61 Frames Per Second : hideo kojima

8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 2

John Constantine — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

5.) Final Fight CD – “Walk In the Park (Bay Area)”

System: Sega CD (1993)
Sounds Like: A sweaty nooner with Don Johnson.
I always loved the premise of Final Fight. The idea of a city’s mayor stripping down to his underjohns and beating the shit out of unemployed people in order to stimulate job growth was really ahead of its time. Wait? Mike Haggar was actually fighting to save his daughter from an evil street gang? And here I thought the game was some kind of radical Objectivist propaganda. This Bay Area theme is classic whatever console you play Final Fight on, but the Sega CD version pushes it to the limit with gale-force porno guitars. Seriously, these riffs are like an F4 on the Fujita Scale. In my mind’s eye, the person who would get the most out of this track wears a ton of sea foam green and frequents Fort Lauderdale whorehouses. Sometimes, you just gotta be that person. When it comes to the Sega CD, the only thing sleazier is Night Trap.

4.) Chrono Trigger – Schala’s Theme

System: Super Nintendo (1995)
Sounds Like: Ravi Shankar, Level 12 Bard.
Another track from wunderkind Yasunori Mitsuda? Man, I should just wear my Chrono Trigger fanboyism on a t-shirt. Or a hat! Yes, a big fucking sombrero like those worn by morbidly obese stockbrokers at Jimmy Buffet concerts. My sombrero will depict the final battle against Lavos, with Robo, Lucca and Magus executing the Omega Flare triple tech. After I conceive my first-born son wearing this sombrero, I will store it in the broom closet until his first day of middle school, at which point I will place my abomination of a hat on his head and send him on his way. When he inevitably comes home tearful and bruised, his Chrono Sombrero torn asunder, I will embrace him and say, “Today you learned what it is to be a man. We’re ordering pizza tonight.”

3.) Streets of Rage 2 – S.O.R. Super Mix

System: Sega Genesis (1992)
Sounds Like: The Madchester music scene mashed into a Mega Drive cartridge.
I lived in Baltimore a few years ago. My neighborhood was more Pink Flamingos than The Wire, mostly pleasant with pockets of dicey urbanity. This track by the great Yuzo Kushiro (Actraiser) syncs up with that time in my life rather aptly. I had the streets and I had the rage. I also had the sick piano breakdown at 1:36. That emotional miasma and sweet key work made for a heady love making combo. Still does. It was a weird time in my life, but not Streets of Rage 2 weird. Game’s about a twelve-year-old in rollerblades who dismantles a heavily-armed crime syndicate. Go figure.

2.) The Last Ninja 2 – “The Mansion”

System: Commodore 64 (1988)
Sounds Like: Coming home from work, only to discover John Carpenter banging your wife.
Matt Gray’s soundtrack to The Last Ninja 2 is one of the better things in life, and “The Mansion” is one of its most memorable tracks. Its utility goes far beyond the bedroom. Sure, you and a buddy can thrust away to this instrumental’s nearly eight minutes of analog acrobatics, but why not use it for a more grand occasion? “The Mansion” is a more than adequate proxy for Pachelbel. It’ll make your nuptials more like the wedding scene from Big Trouble in Little China.

1.) Tetris – “A-Type”

System: Game Boy (1989)
Sounds Like: Tetris. Duh.
There’s nothing inherently sexy about the Tetris theme. Thing is, everyone knows “A-Type”, and if you blast it in the sack, you will be your partner’s most memorable lover ever. Period. It doesn’t even matter how good or bad the sex is. Every time this pops into an ex-lover’s head, he or she’ll have no choice but to sigh, “[Your Name Here] balled me to the Tetris theme.” Decades may pass, but once they recall those opening Bolshevik bleep-bloops, a mnemonic trigger will kick in and your shining nudity will be all they have ever known.

Part 1

Previous Top Tens:

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 1

John Constantine — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

There are three reasons this list exists. First, I felt obliged to highlight 61FPS’s distinction as the gaming apparatchik of an internet sex publication. Second, I wished to showcase the unsung virtuosos of yesteryear who made masterworks using a limited palette of sounds. Finally, I intend to rebut those critics who still dismiss video games as low culture. Using the below examples, I intend to reclaim the carnal legacy of video games by evincing how early console music illustrated the gamut of human sexuality, from atavistic, heteronormative modes of eroticism to polymorphous perversity as delineated by Freud.

