Metal Gear Solid: Hideo Kojima’s Magnum Opus

Metal Gear Solid. Hideo Kojima’s Magnum Opus

by Denis Brusseaux, Nicolas Courciere and Mehdi El Kanafi

is published by Third Éditions

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Editors: Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi

Authors: Denis Brusseaux, Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi

Chapter VIII: Damien Mecheri

Proofreading and layout: Thomas Savary

Covers: Nikita Kaun (classic) and Johann Papayou Biais (First Print)

Cover layout: Frédéric Tomé

Translated from French by: Jason Mulvaney (ITC Traductions)

This resource guide has been produced by Third Éditions as an homage to the great video game series Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid.

Its authors retrace the history to the video game series of Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid in this unique compendium, which reveals the inspiration, background and content of the games through reflections and original analyses.

Metal Gear Solid is a registered trademark of Konami Digital Entertainment. All rights reserved. The cover design is inspired by the artwork of Yoji Shinkawa, the character designer of Metal Gear Solid V: The Panthom Pain.

English edition, copyright 2017, Third Éditions. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-10-94723-61-6

FOREWORD

The Metal Gear saga can be easily summarized. Each game describes the adventures of a spy on a mission to neutralize a nuclear threat, which comes in the form of a Metal Gear, a bipedal tank equipped with nuclear weapons that can reach any location in the world. An ordinary enough synopsis, yet behind it lurks a series of untold, uncommon richness. Even though you play a secret agent in Metal Gear, it would be difficult to place this saga solely in the stealth genre or to reduce it to any other category on the basis of an isolated aspect. In the end, the only term that could suit it is the name of its creator: Hideo Kojima. Although the titles that make up the entire series have been developed by a team, its progenitor’s aura is so inextricably linked to his work that the game cannot be appreciated without studying the man behind it. The designer knew how to place his own personal mark on the series, which highlights the individuality of each episode beyond the realm of the traditional value judgment. From the storytelling and plot to the gameplay mechanics, nothing of what Kojima produced has an equal elsewhere in video games.

The mythology of the series is so rich and dense that it is only possible to grasp the different Metal Gear episodes through this prism alone. On the other hand, the universe of these games includes numerous real events and puts into perspective historical periods, organizations and well-known figures, such as the Cold War, the Pentagon and certain world leaders. But the illustrative power of the hero supplants the parallels that could be made with reality. The temporal context moves to the background and leaves the scene free for the characters to shape an exceptional fiction.

Metal Gear is not just a succession of games set against a similar backdrop, it is an endeavor created as a whole, aimed at transmitting clear messages. The series thus coincides with the development of a discourse, an aspiration, but it also attests to imperfections and failings. A creator’s soul is not plain; in fact, it is rough and marked by vicissitudes. The study of the Metal Gear series turns out to be as singular as the game it examines. In fact, despite the impossibility of being exhaustive, Konami’s official database fulfills this function very well. We wanted to avoid creating just an encyclopedic work, so our endeavor presents biases that could appear radical to some people, but their arrangement offers a cross-sectional insight into the franchise’s entire collection. Happy reading!

Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi

Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi were print media fans from a young age and did not wait long to launch their first magazine, Console Syndrome, in 2004. After five issues with a limited distribution in the Toulouse region, they decided to create a publishing house under the same name. A year later, the small business was bought by a major publisher in the area of video game guides and books. Over the next four years, Nicolas and Mehdi published more than twenty books devoted to major game franchises, many being their own work, such as Zelda: The History of a Legendary Saga, Resident Evil: Of Zombies and Men, and The Legend Final Fantasy VII and IX. Since 2015, they have continued their publishing careers based around analyzing the great video game sagas as part of a new publishing house that they co-founded: Third.

Denis Brusseaux

Educated in law, Denis Brusseaux has worked as a journalist for fifteen years and is a specialist in the two arts that he loves: cinema and video games. He has contributed to the magazines Joypad and Videogamer, and the website DVDrama. He also co-wrote the 2012 film The Lookout (French title: Le Guetteur), which starred Daniel Auteuil and Mathieu Kassovitz.

