Kojima: MGS4 Not Revolutionary, Doesn't Match "Original Vision"

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

As most MGS fans know, Hideo Kojima is a world-renowned perfectionist. He's also immensely ambitious, and we're saying this so you can place the following quotes into the correct perspective. Nothing you read here indicates that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will be a mediocre title; it simply proves that Kojima always wants more...and more, and more. And motivation certainly isn't a bad thing.

If you can lay your hands on the latest edition of UK's Edge magazine, you'll find an in-depth interview with the MGS creator, and he spends a great deal of time expressing his disappointment with how MGS4 turned out. Essentially, he wanted to produce something revolutionary, but it seems the team has fallen shy of that, especially in the realm of graphics.

"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."

At first, Kojima called the PS3 a "dream machine" and the staff was immensely excited; the possibilities appeared endless. But he says they encountered "a lot of restrictions" when they started developing the game and while they wanted to take "ten steps," the final product is more like "one step." Basically, he's saying they didn't make the progress he had anticipated, but he also wanted to clarify that his complaints aren't a direct knock on the PS3's hardware.

"I remember saying three years ago that we wanted to create something revolutionary, but in reality we couldn't really do that because of the CPU. We're using the Cell engine to its limit., actually. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the PS3 machine, it's just that we weren't really aware of what the full-spec PS3 offered - we were creating something we couldn't entirely see."

No matter what this guy ends up doing after MGS, you can be sure it's going to be excellent. Why? Because he sets the bar so damn high, that's why. We're confident that MGS4 will be fantastic, and easily one of the best games of the generation...can you imagine if we had gotten Kojima's "original vision?" Isn't that too perfect? Would mortals even be able to survive an encounter with such an amazing piece of software?

Related Game(s): Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

4/18/2008 Ben Dutka

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