Plus, the thought of people sticking penises into vaginas to Nintendo music is funny.

10.) Radical Dreamers – “The Girl Who Stole the Stars”

System: Super Famicom Satellaview (1996)
Sounds Like: Koyaanisqatsi composed on Mario Paint.
Since roughly 95% of all human lovemaking involves someone with a XX chromosome pairing, I thought it necessary to seek out my female associates’ thoughts on which game music best applies to amore. The suggestions I received were few yet incisive — responses ranged from “the Kid Icarus theme” to “Who the eff effs to video games?” Ultimately though, I deferred to my own instincts and picked this pan-pipe jam from the Japan-exclusive, text-based sequel to Chrono Trigger. Composed by the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda, “The Girl Who Stole the Stars” is easily the most romantic theme on our list.

9.) Pole Position – Background noise

System: Atari 65XE (1985)
Sounds Like: Skynet becoming sentient.
The way I see it, there are two types of lovers in this world. The first type does it to The Whispers and The O’Jays, whereas the second diddles to Autechre, Radio-Activity-era Kraftwerk and the hum of AC units. The grating 8-bit drone of this Namco racing classic, is dedicated to the latter group — those who bang to cold, robotic minimalism. It’s also worth nothing that “PREPARE TO QUALIFY” is perhaps the best pre-coital war cry I’ve ever heard, particularly when your partner has no clue what you’re yelling about. Nothing improves foreplay like car metaphors and total incoherence. Remember the make-out scene from Gone In 60 Seconds?

Editor's Note: The Nerve and 61PFS by-laws state that no mention of Pole Position may go unaccompanied by this link.

8.) Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake – “Night Fall”

System: MSX2 (1990)
Sounds Like: Passion. Yearning. Crates.
Solid Snake, Big Boss, Naked Snake. Nobody pens phallic codenames quite like Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima. This harmonica-fueled ditty is from the Japanese version of Metal Gear 2. “Night Fall” is the only song on this list with an in-game pedigree as a sex jam — it plays when Solid Snake angles for some love during wartime. He totally strikes out, but what did you expect? With all that spying and peeping he does, I always figured Snake likes to watch.

7.) Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II – “Dungeon Theme #2”

System: Nintendo (1994)
Sounds Like: Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” sung by an alcoholic Speak & Spell.
Most of the songs thus far have a “Quiet-Storm-meets-Q*Bert” vibe, so we’re going to shake it up with a certifiable club banger. When it comes to dance floor heaters about time-traveling teenagers fighting crudely-animated yetis, “Dungeon Theme #2” is impossible to trump. Play it at your next party and bookend it with some Crystal Castles and Futurecop. If some loser balks, matter-of-factly reply, “This is some old-school Japanese shit. Kanye’s totally sampling this for his next single.” You’ll only be half-lying.

6.) Donkey Kong Country 2 – “Stickerbrush Symphony”

System: Super Nintendo (1995)
Sounds Like: Massive Attack’s “Heat Miser” driven by a Casio horn section.
What the hell is this? This is a game about a pair of simians wearing Payless sneakers. It’s borderline profane to have a track this Sade-smooth in a Donkey Kong game, but consider the alternative — the DKC2 soundtrack could well have been five hours of the Donkey Kong Rap . Credit goes to Rare composer David Wise for making a bramble maze filled with bees sound downright silky. So silky, in fact, that it's perfect for exploring your partner's very own bramble maze.

Part 2

Previous Top Tens:

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

Mega64 versus Metal Gear Solid 4's Dad

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:44:00 GMT

Despite these tough times, the sun still rises, and those lovable scamps over at Mega64 are up to their old tricks. I think we'll all be okay.

Mega64 was at GDC this year, because it's important for someone to get all up in the face of video games when they become Serious Business. Sometimes, though, Serious Business bites back. At 2007's GDC, the boys of Mega64 dressed as Mario and Luigi and frolicked through the city streets, harassing attendees and women on cellphones. Everything was fun and games until some guy named “Shee-guyo Me-a-photo” put his hands on his hips and beat down the party with a look that said, “Come on guys, plumbers and mustaches are not joke material.”

