[英文资料]MGS4 TGS07 展会手册 部分文章

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去年在外国论坛搜集的
这个展会手册在mgs4区置顶似乎可以下载
不过是日文的
部分文章被外国玩家翻译成英文

这里帖出来，不然就烂掉了

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首先是伊藤计划的一篇文章，他是mgs系列的铁杆粉丝，也是mgs4官方小说的作者。

Here's the next article, an essay from Project Itoh, friend of Kojima and frequent contributor to these kinds of productions.

Hideo Kojima
Preacher of God in Godless Times

小岛秀夫
无神时代的传教士

Anyone born in 1987, when the first Metal Gear was released, will become an adult this year.

Twenty years. Such is the length of time it takes a Japanese person to become an adult. Not many serial stories last that long. In addition to being a sequel, each successive Metal Gear has had the additional task of telling a different thread of the story. Indeed, the story of Metal Gear is a continuing saga that reflects the state of the world in its individual installments, Kojima's "anti-nuke/anti-war" sentiment but one step in this evolution. So what exactly is Metal Gear, that mirror for the times? Is it the story of our hero, Solid Snake? Of course it isn't. It is the story of the one individual who has cast his shadow across every entry in the series in some form or another. Anyone reading this should know who that person is -- the true star of the twenty year-long Metal Gear Saga. Metal Gear is the story of the curse known as Big Boss.

The Metal Gear story is undoubtedly Big Boss's story. In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, the first two games in the series as determined by the story's timeline, he appears as the main character; in the MSX2's Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, he appears as the enemy; and from the seminal Metal Gear Solid on, he is no longer a physical presence -- neither hero nor villain -- but now a "curse" that rules different individuals in its world. Throughout the story, Big Boss's existence has continued to grow: first a protagonist who defies circumstance, then an antagonist who controls circumstance, and finally a circumstance itself, a curse, though perhaps it is too pathetic to call this transformation a growth, and too grotesque a fate to call it a transformation.

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Metal Gear is also a story of various gods as represented by the incarnations of Big Boss. 1987's Metal Gear is about the system we knew as the Cold War, told during the closing hours of its real-life parallel. It depicts the collapse of a so-called peace, during which the United States and the Soviet Union maintained their nuclear arsenals at launch-ready status 24 hours a day, by a mobile nuclear launch weapon. Its sequel, Metal Gear 2, served as another accurate prediction of our times with its imagination of the world following the end of the Cold War. What if an untrustworthy nation was to come into possession of nuclear weapons during such a period? Finally, Metal Gear Solid, too, is an examination of the changing status of nuclear weapons after the Cold War. Of soldiers who long for its conflict, and of advocates of nuclear deterrence who long for its glory. It also portrays the fear surrounding the transformation of nuclear weapons into conventional weapons. With countries in our world now discussing the possibility of preemptive nuclear strikes against terrorist groups and rogue states, we see further example of Metal Gear's prophetic discussion.

However, from Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima's interest has veered significantly, from discussion of nuclear weapons into the realm of information. MGS2 depicts conflict originating from the control of personal identity and information in an information society. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will surely be no different. The "fog of war," or the inability to directly control battlefield affairs, had been a reality until recently, breeding confusion from uncertainty. However, by digitizing soldiers themselves, it becomes possible to monitor and control battlefield affairs in real time. From nukes to data... What does that change signify? Simply that Kojima always has his finger on the pulse of the times, and incorporates their particulars and possibilities into his works. And what rules the times? God. Big Boss dies, is reborn through clones, and his genetic makeup analyzed to every last detail -- that, too, becoming information. Big Boss manifests himself in every theme of the series, a series that has shifted its focus from the physical nuclear weapon to the impalpable digital byte.

A great story, a frame that defines ourselves and our world, may seemingly die, but that story always lives on in some form, and Kojima knows this. Those stories are what shape us, and what can potentially lead us to war and destruction. Someone once said that God is dead. But Kojima preaches of God in these Godless times. Through the metamorphosis of one man, Big Boss, he depicts the nature of the various gods present during the eras of Big Boss's existence.


