Profile of Hideo Kojima on Famous Like Me

Hideo Kojima (小島秀夫 Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer at Konami. Formerly the vice president of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, he is currently the head of Kojima Productions, a new team devoted to creative game development leaving behind all the business and administrative decision making. He is the creator and director of a number of successful games, including the Metal Gear series, Snatcher, and Policenauts. He has also produced both the Zone of the Enders and the Boktai series.

His trademark style is to address and approach a multitude of important, large issues and aspects of human life in a philosophical, verbose (some would argue heavy-handed) fashion. He also is sometimes interpreted as one of the few postmodern game designers; the Metal Gear series contains magic realism and often breaks the fourth wall. His love of movies is also noticeable in his games, where he pays homage through his stories and characters.

Career in game development

Born in Setagaya, Tokyo, he later moved to Kobe at the age of three. Initially having ambitions of becoming a film director, he joined video game publisher Konami's MSX home computer division in 1986 as a designer.

The first game he worked on was Penguin Adventure, as an assistant director. The first game he actually developed was Lost Warld, a war-themed platform game starring a masked female wrestler, in 1986. However, it was cancelled by Konami.

His first released game was Metal Gear. It was released in 1987 to critical success, although due to the MSX home computer's obscurity, the initial MSX version of the game was barely well-known in Japan and Europe. Many people (especially Americans) didn't 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 Solid Snake, a rookie soldier who has been sent to the fortified state of "Outer Heaven" to stop a nuclear equipped walking tank known as "Metal Gear." The game was unique by being the first successful stealth-based game, in which the player is encouraged to avoid visual contact with the enemy as opposed to engaging in direct confrontation (this was done due to the graphical limitations of the MSX, since the hardware couldn't handle scrolling very well, nor display too many moving objects at once). He also released the critically acclaimed Snatcher, a text-based adventure with a cyberpunk setting and Cold War themes, in 1988.

Kojima later designed Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake in 1990, remade Snatcher in 1992 for the PC-Engine under title of Snatcher CD-ROMantic (which would become the basis for the subsequent versions of the game) 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. He also produced a series of adventure games based on the Tokimeki Memorial dating sim series dubbed the Drama Series, which were made on the same game engine used by Policenauts.

With the release of Metal Gear Solid in 1998 for the PlayStation, Kojima became an international celebrity among gamers. Noted not only for its well-designed gameplay, Metal Gear Solid was also highly regarded for its characters and storyline, which featured themes of nuclear proliferation and genetic engineering.

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 anticipated games ever. However, when the game was released in late 2001, it was met with mixed reactions, some criticizing it for employing a highly unusual and complex storyline, and having very long cinematic cutscenes. The introduction of a new main character, Raiden, was also unpopular; his androgynous appearance annoyed many fans in Europe and the United States.

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. In this, players take the role of a young vampire hunter who uses a solar weapon which is charged by a photometric sensor on the game cartridge (forcing them to play in sunlight). He also began work on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, a GameCube remake of the first Metal Gear Solid with all the gameplay features of Metal Gear Solid 2 and with cutscenes redirected by action/horror film director Ryuhei Kitamura. It was released in 2004.

Afterwards, Kojima also designed and released Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the PlayStation 2, which is set in the year 1964 (during the height of the Cold War) and involves wilderness survival, unlike the previous games in the series which took place in the near future and focused on indoor locations. In this game, the player also needs to use camouflage to evade enemies. The North American version was released on November 17, 2004, with the Japanese counterpart following on December 16. The European version was released on March 4, 2005. Critical response to the game has been more favorable than that of the previous installment and has increased interest in any future installments of the series.

At that time Kojima also worked on Boktai's sequel, Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django for the Game Boy Advance. Released in summer 2004, it makes more extensive use of the cartidge's sunlight sensor and allows players to combine various new solar weapons.

Also released was Metal Gear Ac!d for the PlayStation Portable handheld. This turn-based game is less action-oriented than the other Metal Gear games and focuses more on strategy. It was released in Japan on December 16, 2004.

Kojima Productions

On April 1, 2005, after Konami merged several of its subsidiaries, Kojima's team at Konami Computer Entertainment Japan was transformed into "Kojima Productions." With this new team, Kojima is no longer burdened with the business management and administrative responsibilities he had as KCEJ's vice president, and thus is able to focus solely on creating games.

Kojima Productions is currently working on three projects:

The first is Metal Gear Ac!d 2 for the PlayStation Portable. It features the same turn-based, strategic gameplay of Metal Gear Ac!d, and uses brighter, cel-shaded-style visuals. It will contain twice the cards of the original and a more user-friendly interface.

The second is Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence for the PlayStation 2. This updated version of Metal Gear Solid 3 contains two online play modes, a new third-person camera and all the additional features (Duel Mode, Demo Theater) that were previously exclusive to the European release of the original game. It also contains the original MSX2 versions of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (with the latter being released for the first time outside Japan), based on their 2004 mobile phone releases.

The third is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PlayStation 3. After completing Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima openly opposed the idea of working on a new Metal Gear Solid game. However, he later retracted his comments in the June 3, 2005 issue of Weekly Famitsu, claiming his earlier statement that "he will focus more on producing" was misinterpreted as stepping down from the director position. During the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo, he confirmed that he is assuming the role of director and designer. Co-directing MGS4 with him is Shuyo Murata, director of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner.

Works

• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (TBA) - writer/producer/director
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (2005) - writer/producer/director
• Metal Gear Ac!d² (2005) - producer
• Boktai: Sabata's Counterattack (2005) - producer
• Metal Gear Ac!d (2004) - producer
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004) - writer/producer/director
• Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django (2004) - producer
• Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (2004) - writer/producer/original director
• Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand (2003) - producer
• Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (2003) - producer
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (2002) - writer/producer/director
• The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 (2002) - producer/director
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) - writer/producer/director
• Zone of the Enders (2001) - producer
• Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (2000) - producer/supervising director
• Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions (1999) - producer/director
• Metal Gear Solid: Integral (1999) - writer/producer/director
• Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 3: Tabidachi no Uta (1999) - executive director
• Metal Gear Solid (1998) - writer/producer/director
• Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 2: Irodori no Love Song (1998) - planner/producer
• Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun (1997) - planner/producer/drama director
• Policenauts (1994) - writer/director
• Snatcher CD-ROMantic (1992) - writer/director
• Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990) - writer/director
• SD Snatcher (1990) - original writer
• Snatcher (1988) - writer/director
• Metal Gear (1987) - writer/director ("game design")
• Lost Warld (1986, cancelled) - writer/director
• Penguin Adventure (1986) - assistant director

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