Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

[Solid Lifters]

Yet another "Hi-res" version of the MGS4 TGS trailer.

http://games.kikizo.com/news/200509/109.asp

New details, as well.

September 30, 2005 - Konami is in full Metal Gear Solid 4 mode following the Tokyo Game Show debut of the game's first trailer. In addition to a daily blog in which producer/director/writer Hideo Kojima continues to share precious morsels on the title's development, the latest issues of Japan's biggest videogame magazines are home to interviews with Kojima himself. Today, we picked up the latest issue of Hyper PlayStation and have summarized some of the key points from the magazine's chat with Kojima.


The magazine first points out that the Snake featured in the trailer is very old. In response to this, Kojima points out that Snake is actually Big Boss's clone, and because of this, he ages quicker than others. It's not the case, in other words, that Metal Gear Solid 4 takes place dozens of years after MGS2.
The other characters in the game have aged as well, although not as much. Otacon, for instance, doesn't look as old as Snake, although he has aged since MGS2. Revolver Ocelot was already old in previous Metal Gear games, but he's still around for MGS4, and we can expect a big old timers fight between him and Snake.

Kojima is asked to comment on "No Place To Hide," one of the themes of MGS4. He explains that this time around, Snake is in the heart of a war zone -- more specifically, he's not in enemy controlled territory, but in the main enemy base itself. As the game is set in a war zone, where battles are a common thing, buildings are damaged and destroyed, leaving Snake in situations where there is, indeed, no place to hide.

But the phrase has another meaning. Based on the current situation, players may end up coming to the decision that there's no reason to hide. Explaining, Kojima touches upon an area he's discussed before, where Snake isn't necessarily facing up against a single enemy, but may find himself in the middle of a war between two countries, say country A and country B. It's possible that country C will intervene in the battle as will resistance group D. Snake, for his part, can use alliances to infiltrate the enemy, making it so that hiding isn't required.

For instance, suppose Snake wants to infiltrate country A. An easy way to do this would be to kill a member of country B and become a hero in country A. Players aren't just infiltrating a place now, they're also infiltrating the circumstances and situation, Kojima explains.

This added depth may explain one of the funnier parts of the Tokyo Game Show MGS4 trailer. The trailer begins with a mock first person sequence, which Kojima states at the interview's outset was just a joke. Later in the interview, though, he comments that the trailer was meant to depict the center of a war zone. At the site of this typical first person shooter war-like setting, Kojima expects that people might think that Metal Gear had become a "normal game." However, one of the new elements of MGS4 is this typical battle field changing according to the player's actions. Kojima expects people who buy the game expecting a simple war game to be surprised.

Kojima has also previously made comments on a psychological warfare that's being worked into Metal Gear Solid 4, and in the new interview, he clarifies a bit. He describes the actions of the enemies in previous Metal Gear games to be unrealistic, as the enemies appear to be cold killing machines. This is an area that will be worked on in MGS4. In order to convey the basic idea, Kojima gives an example where standard soldiers are psychologically weak, and by surprising them with a noise, you can reduce their preparedness for battle.

This psychological weakness aspect is currently being worked into the game, but Kojima is not sure how far his team will be able to take the idea. As a first step, Kojima has enlisted Mori Motosada as a military adviser, reprising his role from the previous two games. Under Motosada's eye, the staff members are undergoing training, from which Kojima hopes they will return safely.

 

[Dave A]

Good info Solid 👍.

 

[McLaren'sAngel]

Hiya! Meow! (='.'=)

After reading the information from Solid lifters...

I think Hideo Kojima deserves a Nobel Prize!

 

[RedWolfRacer]

For those that don't know, Mori Motosada worked in the original MGS and I believe in MGS2. He was the military advisor and primarily worked with the setting and weapons. I think he also worked in MGS3 for the CQC but I could be wrong.

Looking forward to downloading the video. I already got the Vision GT saved to my PSP. It's pretty sweet, too!

 

[katana87]

Man saw the trailors and its kinda wierd playing with a 60+ year old snake, what about if his arm break when shooting a gun?? oh man and diareah is going to be a problem also, can\'t wait

 

[Solid Lifters]

Man saw the trailors and its kinda wierd playing with a 60+ year old snake, what about if his arm break when shooting a gun?? oh man and diareah is going to be a problem also, can\'t wait

In the trailers, Snake is only 47 years old. But, Kojima said he would be older. Apparently, the war he "fights" in occurs over more than a dozen years. So, 60 could be a possibility, but we haven't seen him like that yet.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Some new info just came out today. Konami's MGS3: Subsistence's third disc will have a high-definition version of the MGS4 TGS trailer. This might be for Japan only, so no word on what the rest of us get.

 

[Draugen]

Man saw the trailors and its kinda wierd playing with a 60+ year old snake, what about if his arm break when shooting a gun?? oh man and diareah is going to be a problem also, can\'t wait

Ill be happy if i dont have to play a young boy in tuch with
hes feminine sides looking like a hentai fag in a rambo movie!

 

[godzilla_GTR]

^hahaha lol

 

[Solid Lifters]

Two new huge articles to read on MGS4. One, will be posted here, and the second will be two pics with the actual magazine article. Awesome new info available, like shaver mini-game, healing and camouflage from MGS3, to death threats agains Hideo Kojima!

The Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer was the biggest story out of the Tokyo Game Show this year. Those that saw it were beyond blown away. But the trailer left a lot of questions in the minds of the fans. Is that really Snake? What’s with the new Metal Gears? We decided to head straight to the source. Below is the full transcription from our interview with Mr. Hideo Kojima himself.