What of our "God" of today? Kojima has spoken of such a concept without hesitation or fear. These twenty years have also served as a creator, shaping the people who have come into contact with the Metal Gear Saga. And many of those people will eventually come into their own as creators. Kojima's own "terrible children."

I am one such child. Or rather, that's how I'd like to be considered. Why don't we all similarly speak out without fear? About the gods of our times. About what rules us, and where it may take us. Kojima wasn't afraid. Even if it meant predicting the downfall of the Soviet Union to its year. Even if it meant his story playing out in real life in New York City. The foretelling of the future -- that, from time to time, falls to the hands of a small number of sane individuals speaking without reverence for or fear of God.

I don't know if most of us will ever be as sane as that. But I do know of at least one person who is. I see that as reason enough to try. To identify the gods of our times.

That is the duty of children of Kojima.

What better time than now to fulfill that duty?


Project Itoh
Website director and writer. Born in Tokyo in 1974, he is a graduate of Musashino Art University. His novel "Genocidal Organ" depicts civil war and ethnic cleansing in a post-9/11 world. A self-described "Kojimaist" who has spent the past twenty years continually baptized in the works of Hideo Kojima.

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第二篇文章的作者是矢野健二

This is why Snake has to die
为什么说Snake不得不死

We can extract the word “fear” from the war activities & divide it into two parts in the world of MSG4. Firstly, the war between the PMCs, which we can characterize as a war that does not depend on ideologies. And it's not the “fear”, but the economical factor that incites this conflict. Additionally there is a system built to control & regulate the PMCs’ activities: the SOP (Sons of the Patriots), a nanomachine control system. The nanomachines get injected in order to have an ID administrating system and to authorize the soldiers. If the ID is not validated, the system denies it from utilizing all kinds of weapons (heavy and non). This particular ID system has two 2 meanings which we must not overlook. It works as an identifier for individual people and as an ID-basis that will “individualize” even more the individual soldiers. The SOP-nanomachines expand the abilities of the individual soldiers, but on the other hand even sentimental-control is possible on them. We can say that even history control is possible through the accumulation of an enormous individual data, which subsequently takes place through genetic control, info-control (meme), sentimental-control, even human life control. You can think of it as the perfect form of the S3 project that was referred in MGS2. A pure battlefield that specializes only on the extermination of the enemy. A warlike fairyland pervaded with cruelty/inhumanity. Although MGS4 is depicting thoroughly & systematically a pure battlefield, it obviously features elements of an uncanny typicality.

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Firstly, the slowly dying & aged Solid Snake. If your remove the letters I and S from the word SOLID you have the codename OLD for Snake, and the IS stands for not being. That is to say, Snake bears the burden of not being/non-existing.

Another uncanny typicality of the MGS4 realm, is the monster-like female soldier unit The Beauty & the Beast. A familiar story for all of us: A merchant, who lost his way, ends in a mansion where a dreadful beast lives. The merchant driven by his desire sees some beautiful flowers and he plucks a few of them. The beast gets angry and as a reward it demands from the merchant to take his daughter. The beast proposes to the daughter but she refuses. The merchant is ill. When the daughter finds out about it, she begs the Beast to let her go to her sick father. But the Beast says to her that if shes not back soon enough, it (the Beast) will die. The daughter promises to the Beast, which is on the verge of death, that she will come back and marry it. And thereupon, the magic spell brakes and the Beast transforms into a beautiful young man.

In MGS4 the word Beast refers to the unleashed soldiers. However they do have affinity for love. But in this case the flowers have already been plucked. In contrast with the Beast, which desired the young daughter, the MGS4 Beasts desire the feeling of love. And when they have it, they will reveal their original form.

