Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” video game characters on playing cards, Japan, 2008
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is an action-adventure video game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami for the PlayStation 3. It was directed by Hideo Kojima. The game was released on June 12, 2008 and by 2014 six million copies worldwide had been sold.
This pack was published simultaneously in 2008 and the cards depict characters from the video game. The characters are repeated in each suit, and there are two different jokers, resulting in only 15 different images, all set against the same sombre grey and black background. The card back is repeated on the front of the tuck box.
Above: “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” playing cards developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami for the PlayStation 3, Japan, 2008.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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