Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS 4), a stealth-action video game developed for the PlayStation 3 game console, was released worldwide on June 12. Hideo Kojima, who has been developing the MGS series since 1998, said he wants to offer a substantial, elaborate game you can enjoy with the occasional laugh.

Wearing a black jacket and trousers and black-and-white glasses, Kojima, an operating officer at Konami Digital Entertainment Co., looks younger than his 44 years. In contrast to his cool appearance, however, Kojima is friendly and service-minded. He readily agreed to pose for photos with a life-size figure of Solid Snake, the protagonist he designed for MGS 4.

Kojima believes service-mindedness is a prerequisite for designing a game.

"Games are about the sense of hospitality, and a game designer can be compared to sushi chef. The designer makes a game according to the taste of his customers," Kojima said.

Kojima, who lived in Osaka and Hyogo prefectures for 30 years from the age of 3, cannot forget the spirit of entertainment or comedy for which his home region, Kansai, is known.

MGS 4, too, is filled with giggle-inducing aspects. "I'm often asked not to include such elements in a hard-boiled game. But I can't help it," Kojima said with a laugh. "My ideal game is something that makes you want to come back to the world later. It is not enough only to make you enjoy the sense of tension. I want game users to laugh or cry a little," Kojima said, this time seriously.

007-style scenario

MGS 4 starts with a scene in a war-torn Middle Eastern city. The images are elaborate enough to give players the illusion that they can feel the roughness of windblown sand and smell gun smoke. "Even a first-time MGS player can enjoy it. I want players to realize game expression has advanced to this level," Kojima said.

Those who have enjoyed previous MGS games will relish the opportunity in MGS 4 to reacquaint themselves with characters they have seen in previous installments of the series and to learn the meaning of certain hints dropped in the earlier games.

"I'm sure the latest version will please everyone. You will cry for joy," Kojima said.

In MGS 4, protagonist Solid Snake pursues his old enemy Liquid Snake in a 007-like scenario. He does so in ice deserts and jungles, recalling the backgrounds to MGS and MGS 3, respectively. High mountain areas and high-rise cities form additional settings. A secret organization called the Patriots is unmasked and the future of Raiden, the protagonist of MGS 2, and his girlfriend, Rosemary, are also depicted.

Since a one-layer Blu-ray Disc with a 25-gigabyte capacity was not enough for the realization of the elaborate game, two-layer technology with 50GB capacity is used.

Kojima debuted with the Metal Gear stealth game in 1987, the precursor to Metal Gear Solid, made with the motto "no place to hide." It was one year after he joined Konami Digital Entertainment.

"With game-player functions available at that time, you could not do anything more than show two characters and two bullets on the screen. It was just impossible to fire simultaneously at many enemies," Kojima said.

So he thought of something completely different, taking some inspiration from the 1963 film The Great Escape.

In Metal Gear and the MGS series, which began in 1998, the protagonist crosses a hallway when the enemy's back is turned, or huddles in a cardboard box or steel drum. He hides in lockers or creeps through ventilation ducts in ceilings, in keeping with the theme of not "confronting" an enemy but "hiding."

The sense of "hide-and-seek" excitement is further enhanced each time a new version of the MGS series is released. So far, more than 22 million copies of MGS series games have been sold.

"It is never a war game," Kojima stressed. That is why game players achieve the highest-level title if they are able to complete the game without killing anybody, although that requires substantial skill.

Kojima also is known for having designed the Snatcher and Policenauts games.

Film vs game

Kojima, who in 2001 was named by Newsweek magazine as one of the 10 most influential shapers of the future, often says, "Seventy percent of my body is made of film." Kojima said he enjoyed Sylvester Stallone's recent Rambo film and cited The Mist as director Frank Darabont's best work.

Kojima said he played outside in the daytime as a child, but enjoyed films on TV at night. He began shooting zombie or detective stories on 8-millimeter film with his friends while in middle school.

"I learned every important thing about life from film. I seriously dreamed of becoming a film director," he said.

Kojima came to dream of doing something different when he began playing video games while at university. But thanks to the success of the MGS series, Kojima now has acquaintances in the film industry.

Park Chan Wook, the South Korean film director best known for Old Boy, and Ryuhei Kitamura, who directed Azumi, are two such friends. Shinya Tsukamoto, the director of Tetsuo, voices one of the characters in MGS 4.

Kojima, however, does not necessarily like to have his game called "cinematic."

"Games and films are two totally different things. I use cinematic means of expression for my game, but I have been creating stories, worlds and the sense of tension that can only be possible in a game," he said.

Asked to mention memorable or influential games for him, Kojima cited five: the ultrapopular Super Mario Bros series and Port Pia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, both first released in 1985, Xevious, first marketed in 1984, Outer World, released in 1992, and MGS, in 1998.

"With MGS 4, I wanted to present not something you enjoy only casually but something you take your time to play and enjoy," Kojima said. "Games are a composite art that evolves absorbing new technologies." He added that he hoped to "create a big wave" in the game world.

Kojima is no doubt as passionate as Solid Snake, who tackles his impossible mission with courage. In any case, you will inevitably suffer from a lack of sleep once you start the game.