The Beauty & the Beast. The piercing knife. The fear. The fear is a factor, which boosts war activities. This is what wars were all about in the past: deterrence. But nowadays it is inefficient. Therefore there is a system that controls even the individual sentimental-condition of a person in order to bring about regulation and warfare. The flowers have already been plucked by the merchant, and the Beasts- (a sentence I don't understand, sorry guys). In this case, the only thing left for someone is to protect himself, since the flowers never had the chance to bloom in the first place. The only thing that somebody can count on is himself, as there is a world around that extracts every existing part of a human being and digitalizes it in order to control it. The non-existing part cannot be digitalized and subsequently cannot be controlled. Which means, towards a world that has the tendency to digitalize everything, the way to oppose is by not existing, despite the belief that there is always something worthy left. And when the time comes, in which the spells of this insane world will brake, the Beasts will return to their original form. The flowers will bloom fully, the people will earn their sentimental-freedom to love, to rejoice, to cry.

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The female soldiers of the unit The Beauty & the Beast, were created in this world accidentally. They are hapless entities transformed into beasts, because they just happened to be on a place where a witch was swinging her stick. On their creation they were covered with flowers, but eventually the flowers were stolen from them. In other words this is the same that happened to Raiden, Naomi, Otacon and the others. They have a place to go, a place, where they can free themselves from this cursed world. A place where they can all be Sons of Liberty.

However there is a man, who lost the privilege of being a Son of Liberty. He was created by the Les Enfant Terrible project, a project that convicted him to become the incarnation of the most powerful soldier. A deprived human being by the witchs cursed spell since his beginning. A human being that was born without the flowers that he deserved. A human being that cannot exist anywhere else, but except on the battlefield. A human being that has no place to go. He formed an anti-metal gear organization by his own will, in order to free himself from the bonds of genes, by delineating his own cursed inside. By disbelieving his own genes, he expostulates (dissuades) with the Patriots, after knowing that they plan to revive Big Boss. He intends to free this world from the madness of war and surely this madness will always bug him. For one more time, he has to count on himself. Is the battlefield looking for him? Is the battlefield after him? Not really. He is the battlefield itself. That is why he has the title of non-existing in the battlefield. If he does not exist, then the battlefield also does not exist. They gave birth to him to fulfill the perverted desires of this world, thus he is the only one who will break the witchs curse/spell, which beset this world. His only option is to divulge the deception of his existence. He has to appear in front of us, possessing the form of the impossible (=an exhausted, aged, ugly old bastard). Only Snakes death will portray, depict & illustrate perfectly this impossible form and this non-existing.

Only then, the witchs curse/spell will be broken and the world will move on. Only then the immortal Snake will have his appropriate demise. Only then the word OLD from SOLID will be erased, and the IS will remain. When this unprecedented dawn shines on this world, the new-era snake will continue to exist someplace in there.

MGS4 is meant to narrate how the non-existing Snake becomes an existing entity.
-Kenji Yano

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第三篇文章是
小岛、新川、村田 mgs4 三位导演的访谈

3D Against 3D
Metal Gear Solid 4 3 Directors Talk


Upon 20 Years


This July the Metal Gear series celebrated its 20th anniversary. What are your feelings on reaching this milestone?

Hideo Kojima: At the anniversary party we showed a video looking back on the 20 years since the series began. It included current events like the breakup of Japanese National Railways, and after seeing that it hit me that, Man, 20 years is a really long time. The first Metal Gear was the first game I designed myself, so these 20 years also equal my entire life as a game designer.

Yoji Shinkawa: I joined Konami in ྚ, when they were working on Policenauts. This is my 10th year working on Metal Gear, so I've been involved with it for exactly half of the series' 20 years.

Kojima: I talked about this at the anniversary party too, but I made Metal Gear Solid after we had formed KCE Japan and I took on the role of producer in addition to game designer. My life before and after the game has been completely different. (laughs) It was like my B.C. and A.D.

How did KCE Japan come into being?

Kojima: After Shin-chan [Shinkawa] joined Konami, we had the first semblance of the Kojima Group in Kobe (Konami's then headquarters), but then we had the earthquake [the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake] and the company moved to Osaka. At the same time, some of our superiors went to set up a subsidiary company in Ebisu [a neighbourhood of Tokyo], and we were asked to join them. We were to make original IPs aimed at the worldwide market, with the company called "KCE Japan." We sat down with staff members to figure out who was going to make the move, and about half of them couldn't go, but the ones who could did. I took on executive and producer roles, and also got to oversee the budget. That's how it all began.