Game Informer: The Metal Gear Solid series seems to have grown up with the PlayStation franchise. I wanted to ask you about the franchise’s evolution and how it has coincided with the evolution of the PlayStation franchise.

Hideo Kojima: We did release the game in 1998, and the PlayStation 1 was released in 1994. It was a coincidence that it was released at the end of the PlayStation 1 lifecycle because it took time to create. We started the project much earlier than the actual street date.

First of all, when I joined the company, Metal Gear was the first project that I worked on. It was for the MSX, and that was in 1987. Also, I was in a division that was concentrating only on PC game software, so I was working on things for the PC Engine, PC, and 3DO. At the time of 3DO, there were some rumors that the PlayStation would come out, and that was quite shocking to me. It was the first time that a consumer machine would be able to create a 3D polygon. I thought about this and thought that I would like to recreate Metal Gear in 3D for that platform.

Metal Gear itself is basically a hide and seek game. So when you hide under a desk or hide in a locker, your vision should be from under the desk or in the locker. But on the MSX, that wasn't possible due to the machine’s spec. So the camera was from the top. So, if it was not for the birth of the PlayStation hardware, Metal Gear Solid would not have been born. It would have just ended as a 2D game.

The name Metal Gear Solid came from the creation of the PlayStation 1. The “Solid” means 3D. That’s why we named it Metal Gear Solid, because it was the first time 3D could be used.

Before PlayStation 1, I was making games for the PC only in Japan, and for the first time I had a chance to release a game outside of Japan because the PS1 was sold worldwide. After that, my life changed. Since I was working on a PC-base, the Metal Gear theme or world was targeted to a higher age. So I still had questions. What if I created this game for a Nintendo system? I still think that it might not have been as successful as it was on PlayStation 1. That means that the PlayStation 1 hardware itself, the people that followed the hardware, that means that I felt that Sony and Metal Gear were a good match.

With the rumors of PlayStation 2 and that it will use the emotion engine, I was thinking about what to make use of for Metal Gear Solid 2. Since Metal Gear Solid 2 was a smash hit worldwide - much more of a smash hit than Metal Gear Solid 1 - for Metal Gear Solid 3 it was a very natural choice to stay with the PlayStation platform.

The top priority for me to make Metal Gear Solid is for the fans who love Metal Gear Solid. If the users support the PlayStation over the years, and we thought that this was the case, I created Metal Gear for those users. So that was the top priority.

It is safe to say that I don’t dislike other platforms. The reason why I always select the PlayStation format is because at the same time that I was unknown, the PlayStation was unknown. They were a good match, and they evolved to what Metal Gear and PlayStation are today, meaning that with Metal Gear Solid, I strongly believe that I will follow with the Sony PlayStation onward because many users support that hardware as well.

GI: Your devotion to the Sony hardware is very understandable given that history. But do you think that there could have been a chance that the series could have gone multiplatform if the Xbox or GameCube versions of the games had been bigger hits?

Kojima: It’s a difficult question to answer, because multi-format is not what I like to do in terms of game development. I believe that all hardware has good points and bad points. With the rivals of this hardware battle, that grows, meaning that the game industry grows. If game hardware is integrated to one, and games are integrated to one, then we die, same as nature. So what I thought was that I wanted to create a game for the PlayStation, specifically using the PlayStation and what the PlayStation could do. Same for the Xbox. I would like to create games for the Xbox, to take advantage of what the Xbox is the most capable of doing.

For instance, Metal Gear Solid 2 was specifically created for PlayStation 2, because the PlayStation 2 was capable of creating transparent polygons. Alpha - meaning combinations of transparent polygons was what gave them the idea to express rain and wind using the PS2. So it was suitable for users to play using the PlayStation format. When it was converted to Xbox, that’s a little different, because there is a change there of the expression. It’s not as complete, because it was designed specifically for the PlayStation 2.

I should not say anything bad about our competition, but look at Splinter Cell 2, the Xbox version looks really great, but the PS2 looks a little odd, with choppy graphics. I think that is not loyal to the loyal game fans. I don’t want to do that kind of thing.

So for Metal Gear Soild 4, we have already started the project for the PlayStation 3 platform. We would like to concentrate specifically on what we could do just for the PlayStation 3. For example, if I was to create Metal Gear Solid 5 or another title for the Xbox 360, I would create solely for the 360, taking advantage of the hardware, and would not convert to PlayStation 3, because that will not be a very good conversion. Another example is the Revolution. I will try to create a title specifically taking advantage of the Revolution hardware.

So it wasn’t the hardware’s fault for the conversion edition of the Xbox game, or the GameCube version of the Twin Snakes. It didn’t do as well as people thought because it was a conversion. It wasn’t created for that machine. If Metal Gear Solid was created specifically for GameCube or Xbox, the result would have been a lot different.

GI: Clearly you’re interested in other games and other hardware, but you’re back for Metal Gear Solid 4. You’ve said that you were done with the series before, so what made you come back for a final Metal Gear Solid game?

Kojima: It’s similar to Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a difficult question. For Metal Gear Solid 3, I started doing the story design, the plot, the gameplay systems. With finishing with Metal Gear Solid, I thought I would leave Metal Gear Solid 4 for the staff, who did 1, 2, and 3 together, and I would become the producer, so I could create time for other genres, and just manage or produce the title and not do direction, like I did for the past series.

