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Hideo Kojima

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Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫?)
Hideo Kojima
Born August 24, 1963 (age 46)
Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation Video game designer
Website Hideo Kojima's Blog (Japanese)

Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫 Kojima Hideo?, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer originally employed at Konami. Formerly the vice president of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan[1], he is currently the head of Kojima Productions. He is the creator and director of a number of successful games, including the Metal Gear series, Snatcher, and Policenauts.

Kojima is consistently named by fans and industry experts alike as being one of the most influential and innovative video game directors and writers of all time, as well as being on many all time director top ten lists. Newsweek named Kojima as one of the top ten people of 2002.[2] In 2008, Next-Gen placed him #7 in their list of "Hot 100 Developer 2008."[3]

His Metal Gear series of games contain elements of magical realism and often breaks the fourth wall. He is also well known for a quirky and somewhat irreverent sense of humor, and his frequently disarming and powerful plot twists.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Born in Setagaya, Tokyo in 1963[1], Kojima moved to western Japan at the age of three. Kojima has said that early on in his life he often had to deal with death.

When he was little the Kojima family moved to a small city called Shiraski. Just as quickly, his family soon moved to the Kansai region. Kojima has noted that growing up he was a latchkey kid, often having to watch television and look after himself when he came home from school. Staying at home by himself in isolation still affects him to this day stating, "[whenever] I travel and stay at a hotel I put the TV on as soon as I enter the room, just to deal with the feeling of loneliness."

Initially wanting to be an artist or illustrator, he was often discouraged by societal norms of Japan which favored finding safe and well paying jobs. He was also discouraged because his uncle was also an artist but suffered from financial difficulties.

He eventually started writing short stories and began to send them to Japanese magazines but was never able to get anything published. He cites that his stories were often 400 pages long while most magazines wanted their short stories to be around 100 pages. Eventually he shifted his focus to making films with his friend who had an 8mm camera.

[edit] Career

In an interview on G4's TV series, Icons,[4] Kojima describes much of his earlier career and influences for game design. Kojima grew up early in life watching movies with his parents. While studying economics in college, Kojima found himself playing video games during his free time mainly games on the Famicom. Kojima cites Shigeru Miyamoto's Super Mario Bros. as the defining influence. In his fourth year in college, Kojima surprised colleagues by announcing his intentions to join the video game industry, despite initially having ambitions of becoming a film director.[5]

[edit] 1980s

Kojima joined video game publisher Konami's MSX home computer division in 1986 as a designer and planner. Kojima's gameplay ideas were often overlooked initially, and due to his lack of familiarity with programming was repeatedly snubbed for his failures in his initial years at Konami. At one point Kojima considered leaving the company, but stuck on.

The first game he worked on was a sequel to Antarctic Adventure, Penguin Adventure, as an assistant director. The first game he actually developed was Lost Warld (sic), a war-themed platform game starring a masked female wrestler, in 1986. However, the game was ultimately rejected by Kojima's superiors at Konami.

His first released game was Metal Gear. It was released in 1987, to critical success, on the MSX2 home computer. The MSX system was a huge success in Japan, Europe, Brazil and Soviet Union, but due to its obscurity in the US and some other nations, many people however, did not play the game until it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and even then the game went through numerous changes during the conversion process with which Kojima was not directly involved. The game featured the debut of Solid Snake. He also released the critically acclaimed Snatcher, a graphic adventure game with a cyberpunk setting and Cold War themes, in 1988.

[edit] 1990s

In 1990, Kojima released Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX2 only in Japan. The game was critically acclaimed in Japan for its sophisticated gameplay and intricate storyline, as it introduced many significant changes and additions to the Metal Gear series, most of which were later carried over to Metal Gear Solid. Of particular importance was the significantly improved characterization of the game's cast and the bigger emphasis given to the game's storyline, which was advanced through the use of cutscenes and covered themes regarding the effects of war. Other changes include significant enhancements to the enemy soldiers' behavior and AI, the ability to crawl, and the introduction of the radar, among other improvements. Despite the game's success in Japan, it was never released in the West until its inclusion in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence in 2006.

He remade Snatcher in 1992 for the PC under title of Snatcher CD-ROMantic which would then be ported to the Sega CD, the game's only official English version and designed Policenauts, a film noir/sci-fi-themed adventure game set in a space colony often regarded as a "spiritual sequel" to Snatcher, in 1994; Snatcher and Policenauts were both huge successes in Japan. Kojima regards Policenauts as his "most exhaustive piece of work." He often calls Metal Gear a "blockbuster movie series" while he regards Policenauts as his "independent film."

With the release of Metal Gear Solid 1998 for the PlayStation, Kojima became an international celebrity among gamers. Metal Gear Solid was the first in the Metal Gear series to use 3D graphics and voice acting, which gave a more cinematic experience to the game. MGS was highly regarded for its well-designed gameplay and for its characters and storyline, which featured themes of nuclear proliferation and genetic engineering and is widely considered to be one of the best games on the PlayStation.

[edit] 2000s

In early 2000, Kojima released the first details of the sequel to Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, for the PlayStation 2. The game's highly detailed graphics, physics, and expanded gameplay quickly made it one of the most highly anticipated games. The game was highly successful and critically acclaimed at release, due to its graphics, gameplay and storyline, which dealt with myriad philosophical themes as specific as memes, censorship, manipulation, patricide, the inherent flaws of democracy and as grandiose as the nature of reality itself. While MGS2 broke ground with the breadth of its subject matter, the lengthy exposition of these issues, particularly in the bewildering maze of dialogue and plot revelation in the final hours of the game, left a sour taste in the mouths of many gamers, who expected the Hollywood-style resolution of its forerunner. The game also received negative fan reaction due to the unexpected introduction of Raiden, a rookie soldier, the polar opposite of Solid Snake.