So your superiors had liked what you'd made up to that point and asked you to take on the world with them?

Kojima: No, it was nothing like that. (laughs) We ourselves didn't think MGS would sell that well at the time. And when I showed the game to some higher-ups who came to visit us once, they told us it wouldn't sell at all. (laughs) But sometimes the games that they tell you won't sell go on to become hits. Sometimes original games do sell, even if some in management are opposed to them. So, we'd come to Tokyo in ྜ, but it wasn't like we had everyone we needed with us. We were completely under-staffed. There were only about 20 of us. So we started advertising for more employees.

Shinkawa: A declaration of war, you could call it. (laughs)

Kojima: Yeah, we tried to pinch people from other development teams. That gave us everyone who's formed the core of Kojima Productions today. None of us knew how to make a 3D game back then, though. We didn't even set a timeframe for a release. But then at the Spring ྜྷ Tokyo Game Show, we presented a trailer with in-game shots incorporating different camerawork and everything, and all of sudden everyone in Japan was talking about it. Then 2 months later, in May, there was E3 in LA, and we showed a modified trailer of the game there. That's when everything took off. Everyone around the world was now talking about this amazing-looking game coming out called Metal Gear Solid.

What do you think so captivated people?

Kojima: You know, I don't know. But I think we were doing something new, for a start.

Shinkawa: There also weren't a lot of realistic combat games featuring special forces back then.

Kojima: There wasn't really a stealth genre per se before it either, so that was something else. I also think that, up until then, stories and action had always been separate in games. People praised the way the game brought those two together. I'd made a couple of adventure games before it, so going from those games I think there were some story elements that didn't work so well. But I really enjoyed that time of my life. Even if the work nearly did kill me. (laughs)

Did you feel a lot of pressure with all that attention from around the world?

Kojima: At the time we didn't really think anyone was paying that much attention. (laughs)

Shinkawa: We just wanted to make the type of game certain other military buffs would enjoy. We didn't expect it to become as widely played as it did.

Kojima: None of us thought it would sell overseas. But I've always read a lot of foreign books and watched foreign films, so I figured I knew what kinds of things those audiences like to see. We even called the Cyborg Ninja a "ninja" even though the only part of him even remotely like a ninja is his sword. (laughs) So after the game was released in the US, we kept hearing about how well it was selling, but I wasn't there at the time, so I didn't get to experience what it was like for myself. But when the European versions were released, I went to Germany and the UK to promote it, and suddenly I'd become something like a rockstar. That's when it hit me [how popular it was]. (laughs) When was it you joined the team, again?

Shuyo Murata: During the middle of 2, though I only worked on things like booklets and little extras for it. Technically, I first became involved with the series with the radio drama.

Kojima: Konami had this cultural program on the radio, and we made a Metal Gear radio drama for it. It was later also released on CD.

Murata: Hoko Kuwashima, who plays Mei Ling, was a big personality at the time. Her CDs were really popular too. The so-called ani-raji [anime radio] genre did pretty well at the time, in the midst of all the "cute" competition like Twinbee.

How will Metal Gear evolve from here on?

Kojima: I'll produce the games, while Shin-chan can make them. (laughs) There are a lot of different games people here would like to make. If we could just let them all make the ones we think will sell, my job would be pretty easy. (laughs) I don't know why I'm so busy all the time. We're in the middle of preparing for the Games Convention in Germany, and even when I go there I have to do all these talks and interviews...

Murata: Even when Mr. Kojima gets a chance to go to shows like E3, he spends the whole three days or however long it is stuck in a room smaller than the one we're in right now giving interviews.

You've always been an advocate for staying in the field, though.

