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[Brakke]

OP, DARPA isn't some big obscure secret.

 

[sibarraz]

In the credits you can always see a military advisor

 

[Opa-Pa]

OP I've always admired the attention to detail in his game, but somehow never thought of /those/ details, that's pretty great, I think I'll appreciate them more in future playthroughs.

well obviously no one think Kojima is alone doing research. but the idea to hire military advisor is probably from Kojima. so you can at least give some credit to Kojima. hiring military advisor is the research.

Yeah this is pretty obvious, I don't get it. Clearly not all the knowledge put into these games comes from him alone, but he was most likely the one who requested an advisor and went to great lengths to include as much accurate details as possible based on the research. This is the same guy who used to design the maps himself with lego blocks and spent months researching how to accurately despict how the ice cubes inside a bucket in MGS2 would melt depending on how they were dropped even though barely anyone would notice them.

As a director he selects his team and what they do, no? Did he have the same team for Policenauts?

I believe so, but he was probably the sole writer considering the whole point he chose to make those text adventures was to be able to control every aspect of the games and their stories without anyone else altering them.

 

[gunslikewhoa]

OP, DARPA isn't some big obscure secret.

I also doubt that I know any adults who don't have a pretty good idea what a colonel is.

 

[Messofanego]

A lot of the military research and advice probably comes from Motosada Mori the military advisor for the Metal Gear Solid series. Kojima is not the one that does the research by himself. I love Kojima but people néed to stop treating him like he is a one man show. Without his excellent team behind him Kojima would not be as big as he is now.

Uh, what?

Hideo Kojima-sama is GOD! The rest are just peons putting his ideas to work. Talented and hard-working peons, but peons nonetheless. How dare you underestimate the one and only Kojima-sama's power! Japanese developers aren't like Westerners who share their ideas in some hippy jam and focus test them to oblivion into some predictable safe moist cookie cutter artless product like the filthy gaijins they are! When a Japanese developer wants something made, the rest aren't allowed to question it, they have to follow through no matter how crazy the ideas. That's why Japanese games are so idiosyncratic! You should be ashamed of your words and deeds!

 

[KJRS_1993]

The OP does not support the title of this thread.

Dude lists the name of a government department, decides upon a ranking of a military officer that a Western developer may or may not have or possibly got wrong at one time (with no examples given) and then suddenly "omg kojoma u so smart professional in sea of amateurs xoxoxoxo".

Metal Gear fans are almost, almost up there with Nintendo fans.

 

[Flipyap]

He's basically a prophet.

 

[Ratrat]

Uh, what?

Hideo Kojima-sama is GOD! The rest are just peons putting his ideas to work. Talented and hard-working peons, but peons nonetheless. How dare you underestimate the one and only Kojima-sama's power! Japanese developers aren't like Westerners who share their ideas in some hippy jam and focus test them to oblivion into some predictable safe moist cookie cutter artless product like the filthy gaijins they are! When a Japanese developer wants something made, the rest aren't allowed to question it, they have to follow through no matter how crazy the ideas. That's why Japanese games are so idiosyncratic! You should be ashamed of your words and deeds!

Well, this is just stupid. Not even funny or approaching the truth.

 

[CadetMahoney]

The OP does not support the title of this thread.

Dude lists the name of a government department, decides upon a ranking of a military officer that a Western developer may or may not have or possibly got wrong at one time (with no examples given) and then suddenly "omg kojoma u so smart professional in sea of amateurs xoxoxoxo".

Metal Gear fans are almost, almost up there with Nintendo fans.

yea his bullet points didn't really impress me tbh.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...I'll give an obvious example of Kojima butchering elementary research: the idea of recessive genes and what that means in Metal Gear Solid...

Wasn't that Blaustein? Haven't looked into it myself, but I've seen this mentioned:

I'm reading an interview with MGS1 localizer Jeremy Blaustein and he said that Kojima was upset with the changes that he made to the script in the English version and that's why he hasn't worked on any of the subsequent games in the series:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jb/jb.htm

MGS2 localizer Agness Kaku has talked about how constrained she was in translating MGS2...