CHAPTER ONE — KONAMI

Konami was founded in 1969 by Kagemasa Kozuki, Yoshinobu Nakama and Tatsuo Miyasako. Although konami means small wave in Japanese, the company’s name is first and foremost an amalgamation of the initial syllable in each of the three founders’ names. In its beginnings, the business was a jukebox rental and repair shop located in Osaka; however, from the mid-1970s, the company became interested in the video-game market. In 1981, Frogger was released in the arcades: the player helped frogs cross a busy highway—a cult game if ever there was one. Konami then invested in the shoot-em up genre with Gradius (1985), one of the most famous horizontal-scrolling games of the genre, without forgetting its quirky parody, Parodius (1990). Many action games began to be released in the arcades, the most famous being Green Beret (1985) and Contra (1987). In 1985, Konami developed what would become one of the predecessors to modern fighting games: Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which presented the opportunity to control who took on different adversaries, each one with a particular fighting style.

The publisher then quickly entered the game console market and adapted its hits for the machines of that era: MSX, Atari VCS, Megadrive, etc. It was through establishing subsidiaries such as Ultra Software in Europe and Palcom Software in North America that Konami, which had begun manufacturing games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, managed to bypass the restrictions imposed by the Kyoto-based Nintendo. These restrictions limited each publisher to releasing only five titles per year. Later, official branches would open in these western regions.

Konami is best known for its many top-quality titles that were produced in the 1990s. In the action game genre, Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania and Ganbare Goemon are noteworthy examples. In 1992, certain team members that created these titles decided to leave the game publisher and founded Treasure, the famous developer that created, among other games, Radiant Silvergun, Guardian Heroes, Sin and Punishment and Ikaruga. Konami began testing the waters of the RPG world in 1995 with the unveiling of its first Suikoden, a role-playing game adapted from the Chinese story Water Margin. The company also invested heavily in license-based games for both consoles and arcades, for example The Simpsons and the Ninja Turtles, while still offering the whole range of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga by Kazuki Takahashi (over forty titles have already been released across almost all formats). Following Track & Field, Konami returned to sports games in 1994 with the soccer game International Superstar Soccer for the Super Nintendo, the first milestone in the renowned series, which would be rebaptized Winning Eleven in Japan (ISS Pro Evolution in the West), until finally becoming the famous PES under the leadership of Shingo Takatsuka, a.k.a. Seabass. Two years later, the publisher created its innovative music-playing game under the Bemani division: Beatmania came out in 1997 and would be followed a few years later by the offshoots Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania. Within the same genre, the dance game Dance Dance Revolution proved a hit in the smoke-filled bars of that period. Bar owners did not wait long to place the dance platforms in the street so passers-by could see the talent of DDR players and be tempted themselves to give it a try. The music game craze in Japan owes a lot to Konami; even if in the West the publisher lost out to Harmonix and its celebrated Guitar Hero. A little later, in 1999, Konami responded to Capcom’s Resident Evil by releasing Silent Hill, a survival horror developed by Keiichiro Toyama. After the departure of Toyama for Sony (he would work there on Extermination, Forbidden Siren and Gravity Rush), Akira Yamaoka was handed the reins of this series from the third installment, along with composing the soundtrack. For many players, the second episode of Silent Hill represents one of the apexes of the horror game. Today however, Yamaoka is no longer with the company and the Silent Hill franchise seems to be in its coffin.

If the 1990s were prosperous for Konami, the following decade proved to be blighted with difficulties—an observation that could be applied to the Japanese market for the then next-generation consoles (PS3 and Xbox 360). Following its large purchase of Hudson Soft stock, Konami finally acquired this 1980s video-game standard bearer on April 1, 2011, thereby allowing it to increase its presence in the gaming market and on social networks and mobile platforms. It should not be forgotten that, in 2007, the Osaka-based publisher gained about 30% of its revenue from its health and fitness club division—a market that is a far cry from video games.

What occurred next would confirm this direction. After some difficult years for home consoles, the Japanese video-game market began first to refocus on hand-held consoles and then on smartphones. Konami was one of the precursors to this swing by offering in 2010 what would become one of the greatest successes in the genre, Dragon Collection. During the 2015 Tokyo Game Show, rumors were even swirling that the software publisher no longer had any internal AAA game (big budget games) in development-apart from the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise—and that the only series still envisaged for the console were Yu-Gi Oh! and Powerful Pro Baseball. Thus, the developer-publisher has evolved into a mobile content producer, leaving behind its famous video-game heritage, much to the dismay of players (whereas a publisher like Square Enix has shown that it is possible to play across the two boards). The financial results however justify the company’s gambles: Konami is relatively healthy today.