Kojima: Absolutely. I have to keep making games. Just like how the 007 guys have to keep making James Bond movies. But Solid Snake's story truly does end with 4. Things like human clones are already taboo nowadays. If I knew there would be this many sequels, I never would have started. (laughs)

Shinkawa: When people saw the endings of MGS1 and 2, they would write in and ask us if there was going to be a sequel. We never really made the games intending to do more, though.

Kojima: That was purely to give the games a kind of B-movie feel to them. You see, for instance, films like Transformers intentionally hint at a sequel even when it feels like the story should be over then and there. I've talked about this before, but after Solid Snake had taken on all those bosses in the MSX2 games, when we brought the series to the PlayStation, we had to establish some sort of demarcation and raise the bar for this sequel. We needed to have him take on somebody even stronger this time. The only real option was somebody who was his double, the same way tokusatsu heroes take on their doubles at some point. That's where the idea of a clone came from. But then where do we go from there? One idea I had [for MGS4] stemmed from Snake and Otacon breaking the law in the process of carrying out what they believe to be right. So at the end of the game, they give themselves up and they're tried and executed in accordance with the law. The entire team was strongly against it, though, so I backed down from that. (laughs)

Murata: They said they didn't want Snake to end up in jail or anything. But some say that because Snake is a clone, it would be easy for someone to just take a single strand of his hair and clone him even if he does die, and then you have the next Snake. (laughs)

Kojima: It would be all right if there were an MGS5 and it's the same kind of stealth game, but there's no Solid Snake, don't you think? I'd like to have a young team create that kind of game. I guess you could say I just didn't want to leave Snake in the hands of anyone else.

Murata: If somebody other than Mr. Kojima wrote it, they may be able to mimic his writing, but they wouldn't be able to produce the same progressively aging Solid Snake. The Snake in MGS4 has aged even more so than in previous games, and if Mr. Kojima didn't write it, he wouldn't quite be the same Snake.

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But Mr. Murata has also done a lot of writing for MGS4 himself, correct?

Kojima: You could say Murashu [Murata] is a broadcast writer at heart; he's a bit like a TV writer, a nice job where you're given the plot and asked to write scenes based on it. But coming up with the plot is the most difficult part, and that's something we'll have to think about carefully from this point forward.

Murata: I really got a sense of my own weaknesses this time around. We also laid out the task of answering all the questions in the series, so bringing everything together was difficult.

Kojima: Because this game wraps up the story, I went around and asked everyone on the team, "What do you want to know?" I got a lot of different answers to that. First and foremost there was the identity of the Patriots.

Murata: And why Vamp can't die even if he's shot in the forehead.

Kojima: In 2, the reason that's given is, "I already died once. I can't die twice," but everyone was like, "What kind of explanation was that!" (laughs) At the start of the game, you had this really powerful character who kills everyone in the room. That's going to make the player want to fight him at some point, right? But instead, he's hit by stray fire and dies. (laughs) That's what was originally going to happen, he'd be a character who dies before you get a chance to fight them. A first for the games industry, more or less. But because a separate character ended up being dropped, we had him just get up after he dies. (laughs)


A new kind of enemy, the Beauty and the Beast Corps


In MGS4 we have a new group of bosses called the Beauty and the Beast Corps. What can you tell us about them?

Kojima: In MGS3 the Cobra Unit was a group of "freaks," so in 4 we wanted to go one step further and have a group of outright "monsters." And we wanted to animate them by hand instead of motion capturing them, like The Lord of the Rings. But because this isn't the same kind of fantasy setting, we established that these characters were once human. This also encompasses the meaning of how war transforms people into monsters. You still have those uniquely MGS twists to them, though. (laughs)

Murata: The pre-Beast Beauties have their faces based on models who we photographed and scanned. Each one represents a different part of the world.

Why did you make them women?

Kojima: You normally have the contrastive "beauty and the beast," two separate entities, but because we wanted to directly show how war has transformed them, we changed it so that the beauty becomes the beast.

How did you go about designing them?

Shinkawa: Like with the Cyborg Ninja and others, characters with reinforced bodies like an exoskeleton or powered suit is a running theme of mine. I got to make four of them this time, though, so that made it even more fun.