For Metal Gear Solid 4 I thought of just working on the story, the world, or maybe the plot, and leaving other things to the younger staff. Back in March, during the European tour, I announced that I would not be working as intensively on Metal Gear Solid 4. I wasn’t trying to say I was just going to be a producer, just looking after money like other producers sometimes do. I was going to look to the content like a movie producer. But ever since I announced that, there was a lot of misunderstanding, and I got a lot of mail. I got many calls and fan letters saying that they will kill me if I don’t do Metal Gear. And of course the staff heard about this and got very nervous. We talk today as if it was a joke, but at the time, it was not a joke at all. It was serious. And the staff came to me and said “Mr. Kojima, you have to direct this, just like you’ve always been doing.” So I decided to do Metal Gear Solid 4. And since I am doing Metal Gear Solid 4, I really had to sit down and do it, meaning that the original plan for other games that I had will be pushed a little bit off into the future.

Metal Gear Solid itself is a game that is created only for the users and no one else. Although I have another role of running the company and producing titles and corporate things, I still think that I will not create Metal Gear Solid if the users don’t want that. That’s why I decided to come back and direct and do all the things I said I would do for Metal Gear Solid 4.

The funny thing is that Japanese users sometimes say that I shouldn’t come back and do Metal Gear Solid, as opposed to European gamers, who threaten me.

GI: Why do Japanese gamers say that you shouldn’t do Metal Gear Solid?

Kojima: Maybe perhaps it’s that the Japanese users don’t like the same kind of storytelling or the message that scolds the players in a way and maybe Japanese players don’t like that anymore.

GI: The series has historically been more popular in the US than Japan, correct?

Kojima: In terms of popularity, it would be US, Europe, and then Japan.

GI: Now I would like to ask you about some of the ideas and philosophies behind Metal Gear 4. On your website, you mention that you’re interested in exploring the “inner qualities” of a game. Can you discuss that concept?

I always thought that even as the hardware evolves to become hi-spec, the game has not evolved or revolutionized for the last couple of years. I always express an example of a movie set. It’s a battle of making the movie set prettier, or bigger. This is how the game has been doing for the past couple of years now. So from Famicom to PlayStation, this was revolutionary, because 2D became 3D, and everyone could walk around in a 3D environment.

There was nothing that was much of a drastic change from the PlayStation to the PlayStation 2. Of course, the graphics look prettier and the sound is better, and there is a touch of online, but 3D remained 3D. So PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 – of course there is an online element as well, but there’s not a big change. 3D is not going to 4D. So going back to the movie set, it will only be a battle of making this movie set much prettier or bigger.

If the hardware will not take us to the next level in games, we thought that we had to set ourselves to the higher level on the game side. Of course, Revolution is an exception because it’s totally different hardware. That’s why we had the idea of concentrating on what you cannot see.

The battle of creating movie sets will probably go on forever if the hardware will rise with their spec as well, and this will probably continue. But I think that a set will probably just remain a set because a set is hollow behind. There is nothing other than the places that you can see. Behind that set is nothing. I don’t want to do this. That is why I want to concentrate on what you cannot see.

Like, for instance, look at a jungle. In the past, if we made a jungle, it was just a set. The trees were plastic. We could make the trees prettier, or make more plastic trees to look like real jungles. Or make the details more intense. But plastic will remain plastic, and this is what I don’t want to do. There should be life in that tree. If we water the tree it will grow, if we burn the tree it will die. So I wanted to create this kind of simulation world. And this is what we want to do, and I don’t know how much we can actually do it, but this is the direction of what we want to do.

What actually worries me is that if we actually try to do this, it might take up a lot of CPU power, meaning the visual side might not be the up to the standard of what the users expect. So, we will always think about the balance of what we can see and what we can’t see.

However, it’s a next-gen platform. The users will expect upgraded graphics and sound, so that was another answer to the TGS trailer. It was expressing that we will go up to this kind of level standard. Of course, that was not the completed version, so we will go even higher. However, that is the level that Kojima productions will produce in Metal Gear Solid 4. After that, we will concentrate on the things you cannot see.

GI: Your comments on the living world coupled with what was shown in the trailer are very interesting. The trailer clearly shows a battlefield, and if you have a living world on a battlefield, there would obviously be innocent bystanders. Does this mean that in Metal Gear Solid 4 the player will encounter for the first time, people he doesn’t want to fight.

Kojima: First of all, we really wanted to put this out, but we couldn’t do it because of the limits of the hardware. Of course, as you said, innocent people will appear in Metal Gear Solid 4, however the troops will not be 100% enemies like we have always been treated in Metal Gear Solid series. For instance, there is a battle between A and B, and Snake belongs to Country C. He is not directly involved with A and B countries.

If, for example, Snake’s mission’s goal was in the battlefield of A vs. B, Snake has the option to interfere in the battle or not. To complete a mission, the simplest way will be to sneak into the battlefield without getting noticed by either A or B. However, if he is attacked by Country A, and kills a Country A trooper, that means he becomes an enemy of Country A. So if he continues to fight Country A, that makes him an ally of Country B, and that makes him a hero from a Country B side point of view. And of course it’s up to the player, he could kill somebody from Country B, and that will make him Country B’s enemy as well. So he will have 2 enemies, A and B.

The situation will change in real time, whether you want to interfere in the war or not. So, going back to the story of just one troop, this does not make enemies Snake’s enemy or ally, meaning it will be the things we can’t see as well. It will be more of a psychological thinking towards Snake, and we will like to concentrate on this part as well when we say the things we cannot see.

GI: Very interesting. Especially considering that you’ve always rewarded players for not killing. And now placing Snake in a place where killing has such extreme consequences seems to be taking that moral lesson even further.