CHAPTER II — HIDEO KOJIMA

Hideo Kojima was born on August 24, 1963 in Setagaya (one of Tokyo’s wards). Soon after, his family moved to the Kansai region. It was in Kobe that the young Hideo would live a rather classic childhood. Like many salaried workers, his parents were very absorbed in their work, and their oft-alone child would spend his time in front of the television, feeding off his country’s pop culture. Yet, his daily life was not monotonous: for example, he willingly talks about his near-death experience, the day when he had to hang from a bridge in order to avoid a train that was bearing down on him at full speed. It was through writing that he would gradually find a limitless range of expression. With a pen in hand, Kojima soon became a wordsmith and he would set down on paper stories of over four hundred pages! One of his first attempts was a long narrative entitled Battle For Survival, in which fourteen-year-olds faced off each other and with every victory they extended their life expectancy. He sent his manuscripts to specialized magazines in the hope of being published, but his stories were rejected again and again because of their length. However, his love for extremely rich plots was already taking shape. From an early age, Hideo was also a fan of cinema. A true aficionado of this art form, he began to shoot short-length films with his friends, using an 8mm camera.

At university, the young man turned to economic studies. Amongst his friends, he was an eccentric character who hoped to break into cinema or literature. He even included a short story in his thesis, in the hopes of surprising his professors. He has confessed that it unfortunately did not help him achieve a better grade. He finally gave up the idea of becoming a director when he discovered Nintendo’s Famicom (known in the West as the NES). It was through this console that Kojima started to be interested in video games. He discovered Xevious, Super Mario Bros, and Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (a text-based adventure game that never left the shores of Japan), three titles that would forever remain engraved in his memory. For him, it truly was an epiphany: the video-game format represented the perfect synergy of his passions, and an especially effective way to distract people. Exceedingly interested in the concept of interactivity, he then decided to enter this industry whose potential he had immediately perceived. However, at this time in Japan, like elsewhere, the sector was poorly esteemed and offered very few employment opportunities. Most of Kojima’s peers tried to convince him to give up on this venture; all his friends and professors thought he was a fool and advised him to seek employment in the banking sector. Only his mother supported him.

If Kojima applied first and only to Konami, it was only because the company’s studios were closer to his home than its rivals were. In 1986, he managed to land a job within the development division for the MSX, a standardized micro-computer produced by several manufacturers which gained success in several European countries and Japan; it never penetrated the US market. Despite the good sales of this platform, its successor, the MSX 2, was never marketed in Europe. While Hideo Kojima was happy working on his favorite media, he was nevertheless disappointed about not working on Famicom, the console that opened his eyes to the world of video games. But in any case, he was then placed in the position of assistant director of Lost Warld (the last word being a combination of world and war), quite an important responsibility especially since this was only his first job. It was a platform action game, depicting a masked fighter (alluding to a famous wrestler who wore a tiger mask). Unfortunately, this first project did not lead anywhere and Konami soon decided to cancel it. Struck by this disappointment, Kojima thought about leaving the company. However, he held on. So many people had advised him against entering the video-game world that he did not want to satisfy them; he especially wanted to complete at least one project. The first completed game that Hideo Kojima worked on was Penguin Adventure, followed by Antarctic Adventure, both for the MSX.

In 1987, Kojima unveiled the first installment in the Metal Gear franchise for the MSX 2. This event would define his life forever. Before continuing with the creation of this franchise, the other works of this games designer deserve some consideration. In 1988, Snatcher was released on the MSX 2 and NEC PC-8801. This adventure game, similar to the interactive graphic novel, was inspired by Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) and the cyberpunk movement. Kojima’s interest in dense plotlines resurfaced. The game was subsequently remade for the PC Engine CD-Rom² in 1992, and was enlivened by its use of voice acting. Snatcher was released in Europe and the United States on the Megadrive Mega-CD two years later. Its spiritual successor, Policenauts, appeared on the NEC PC-9821 in 1994, then on the PlayStation and 3DO in 1995 and the Saturn in 1996. For Hideo Kojima, Snatcher and Policenauts were major accomplishments in his career. He has retained a particular affection for these two games, so much so that they are frequently referenced in the Metal Gear series.

Nevertheless, Kojima was not afraid of radically changing his subject matter. He produced or directed three titles of the very Japanese dating sim series, Tokimeki Memorial, (on the PlayStation and the Saturn). Tokimeki Memorial became a prized series for Konami and many important employees of the software publisher have worked on it, including Koji Igarashi who is known for his work on Castlevania.

