IGN: With all of the change to the gameplay, why is the camera the same system as before? Why aren't players allowed to move around within a first-person or third-person perspective this time?
Kojima: As the game is wrapping up the trilogy, I didn't want to change that. Metal Gear Solid is about the top-view camera, the corner-view camera, and the first-person view camera. The fact that the player can switch through these three camera angles and these three angles give cinematic views and that is something that I did not want to change. Another reason is that if I brought the camera right behind the character I myself would feel 3D sick while I was testing the game. (laughs) In the next game, MGS4, you might see a change in the camera system.
IGN: Speaking of the camera, why does the camera go into a forced intrusion mode or first-person view while crawling through the grass?
Kojima: It's the intrusion mode that you've seen before when going through ducts or when you're in a cardboard box. We did it because we wanted the player to feel fear while they're hiding in grass. They're hiding in grass, but they can't see the enemy around them so I wanted them to feel scared when doing that.
IGN: So this was intentional limitation?
Kojima: If we did bring the camera up and you saw the enemy while crawling in the grass, there's no tension in hiding from the enemy.
IGN: I have a question for both of you. Who had the input in the creation of the different characters and bosses this time around?
Shinkawa: Mr. Kojima gave me all these key words, basically the emotions that soldiers feel in battle like The Fear, The Fury, and all those and I came up with some rough sketches. I also have an assistant, Miss Uchiyama. We came up with ideas together and presented them to Mr. Kojima.
Kojima: I basically come up with ideas for characters that would work in the gameplay. Like a boss character that fights like this and hops around in this manner and I present them to Mr. Shinkawa. Then Shinkawa comes up with the visual look of the bosses based on the ideas and the gameplay I require from these boss characters.
For example, The Pain. I first came up with this character who controls bees and also has bees inside him and spits out bees. I tossed that to Shinkawa and Shinkawa comes up with the visuals for this guy called The Pain where he has this huge backpack on his butt so he looks like a queen bee. And then I get an idea from Shinkawa and then I add on to that what kind of guy he would be.
Shinkawa: Initially, Mr. Koima told me that these bosses were supposed to be monsters or creatures while they're humans. When I came up with my initial designs they were too "monster-y." They weren't human so I ended up changing them. In the future sometime I would like to come up with some non-human creature characters.
IGN: Especially towards the end of the game there are several cinematic action sequences. Are there any specific movies or directors that you got inspiration from for this game?
Kojima: About three years ago team members went on an overnight field trip where we stayed the night at a hotel, brainstorming to try to come up with a bunch of ideas. We do this for all our games and when we did that the movie we saw together was Predator.
And you know there's a love scene between Snake and Eva [behind the waterfall]? My inspiration for that came from the first Pink Panther film. That's something I had Shinkawa watch. It came out a little different, but that's what I wanted to do.
Shinkawa: What we always wanted to do was give the 60's flavor. That's something we always wanted throughout the game and we saw a lot of old films from that time period. We also watched real documentary footage from the Vietnam War so we could give that flavor. And also the lighting of the 60's, especially in the cutscenes.
IGN: Speaking of those cutscenes, why is The Sorrow so happy to be showing the countdown for the bomb exploding towards the end of the game?
Kojima: First of all, The Sorrow faced The Boss two years ago and he chose death and is dead and remained in that area as a ghost. Now when Snake came in he snuck on to Snake and he's basically moving around with Snake and he was able to meet The Boss again so he's really happy to be with The Boss again. That's one thing and another is that he's been floating around in that area as a ghost and now that everything's been completed he's able to move on. To not linger on as a ghost, but move on to the next world. He's happy that his soul is at peace now.
IGN: We also heard yesterday that Kojima has mentioned the possibility of making a Metal Gear solid movie. Is there anything you could say about this?
Kojima: (laughs) We don't know about that rumor. We get contacted every day, you know, "can we make a movie?" People just come up to me and say "Hi, Kojima-san, want to make a Metal Gear movie?" It happens every day.
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