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Policenauts and Hideo Kojima's Adventure Game Roots

Cover Story: Why you should care about the non-Metal Gear side of Konami's biggest star.

K

onami hasn't been shy about celebrating Metal Gear's anniversary -- and neither have we, I guess -- but in the company's excitement to honor their most profitable and acclaimed series, they seem to forget that Hideo Kojima's gameography consists of more than just walking tanks and Solid Snakes. If you look at things from a business perspective, though, Konami's approach makes sense; after all, to your average American, Kojima's career came into being alongside 1998's Metal Gear Solid. Sure, the original Metal Gear hit America ten years earlier, but in a compromised format that Kojima himself had nothing to do with (and in an era where few kept tabs on the name of individual developers -- the ones that weren't masked by mandatory pseudonyms, anyway). And while the Sega CD port of Snatcher managed to make it over here -- and with an impressive localization at that -- few members of this add-on console's tiny user base took an interest in Kojima's cyberpunk thriller.

In recent years, we've seen Konami make a few attempts to bring some of Kojima's previously Japan-only Metal Gear titles to the US; 2006's Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence gave us officially localized versions of the original MSX2 Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (albeit in revamped cell phone port form), which finally let an English-speaking audience experience the early chapters of a series so reliant on its own history. These efforts came as a welcome surprise, but Konami has never really extended the same respect to Kojima's history with developing adventure games, which consumed nearly a decade of his career. Snatcher at least had some presence in America, and a 2011 revival in the form of a Japanese radio play, but, in comparison, Kojima's other adventure game feels as if it's gone completely forgotten.

Before 2009, Policenauts existed as just a blip on the radar of non-Japanese gamers, a tiny slice of Kojima history on display as a sly reference in Metal Gear Solid. Thanks to a recent (and extremely well-done) fan translation, fans of Kojima can finally experience this lost game for themselves -- and if you're looking to see more of what makes this idiosyncratic developer tick, it's a must-play.

Typical for a Kojima project, Policenauts contains a collage of whatever he happened to be obsessing over at the time

Even if you've only seen a few images from Policenauts, you probably know that, like many of Kojima's early works, it isn't shy about revealing the source material that served as its inspiration. One look at the mulleted protagonist Jonanthan Ingram and his world-weary partner should conjure up images of 1987's Lethal Weapon, though Policenauts aspires to be more than a simple buddy cop adventure featuring a loose cannon and his too-old-for-this-shit friend. Typical for a Kojima project, Policenauts contains a collage of whatever he happened to be obsessing over at the time, though this production plays it a bit safer than the enthusiastic plagiarism of Blade Runner and Terminator found in Snatcher. Policenauts concerns itself more with building a world that rests on speculative fiction about space travel in the not-too-distant future, painted with the brush of Kojima's excited and optimistic imagination.

As expected from the problems Kojima's been trying to outgrow in recent years, player action comes second to story in Policenauts; even for a genre where game play usually takes a back seat to narrative, this point-and-click adventure doesn't rely on anything but the most basic player input. As with Snatcher, Policenauts typically presents you with a location (or handful of them), and only allows you to move on once you've examined the right element of the background or exhausted all of the available dialogue options. Policenauts can actually be classified as a visual novel, though Kojima attempts to overcome the typical static presentation of this genre with production values that would be right at home with any anime series of the mid-90s.

Like in Metal Gear Solid, cinema scenes (though pre-rendered in this case, thanks to their 2D cel animation) don't look any different from the game itself, and Policenauts takes advantage of this fact by cutting between static images and animated cutscenes on the fly. Anime-style cutscenes existed in games before Policenauts, but here (like with Snatcher), they feel more organic to the experience, rather than a display of technical prowess or impressive budgets that feel alien to the game itself.

The visual novel genre tends to focus on giving the player an exhausting amount of information about the worlds its characters live in, so it should be obvious why Kojima found this format so appealing. As expected, Policenauts offers plenty of opportunities to learn more about what the 2040s have in store for us, and a lens through which the delivery of this information makes sense: protagonist Jonathan Ingram essentially pulls an accidental Rip Van Winkle and lands himself 25 years in the future, which provides an outsider's perspective on how things have changed. And boy have they ever; not even the smallest element of Policenauts' future goes ignored by Kojima. When examined, commonplace items like cigarettes, beer, couches, furniture, windows, and doors give the player descriptions of how scientific breakthroughs (or government regulations) have transformed these objects -- even if a lot this supplementary information feels like wishful thinking from a naive techie. Still, these background details play second banana to some of the bigger themes of Policenauts, like the logistics of space travel and colony life, and how social problems persist even as the march of time fills our lives with scientific wonders.