Mega64 took the lesson to heart, but got a bit naughty again at 2009's GDC with a parody of Metal Gear Solid 4. Serious Business raised its solemn head once again, but this time the boys were running for their lives.

Kojima fills the role well, as does a certain someone near the end, but nothing can beat Miyamoto's bemused look (and the truncated Link cameo) from the first video.

Related Links:

Mega64 Calls Upon the Elite Beat Agents
10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill
True Tales of Thanksgiving Gaming

I’d Like to Thank the Imaginary Academy: Where Are the Videogame Awards That Matter?

John Constantine — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

MTV is a wily beast on the international stage. While we associate the one-time purveyor of actual music videos here in the States more with the decade long reign of TRL and reality shows starring wildly libidinous mannequins, Viacom’s behemoth plays host to a much wider and weirder slate of content across the globe. MTV Germany actually holds a special place in my heart. It introduced me to the Army of Lovers way back in 1997 during my international flight from the law. (I’d elaborate further, but this is a videogame blog. Let’s just say that I’ve atoned for my crimes and am no longer a target of Interpol. Sometimes you just have to cut a deal, you know?) I mean, just look at this video:

That’s the sort of thing that sticks with you.

MTV Germany held the MTV Game Awards last Friday. Yes, Game Awards. Jade Raymond, the most visually appealing computer programmer in history best known for producing Assassin’s Creed, gave a lifetime achievement award to Hideo Kojima for his work on the Metal Gear series. The presentation is pretty subdued, though it bears all the marks of award show tradition (presenters drone on a bit too long, awkwardly standing before a cheering pit of paid-for enthusiasm,) right alongside the garish production traditional to MTV’s other aging awards shows. There was even a token throwaway category: The Do-Believe-the-Hype Award for best unreleased game. FFXIII got the award. Right.

I’m not a defender or fan of the Motion Picture Academy Awards. It’s rare that they acknowledge that business’ best artistic endeavors and more often than not do little more than put more money into the pockets of film studios that already have plenty of cash money as it is. But the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences some eighty years back was a monumentally positive event in the history of that medium. I’m starting to wonder why the International Game Developer’s Association, for all of its good work, hasn’t stepped up to fill a similar role for games. The Spike Videogame Awards is not the sort of event that adds an air of respect to the medium. It merely further entrenches the pre-existing image of games as largely the domain of big-gun-big-tit-big-dick machismo. The MTV Game Awards isn’t the right stuff either. I don’t think videogames need an Oscars, but I do think a high profile, IGDA-organized awards ceremony might do wonders for helping videogames through their ongoing, often painful, public adolescence.

Then again, maybe I’m crazy. Thoughts?

(Links: NeoGAF and FFXIII.net)

Related links:

A Letter to the Industry: How to Destroy the Female Gender Barricade
When Video Games Make Us Sniffle
Metal Gear Solid: Hideo Kojima’s Inability to Show Instead of Tell
Kojima's In Another World

Watcha Listening To: Retronauts Episode 55: Snatcher Edition

Bob Mackey — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

This podcast is dedicated to all those cyberpunks who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives.

That wasn't how the latest episode of Retronauts began--but it should have, damn it! Sorry, I got all worked up there. But there's a good reason to get excited: Hideo Kojima's Snatcher is an awesome game, and people are talking about it. On the Internet, no less! In the latest episode, Retronauts ringmaster Jeremy Parish leads an Interesting discussion of a game made at a time when Hideo Kojima wasn't the Bono of his respective industry. And as a bonus, the podcast also includes a brief chat with localization producer Jeremy Blaustein, who worked on the ahead-of-its-time English language version of Snatcher. If you can't believe the awesomeness, check check out the game's intro:

All of this Snatcher chatter got me thinking of the Policenauts (AKA Lethal Weapon in space) translation, which was announced as "complete" 20 months ago, but has not yet been released to the public. Since it's a game made by Kojima very much in the style of Snatcher, I'm dying to play it. Maybe we need to helicopter over some of those Mother 3 translation guys to whip them into shape.

Oh, and if you found Blaustein's behind-the-scenes Konami talk interesting, you might want to check out this podcast interview (archived on YouTube, since the original page appears to be down) that's extremely candid and often inflammatory. It's a nice little bit of dirt-dishing on one of gaming's most respected developers. The story about the actor who played James in Silent Hill 2 is especially hilarious.

