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Kojima's Policenauts Re-Released In Japan
Thanks to the TNL forum regulars for finding a French-language story showing that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima's cult interactive fiction title, Policenauts, will be re-released for Playstation in Japan at a budget price this August. There's an excellent English-language Policenauts fan site which gives a little more information on this Japanese-heavy 'Lethal Weapon set in the future' title, which has Meryl Silverburgh of Metal Gear Solid fame as one of the main game characters. There's more info at a very comprehensive Kojima 'game gallery' over at JunkerHQ, but this follow-up to Snatcher is still missing an English translation, sadly.
   ÂMaking a game today requires many skills, and in a sense the 38-year-old Kojima has been preparing for MGS2 his entire life. As a child growing up in Kobe, Japan, he played outdoor games like thief-and-detective (the Japanese equivalent of hide-and-seek) with his friends, flattening himself against walls and peeking around corners in much the same way as Solid Snake, the hero of MGS2, does today. In middle school he wrote five 600-page science-fiction novels, then took up filmmaking when a friend brought a Super 8 camera to schoolâ"charging neighborhood kids 50 yen each to see his movies. âoeI thought I would be like Sylvester Stallone with âRockyâ(TM),â says Kojima. âoeI would write something great and make it into a movie myself.â By the time he reached college, however, Nintendo had released its first videogame console. Not many people would see parallels between the plucky plumbers in Super Mario Bros. and the doomed truck drivers in the existential French thriller âoeThe Wages of Fear,â but Kojima did, and marrying film techniques to videogames became his signature.    ÂSome have touted videogames as the medium of the future. But at roughly 30 years of age, itâ(TM)s a medium still in its infancy, still searching for its âoeCitizen Kane.â There arenâ(TM)t many games that make you consider the duality of heroism and terrorism, raise the issue of youth combatants and, in a nod to âoeThe Matrix,â suggest that the hero himself may be trapped within a virtual-reality game. Kojima attempts to do all this and then some, and succeeds more often than he fails. âoeA game takes away 20 hours of your life or more,â says Kojima, whoâ(TM)s turning his attention to online games. âoeI like to add something to a game that is more than just a tool to kill time with.â Mission accomplished.
Snatcher did have an English release, on the MegaCD and it was just as good as the Playstation version! I realise that it is unlikely that people will have a megaCD hanging around any more, but if you pop along to the gens(gens.consolemul.com) homepage you'll find a megaCD emulator that is more than capable of playing it. Then just go p2p for the image! (I just looked and it's not hard to find). While you are on the megaCD, consider also grabbing SonicCD, in my opinion the best of the sonic games (just make sure you get either the european or japanese version, as the american version had the music replaced with horrible rap remakes of all the songs) Chris
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Yet another game that won't be released in the US.
Again.