Kojima: Basically, I would like to create Metal Gear Solid 4 so that it remains a basic stealth mission. It would be better not to get spotted by either side, whether it is country A or B, because the consequences of the next stage would be if he allied with Country A and destroyed country B in one stage, in the next stage there should have been A vs. B battlefield, but you will end up with just Country A – meaning that what you do will definitely affect the game. We would like to make something so that the users will think about what the consequences will be in the game. This time, like Metal Gear Solid 3, the theme was the West and the East, the Cold War, and we would like to take this a step further. We still want to have a theme in Metal Gear Solid 4 of the things on the battlefield which are not 100% correct. There are a lot of things on a battlefield that are not, from A’s point of view, correct. But from B’s point of view… contradictions.

GI: So are you perhaps touching on a theme of war crimes?

Kojima: Well, not war crimes, but to take it a little step further, I would like to put a theme in Metal Gear Solid 4 of a near future substitution of nations on the battlefield. Not just nations battling against nations, but a substitution. Of course there are many wars of today as well, and I would like to express further the concept of the substitution of war. For instance, if there is a country A and B against each other, even today, maybe some countries don’t have troops or military. Maybe they hire bounty hunters or troops to represent them to fight a war. So it could be a fact that on a battlefield, both sides are actually Americans. Another example is that it should be a battle of nation vs. nation, but sometimes robots or non-human weapons are battling against each other, meaning that they are substituting the actual humans. You saw the little Metal Gear appearing as well, but that’s a robot. That’s not a man battling another man. It should be a battle of nations, but what’s happening is substitution of war. The actual battle is only happening between professional troops and bounty hunters.

GI: Some people would say that wars are already about business. When you look at the war in Iraq, some people believe that we are there for their oil rights. You’ve always made political statements in your games; how much are you looking at the real wars of today?

Kojima: Actually, the message is about what you have partially said about the wars of today. We’re not going to use that exact war of today as an example. We’re going to go into a little bit more of a near-future world, but that’s one of the things we would like to say as well.

GI: We’ve talked a lot about this war that will be happening in Metal Gear Solid 4, and that Snake will be in the middle of it. And you’ve also said that it’s best not to get involved in many situations. But you’ve also said that the theme of the game is that there’s no place to hide. Can you talk about how you have that theme and still keep it a stealth game?

Kojima: The theme “no place to hide’s” answer was actually the battlefield, because in the past we’ve set scenes in Alaska, or New York. In Metal Gear Solid 3, it was a jungle, it was nature. When creating Metal Gear Solid games, the scene decides most of Metal Gear, actually. When we said no place to hide, the battlefield is not one place. It’s not one area, or one building. The situation is always changing. How you evolve always changes. So that’s the answer. That’s “no place to hide.”

It’s not a matter of you can physically hide like you have been doing in the past series on the battlefield. Of course you can hide in a shelter, or behind tanks. What we want to express with no place to hide is that you hide according to the situation. If Country A is winning, then maybe you can wear their uniform. Then you will be able to hide amongst them. If the situation for Country A becomes worse and Country B is winning, you might want to change to the uniform of Country B. The whole environment and situation evolves, and that’s why you have to adapt to the changes in order to hide.

GI: So blending in as one of the troopers is a different kind of hiding than what we’ve seen before. I mean, you’ve touched on it a little bit, but I still find it very exciting. Now that we’ve talked about the theme and the setting a bit, I’d like to talk about the characters. First of all, I have a thematic question about the characters. Snake is synonymous with the Metal Gear Solid series, but he’s truly only starred in one of the three games so far. What do you think it is about Snake that so fascinates people?

Kojima: Yes, you’re right. Solid Snake is the main character of Metal Gear Solid 1. Even for Metal Gear Solid 2, although the main character was Raiden – Raiden came in to highlight Snake’s main character status. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake’s reputation rose because of Raiden, but that was because there was a direct comparison between Raiden and Solid Snake.

GI: The character in the trailer definitely appears to be Solid Snake, but I know that you like to surprise your players, so I’m sure you won’t reveal his true identity. But there are some interesting choices with the new look for the character. Why did you choose to go in this direction and give us an elderly Snake?

Kojima: We actually wanted to make you feel that way in the trailer. But the answer is that it is definitely Snake. It’s not Raiden wearing a Snake mask. The reason why he looks much older is because of course he is a clone of Big Boss, and the technology during the seventies was not as mature as it is today.

Also, I want to express the feeling that Solid Snake has, because his mission all the time is to destroy Metal Gear and end the war, but this never happens no matter how much he does. It’s a never-ending war. We want to express that in the character.

Also, ever since the first Metal Gear, it has been 18 years, and probably the fans and the users have changed as well. They’ve gotten married, or have children, or are living in hard times. I wanted to give those users a pat on the shoulder, saying “Snake’s this old, but he keeps on going.”

Also, from the technology point of view, when creating models for a next-gen platform, we can go into much more detail. So there is an option to create a young girl with beautiful skin, but that will not represent what the machine can do. A wrinkled old man with a moustache is a better way to say that we’re using the best technology possible, so that was another reason.

In the trailer, we showed the old fogy Snake, and if we get feedback saying that the fans don’t want this old Snake, maybe we’ll make Snake a little younger looking.

GI: Personally, I like the idea of an older Snake. I liked playing as Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2, because I liked the idea of playing as someone who isn’t perfect. I like playing as someone heroic like Snake too, but I like the idea of playing as someone with flaws and weaknesses, which is why I like the idea of making Snake past his prime. Based on the trailer, it certainly doesn’t look like Metal Gear Solid has passed its peak, because it’s a beautiful trailer. I wanted to ask you about a few details in the trailer. He has an interesting symbol on his chest.

Kojima: There’s an interesting story there. I didn’t think to use the name Solid Eye for the eye patch. We created the name Solid Eye for the Metal Gear Acid 2 peripheral. Then I got this idea right before TGS of calling it Solid Eye as well, and link it, without telling Metal Gear Acid’s director Shinto Najiri. He (Najiri) realized this only after he saw the trailer. Shinta came to me after seeing the trailer and said “Mr. Kojima, I am surprised. Why did you call that Solid Eye?” That was a funny story at that time.