Related Links:

Watcha Listening To: The Final GFW Radio
Watcha Listening To? Retronauts Episode 48
Serious Business: Dennis Dyack Blames the Internet

C'mon Kojima: Port Metal Gear!

Bob Mackey — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As things currently stand, I'm probably never going to play Metal Gear Solid 4. The reason? I simply don't have the money or real estate for a PS3. I'm a big Metal Gear Solid fan, so this situation is not entirely wonderful for me; but I've come to accept my fate and stay out of the console wars. However, a recent post on the Kojima Productions web site may justify any possible whining over the platform-exclusivity of Solid Snake.

From Kojima Himself:

The creativity of video games is now on the verge of crisis. Massive advertising campaigns are executed for games before their entertainment values are put into consideration all too often, resulting in sell-off tactics happening without hesitation. [Translation via Kotaku]

Kojima's complaint has everything to do with the fact that MGS4 just isn't selling as well as he hoped it would in his native country. Sales are by no means terrible, but a game of MGS4's budget and caliber shouldn't be moving less than a million copies. And a large amount of that budget--as Kojima claims--was spent on an expensive advertising campaign, making it even more difficult to turn a profit. Porting the game to the 360 probably wouldn't give the game much of a sales bump in Japan, who only really cares about Microsoft's system when some exclusive RPG surfaces in a green DVD case, but I guarantee that this decision would bring in a lot of money from America.

Part of this speculation comes out of my desire to just play the damned game, but you have to admit that third party console exclusivity is making less and less sense this generation, especially with expensive games like Kojima's. Just look at the way things are going in America: this gen's Grand Theft Auto had no window of exclusivity on either system, and it's gone on to sell around 10 million copies. How much smaller would this number be if PS3 or 360 owners were still waiting to get their hands on the game? Even Square-Enix, who has been developing Final Fantasy XIII for what feels like the greater part of this century, dropped their exclusivity window for the States and will simultaneously launch both PS3 and 360 versions of their long-awaited RPG at some point in the distant future.

Why have Square-Enix and Rockstar made these decisions? Because they want money. So why you gotta hold out on us, Kojima? I've got 60 bucks with your name on it.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 1
Kojima's In Another World
Square-Enix's Coup Brings Back Memories

Kojima's In Another World

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:50:00 GMT

Depending on what side of the world you live on, you might even say Metal Gear Solid's daddy is Out Of This World.

I already know I'm a hopeless nerd, so I have no problem confessing that I love to find out about what inspires creative types. I get to say "Oh hey! Me too!" and for a precious second, I feel validated. Then the shadows gather again.

Kotaku published an article about the five games that matter to Hideo Kojima. Super Mario Bros is a given, but I was happy to see that Eric Chahi's brooding alien adventure Another World was on the list as well.

Another World, cleverly renamed Out Of This World in North America, comes from a rare point in history when computer gamers had every right to laugh at console gamers. While young scientist Lester Knight Chaykin picked his way through a grim and hostile alien world with seemingly no hope of getting home, he took hundreds of enthralled Amiga, Apple II and DOS owners along with him. Every move he made counted, because one wrong turn or one bad step was all it took to die a hauntingly animated death. Every victory in Another World was bitterly earned, every discovery mattered.

Meanwhile, console gamers said "Ook Ook", threw their NES controllers at the screen and picked each other for lice.

I'm just being a smartass. I was very much a console gamer, which is why I never heard of Another World until Interplay adapted it for the Super Nintendo in 1993. The computer versions animate a lot more smoothly (though I do like the music added for the SNES title), but the game still left an impact on me that lasted for years. I'm a fan of subtle storytelling, which is something Another World did brilliantly with its militant, mostly silent grey aliens. They don't necessarily like each other and they certainly can't be bothered to muster up any love for Lester.

Except for Buddy, of course. He is a good alien. We should all take his example and guide lost tourists past alien guards and razor-clawed beasts. If the tourists don't speak English, more's the better. If no beasts or poison leeches are around, substitute cars and sewer rats. If the tourists do speak English, respond to their threats to call the police with "Me-tsu-dah!"

Good choice on Kojima's part, even if he has yet to master the art of silent storytelling.

