing cellular breakdown. That and the smoking surely hasn't helped. Anyway, he has just six months to live, apparently, which implies "last hurrah" on so many levels.

But if subtle inference isn't your thing, one section of the trailer indicates that Snake preempts the virus. On the apparent prompting of Liquid Snake, Solid appears to off himself in the ol' smokin'-the-pistol the routine. Classic. That'll show 'em who's boss. Stupid virus. Damn genes. Want something done right you gotta do it your--BANG.

The trailer also spotlights some seriously cool action sequences. Snake, sporting some impressive new camouflage duds from the fall collection--spandex is back, baby--takes on some biomech Metal Gears with organic legs that would be sexy if they weren't so a) huge and b) emphatically attached to a utilitarian tank torso attacking with lasso-like cords.

Too, Raiden returns in all his cyborg-ninja glory. The trailer shows him slaughtering six Metal Gears with a sword that he wields with both hands and feet. The freak.

Anyway, if you have the bandwidth and the time, check it out at HERE.