Metal Gear Solid 2 Interview

IGNinsider: What percentage of [Metal Gear Solid 2] is done?

Hideo Kojima: I can't really give you a percentage, but we have all the building blocks made and now we need to put them together.

IGNinsider: Why submerge the game this way -- taking it out of the public eye?

Hideo Kojima: Last year at E3 we showed the trailer to give you an idea of where we were headed and then the question was what will it feel like when it is playable. Then we released the demo and the next question was what happens after Oga? We are giving you bits and pieces but we don't really want to give away everything and spoil the game. That is why we put together the trailer giving you bits and pieces, teasers, something to talk about until we release the game.

IGNinsider: I've counted about five different plot twists in the trailer, can you tell us how much of the story you have shown us?

Hideo Kojima: Maybe 10 to 20 percent.

IGNinsider: One new effect we've seen in the trailer is rushing water and snake jumping into the water, can you tell us how that will be used in the game?

Hideo Kojima: The game takes place on a ship that is sinking so obviously the water plays a big part.

	Above: Hideo Kojima in Konami's Yebisu Garden Tower office.

IGNinsider: Now that you're going into the final stretch of making the game, what do you think of your development experience so far? Are you still happy with your choice of PlayStation 2 for a development platform?

Hideo Kojima: It isn't the hardware's problem it is our problem, we will never find hardware that can live up to our expectations.

IGNinsider: On a story note, there seems to be several different competing forces, there is Snake and there are the U.S. Marines, there are the terrorists, and then there are characters like Fortune whose alignment we don't know; is there really a clear hero or villain in this game?

Hideo Kojima: The first game is quite simple you have bad guys and the government hires Snake to take care of them. In this game as you said you have Snake and the Marines and all these different groups and they each have their own needs and wants. Really you can't tell who's good and bad. Their motives, their actions are all intertwined in a complex fashion.

IGNinsider: Are you able to think about life after Metal Gear Solid 2? Are there games you would like to make or are you just focused on this one?

Hideo Kojima: I am very focused on Metal Gear at the time.

IGNinsider: In the trailer there are voiceovers during the beginning, can you tell us which character that is?

Hideo Kojima: It's a secret.

IGNinsider: What was your inspiration to do this game?

Hideo Kojima: In any game you have an enemy coming at yourself that you have to shoot, if you go back to Space Invaders they shoot at you when they come at you, so how are you going to protect yourself? You're going to shoot and that is a typical videogame. In my game I didn't want to do that, I wanted to make a game where you could avoid the enemy. That is when Konami told me to come up with a war game so I decided to take these two elements and make Metal Gear.

	Snake isn't all offense like the poor tank in Space Invaders.

IGNinsider: Metal Gear Solid 2 is to be the last game to have Solid Snake?

Hideo Kojima: We don't know.

IGNinsider: Is the graphics engine that we see in the demo and the trailer the final engine?

Hideo Kojima: Yes, it will pretty much be the same. If the demo had been poorly received then we would have had to redo everything and if people didn't like it Winter 2001 would be Winter 2002.

IGNinsider: Will you include the VR missions in the beginning?

Hideo Kojima: No, no VR.

IGNinsider: Are any of the features in the new game direct responses to features gamers wanted in the first game?

Hideo Kojima: There are a whole bunch. For example in the first person view mode of this game you tilt the analog controller up and you look up or you can switch it to be more like a flight simulator.

IGNinsider: One of my favorite parts of the new trailer is the new weapon that throws lightning. Where did you get the inspiration for that?

Hideo Kojima: The railgun. Fortune is a very lucky woman, bullets can not hit her and this is why she is on the battle field. She has no military training so we wanted to give her a good weapon.

IGNinsider: Will Snake ever get to use this gun?

Hideo Kojima: No, it would destroy the game.

IGNinsider: What are some of your favorite books and movies?

	Could Kobo Abe's novel, The Box Man, have served as an inspiration for Snake's stealth techniques?

Hideo Kojima: There are so many books and movies I like I never mention specific ones. There is a Japanese author named Kobo Abe.

IGNinsider: I always want to know about hiding in the box? Why do you hide in the box.

Hideo Kojima: The game is filled with tension with all the fighting and someone cannot keep this tension up with out breaks, that is why there are little funny things like the box or the girlie posters on the wall throughout the game.

IGNinsider: You mentioned that this game is the opposite of Metal Gear Solid which is about genetic destiny and Metal Gear Solid 2 is about how the environment and our upbringing effect our being. Is that tied to the three Snakes that are genetically identical but are different?

Hideo Kojima: The theme of the previous game and the theme of this game work together, they make up this one big theme that I'm trying to give to everyone and the three Snakes are like actors trying to present that theme.

IGNinsider: Who is your military advisor for the game and how did you get in touch with him?

Hideo Kojima: Mr. Moto Satamori. I knew of him and I wanted to get in touch with him so I asked around and got his phone number.

	An actual military advisor helped Kojima make MGS2 as authentic as possible.

IGNinsider: We sort of asked this question already but do you have any ideas of games in the future or do you get your game inspirations game to game?

Hideo Kojima: I always have a bunch of ideas lined up, there position in line is based on whether we can really create that game with the current staff's abilities and experience. And there are games we would love to do but we just don't have the experience or there is a game that would be cool ten years from now but it doesn't fit the current market.

IGNinsider: Are you talking strictly about the MGS series?

Hideo Kojima: No, all kinds of games.

IGNinsider: Question about the music composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Why did you choose to go with a composer from Hollywood and not from the game industry?

Hideo Kojima: One simple answer is we just wanted top quality music and actually we have had Hollywood people work on sound effects in previous games as well as the score. The sound director and myself go out and see a lot of movies and we wanted that kind of music. The company Media Ventures which is run by Hans Zimmer, the guy who does all the game music, and Mr. Williams works there and we thought that he had the stuff we wanted.

IGNinsider: What is the process for the score?

Hideo Kojima: Normally when people compose for film, you give them the film and they look at it and they compose it. What we did is basically explain each situation, for example, is Snake escaping... and we had him compose music and send us the score in data form with each part separate so we can change the pitch and the tempo.

IGNinsider: Is there going to be any support for 5.1 surround sound?

Hideo Kojima: Not the entire game but some portions will be. Many Japanese players play on their tiny monitor in their room and the environment isn't really there yet. We would love to do the whole game with 5.1 but...

IGNinsider: There is the character in the middle of the trailer who kills the four commandos in the hallway...

Hideo Kojima: Oh, we can't talk about that.

IGNinsider: How much of your personality is in Snake?

Hideo Kojima: When he flirts with the girls and stuff like that it comes from me. Ha ha.

IGNinsider: Metal Sear Solid 2 in particular seems to have a very American flavor to it being about an American main cast and discussing some American ideals such as the snake being the symbol of independence. What is it like for you, being Japanese, to be making a game about people and concepts that are viewed as American?

Hideo Kojima: It is not a struggle, I am actually enjoying it. The thing is I am Japanese, I was born in Japan and raised in Japan, but those are the only things that make me Japanese, I've grown up reading books from all over, so the game come from a person raised in much more international environment.

Interview by David Smith and David Zdyrko

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