GI: A moment ago, you mentioned that the Solid Eye was designed to fool people into thinking that Snake was Big Boss. It appears in the promo art that Big Boss is in it.

Kojima: I cannot say. That wasn’t my idea. The artist just drew it. So I have no comment on that.

GI: In that same piece of artwork, Raiden appears to be holding a baby.

Kojima: No comment.

GI: Is it safe to assume that we will see some returning characters, without naming names?

Kojima: Yes. As much as possible, we would like to have the characters from 1 and 2 appear in Metal Gear Solid 4. Because Metal Gear Solid 1 was seven years ago, the users have aged seven years. So have the characters of the Metal Gear Solid world. We wanted to do this, because seven years would make the characters change. You’ll get this united feeling, that this character has changed this way; this character has led this kind of life.

GI: When I initially saw the trailer, I thought that more time had passed between two and four, but since you revealed that Snake is aging rapidly, it seems like less time has passed than some people might expect.

Kojima: Yes. It won’t be like 30 years in the future, it will be more like 10 years. We can’t say specifically, because we’re still working on the plot and the scenario so it will make sense.

GI: What would you like to reveal to our readers about how the way you play the game itself has changed?

Kojima: This time, the world will be set on a battlefield. It’s not just one, and not just battlefields. It will evolve according to situations. It’s still a stealth game. You’ll still get a tense feeling or atmosphere, combined with the situation. Also, even though it’s in the battlefield, we’ll try to make it so you’ll have a psychological advantage, because the troops won’t be AI troops. They’ll be acting and reacting like human beings. If you do something in a psychological way, we’ll try to make the game give you an advantage. There are some hints in the trailer. In the trailer, there is a new Metal Gear. When this comes closer, it makes the noises of a cicada. To most Japanese, this sound makes you think about your childhood days. It takes you back to those times, because you were going outside into nature and getting the cicada. And the actual sound of it walking is a horse clopping. And that cry is a sound of a cow. So combined, these three aspects, the sounds of the cicada, the horse, and the cow, this makes the person who hears the sound a little bit peaceful, because it makes you go back into your childhood memories. You’re supposed to feel tense in a battlefield, but when you hear this, the cicada and the horse and the cow, that really cuts the tense feeling. And when that happens, that Metal Gear attacks you. It’s nasty, and it’s a psychological plot that’s in this Metal Gear.

Apocalypse Now is the different approach, when the helicopter comes in. That is, distract the troops. Metal Gear uses those sounds to relax the troops, and relax you as well. Of course, you as the player can use that as well. This is another psychological aspect.

GI: Will the more lifelike graphics change the way you approach cutscenes in the game?

Kojima: Yes, there will be a change to the demo scenes as well. We will still have the same cutscenes that we traditionally had. We call it the Hollywood type. It’s very good to express feelings to the users. But we will also try a new cutscene as well, like a seamless camera from your point of view to the demo sequence. Something you normally see today in Halo 2 or Half-Life. Something that you can change and move and control. Of course, we will make it better and not a complete copy of those games. We will add some flavor and special touches as well.

GI: Finally, are the online features of Subsistence a hint of what we can expect in MGS4?

Kojima: Yes, it will be. Subsistence is restricted to the PlayStation 2 format, meaning the PlayStation 2 online. It’s within that world. In Metal Gear Solid 4 we will make that wider and much deeper. In Metal Gear Solid 4, we will not be restricted to eight players. So you can probably look forward to having wider and deeper online in Metal Gear Solid 4.

GI: Great. Thank you so much for your time.

 

[Dave A]

Great post Solid 👍👍👍

 

[KENJIusa]

Damn!

 

[godzilla_GTR]

man that took a while to read.cheers solid

 

[Nasadus]

I found an interesting video that contains footage from events after the MGS4 trailer was first shown ay TGS 2005. Here you will see a member of Kojima Productions controll various aspects of the demo in real-time.
Hideo Kojima also explains a few things about the game. The video runs for 9 minutes and has be subtitled by a few people over at B3D to make sense of what they are saying.

LINK to Video (28MB)

An interesting fact that is mentioned during that video is that Snake's mustache in MGS4 consists of the same amount of ploygons as an enemy soldier from MGS3.

 

[Slick Rick]

Hmmm...
I think this old man look will take some time getting used to..

 

[Nasadus]

I just stumbled across some more info:
Snake's hair is not made up of typical raw polygons, it is made from 60,000 hair primitives that render in realtime. Think of it as real life hair (it grows, you can cut it, style it, dye it, it'll grow back, it'll react to wind, catch fire, etc.), all with physics simulation applied. The same applies to all of his facial hair.
To most of you this may not sound that big of a deal but for those that know how this works it will sound unbelievable. Hair primitives rendering so far has only be used in the movie industry and has never before been seen in a game let alone running in real-time. It's an incredible feat that just goes to show that the PS3 is capable of far more than anyone thought possible.

 

[Omnis]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. Can you give snake a perm and a weave too? I want to hybrid an Al Sharpton and Mr. T cut, and then see what happens when all that grease and product goes up in flames.

 

[Solid Lifters]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. Can you give snake a perm and a weave too? I want to hybrid an Al Sharpton and Mr. T cut, and then see what happens when all that grease and product goes up in flames.

I hope so. I want Snake to have really long hair, and a long full beard. Like I used to have.

I saw this video yesterday. I thought it was more annoying than anything else. Kojima is very annoying.