It'd be dishonest to openly praise Policenauts without examining a few of its faults, which you may be able to predict if you have more than a passing familiarity with Kojima's work. The game feels a bit like the Sons of Liberty to Snatcher's Metal Gear Solid; Policenauts takes the same format as its predecessor, but Kojima often lets scenes linger on far too long, which tends to erase the tension the game employs to keep you motivated to solve its biggest mystery. These issues (along with Snatcher's failure to make any waves in the States) may have caused Konami to take a pass on an English localized version of Policenauts, and former Konami localization director Jeremy Blaustein (who performed his duties on Snatcher and Metal Gear Solid, and worked at the company during the game's production) considers the game to be one of Kojima's weaker efforts. "I played only parts of [Policenauts]," says Blaustein, "but was never enthralled by the whole 'space cowboy' thing. It is an extremely dialogue-heavy game and the parts I played did not seem to have the warmth and humor of Snatcher, for example, nor did it capture the tension of something like the original Metal Gear Solid."

There's also the issue of Policenauts' rampant sexism; it might have seemed playful and cheeky in the mid-90s, but in 2012, the way Policenauts regards most of its female characters feels downright icky. Japanese games of this era were known for their out-of-nowhere pervy moments, but nearly every interaction with a woman in Policenauts feels like you've suddenly been dropped into a hentai game -- an issue undoubtedly caused by Policenauts' origins within the porny Japanese microcomputer market. In the exploration segments of the game, Jonathan Ingram can come off as a legitimate sex offender, as any description of or chat with a woman usually ends with some ugly sexism levied her way. And, most shockingly, Jonathan can grope most of the women he interacts with (complete with a jiggling animation and a cartoony *boing* sound), though they react as if he's done nothing more offensive than flick their earlobes. I'm sure this content appealed to the teenage boys who must have made up Policenauts' core audience, but these ugly elements can be excised entirely without affecting the game itself -- and I imagine (or at least hope) they will be if Policenauts ever sees a remake or rerelease.

Policenauts definitely won't appeal to everyone; it takes a great deal of patience to digest Kojima's take on the visual novel format, and the story beats may come a little too infrequently to hold the interest of anyone accustomed to games with a snappier pace. But this strange and inconsistent little experience should prove fascinating to anyone interested in Kojima's work, warts and all. It'd be interesting to see the famed developer return to the adventure genre (and in an abridged format) now that games like The Walking Dead have shown that these types of games can win over critics and consumers alike, but until this extremely unlikely even happens -- which it won't -- we at least have games like Policenauts to show what happens when Kojima devotes all of his efforts to storytelling. It's not always pretty, but Policenauts contains all of the elements that make Kojima's games unmistakably his.

Many thanks to the Let's Play Archive for the screengrabs.

Bob Mackey

1UP Associate Editor Bob Mackey enjoys the finer things in life, like RPGs, IPAs, and R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. You can learn more about his abbreviation-based mania by following his Twitter account.

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• I don't entirely agree

  Posted: 40 minutes ago by  Articuno76
  

  With the game coming across as sexist.  But then that is whole other can of worms that seems hot for debate these days.  Policenauts was made with its audience in mind, and its audience should not be afraid to find it genuinely funny.

   

  I bought the game off the Japanese PSN recently and wrote up a review on it:

  http://uk.gamespot.com/policenauts/user-reviews/805269/platform/ps/

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• Policnauts fan translated

  Posted: 1 day ago by  seanp2500
  

  Lol was just going to post I am playing the fan translated policenauts on psp n lovin it

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• Come on!!

  Posted: 2 days ago by  DaBu777
  

  PLEASE Release a package with these games somewhere!! XBLA or PSN. Snatcher's music on Sega CD pulled me in so good!

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• Wish Kojima would revisit these IP's

  Posted: 2 days ago by  Xian042
  

  Metal Gear is so played out, but as long as fanboys slup up every entry, they will keep making them.

  I wish Kojima had the freedom to explore and update some of these older titles. I LOVED Snatcher back in the day, and I wish I could play a true english translation of Policenauts.

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• Not a big MGS fan, but Snatcher's a great game.

  Posted: 3 days ago by  orient
  

  From the fantastic music and art to the detailed descriptions that bring the game to life. I've had the Policenauts fan patch since it came out but held off because the action segments are horrible when using a keyboard and mouse. Now that I have a PC 360 controller there really is no excuse.

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  • On the controls.

    Posted: 35 minutes ago by  Articuno76
    

    Policenauts has a lock-on system that you can use instead of having to aim.  In fact the game practically forces you to use it as it some sections or borderline impossible without using the lock-on to zone in.

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• Retroware TVs Policenauts & Translation Retrospective

  Posted: 3 days ago by  JohnDelia
  

  For those interested, Retroware TV did an extensive retrospective video over at their website.  About 50 min about the history, gameplay and interviews with the translation team.  Great article Bob!  Thanks for bringing this game to the forefront again!

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• I accidently ran across

  Posted: 3 days ago by  BanditReturns2
  

  the English Fan Translation for this game when I was looking for the one for the MSX version of Snatcher and I've been pleasantly surprised by the game.It's just to bad we have to depend on the fans to do the translations but I'm glad they put the time and effort into it since it enables me to play some excellent games I normally wouldn't get to.

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  • Do you have

    Posted: 3 days ago by  mirahsan2
    

    a link?

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