"Metal Gear Solid" designer Hideo Kojima is doing an autograph signing just about across from my office tonight (He's going to be this close!) and fans are already lined up outside to meet him.
Kojima and I were supposed to sit down for an interview this evening but I was told Monday he had to cancel for scheduling reasons. That's too bad, since there have been questions I've been wanting to ask him for a while -- some that I was immediately kicking myself for not asking during my last interview with him in the spring of 2006.
Here's hoping Mr. Kojima can sit with MTV News again in the future. For now, this is my half of the interview that I was hoping for:
QUESTIONS FOR HIDEO KOJIMA, June 11, 2008 - 5PM Eastern
1) How does it feel to be in New York City, where one of your games was set?
2) Most of the video games we play aren't explicitly about the world we live in. But the "Metal Gear Solid" games have sometimes been uncannily connected to the events of current day. For example, "Metal Gear Solid 2," featured terrorist incidents near and in New York City and was released in the fall of 2001. "Metal Gear Solid 4" is, at least initially, as far as I've seen, set in a war-torn Middle East that is relevant to the situation in the Middle East now. Issues such as the financial cost of war and the way it relates to the oil economy are central to the game and relevant to our world today. How much have you tried to make your games about the world we live in? How much is coincidence? And would you like to see more designers take this kind of approach?
3) Previous "MGS" games clearly named their locales, such as Russia in "MGS3" and Manhattan in "MGS2." "MGS4" appears to be set in Iraq, but no one calls it that in the game. Why not?
4) I meant to ask you this two years ago: how do you determine which parts of a "Metal Gear Solid" game are going to be playable and which are going to be cut-scenes?
5) You changed a lot of things about the "Metal Gear Solid" games over the years, including things like the camera angle that you clearly liked doing the original way. Yet one thing you and your team haven't budged on is the way the series presents cut-scenes. Some people love them. Others grumble that they're too long and make "Metal Gear Solid" games less interactive than they should be. You made changes to some many other things over the years. Why haven't you reacted to the critics of the cut-scenes?
6) What were some of your biggest influences for the "MGS4" game? Books? Movies? CNN? What about western games? It's been said that you've had your eye on them.
7) You've been talking about the game publicly for a couple of years. Some developers have recently been talking about how they'd like the preview cycle to be shorter for games. Did you ever wish you could save your discussion and presentation of "MGS4" until closer to its release?
8 ) I reported a couple of weeks ago that some reviewers were bristling at restrictions Konami had placed on "MGS4" reviews. That resulted in a lot of discussion about how games should be reviewed and what reviewers should talk about. How were you hoping people would handle reviewing "Metal Gear Solid 4"? What would you prefer they do or don't discuss in their reviews?
9) Previous "MGS" games were updated with new versions. For example, "Snake Eater" was followed by the tweaked and enhanced "Subsistence." What kind of opportunities to re-visit and re-work the content and design of "MGS4" do you see a year or so down the road? Or do you think you completely hit the mark with the initial release this time? What are the chances of an Xbox 360 version?
10) In 2006 you and I talked about the image of a sunset you saw and how the sensations that come from seeing that sunset are something you still want to deliver in game. Two years later, how much closer are you to that goal?
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That's the interview I hoped for. Hopefully we can do it next time he's in New York. MTV will be ready for you, Mr. Kojima.
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