In an odd showing of brutal honesty within the gaming industry, Kojima recently told UK's Edge magazine that he is not 100 percent pleased with the way Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots came out, pointing at some of the PS3's capabilities as part of the problem. From the interview:
"Game-wise, it's pretty close to the original vision: you sneak into the battlefield and can choose whether to do a stealth game or interfere with the battle more directly. But the graphic, side things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision -- to my satisfaction."
You can take this one of two ways: that Kojima is a perfectionist (and as most geniuses tend to be, extremely harsh about his or her own work), or you can go running down the street wailing at the top of your lungs that Kojima hates the PS3, banging pots together for dramatic effect and essentially blowing all this out of proportion. It's your call, although I guarantee you that the latter will keep you out of the better discussions that may be had about the topic.
A bit more from the interview:
"When we first showed the game engine at TGS, the staff were really proud and happy. PS3 was a dream machine, y'know, and we were going to work on this and that -- and we had so many ideas. But when we actually started developing the game, we realized there were a lot of restrictions and so it turned out how you see it today. The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn't to say we didn't progress."
I have to say this piques my interest, if only because the Metal Gear Solid series has held such high standards of quality and produced such memorable gaming experiences. I do appreciate Kojima's incredible integrity in voicing these concerns, as I can imagine the PR department behind MGS 4 are weeping into their keyboards right about now. Most gamers will likely still adore the game and may never have been privy to this were it not for Kojima's candid words. Of course, the Japanese are known for having ridiculously high standards, so it's hard to know how to measure comments like this anyway. 20-hour work days, anyone?
[Scan and source via Kotaku -- Thanks, Justin]
Contest:
5:17 PM on 04.18.2008
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But then the violent, angry part of me shows up and tells those other parts to shut up and go get it a beer.
Me: Oh, now I have to get this!
Kojima: Don't you see it's just not art?
Me: Stop holding out and tell me where to get it!
I've only played one of the games, wouldn't call myself a fan, and I don't even own a PS3, but it was really interesting to see someone come right out and say it like that.
Sounds like the early capabilities of the machine were blown out of proportion and everybody's having to scale down to the reality of it. Of course, you can chalk all that up to the fact that its a 2 year old system that nobody really knows how to optimize for yet.
I'm sure visions are always grand, but there is the limitations of reality.
Its cool that Kojima is honest enough to say that limitations stopped him from showing his full vision. Which may mean, he literally hit the limit on the hardware and disk space.
From those words it seems that he is unsatisfied with the graphics not the mechanics or the story.
"Upon completion of his work, Kojima played Earthbound and realized that MGS4 required more cheeseburgers found in trash cans... which you could then hide in."
But uh... yeah. Sony lied about their system specs eh? Ya don't say... *eyeroll*
So, does this mean this won't be Kojima's last MGS game? *crosses fingers*
He's never liked any MGS game to date has he?
He said, so far, that they could have ALL been "better"?
Is this the end of my question?
Anyway, I have a huge deal of respect for Kojima, so (as an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist myself) I have a lot of respect for him and how he is never satisfied and always tries to perfect his art.
Shane Bettenhausen foamed at the mouth when he gave his spoiler-free preview of it on 1up Yours a few weeks ago, though. He said it had "the single greatest cutscene I have ever seen in a video game."
That sounds like tech limitations to me Qraze.
I (vaguely) recall reading an interview with a filmmaker or film editor in which the interviewee said something along the lines of "In the end, you're lucky if even 10% of your original vision makes it into the movie"--which is very interesting because that's the same percentage Kojima gives in his interview.
"The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn't to say we didn't progress."
as you can see the man has some high expectations, but i'm sure the game is still going to be awesome even if snake will not be able to tend to a bonzai garden. ;p
"But the graphic, side things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision -- to my satisfaction."
From this it would seem that they were having trouble more specifically with the PS3 GPU and perhaps the dynamic loading and/or HD caching? Because the BR drive is known to be pretty slow and this could affect map size of the map or whatever was unable to load at the pace of the gameplay.
You've heard it here first.
*sends an e-hug to Kojima* Cheer up sunshine.
He's either losing his touch, or he's trying to sound cool.
But he is Japanese, so if anything is less than total perfection he acts like it's total shit.
I think in america at least the impression i get is the man can do no wrong so long as he sincerely works on a project.
still this game is the only reason i'm actually considering buying a ps3
"most geniuses tend to be, extremely harsh"
"genius"
WAT
Obsessive game designer has obsessive, and unrealistic expectations of what he wants, versus what he could accomplish.
Nothing more.
...I suddenly imagine Kojima looking in the toilet and shaking his head. "...This is unacceptable. I could've done better."
That said, you still get more for your buck when you buy a PS3, hardware wise...
I know I'm kind of out of topic, but I always meet whining dickheads, online and off. Even the "Geeks" and "Nerds" overlook the fact of hardware and software for both systems and say stupid things. I couldn't hate mindless fanboys anymore than I do rightnow. Fuck you guys!!!! (yet i love you)
All system go, fucking damnit!