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/metalgear/agnesskaku2.htm

Anyone have any idea what some of the changes were in MGS1 that Blaustein made that upset Kojima so much?

The dominant and recessive genes nonsense didn't exist [in the original script].

Also:

...But, there is so much more! Though the one thing that I always enjoyed in most of the MG stories is how Kojima treats the politics within his world...

People keep bringing up military advisers but do you not realize that most other games hire them as well but still have shit...? The Call of Duty games tended to have prominent military advisers but that didn't stop them from having... Or...

Right. The politics within Kojima's games are not readily attributable to his military advisor. Steven Poole wrote a neat piece on the subject, ICYMI:

https://thepointmag.com/2015/criticism/metal-gear-solid-v

...Yet while Kojima's games are berserk in many ways, they are not the standard kind of first-person shooter in which thousands of indistinguishable enemy grunts (always Middle Eastern or Russian) die at the point of the player's phallic rifle... In their dynamic procedure as well as their scripted rhetoric, Kojima's games are stealthily anti-war war games. In contrast to the fairground bullet-shower of the billion-grossing Call of Duty series (the equivalent in war-themed video games of Michael Bay movies)... The player may thus feel dirty and guilty for doing what is mere routine in other games. As well as in other art forms: MGSV's emphasis on fanatical caution and planning, as well as the humane neutralizing of enemies, works too as an implicit rebuke to gung-ho war movies—in particular, in this case, the Afghanistan-set Rambo III (1988), whose hero deals very differently with the Soviet occupation...

MGSV: Ground Zeroes (2013) saw the hero tasked with rescuing prisoners from a CIA ”black site" prison in Cuba... visually the camp was obviously Guantánamo: the prisoners were dressed in orange jumpsuits, some with hoods over their heads and the victims of torture... at one moment, the games will clownishly revel in the clichés of the form; the next moment they will deconstruct those very clichés and force the player to confront real suffering... What Metal Gear Solid is satirizing in particular—almost uniquely for high-budget blockbuster products in this medium, or for that matter in cinema and TV—is so omnipresent in most modern fiction that it almost escapes notice. It is what I have called national-security ideology. Its key tenets are familiar: the enemy is fanatical and unreasonable, while Western government operatives are empathetic heroes; killing civilians with drones is just regrettable ”collateral damage" in a righteous mission against the irrational fanatics (as in season three of the TV series Homeland); and torture always works to elicit time-critical information, as in Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Homeland, and of course 24...

In the newest game the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is explained to the player in ways that make the parallels with the later American adventure there inescapable. Briefings on (virtual) audiocassette explain that the army of the USSR has invaded in order to counteract ”the spread of Islamic revivalism," and that ”Afghanistan has become the Soviet Union's Vietnam." Knowing nods to the present day are littered subtly everywhere: in the TV-style opening cast list for the game's ”episodes," there is a credit for ”Enemy Combatants": a phrase familiar from the Bush-Cheney government's rhetorical creativity in attempting to avoid acknowledging any ”prisoners of war" to whom duties of care would be owed under the Geneva Conventions. Here, the ”Enemy Combatants" are the Soviet soldiers, but the casting note works to plant a seed of ambivalence in the player's attitude towards them...