 

[godzilla_GTR]

i wanna give snake some JD styled dreads and beard lol

 

[Solid Lifters]

New PSM article on MGS4. You better read it now, and or save it before it goes away, like the other article.

 

[Dave A]

Thatnks again Solid, the game gets better and better.

 

[godzilla_GTR]

solid.......YOU ARE THE MANlol

 

[Solid Lifters]

1UP: The last time I spoke with you, you hadn't yet formed Kojima Productions. How does this change your daily life and what you do? Is the process of creating games any different?

Hideo Kojima: I regret to say, not a big change for me personally in the workflow that has remained after Kojima Productions was formed. What I mean is the style of how I work, my daily schedule, etc., has not changed so much. However, the former department I was in, KCEJ, I had 200 staff, and I had to work within KCEJ in terms of human resources, equipment, and the money behind all my projects. But now in Kojima Productions under the Konami group umbrella, I can now make use of Konami's total human resources, equipment, funding, which is much much greater than it was in the KCEJ days.

1UP: Why did it take so long for you to branch out and create Kojima Productions?

HK: Well, in the past, KCEJ was a totally independent and individually listed company, so there were many restrictions to creating my own productions. However from April, since it all merged together as the Konami group, that took away all the barriers I had before and then I was settled to create Kojima Productions.

In the KCEJ days I also had the role of being vice-president of that independent company, and I had to look after the management side. There was a lot on my shoulders at that time. Now that we've merged together, and I'm still one of the board members of Konami Corporation the game company, but it is not more flexible for me to be on the creative side and the production side, so it was actually good timing that this happen.

1UP: That clarifies a lot, because I didn't realize that each division of Konami was a separately listed, stocked and traded company. This explains the significance of the recent Konami "merger." Does the name Kojima Productions also infer that the things that come out of KP could be more than just video games? The Existence disc in Subsistence again highlights your flair for cinematic direction. Could Kojima Productions release movies, games, toys, anime, manga, etc? You did a lot of that with Zone of the Enders, so it seems like a natural extension.

HK: You're exactly right. Kojima Productions has the Metal Gear Solid brand, the Boktai brand, and we're of course not just thinking about games. We're on top of all the digital entertainment areas, meaning we have to explore online, toys, and even publishing, and not just games. We're able to totally produce all of these, in both a horizontal and vertical way, meaning we can produce in a much broader manner now with Kojima Productions.

To clarify a little bit more, in the past Kojima Productions was in just a game software segment, but this has spread out to a digital entertainment segment, meaning we could do a little bit more than just games. Of course games will be the core of what we produce, but we can collaborate with other media and tie-ins, meaning if it's within the digital entertainment area, Kojima Productions will be there.

1UP: If you had to throw out a quick example of something that might come to fruition as a result of this newfound freedom?

HK: There are a lot of things I can't say right now, however, just as an example, if I wanted to create a coin-op game based on Metal Gear Solid I could do that quite easily. In the past when it was KCEJ or Konami Corporation or another division, if you said you wanted to create MGS arcade game, you'd have to do all this paperwork and that kind of thing because each were individually listed companies, so you couldn't go beyond your section easily. But now since we're all in together, we have more liberty to do what we want. Once the project kicks off, it can go much faster that what was possible in the past, without interference.

Another funny example is that Mr. Yamauchi of Polyphony Digital who creates Gran Turismo. If he was just a creator within Sony, he wouldn't be able to produce games for Xbox 360 or Nintendo GameCube games. However, he could if he went independent. Then he'd have the liberty to Xbox 360 or Nintendo hardware platform games. So that's just a funny example, but it explains the image I'm trying to give you. So, if I create a new concept for a new franchise, first it always had to be a game, then if it became a hit it could go on to anime or toys. But now it's different, I can plan something from the start. I can plan the anime, or the toys in the planning stage.

1UP: Is that because now that Konami is a unified entity, you have direct access to the different divisions who manufacture toys and DVDs and other entertainment products?

HK: It's a matter of how much responsibility I have now. I have much bigger responsibility now and I can do all the approval things now. Not just inside, but outside as well. If I wanted to do something with an outside movie company or an outside toy company as well I have the liberty to do so, so it all changed and it all opened.

1UP: Since you can think from the outside in now, and think of the anime first, game second, if you wanted to work in that manner, it brings to mind Zone of the Enders, which started as a game, then became an animated series. Do you have any plans too continue the ZOE series?

HK: Actually I would like to create something with ZOE again, but currently we can't do so because we don't have that much human power that we could put into ZOE now. However, one day I would like to work on ZOE again.

1UP: Regarding MGS3: Snake Eater, all of your previous games have little easter eggs, cool things you can do that you might not think of, things that reveal an incredible attention to detail. Like shooting an ice bucket in MGS2, which causes the ice cubes inside to melt, or shooting an LCD monitor and having the monitor bleed to black. But while previous games had a few of these things, Snake Eater literally has dozens. Like twirling the analog directional stick around until Snake throws up. Where do you come up with all this stuff??

HK: 80% of all these gimmicks that we put in the game are decided at the planning stage. And while constructing the game out of that 80% almost half disappear because it's either technically too difficult, or maybe the idea when we tried it we thought it wasn't interesting at all, so half of them are chopped off at that stage when we're creating it.

Then, like 60% of that half is discussed with the team members, saying "oh maybe this is a better idea" or maybe "let's put this in." This is all up to the staff while constructing the game. At the beginning stage of the planning of course the big details are written, because the top priority is the game, and not the gimmicks. So what happens is I go directly to each of the staff and say "well what about this gimmick?" Then they decide together. It's not in the basic design document or anything. If I was working with 100 staff members that means there'd be 100 gimmicks. Then I go to the designer, the programmer, or the scenario writer or script writer and say "what about that gimmick, or this gimmick?" So that they can do their main job and one gimmick on the side. Then you end up with 100 gimmicks. Even when the game is made most of the staff doesn't know what kind of gimmicks are in there, because it's just a kind of mutual agreement between myself and each staff member.