Without a doubt, the establishment of Kojima Productions in April 2005 triggered one of the most significant turning points in the designer’s career. This studio will be looked at closer when we delve into the chronological creation of the Metal Gear games.

In parallel with his favorite saga and still in his position as producer, Kojima brought about the unveiling of new franchises. He went on to supervise the two-part Zone of the Enders (ZOE): the first episode was released in 2001 and its sequel in 2003 (The Second Runner, or ZOE Anubis in Japan), both for the PlayStation 2. With these two games, Kojima beguiled the public while creating a connection through frenetic action with one of his passions, the depiction of giant fighting robots, inspired by various manga.

In 2003, between MGS 2 and MGS 3, Kojima Productions produced the first installment in the Boktai (Bokura no Taiyo) franchise, for the Game Boy Advance. The games in this series offered an action-adventure gameplay based on vampire hunting. To push the design further and take advantage of the hand-held console’s features, Kojima added a light sensor to the game cartridges. The player had to go out into the sun in order to recharge the batteries of the hero’s weapon, which was the only way to kill the blood suckers. Artificial light could also be used on the cartridge, but it was less effective. Released in 2005, the third installment in the series remained an exclusively Japanese affair. Finally, the last episode, Lunar Knights appeared on the Nintendo DS in 2006. Reverting to the more traditional concept, this episode no longer required the sun’s rays since the cartridge did not have the photometric sensor.

Still in 2006, the studio ventured into educational games. Stock Exchange Kabutore stands out among the other projects in this genre by inviting the player to enter... the world of finance. A game that gives lessons on the stock exchange, why was it only thought of now!

In 2010, Kojima Productions undertook the reboot of an old series wallowing in perdition: Castlevania. Even though the Spanish company MercurySteam developed the project, sub-titled Lords of Shadow, Hideo Kojima produced it and even had a direct influence on it. In particular, the design of the hero, Gabriel, was the result of comments from the Japanese designer. On April 1, 2011, Kojima was promoted to the position of vice-president of Konami Digital Entertainment alongside Shinji Enomoto.

In general, the man is a true workaholic. While juggling his three responsibilities of designer, manager, and studio representative, his work weeks would leave little room for rest. He does regret not spending more time with his family and, to compensate, he forbids himself from working weekends so he can be with his loved ones. An amusing anecdote tells that Kojima’s son went one day to see him at the office during the design of the first Metal Gear Solid. Kojima and his team were working on the game camera system, they modelled the setting for it with the help of Lego bricks. The child then recounted to his mother, who was already annoyed by her husband’s work load, that his father was spending his days playing with Lego.

In truth, this Twitter addict cannot easily avoid work due to his personal goal of making the impossible possible. If he feels the need to manage everything in his games (from gameplay to story), it is because, for him, that represents the essence of true game design. He compares the work of a game designer with that of a chef: If you enter a restaurant after a change in head chef, you’ll notice the flavors of those dishes you know will be different. It’s the same thing with game designers. If they change, the entire experience is affected. Unfortunately, the idyllic connection between designer and the publisher Konami was brutally cut in 2015, when rumors began circulating that Kojima would have to pack his bags after the release of his latest creation, Metal Gear Solid V. The next chapter will look further into this.