Before MGS2's release, Kojima produced the game and anime franchise Zone of the Enders in 2001 to moderate success. In 2003, he produced Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand for the Game Boy Advance. Another team inside Konami also began work on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, a Nintendo GameCube remake of MGS with all the gameplay features of MGS2 and with cutscenes redirected by action/horror film director Ryuhei Kitamura, which was released in 2004.

Afterwards, Kojima designed and released Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the PlayStation 2. Unlike the previous games in the series, which took place in the near future and focused on indoor locations, the game is set in a Russian forest area during the year 1964, and involves wilderness survival and camouflaging. Critical response to the game was highly favorable.

At that time Kojima also worked on Boktai's sequel, Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django for the Game Boy Advance, which was released in summer 2004.

Also released was Metal Gear Acid, a new spin on the Metal Gear series, for the PlayStation Portable in 2004 in Japan and 2005 in other countries. It's sequel Metal Gear Acid 2 was released in 2005 in Japan and 2006 in other countries.

Kojima wanted Solid Snake to appear in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but due to development cycle problems Nintendo was unable to add Snake in. When Super Smash Bros. Brawl was announced, series producer Masahiro Sakurai contacted Kojima to work Snake into the game. Kojima also worked on Snake's stage for SSBB.[6]

Kojima makes a cameo in one of MGS4's opening movies, watching from the sidelines.

Kojima also co-directed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with Shuyo Murata, as well as co-producing and co-writing the game. Mysteriously, he was also credited as the "Voice of God" in the game's voice over credits (during the scene in which Psycho Mantis' ghost appears, as he dissapears, the player can hear Kojima's voice yell, "Traitor!"). Kojima also oversaw the entirety of the games production, including the opening movies which were created by Logan, as well as making a cameo appearance in one of them.

Following MGS4, Kojima announced three new games in the Metal Gear series at E3 2009. The first game announced, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, will be a multi-platform game starring Raiden. The second game announced, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, will be a PSP game set 10 years after MGS3 and will star Big Boss. The final game announced, Metal Gear Arcade, will be a coin-op iteration of Metal Gear Online and will be released in Japan in late 2009. He will be producing Rising and both producing and directing Peace Walker, with the team behind MGS4 working on Peace Walker. He also stated at E3 2009 that he would be involved in a new game in Konami's Castlevania franchise, titled Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

[edit] Last Metal Gear game

Kojima has stated multiple times that when the latest Metal Gear game will be released, it will be the last in the series. He has stated this after Metal Gear Solid was released, after Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released, after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was released, and after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released, saying that MGS4 "is going to the final one for me." He said that ending the Metal Gear series would give him more freedom to pursue other projects in the future and also stated that MGS4 would be the final game to feature Solid Snake. However, with the announcement of Rising and Peace Walker, Kojima is once again involved in the Metal Gear series.

[edit] Future of Metal Gear

Regarding the Metal Gear series, Kojima stated at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show:

Solid Snake's storyline has ended with MGS4. But there's still a lot more when it comes to Naked Snake's storyline.

When asked about remaking the original Metal Gear in September 2009, Kojima stated that he was at the time too busy to do it. However, he said that he does not have to be the one to remake it and suggested somebody younger or even a foreign studio unassociated with Kojima Productions could develop it.[7]

[edit] Influence from movies

Kojima's love of film is noticeable in his games where he pays homage through his stories and characters.

Examples of influence by films include Solid Snake's codename (named after Snake from Escape from New York)[8] and real name (David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey),[9] Hal "Otacon" Emmerich (HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey),[9] Sniper Wolf shooting Meryl Silverburgh in MGS (Full Metal Jacket),[8] Psycho Mantis (inspired from the film The Fury)[8] and the whole Metal Gear stealth concept (The Great Escape).[8]

[edit] Metal Gear works

[edit] Movies

[edit] Other Works

  • Policenauts (1994-1996) - writer/director
  • Snatcher (1988/1992) - writer/director
  • Penguin Adventure (1986) - assistant director

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b IGN: Hideo Kojima Biography. Retrieved on 2008-03-12.
  2. ^ Mr. Kojima, Konami Videogame Designer Was Selected One Of Ten "Who's Next?" of NEWSWEEK (2002-01-22). Retrieved on 2008-03-31.
  3. ^ THE NEXT-GEN HOT 100 DEVELOPERS 2008 (2008-02-19). Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
  4. ^ ICONS: Hideo Kojima - Metal Gear Solid. Retrieved on 2008-03-13.
  5. ^ Hideo Kojima Interview: Konami's master game designer talks about the Metal Gear series and where games are going. (2003-05-18). Retrieved on 2008-03-12.
  6. ^ Super Smash Bros. Brawl revealed for Wii, featuring Solid Snake! (2006-05-10). Retrieved on 2008-03-13.
  7. ^ Kojima: Maybe A Foreign Studio Should Re-Make Metal Gear. Kotaku. 2009-09-29. Accessed 2009-10-22.
  8. ^ a b c d Steven Kent. Hideo Kojima: Game Guru, Movie Maniac. Retrieved on 2008-03-13.
  9. ^ a b The Making of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty DVD packaged with European version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Hideo_Kojima"