Another example is let's say in the programming section, there's 30 people, if I go to the director of the section and say "We have these 30 ideas, put this in," and what happens is only 15 make it in, I'll go directly to the 30 programmers to make the 30 things happen. This is how I make all these gimmicks happen. So during the bug checking within the staff members, even the staff really enjoy finding these gimmicks, and even enjoy the process of bug testing. And the one you said, of Snake vomiting, they didn't know this.

1UP: Which is your favorite gimmick in MGS3?

HK: I like the vomiting a lot, actually. [Laughs] First I had this idea and I mentioned it to [Metal Gear intro credits designer] Kyle Cooper in the States while we were chatting, and Kyle said "if you don't do it, you're going to spoil your trademark Kojima style. So you should do it." So it was highly recommended by Mr. Cooper.

1UP: [Laughs] The vomiting?

HK: Yes.

1UP: MGS3's revamped game mechanics took it out of the corridors of old and really took things to a new level. Just when games like Splinter Cell were thought to have caught up with you, you stepped on the gas and left everyone in the dust yet again. It almost makes the old Metal Gear Solid's feel primitive by comparison, like complex games of Pac-Man. How do you feel about MGS3 in hindsight as you prepare Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence?

HK: I'm pretty satisfied. Although this was the least time I had to create a Metal Gear Solid, compared to 1 and 2, I'm very satisfied by, first of all, the balance. Although I'm creating MGS4 now, at that time I wasn't planning to create 4, meaning that I wanted to put all the techniques and all the technology in MGS3, so overall I'm very satisfied by the outcome of MGS3.

There was regret, actually, about the camera. Because it was Metal Gear and also the fact I have 3D sickness as well, I didn't want the camera to be FPS-style or behind-the-back, I wanted to make it top-view, because that was "Metal Gear," so I insisted on it. However at the same time I was always experimenting with the camera, before bringing MGS3 out. There are many users, after the game came out, who requested that the camera should be changed. So that's one regret I have, actually, about MGS3.

Another point was online. The team was working on online experiments for two years, but we couldn't put it in MGS3: Snake Eater. So, moving on to Subsistence, these two [the camera and the online play] are implemented. For me, it is the complete edition of MGS3. Since the team were experimenting with both camera and online, I felt like I would like to put both of these in the game to see the feedback from the users, almost as a trial, since they were working on it for so long.

1UP: Did you ever consider releasing the online game as a standalone product? Like Metal Gear Online, as is?

HK: Well, yes, it's been on my mind for quite a while. But the reason we don't release it as a standalone product, is that as a business opportunity, the infrastructure isn't there. What we've put in Subsistence, which we call MGO [Metal Gear Online], is only about 20% of what we want to do. But even if it's only 20%, we want players to try it out and play it, and we really want to receive feedback, so we can implement it in future projects. So then the full 100% MGO, whether it's with MGS4 or as a standalone project still has to be decided in the near future. But first, it was important to bring out the first 20% to the users and let them try it, that was the first priority.

1UP: With MGS3 and now Subsistence, it's amazing that you got it done in the time you did do it, since you had to create an entirely new game and graphics engine, one that supports so much organic geometry, grass, wide-open spaces, etc. Do you think it's a shame that you're only really getting to use this engine one-point-five times? Especially with the online portion. Have you ever thought of bringing Subsistence over to a console that's, how should we say, got a more robust online environment than the PS2?

HK: Are you saying something about X-something? [Laughs]

1UP: Maybe...

HK: It's a good idea. You know, in our last interview together, maybe two or three years ago I mentioned that in going from MGS2 to MGS3, it was totally impossible to create MGS3 based on the same engine as MGS2. So that's why it took another full year to create the "jungle engine." But another element that took so much time was this online engine. "Metal Gear Solid" has traditionally been with Sony, and I still believe and Sony is the best match in terms of the full complete package as a game software. However, for the online aspect, this is not the case. I feel no doubt that the online portion alone could be out on either PC or Xbox, maybe not Revolution, but other formats as well. The online aspect is completely different to the package that we have produced in the past on PlayStation.

1UP: With your debut of the Tokyo Game Show Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer, which has seen wide distribution in both Japanese magazines, online, and in the U.S. Official PlayStation Magazine recently, it really heralded the dawn of the next-generation. Everything else has been polished and nice, but this was so powerful, so compelling you even had to do a real-time demonstration at TGS to prove it was running on PS3 hardware. That said, it makes you wonder how much of a gap there is between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Do you think you could create MGS4, technically, on 360 if you wanted to?

HK: Yes, that's technically possible. I want to express, first of all, it's not that I don't like Xbox or 360. It's just that last year, our hands were really tied to MGS3, so the other Konami developers were able to get their hands on the 360 tools and hardware earlier. But we simply didn't have time to do that last year. So, meaning that we were behind the other developers in terms of 360 development. Kojima Productions has this philosophy that we want to be the first in everything regarding new technology. So after we finished MGS3, the option was to work on the PS3 to try all the new things for Metal Gear Solid 4. The only reason for this is I'm the kind of person who wants to be the first person on the moon, and don't want to be asking "what the moon was like?" from other people. So that's the real story behind selecting PS3.

1UP: It's interesting that you think you could do this on 360, though.

HK: Maybe some nuance or a small details here and there might be different, but I feel that hardware is no longer a matter. I'm just talking about PS3, 360 and PC. Revolution is totally different, but there are really no differences among the other three.

