You've brought your son, Roman, here with you - is he a fan of the Metal Gear series, and do you take into account what he thinks of your games during the creative process?
Kojima: He's still a bit young to play the Metal Gear series, so he hasn't played any of them yet. He doesn't seem interested! [laughs] It seems like his friends don't know Metal Gear in Japan, so they think his father is creating games that don't sell very well! [laughs]
When I showed the new trailer to my son the other day, he was like: "Are the English people really going to enjoy this?" [laughs]
If you choose to play MGS3 without a radar, how will Snake know where his enemies are?
Kojima: First, I would recommend playing without the radar. For those who cannot play without it, it will be there - you can turn it off. But - and I cannot talk too much about this - there are moments in the game where you use a special item and the radar pops up when necessary.
Since you're in the jungle and the mountains, it's a lot of fun trying to find out where the enemy is yourself, without using the radar, so I really recommend not using the radar. If you use the radar you know where the enemy is hiding so it spoils it.
Gameplay aside, by setting the game in the sixties, is MGS3 in some way a game made specifically for the fans, giving them a deeper overall understanding of the Metal Gear saga?
Kojima: That's part of it, but not much of it. The first Metal Gear was about genetics, the second was stuff beyond genetics - how you learn music, speech etc. Then we're sort of adding a timeline to that double-theme. I can't really talk too much about it, but this trilogy, these three parts compose the grand theme of Metal Gear Solid.
How does camouflage work? How do you know how camouflaged Snake is in a particular situation and, without a radar, how will you pick out camouflaged enemies?
Kojima: It's a trial-and-error process. We do know that there are some times you cannot see Snake anymore; the thing is, the enemies are even harder to spot, so we might tweak the brightness or the colours of the enemies so that they become a little more visible - we're not sure what we're going to do yet.
Maybe we might end up putting a little cursor over their heads - we don't want to do that, but we might have to do it. When you move Snake around you can see him, but when he's stationary he really blends in.
A cardboard box is not going to work in the jungle - that's why you saw that alligator cap in the trailer. You will find these new items in the game. When you go into buildings in the game, then you'll be able to use the cardboard box just like in previous Metal Gear games.
What buildings do you get in the jungle?
Kojima: If you go beyond the jungle there could be an enemy base... There are a lot of artificial buildings in the game like that - if you go into the mountains, there could be an underground base, for example.
To move away from Metal Gear briefly, Boktai on GBA is a fascinating game. Was it a case of you having the idea for the game, then fashioning technology to make it a reality, or the other way around?
Kojima: It was a parallel thing. I always had the idea of a vampire-using-sunlight game and I was sorting of waiting for the technology to become cheap enough for me to implement it. It had to be able to be done business-wise. One day the technology became cheap enough to use, and the two things just merged.
Has it been refreshing to work on something that isn't Metal Gear?
Kojima: I enjoyed it very much.
Back to Metal Gear, Snake is caught in a man trap in the trailer - will Snake be able to set traps himself?
Kojima: That thing that was hanging and the rope which pulled Snake up - those things are set by the enemy. What Snake can do will be different things; there'll be certain traps he can use to capture animals he normally cannot.
There's a different focus in MGS3 to previous titles, something you've called 'process of infiltration' - can you elaborate on this?
Kojima: In previous Metal Gears you already start right outside the base, but in Metal Gear Solid 3 you're starting out in an area that's pure survival, with no particular enemies, that you have to come through.
As you approach the base you'll have survival and the enemies, then when you get into the base, you have conventional Metal Gear gameplay where there enemies and you have to go through buildings.
Thanks for your time.
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