I'll break with tradition in my Game Developer's Conference coverage and simply say "no comment" on all the sessions I attended today, except for Hideo Kojima's, creator of Metal Gear.

Hideo Kojima

Several people told me they didn't like Kojima's presentation at all and they found it very long and boring. While he should have removed the first 10 minutes which was spent entirely on saying hi, repeating the title of the presentation several times, and apologizing and making jokes about the presentation...once he actually gave it, I thought it was worthwhile.

Kojima's talk was called "Making the 'impossible' possible." He showed a side view of a ground plane and a square obstacle, saying that this square represents any obstacle in life that we might encounter. How do we overcome it? Mario would simply jump over it. Solid Snake would tuck and roll to get over it. But what if the obstacle is taller? Mario could still get a running jump over it, but Solid Snake cannot jump that high. What can he do?

This seems like an impossible task for Snake because the obstacle is simply too high for him to overcome. But Kojima, displaying the classic traits of a visionary and of lateral thinking, devised several possible solutions. Snake could get a box which would act as a step to reach the top of the wall, then climb over. He could use large balloon for lift and hover over. He could fill up the area on one side of the wall with water, then float to the top. Kojima rattled off at least 6 solutions to the "impossible" problem. As you are about to see, this really captures the essence of what it is to be Mr. Kojima.

The First Metal Gear, on MSX2

In 1985, Kojima was given an impossible mission: create a combat game using the MSX2 hardware.