In the past, the series has had as its satirical targets global conspiracy theories, terrorism scares, and modern military Keynesianism, according to which increased defense spending promotes economic growth—Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008) was all about ”private military contractors" and the ”war economy," and had the player buy upgraded weapons from a cynically wisecracking arms dealer named Drebin. The hero of all the games, Snake, is always caught up in the madness of a war-obsessed world. Reluctantly, he must make more war to try to stop it... the film Zero Dark Thirty, for example, was predicated on the idea—promoted by insider ”consultants" to the movie—that U.S. torture of prisoners resulted in actionable intelligence. (A canard that has been repeatedly refuted.) Some media critics considered this objectionable, yet the conversation was conducted respectfully. An art-film blockbuster can get things wrong, but it is still considered a serious contribution to such debates. A video game is not... Hideo Kojima's games notoriously combine sharp reflections on contemporary political themes (The Phantom Pain concerns itself at length with issues of nuclear proliferation) with overscripted, didactic longueurs... Yet as a cultural figure Kojima may be... someone who first introduces a player or reader to the iniquities perpetrated in modern history by the ”good" guys. In a still-young medium whose most successful products are deeply conservative, he insists that video games can and should convey critical arguments about international relations and jus in bello...

Kojima's research into speculative domains is also nice. Pretty neat, for example, that the first Death Stranding trailer was enough to inspire this, from Ragnar Rox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQvFPll-oQ&t=855s

 

[Harmondale]

Campbell is pretty much based on Trautman from Rambo which is why he probably is a Colonel in MG.

Hehe yeah I Always pictured csmpbell as mr trautman. Man do I love Rambo 1

 

[KHlover]

Maybe he reads Tom Clancy

 

[Panajev2001a]

Some people are very, very passionate about their art and take it super-seriously. Kojima is one of those people.

Sometimes you see in any of ours lines of work. Some people love what they do or at least like to do their job well... others cannot wait to go to the pub ever since they step in at 9.

 

[DangerMouse]

This is something I've always admired about Kojima's works and never had the words to say it. Despite the stories in his games, the backdrops in them are well-researched and he knows where to start intertwining fiction into real history.

Same here, he's fantastic at it.

 

[SlipperyFishes]

He's passionate and takes his job seriously. He's a fucking professional in a sea of wannabes.

Drunk post on NYE?

Real talk tho. Kojima is telling a narrative but unlike shows like 24, Game of Thrones etc. he's not constrained by time except for the players. He doesn't need to squeeze his cutscenes and events into a 42 minute window surrounded by ads.

 

[Dick Justice]

Uh, what?

Hideo Kojima-sama is GOD! The rest are just peons putting his ideas to work. Talented and hard-working peons, but peons nonetheless. How dare you underestimate the one and only Kojima-sama's power! Japanese developers aren't like Westerners who share their ideas in some hippy jam and focus test them to oblivion into some predictable safe moist cookie cutter artless product like the filthy gaijins they are! When a Japanese developer wants something made, the rest aren't allowed to question it, they have to follow through no matter how crazy the ideas. That's why Japanese games are so idiosyncratic! You should be ashamed of your words and deeds!

The OP does not support the title of this thread.

Dude lists the name of a government department, decides upon a ranking of a military officer that a Western developer may or may not have or possibly got wrong at one time (with no examples given) and then suddenly "omg kojoma u so smart professional in sea of amateurs xoxoxoxo".

Metal Gear fans are almost, almost up there with Nintendo fans.

I like how some people get weirdly offended at the very idea of this thread.

 

[BossDarkseid]

The examples aren't great but he watches a lot of movies and reads a lot of books. He's interested in the thematic material of his games and does a lot of research, he's a nerd about it.

Edit: The military advisor guy working with KojiPro was less about any plot stuff and more about how a guard would actually operate in a certain environment. For instance I'm sure a lot of metal Gear fans might be aware that Kojima had/has a history of using lego models to map out levels and smaller areas for Metal Gear so the dev team can plan things out etc this way before actually modelling it...but I've read that he also showed it to the military advisor and it was basically a case of "Ok so if this is the area and take the red blocks as walls" and so on, he could say "Well I would clear the place out like so..." and it helps.

The Lego stuff was semi-notorious for making MGS2 take as long to develop as it did, IIRC. Nowadays its not even that long (1998 to 2001?), but Kojima started writing the script and doing research for MGS2 before MGS was released.