Kojima: He also made miniature models of each of them like before.

Shinkawa: When you design something on paper, there are always parts that don't match or line up well between the front and back. So I prefer to create an actual model and then have the 3D modelers use those when they're doing the 3D modeling. They turned out exactly as I'd hoped thanks to that.

Murata: Raven's wings come from the same drone you see in the 20th anniversary party playable demonstration, and Octopus's arms are an extension of the same technology in Solidus's snake arms.

Kojima: Do you know what the figures hanging from Mantis's hands are? They're Psycho Mantis, from MGS1, and The Sorrow, from MGS3, and there is a reason behind that. Anyone who's played MGS1 will also know right away that their names come from FOXHOUND. A lot of people today won't have played 1, though.

What other new characters are there besides the Beauty and Beast Corps?

Kojima: Shin-chan and I got together and worked out what kinds of characters haven't appeared in any of the games before. We realized we'd never had a little girl or an old woman, and that led to Sunny and EVA. Sunny is played by Kikuko Inoue [Rosemary, The Boss], who is trying something new by playing such a young girl. I'm a fan of Ana Torrent from The Spirit of the Beehive, so I had her try to go for something like that.

Murata: That's Sunny you see Raiden holding in the E3 2005 illustration.

What about male characters?

Kojima: In terms of new characters, there's Drebin. He's joined by all these other weird characters, though, so we thought he needed something else to match them, so we gave him a pet monkey. Then the monkey developed into his own character.

Murata: He's played by the same motion actor who plays Raiden, and although we're not capturing their face at the same time, the actors still act with their face when they're performing. So his face would look so funny that the other actors would start laughing and couldn't perform properly. (laughs)

What about returning characters from previous games?

Kojima: Otacon's gone through a lot of rough experiences, so this time he gets to have some fun.

Murata: I was happy when I saw the new design for Raiden. I thought he looked really cool. Even his lower jaw is part of his suit.

Kojima: There are plenty of series regulars. The motion capture studio is changing all the time. It's becoming more "live." If we can see Otacon isn't getting enough screen time, we can give him more to do. The actors would even say, "You know, he isn't doing very much, he needs to step up a little," which makes the game turn out even more bizarre. (laughs)


Three directors


Why did you decide to have three directors this time?

Shinkawa: There was just such a huge volume of work that needed to be done. Even creating just one character requires so many different areas you need to keep in mind.

Kojima: When we'd check something that came back to us, if it wasn't good enough, we'd tell them to go back and and make it better, but that becomes more complicated the more people you have. If I had to check everything myself, I'd never get anything else done. That's why we split it up.

How do you manage such a large team?

Kojima: There are advantages to splitting it up into groups, but then more people will see less of the full game. Each team does its own part, then everything gets handed to the scripting unit, who put it all together. With MGS1, every staff member basically had their hands on the entire game, so everyone would talk to each other and also make changes to somebody else's part on the fly as necessary. That doesn't happen anymore. Things have become more like Hollywood.

Murata: Sometimes people aren't on the same page as the rest of us, so while they may think they understand you, when it comes to actually making what they need to make, it can cause other problems. You need to get everyone on the same page before you start working on something. (laughs)

Is Mr. Shinkawa somewhat of a visual director this time as well?

Murata: Mr. Shinkawa has been credited that way before, but he also influences the game design as well.

Kojima: Shin-chan and I never agree on anything. (laughs) After he's approved something, I come along and end up changing it.

Murata: I often get asked whose opinion should someone ask out of the three of us, and then I go over and the three of us consult with one another.

Shinkawa: But I think that mish-mash is also what makes MGS, MGS.

Kojima: Shin-chan will come and show me how a design turns out when it's made it into the game. There aren't a lot of people who'll do that. Most designers just draw something and they're done with it. [cue exchange with Shinkawa] The modelling unit doesn't want to have that shadow covered with a filter, do they? Is there any way we could change that? (laughs)

Shinkawa: If we do they'd get upset. (laughs)

Kojima: What about the focus point here? Is that okay? You can't see the background anymore.