Related Links:

Hideo Kojima's Inability to Show Instead of Tell

The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 2

John Constantine — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

As I mentioned in the first part of this review, Guns of the Patriots is the Metal Gear that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, for the series and game type, passive viewing is every bit as much a part of the play experience as actual player control. It’s misleading, though, to think that Metal Gear Solid 4’s greatest achievement is its presentation. Since its debut on the MSX in 1986, the actual game under Metal Gear’s graphics and story has been about using a limited, often suffocating interface to explore multiple solutions to a problem. A classic scenario: Solid Snake enters a room filled with obstacles (packing crates, trees, stationary vehicles) and a handful of hostile artificial intelligences (soldiers, security cameras, dogs) moving along set paths.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The goal is to guide Snake past hostile elements without alerting them to his presence. The environment and tools acquired in its boundaries (anything from firearms to camouflage) create options; you could crawl under cars to avoid detection or tranquilize a soldier to distract the others as you move on. Snake is difficult to manage though; move too fast and you risk accidentally walking into an enemy’s line of sight, fire a gun and you risk being heard. You could argue that the finicky and imprecise control of Snake is immersive, simulating the stress and precision of actual stealth, but the truth is that it superficially increases difficulty, masking the rudimentary artificial intelligence’s faults. In Guns of the Patriots, not only is the environment and multiple-solution approach expanded upon in both scope and realism, but control is streamlined to a point where agency is truly in the player’s hands, no longer at the mercy of a stilted interface.

MGS4’s opening chapter sets the play standard for the game with aplomb. Snake is placed in a city under siege, a local militia in constant combat with a genetically enhanced mercenary group with towering, bi-pedal war machines at their disposal. Both forces are a concern in navigating the terrain, as getting caught in crossfire can lead to death. Access to offensive actions (shooting, and more importantly, the ability to shoot while still moving) is streamlined here, allowing direct confrontation to become a more viable solution. Hostile AIs are as predictable as ever, but there is a far greater number of threats performing disparate actions on the play field. These are Guns of the Patriots greatest play enhancements; with control no longer a hindrance and the addition of conflicting AIs on the field, the game’s old faults have been integrated into play. It’s an effective and smart answer to the series’ oldest problems. The arenas for action are not so different from previous installments, each one contained and transitioning into another, but their density and flexibility have been enhanced to the point that the feel less like obstacle courses and more like actual places. In many ways, Guns of the Patriots is Metal Gear’s first successful foray into true three-dimensional design, the dynamics of its larger environments accounting for a world that isn’t only seen from a bird’s-eye-view.

Come back next week for Part 3 of this review for a dissection of presentation and final thoughts on MGS4.

Click here for more 61 Frames Per Second Review.

Related Links:

Metal Gear Solid 4 Review Part 1
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
Metal Gear Solid: Hideo Kojima's Inability to Show Instead of Tell
Bringing Sexy Back: Yoji Shinkawa