CHAPTER III — THE GENESIS OF THE GAMES

Metal Gear

To begin, we return to 1987. Hideo Kojima had been working for Konami since the previous year. The software publisher entrusted him with producing a military action game for the MSX 2. Unfortunately, the modest capabilities of the machine imposed severe technical limitations on the young Japanese game designer: for example, this micro-computer could not cope with more than three enemy sprites on screen at the same time, including bullet trajectories. The vision of a quality war game was greatly diminished. But what if the player had to avoid the enemies rather than confronting them? Kojima decided to rethink the design and took inspiration from his own experiences. He had often filmed hide-and-seek games that he had played in during his childhood. So, he considered developing a game in which hiding from enemies was the key. Remembering the film The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963), he set out the concept: the hero must quietly infiltrate a hostile environment. At that time, it was a surprising choice because it would not be about escaping from a complex but penetrating a secret base, in the style of a James Bond film, for which Kojima holds a great fondness. To foster this furtive style of gameplay, Kojima decided that the main character would start the mission unarmed; during the game he would have to find equipment in the field. The player would control his character from a bird’s eye view, allowing the player to anticipate enemy reactions and movements while also offering the opportunity to hide from the guards on their patrols. The explorable world was designed to be relatively open, in the sense that progression was not linear. The player could go anywhere; but, if he found himself blocked by a door or an enemy, he would have to explore the base to find a suitable object or weapon to get himself out of the predicament. Moreover, the difficulty level proved to be a little high, given that the path for advancing the story was not always obvious. For this reason, the designers decided to introduce a radio at this stage which would allow the hero to rely on the support of various characters—each one a specialist in a certain field—and glean vital information. The concept of Metal Gear was born and with it the stealth game. The only thing left was to create the hero. Kojima was inspired by the character Snake Plissken, the main protagonist of the film Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981), played by Kurt Russell: the game’s hero would thus be baptized Snake. His mission was to destroy the Metal Gear, a weapon of mass destruction able to launch long-range nuclear missiles. Kojima thus wished to convey the anxiety that reigned in the region during his childhood (as in the rest of Japan, it could be presumed), where the population had been traumatized by the atomic bomb. A type of bipedal tank with missiles capable of striking anywhere in the world, the Metal Gear was the embodiment of that fear. The game was released in Japan in 1987 and its sales were encouraging. But it was in Europe and the United States, after its transition to the NES, where the title gained its success (more than one million copies sold in North America alone), which led Konami to consider a sequel.

Asides

Snake wears a bandana that instantly conjures up the film Rambo (Ted Kotcheff, 1982). However, it would seem that Kojima actually drew inspiration from The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978), starring Robert De Niro.

In the American guide for the NES version of Metal Gear, a character is mentioned but completely absent from the game. Answering to the sweet-sounding name of Vermon Ca Taffy, this Mongolian colonel turns very early to terrorism before taking control of Outer Heaven. Having become a dictator, he forcibly drafts ail inhabitants into his army and subsequently becomes head of an international terrorist network. His latest goal is to seize the weapon that is capable of making him supreme ruler of the world, the Metal Gear! The similarities with a former, infamous, Libyan dictator are palpable. The question remains why this character was removed from the game while still appearing in the booklets of the American games.

Snake’s Revenge

Snake’s Revenge came out on the NES in 1990. Hideo Kojima was not involved in its development. The storyline followed the adventures of Snake, who must once again confront the Metal Gear and the legendary soldier Big Boss.

However, progression, which placed a stronger focus on action, breaks with the original design of the first Metal Gear. Today, it is considered as a non-canonical episode. Aimed at the foreign market, it was never released in Japan, which perhaps explains the choice of making it more of an action game. While returning home from work on Tokyo’s public transport, Kojima came across the team in charge of producing Snake’s Revenge. The majority of the team had already worked on the first Metal Gear. Well aware that their work at the time did not truly fall within the continuity of the previous game, they encouraged Hideo Kojima to look into developing his own sequel to Metal Gear and to call on them at such time. Kojima had not really considered doing this; yet, the words of his colleagues kindled a great drive within him. The next day, he arrived at the offices of Konami with a complete game plan under his arm and managed to convince his superiors to give him the chance to develop an authentic Metal Gear 2.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

Kojima took the lead in the development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, a true successor to the original episode. Released on the MSX 2 in 1990, the game broadened the gameplay of its predecessor in almost all aspects. The rudimentary stealth aspect of the original Metal Gear was greatly enhanced in this game. Kojima’s mark had already started to shine through: not only was there a proliferation of original ideas, but the fondness of Snake’s creator for cinema was clearly apparent (the credits, in particular, seemed worthy of movie theaters), and the game designer began to slip in numerous references to his previous works. One example was that after Big Boss was defeated in Metal Gear, that soldier underwent experiments to replace certain injured limbs and organs with prostheses. The operation, which allowed him to return as the villain in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, was codenamed Project Snatcher in the story line, a direct reference to an old Kojima game. But many observers saw Project Snatcher as a nod to the final boss in Snake’s Revenge: a cyborg Big Boss!

Since the second installment of his series, Kojima has asserted himself through unexpected dues, which only the most attentive players could hope to pick up on. In essence, what would later become the designer’s Easter eggs were already observable in 1990. As proof, in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the scientist, Kio Marv, hides the formula to Oilix (a revolutionary compound that the entire world wants to get a hold of) in a game cartridge for a Konami MSX! To take credit for his own