The fourth Metal Gear Solid is still in the in the middle of construction, but series mastermind Hideo Kojima is already brainstorming his next game, an pay-to-play online game where you hand over cash in exchange for stumbling around as a zombie.
"The zombie idea I have is a bit different," he told our colleagues at Edge magazine. "Imagine a large town where half the inhabitants are zombies. Users would subscribe, get inside the town and get bitten. At that stage they become undead and can't control their character - all they can do is modify the camera angles... They'd see their character attacking humans and have to pay just to watch!"
Sounds... erm, expensive. Kojima continues: "The only way they could end it is by opening another account, hunting themselves down and killing themselves. Of course, the problem is that your second character can get bitten as well."
It's nice to know Mr. Kojima is thinking about original game concepts rather than churning out MGS for the rest of his days (we wouldn't complain), though how well this pay-to-play (or should that be pay-to-not-play?) concept will hold up we're not sure.
So you cough up money to play in this game, perhaps last 10 minutes and then become a zombie in which the only control is to change your camera angle? Hmm, fun.
Why would anyone play this over dead rising or They hunger? I've no idea unfortunately.
What a ridiculous concept. You're right flenser, same as MGS really and further proof that Kojima wants to be a film director.
I don't like Kojima himself actually. This guy has Peter Molenux levels of designer arrogance going on. You know the kind, where their games aren't actually that good but they think they are the greatest game designers ever to walk the earth.
Come come now fellas, Kojima is an artist... A frickin' p**s-artist, that is...
Seriously, though, I'm presuming that's his idea of a joke. An online zombie game where you can lose your character and respawn after 30 secs max would be ace, though.
For what it's worth, my money's on Left 4 Dead being the zombie game of 2007.
It sounds like hes got an idea for a decent game there...He just needs to refine it. But paying to just watch your zombie ass walk around doesnt sound too good.
The idea might not be to bad if you got to control the zombie, rather than just watch it. I dought it very much if this idea will ever came out as a game and if it did I would say that it would most likely stay in Japan and Asia.
The idea might not be to bad if you got to control the zombie, rather than just watch it. I dought it very much if this idea will ever came out as a game and if it did I would say that it would most likely stay in Japan and Asia.
I was thinking the same as well, if you could could control your character once it turns into a zombie, & then go around trying to bite other people. -Might make it 'a bit more' fun rather than just watching it. It'd turn out to be a bit like Dead rising, except you'd be one of the zombies getting your head mown off by a chainsaw
This is actually a very good idea in my opinion. The game must be downloaded for free, or be really cheap. It's the same concept as arcade games. You "pay per life" and the camera concept works great too, it will make you want to come back by seeing "other players" new areas and secrets you can only find out if you join the "party" again and can intereact with your surrondings. Besides for what I understood you won't be paying to see a zombie, you pay for the living character, if it gets bitten, then you will loose control over it. It's a nice touch to still be able to follow is wanderings in the world, and be able to track him down later and blow his head off Games today in my opinion are getting less adictive, the concept of dying in a game is getting less and less important. I think his idea would revive the concept again. It would give the word "survival" a new meaning in the videogames world. Rankings would work well too, by "time alive" and "zombies killed" and if they could add a proper story to the game it would be great. But hey, that's just my opinion! Still, what would happen to your zombie character (and camera) if another person destroys it??? Anyone knows?
Sounds like a very basic idea. But, all games evolve from a very basic idea. If he were to try such a game, he would just need time to iron out the problems that seem so apparent from the start.
But lets be honest, Kojima has loads of little idea's for other games. Every games designer does. Actually having the time and money to USE them though, is a completely different story. This idea will probably never see the light of day. Why ? because the poor sod is always dragged back to MGS. He's already stated before that he doesnt wish to continue with them. But did you know he's apparently had threatening mail ?
Oh dear. Kojima has obviously been smoking crack cocaine, whilst watching too many b-movie horror flicks.
What are you thinking Hideo? Why would people in their right mind spend god knows what just to play as a character who's existence won't ever last, only to then have to play about with the camera angles, and then technically commit suicide by making a new character just to kill their original chracter (in short killing theirself). You probably have to pay for each character anyway.
The idea to me seems like a stupid way to waste money. It's like "quick, create a new chracter to bump my old one off, so I don't have to keep paying for two characters when I can only use one, as the other is too busy walking into things and trying to eat anything that moves!"
Metal Gear's an excellent series, but to me, this idea is just going to leave bad marks on Kojima's good name, and possibly ruin some of his fame.
Hopefully he'll go to rehab and come out with a better excuse for a new game.
Knowing what Kojima's sense of humour is like, this is probably just one of his "quirky" jokes. Either that, or somethings gone wrong in his mind-tank.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that artists heads swarm with ideas, many MANY of which will never make it outside their heads...espeecially Kojima's..since he's also a producer and being in charge of Koji Pro and all..
Hell, he wasn't even going to make a ZOE3 even though he said that "as a game developer, I would love to work on a new ZOE, but the producer in me can't afford to do that, because I don't think it has an audience outisde of Japan"...or some s**t like that.
Kojima comes up with a lot of ideas for games which never are created. He's talked about creating innovative, though not-that-appealing games in the past. I think this is just his way of making jokes. I really wish that he'd stay to direct/design/produce future MGSs, but I respect his decision to leave the series and concentrate on making creative games. And I just remembered that he talked about a similar zombie game shortly after the MGS2 demo came out in 2001.
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