 

[Ratrat]

Wasn't that Blaustein? Haven't looked into it myself, but I've seen this mentioned:




Also:



Right. Not sure the politics within Kojima's games are attributable to his military advisor. Steven Poole wrote a neat piece, ICYMI:


Kojima's research into speculative domains is also nice. Pretty neat, for example, that the first Death Stranding trailer was enough to inspire this, from Ragnar Rox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQvFPll-oQ&t=855s

Its been a reaaally long time since I played MGS1. If someone can tell me where exactly the line about recessive genes is, I can check the original Japanese script.

 

[BossDarkseid]

Its been a reaaally long time since I played MGS1. If someone can tell me where exactly the line about recessive genes is, I can check the original Japanese script.

Apparently its in the ending, epilogue conversation. I think It's been a long time for me, too.

 

[noctis_pls]

Because 70% of his body is made of movies... according to his twitter bio at least..

 

[Mexen]

Murata-san

 

[Hermii]

He may do awesome research, but I don't think any of the examples in the ot are particularly impressive.

 

[Jackpot]

I've always been a big fan of Hideo Kojima's work and the stories he tells in his games but one thing I'm consistently amazed by is the level of accurate detail he maintains in his stories. Yes, Metal Gear is clearly fictional with some insane crazy shit going on up to and including ghosts. But, everything else within the background of this world is very much grounded and real. However, the level of detail he places in the grounded elements of his story boggles my mind as someone who is a history buff and also has deep knowledge of military/governmental matters. This is especially impressive since Kojima is a Japanese developer who was born and continues to live in Japan and yet his knowledge of U.S. governmental workings surpasses a majority of Western games.

Examples:

- In MGS1 we learn that DARPA helped fund and develop Metal Gear alongside the fictional defense contractor ArmsTech. Of course, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a real organization. And, would be the exact governmental agency which would likely be responsible for developing Metal Gear if it were real. They are the ones actually developing rail guns right now.

- Colonel Campbell is a Colonel. This is a small matter but most games, even Western ones, don't know hack shit about military rank. As a result, in any other regular game Col. Campbell would likely be made a General because people vaguely understand that Generals are in the military and generally regarded as important. But, within the fiction of the MG story a General would not be the one placed in charge of such a mission in MGS1, it would more realistically fall under a Colonel's command.

- Armstech President talks about the Pentagon's "black budget" in MGS1. Again, a really minor detail that only policy nerds understand actually exists. The Defense Department does indeed have a "black budget" funded by Congress. It allows them to fund projects without publicly disclosing them. This is EXACTLY how you would get something like Metal Gear funded.

But, there is so much more! Though the one thing that I always enjoyed in most of the MG stories is how Kojima treats the politics within his world. While MG deals with governmental conspiracies and whatnot most fictional stories, including western ones, typically have the government as some monolithic entity carrying out one nefarious will. However, the MG universe is much more realistic and complex. The CIA has plans that go against the wishes of the Defense Department, the KGB is at odds with the GRU which is also at odds with the Politburo, the Navy is competing against the Army, etc.

Again, all of this detail is amazing coming from a foreign developer. Metal Gear despite some obvious Japanese tropes at times feels more Western than any Western developed game out there. How does this man do it? And, why don't other developers take their research as seriously as Kojima?

Not really... any Tom Clancy book would tell you the above. Add in reading newspapers and watching movies and even I knew all of the above.

And he's dropped some real clangers, like his interpretation of the Allies' relationship during WW2.

 

[Shadow Ranger]

You have advisor, teams and external consultants to help advise on these things. Sure, his attention to detail is there but it's not unheard of to bring an agency, or heck a history teacher/scholar to help out. Basically specialists to help piece his overall vision together.

 

[klier]

Examples:

- In MGS1 we learn that DARPA helped fund and develop Metal Gear alongside the fictional defense contractor ArmsTech. Of course, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a real organization. And, would be the exact governmental agency which would likely be responsible for developing Metal Gear if it were real. They are the ones actually developing rail guns right now.