The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 1

John Constantine — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

I’ve spent the last ten years of my life resisting Metal Gear Solid. I didn’t play the series’ opening chapter until April of 1999 and, even then, I only played because it was gifted to me by an exceptionally generous friend. At sixteen, I considered myself a staunch traditionalist. I wanted my games two-dimensional and my gameplay familiar so Metal Gear Solid didn’t appeal to me (I'd be lying, though, if I said its monumental popularity wasn't at the heart of my dismissing it.) It took playing MGS to realize Hideo Kojima, more an eccentric than a trendsetter at that point, had captured the gaming zeitgeist in two discs of content. Basic play in MGS was little more than a polished version of the original Metal Gear’s, but its presentation and narrative ambitions were a new face for gaming, every bit as redefining as Mario’s first hop-around Princess Toadstool’s 3D castle. MGS’ in-engine acted-cutscene, dramatic-instance formula remains the template for storytelling in videogames to this day. I loved MGS but I didn’t fully take to the play; the control was too imprecise, its stealth too punishing. So, in 2001, I was curious about its sequel, Sons of Liberty, but not itching to actually play it. Convenient for me, considering how MGS2 turned out to not be about playing at all. I watched it played through, start to finish, on the day it came out and was aghast at the breadth of its expository passages (often little more than monochromatic talking-heads) and its author’s incompetence. It was the worst sort of sequel, a bloated mirror-image of its predecessor. Most insulting, however, was Kojima’s winking acknowledgement that this was what it was. The fun, inclusive meta-textual elements of MGS became mean-spirited barriers between player and game in Sons of Liberty. Its story wasn’t complicated, just horribly told, and it turned me off the series for years. MGS became a go-to gag amongst my friends (“Want to play some Metal Gear?” “Sure, I love shitty movies.”) I only played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the first time this past March, largely in anticipation of Metal Gear Solid 4’s release, and was surprised to find it such an enjoyable experience. MGS3 is considered by some to be an apology for Sons of Liberty’s pretensions and verbosity, its prequel narrative a retreat on Kojima’s part. But that point of view ignores how different Snake Eater is as a game and, particularly in its revision Subsistence, how much more successful it is in enacting story through play. Opening up the game’s environments as well as making protagonist Snake’s health a core mechanic made for a better game and, subsequently, a better story.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the game Hideo Kojima has been trying to make his whole career. It took me seventeen hours to finish the game and only seven of those were spent in complete control of what was happening on screen but, as opposed to Sons of Liberty’s repulsive disconnect between player and game, I never felt detached. Its lack of restraint is shocking; story sequences go on for well over an hour, leaving literally no facet, however incidental, of the series’ over-arching narrative unexplained. But play and story have finally been fused, every sequence of direct control inseparably integrated into the narrative and what would have previously been passive portions of the game even allow limited control. The story is the game in Guns of the Patriots which, I’m realizing, has been the point all along. Metal Gear Solid has transformed into its own genre, a blending of visual novel and action, movie and hide-and-seek. After a decade, I now find Metal Gear irresistible because it’s finally the game it was supposed to be.

There’s a lot more to be said about the game. In part 2, I’ll discuss Guns of the Patriots's play and control, and in part 3, I’ll take a look at its audio and visual presentation.

Related Links:

The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
Metal Gear Solid: Hideo Kojima's Inability to Show Instead of Tell
Bringing Sexy Back: Yoji Shinkawa

Metal Gear Solid: Hideo Kojima’s Inability to Show Instead of Tell

John Constantine — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As Metal Gear Sold 4’s June 12th release date looms, more and more information about Solid Snake’s purported final adventure has begun to leak into the press. British gaming mag CVG reported late last week that MGS4 features a cutscene that lasts a full ninety-minutes. While the article doesn’t mention where said cutscene appears in the game – it may be smack in the middle or after the conclusion of play for all we know - it still means that a player will watch MGS4 for an hour and a half instead of playing it.

Director and designer Hideo Kojima, in his Metal Gear Solid series especially, is notorious for using long non-interactive cutscenes and filling them with verbose, convoluted narrative. This over-reliance on the narrative language of film turns a number of players away from the games completely. Just two months ago, I replayed through MGS1 through 3 and both of my roommates could barely stand to be in the room while I played because, more often than not, the screen was filled with stiff talking heads. Games are meant to be played, not viewed, and that maxim makes Kojima a difficult creator to engage. His games are often brilliant in their ability to create drama directly through play; just look at the dramatic motorcycle chase near the close of Metal Gear Solid 3. And the continuing story in MGS, overwrought as it can be, is also remarkable as a post-modern text, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to further engage the player in its cultural commentary. But Kojima has failed to evolve as a storyteller as the series has grown over the past decade, adding new mechanics to the play but relying on archaic methods to tell his story. It’s the oldest rule in the fiction book: show, don’t tell. I was hoping Metal Gear Solid 4 would change things up. Guess I better just sit down with popcorn each time I fire it up.

Thanks to Joystiq for the spot.

Bringing Sexy Back: Yoji Shinkawa

John Constantine — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

When it comes to Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima’s always the first name that springs to mind. Yeah he’s the creator, the designer, the director, the writer of all that dialogue, not to mention that the entire team behind the games is named after the man. But another name springs to my mind as I quiver with anticipation of Metal Gear Solid 4’s release: Yoji Shinkawa. Shinkawa’s expressive illustrations have been the face of the MGS series from the beginning and are, if I do say so, sexy as hell. The vaguely defined faces of his figures, the broad-stroke heavy lines of his characters, the almost melancholic tone of his largely monochromatic illustrations. Shinkawa gets us hot and no mistake.

What do you say, FPSers?