You may not want to marry one of them, but you will take her home and ravage her in bed.  This type of carnal pleasure is not random – it’s Kojima Productions.

Then And Now

Creator of the Metal Gear series, Kojima himself oozed out success in the late 90′s.  Everybody played Metal Gear Solid, and the ones that did not have an original Playstation sure as hell heard from everybody who did.  Our protagonist, Solid Snake, could not embody a more straight forward (pun intended) porn name.  I guess Cock Striker was already taken, but Solid Snake?  All systems go.

Carrying out the trilogy before the PS3 even landed, Kojima Productions secured the gaming industry’s top third-person action series early.  With the advent of the next-gen PS3, MGS4 marked its territory immediately.  After a brief hiatus from kicking the industry’s ass, Kojima teamed up with MercuryStream and collectively reanimated the Castlevania series.  Seriously, everything this guy touches turns to sexy landscapes and knockout gameplay.

(While Castlevania: Lords of Shadow definitely showed a ceiling, Kojima made the game worth braving the more mundane parts.)

It All Fits Together

Playing through MGS4, I can not help but notice how engaged I am all the time.  Kojima effectively cut out travel time, and while this was not an issue earlier in the earlier games, he manages to keep travel time at bay.  Some of the more popular games in the past few years, Borderlands, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, God of War 3, and Mass Effect 2 all have some amount of downtime while your character is hopping/slowly jogging between points.

Even the sound the codec makes when Otacon begins flirting with Snake cuts in beautifully.  Kojima ensures the smaller sounds match up perfectly so that the themed music remains the focus.  Considering Harry Gregson-Williams is spearheading the music, the emphasis is placed exactly where it should be. MGS4‘s sound and music permeates your brain without trying to; it just does.  And like all greats, Kojima Productions does this flawlessly.

Voice Actors Before Voice Acting Was Cool

David Hayter, while not being a red carpet actor, is really fucking good.  His iconic voice validated voice acting in a time when voice acting was thought to be more of a hindrance than a benefit, and after several installments of the Metal Gear series, Hayter’s voice shapes the way we think about the game.  His tone, inflection, indifference to close friends at times, and screams are permanently etched into our myelin.

Kojima saw this work, so instead of fixing something that was not broke, he amped it up.  Christopher Randolph (Otacon) and Quinton Flynn (Raiden) added experience and further punch.  Randolph appeared in a Broadway production of King Lear, and Flynn appears in three separate installments of the Final Fantasy series prior to his debut with Robot Chicken.

Sexy Beast

If Kojima ever tried to resuscitate the Karate Kid franchise, Levi’s Jeans would see a significant rise in sales among men. Four levels for the NES?  Kojima Productions would boost it to 10, flying spinning heal kicks would pack devastating speed and power, and no more moths hurting a badass karate champion.  The levels would look like he stole Inception film canisters, and the music would be scored by Daft Punk.