- Colonel Campbell is a Colonel. This is a small matter but most games, even Western ones, don't know hack shit about military rank. As a result, in any other regular game Col. Campbell would likely be made a General because people vaguely understand that Generals are in the military and generally regarded as important. But, within the fiction of the MG story a General would not be the one placed in charge of such a mission in MGS1, it would more realistically fall under a Colonel's command.

- Armstech President talks about the Pentagon's "black budget" in MGS1. Again, a really minor detail that only policy nerds understand actually exists. The Defense Department does indeed have a "black budget" funded by Congress. It allows them to fund projects without publicly disclosing them. This is EXACTLY how you would get something like Metal Gear funded.

But, there is so much more! Though the one thing that I always enjoyed in most of the MG stories is how Kojima treats the politics within his world. While MG deals with governmental conspiracies and whatnot most fictional stories, including western ones, typically have the government as some monolithic entity carrying out one nefarious will. However, the MG universe is much more realistic and complex. The CIA has plans that go against the wishes of the Defense Department, the KGB is at odds with the GRU which is also at odds with the Politburo, the Navy is competing against the Army, etc.

Again, all of this detail is amazing coming from a foreign developer. Metal Gear despite some obvious Japanese tropes at times feels more Western than any Western developed game out there. How does this man do it? And, why don't other developers take their research as seriously as Kojima?

4 minute Google search.

Yeah, the guy is really special. GAF member are obliged to see him as a God.

 

[mcz117chief]

OP, DARPA isn't some big obscure secret.

Neither is black budget. Pretty much every company ever has one. Even our local church has one. That's really basic stuff.

 

[Saladinoo]

You're bang on point here actually, it has certainly always impressed me. He must surely be getting some help from Americas involved in the army.

 

[Gangster Bastard]

4 minute Google search.

Yeah, the guy is really special. GAF member are obliged to see him as a God.

^MGS1 came out before google.

Seriously though, he apparently reads a lot. That's what they said on the Kojima Productions podcast.

 

[Red Liquorice]

He probably just listens to Coast to Coast AM.

 

[Dali]

I'm sure a lot of that would have been communicated in the many movies he has watched, then supported by research.

This probably accounts for the bulk of it. The colonel is a rip off of the colonel from Rambo.

 

[Anteater]

He's into that shit and likely has professionals that he communicate with and worked for his studio

 

[zeioIIDX]

This is something I've always admired about Kojima's works and never had the words to say it. Despite the stories in his games, the backdrops in them are well-researched and he knows where to start intertwining fiction into real history.

Exactly this. I've always wondered how he managed to insert the level of detail and gain the knowledge he has as a Japanese developer and resident. I was even more impressed after playing the Metal Gear games again after I joined and left the military. Everything made so much more sense as well and I was able to appreciate the games on a different level than when I was just a civilian.

 

[Skux]

It's Kojima.

All that needs to be said. The guy, or his team, knows their military history inside out, which gives the MGS series a sense of plausibility despite all the crazy shit going on.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

Metal Gear fanboys are just... ugh.

 

[Hermii]

Neither is black budget. Pretty much every company ever has one. Even our local church has one. That's really basic stuff.

Your church is probably trying to cover up a pedofelia ring.

 

[Snefer]

Uhm, I wouldnt say that your examples are very good though. Many, if not most developers spend that much effort, 99% of the time people dont notice though

 

[BossDarkseid]

Metal Gear fanboys are just... ugh.

trying to have a discussion?

 

[boinx]

I like how some people get weirdly offended at the very idea of this thread.

tbh this happens with every Kojima thread where people talk about what they like about his games. and sure that can lead to further discussion but we got some of them same condescending and patronizing silly baby posts that we always get.

 

[Fried Food]

because he cares to make it on point, because it's important to him, because he has the freedom to go in on what he thinks is important?