1UP: Please explain what is it about Raiden and you nowadays? Hes in the Secret Theater film in MGS3: Subsistence called "Metal Gear Raiden," where he appears in this amalgamation of cutscenes, but is screwing the continuity up, with the end result being the Colonel shouting "TIME PARADOX!" every time he does so. Hes the most severely punished character in this scenario. I'm sure you never intended for him to be the source of such derision, but now that he is, youve picked up the baton and run with it, and are clearly enjoying yourself by doing it. When was the turning point where you decided "OK, Im gonna mess with Raiden too"?

HK: The thing is, I dont hate him. I fool around with him because I like him very much. Me and my team like him, we spent a lot of time putting him together and we like him. But the fans ended up not liking him, and that I accept. Since I want my fans to enjoy my games, then I myself, who came up with the character said "Why not fool around with him?" I like the precedent of some talent agency, and try to cast him in some cool role in a movie [Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty], but it just didnt work. Thats why now Ill make him the clown in the movies.

1UP: Since you recast him as Raikoff in MGS3 and MGS3: Subsistence, who decided to make Raikoff  at least in the online portion of Subsistence  impervious to mens magazines [Editors note: One of Subsistences most highly tactical weapons are the Playboy-style magazines you can throw on the ground, in the weeds, which cause any male players, except Raikoff, to stop and crouch and look at the magazine, making them incredibly vulnerable to attack]?

HK: I decided. [Laughs] The whole thing with Raiden/Raikoff in MGS3 is that there are actually many people in Japan who like Raiden. There are people who want to play as Snake, but there are also people who want to play as Raiden as well. But I wasnt going to do the same thing as MGS2, where you get to play with Raiden, because I know fans outside do not like him. Thats why I basically put Raikoff in the game so you could see Raiden, and also offered the mask, so people who wanted to play as Raiden can have Snake wear the mask.

1UP: Since you have this virtual cast of characters, do you forsee bringing Raiden back for MGS4?

HK: Raiden is going to be in Metal Gear Solid 4. But it doesnt mean youre going to control Raiden.

1UP: The real Raiden will appear in MGS4, or just a character who looks like him?

HK: It is that Raiden, not someone who looks like Raiden, its Raiden. But Im going to announce here, Im going to make clear, that once you finish playing MGS4, youre going to like Raiden very much.

1UP: Wow, thats cool news. Lastly, why did you decide to add Reiko from Rumble Roses to MGS3: Subsistence? I know you like putting girls in your games, but why her in particular?

HK: Back when Akari Uchida, the producer of Rumble Roses, he came to me and said "Can we collaborate in some way?" The thing was the team, the guys on my team, said "No, we dont want to work with that game." So it didnt happen, but I always had it in mind, that Mr. Uchida wanted to work with the MGS team. So when we were working on the online stuff for Subsistence, I wanted a hidden character, another character that you could control. So I thought "Oh theres that deal with Mr. Uchida" so I said "Why dont we work together now?" and I called him up. Actually I wanted to go to Mr. Itagaki of Tecmo, to use maybe one of the DOA characters, but then there was the deal with Mr. Uchida, that I couldnt fulfill back then, so I said Ill just go to him.

1UP: When I was here with him a couple of weeks ago I did a very big interview with Itagaki-san, and he had a lot of nice things to say about you, and that hes really looking forward to MGS4. He basically said that hes impressed with what youve done in the stealth genre, and he thinks it reflects well on the state of Japanese game development.

HK: Id like to work with him one day. Hes very flattering, he says too much good stuff about me. Me being a kagi-ko [Japanese terms for a latch-key kid], being used to solitude, Im not used to being flattered. [Laughs] Im thinking about developing a game called "Kagi-ko: How To Kill Time Til Mom Comes Home."

1UP: Its interesting to see how youre putting such effort into salvaging Raidens reputation. Its like "Saving Private Raiden."

HK: The thing is I always knew I was going to do that with Raiden in MGS4, thats why I can humiliate him as much as I want to with "Metal Gear Raiden." Because I knew that I was going to make people like him after MGS4. Knowing that theres going to be that comeback, I could do whatever I wanted to him in Metal Gear Raiden.

1UP: Well, Kojima-san, we're just about out of time. Thanks so much for sharing your busy schedule with us and giving us such great access to Kojima Productions. We'll talk to you soon, and see you online with MGS3: Subsistence.

 

[KENJIusa]

very nice solid, thank you for typing this up.

 

[Dave A]

Great read... Again 👍.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Yeah, it's fake, but pretty damn funny!

 

[Pebb]

Wow talk about madness lol, can anyone translate that Japan talk into English folks.

 

[LaBounti]

Anyone else seen the full trailer at 720p? Looks great on my HDTV. It would have been perfect had it been mpeg2(DVD), but it would have been twice the file size.

 

[Nasadus]

Yeah, ive seen it. It looks so much better than the regular trailer. Can't imagine what 1080p will look like.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Anyone else seen the full trailer at 720p? Looks great on my HDTV. It would have been perfect had it been mpeg2(DVD), but it would have been twice the file size.

I take it was MPEG4? Everything will soon be converted to MPEG 4. Take DirecTV for instance. They're right now converting to MPEG4 for all their broadcasts. You need all new receivers and sat dishes for the change. I just got mine, the H20 a few weeks ago, myself.

As for the trailer, the new game coming out, MGS3:Subsistence, will have a 1080i (upconverted) version of the TGS MGS4 trailer on the third disc. But this was the Japanese version, and maybe not the US version. Konami might think not enough Americans own a HDTV set to make it viable.