 

[GenG3000]

There are weapons and military consultors for matters like these.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...I love Kojima but people néed to stop treating him like he is a one man show. Without his excellent team behind him Kojima would not be as big as he is now...

I definitely agree with this, which is why I made this post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=225883181&highlight=#post225883181

However:

Yeah, the guy is really special. GAF member are obliged to see him as a God.

Uh, what? Hideo Kojima-sama is GOD! The rest are just peons putting his ideas to work. Talented and hard-working peons, but peons nonetheless. How dare you underestimate the one and only Kojima-sama's power! Japanese developers aren't like Westerners who share their ideas in some hippy jam and focus test them to oblivion into some predictable safe moist cookie cutter artless product like the filthy gaijins they are! When a Japanese developer wants something made, the rest aren't allowed to question it, they have to follow through no matter how crazy the ideas. That's why Japanese games are so idiosyncratic! You should be ashamed of your words and deeds!

I like how some people get weirdly offended at the very idea of this thread.

tbh this happens with every Kojima thread where people talk about what they like about his games. and sure that can lead to further discussion but we got some of them same condescending and patronizing silly baby posts that we always get.

Speaking personally, I find that I don't encounter the 'Kojima is God' / 'Filthy Gaijins' perspective at all, really, and I encounter the relatively benign 'Kojima is simply the best!!! ' perspective somewhat rarely, compared to the widespread 'weirdly offended' perspective according to which Kojima is a talentless, pretentious otaku/hack that is vastly inferior to any number of vastly more sophisticated, vastly more cultured Western developers.

So in the interest of balance, I've on occasion mentioned the Steven Poole article on Kojima, for example here and here. Would certainly be interested in what folks in this thread think of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Poole
Poole studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has subsequently written for publications including The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and the New Statesman. He has published two books and currently writes a weekly nonfiction book-review column in the Saturday Guardian called Et Cetera, as well as regular longer book reviews, plus a monthly column in Edge magazine.... Trigger Happy was published in 2000 by 4th Estate in the UK (with the subtitle "The Inner Life of Videogames") and by Arcade Publishing in the US (with the subtitle "Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution"). It is an investigation of the aesthetics of videogames, that notes similarities and differences with other artforms such as cinema, painting and literature, and finally offers a description of games as semiotic systems that may provoke "aesthetic wonder". In 2007, Poole released a PDF version of the book for free download on his website, calling it an "experiment" in the tip-jar model for writers. In 2013 collection of Poole's Edge columns was published as "Trigger Happy 2.0"...

 

[dlauv]

He's a virgo.

 

[Jackpot]

trying to have a discussion?

More like exposing their ignorance whilst simultaneously performing an embarrassing suck-up job, and disparaging all the efforts of the hundreds of people who worked on the MGS games.

A Colonel is a good commanding rank in the army? The CIA and the Pentagon don't get on? DARPA is known for being the flying saucer agency?

Anyone who grew up in the last half of the 20th century and occasionally skimmed a newspaper knows that.

 

[SporeCrawler]

I thought the OP would talk about MGS2 and the transfer of digital information and filtering, fake news, etc.

He's extremely on point in MGS2's themes.

Yup I feel in regard to modern politics he is really on point with MGS2.

 

[Dick Justice]

4 minute Google search.

Yeah, the guy is really special. GAF member are obliged to see him as a God.

MGS1 came out the day before Google was founded. So Kojima really is God.

 

[Kain]

Mori is probably the one behind all the details. Didn't he actually invented and mocap cqc too?

 

[KOMANI]

Because of Fukushima. Fukushima not only co wrote the majority of the earlier games, and wrote the codec scripts, but he did a lot of research. Something he did for Freedom Wars as well.

 

[hemo memo]

You can see it in MGS3 cold war. I think Kojima (and his team) enjoy this stuff.

 

[hemo memo]

MGS1 came out the day before Google was founded. So Kojima really is God.

Yahoo was robbed.

Edit: Sorry dp

 

[Gnome Scat]

He gives a shit.