Shinkawa: Umm, I think it should be okay. [ends back and forth with Kojima] A lot of different details like skin texture and subsurface scattering go into games now, so you want to make sure those come through. But then when you're looking at a particular screen as a whole, you might want to adjust something at that stage, so it's a question of finding the right balance.


"Sense"


So we've had gene, meme and scene before, and the theme this time is "sense."

Kojima: It was actually Murashu who picked that word. All I could think of at first was "will" [mentioned in English].

Murata: The first thing that came to mind for me was "heart." So using the "-e-e" template that had been used up until then, I tried to think of words that could fit into that, and eventually proposed "sense" [mentioned in English]. It came more from Ocelot's line "Good sense" [literal translation of "You're pretty good"] than something of my own creation.

Why "sense" this time?

Kojima: Because one's sense can't be passed on. It's not found in genes, it can't be broken down into memes, and it can't transcend the times. It's that last remaining factor. It isn't passed on -- and may not even need to be passed on -- but you still have to talk about it. So, so far, we've talked about breaking free from one's genetic fate (gene), passing on the memes of your choosing (meme), and then what to pass on amid the ever-changing times of our world (scene). Throughout all that, people are born and people die, but their sense dies with them. Those senses, though, are what shape our world.

The concept behind the game is the infiltration of the battlefield.

Kojima: All around Snake are soldiers fighting and dying for their mission unrelated to Snake. You can ignore them, but can you really live with that? Everyone who plays it decides to get involved.

But there's nothing that forces you to help the militias and fight the PMCs, is there?

Kojima. No. You can stay hidden and avoid them completely if you want.

Murata: But sometimes taking down PMCs, for instance, will open up a path for the militia and make it easier for you to advance.

What are some similarities and differences between this game and previous Metal Gear games?

Kojima: Well, similarities include stealth, or the idea of advancing to your objective without being seen. Then there are things like the humor. There are also some surprises in the boss fights again. (laughs) As for differences, there's the environment. Previous Metal Gears have taken place in a single location where the entire story is resolved in that one place. It's a little different this time. It's like James Bond.

Murata: We went to various places around the world for research. Some of the team even got altitude sickness, but experiences like that were incorporated directly into the game.

Shinkawa: I don't think the basics of the game have changed. You've got the same basic people working on it. There might be some cursory differences, but the heart of the game remains the same.

How is development proceeding?

Kojima: People have seen with the playable demonstration we've shown at the 20th anniversary party that the game is still very Metal Gear. They're happy to see that, which is a relief, yet also a disappointment in a way. (laughs) But this year we've had all the 20th anniversary celebrations, shown a new trailer at E3, and been chosen as the most anticipated game in magazine surveys. I think everyone on the team is revitalized with a feeling that we're creating something special, though this is still a crucial period we're in right now.

Murata: We've shown several trailers up until now, and now the game is available here in playable form, but we plan on taking everyone's opinions and incorporating them back into the game throughout the final stages of development.

Shinkawa: It's definitely a true Metal Gear game, don't worry!


Hideo Kojima

Born in Setagaya, Tokyo on August 24th, 1963. Joined Konami as a planner in 1986, making his directorial debut with "Metal Gear" in 1987. Followed this up with games such as "Metal Gear 2," "Snatcher" and "olicenauts," with his high-quality productions garnering a large following from a legion of fans. He returned to "Metal Gear" in 1998 with "Metal Gear Solid," then "Metal Gear Solid 2" in 2001 and "Metal Gear Solid 3" in 2004. Aside from his directorial duties, he has also helped plan and produce the "Zone of the Enders" and "Boktai" series. Also known as a prominent movie fan throughout the games indsutry, he offers his own film reviews and analyses as well. He continues to develop other new projects while working on his latest game, "Metal Gear Solid 4."

Yoji Shinkawa

Born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1971. Joined Konami in 1994 after having his talents recognized by Hideo Kojima. Has served as character and mechanical designer for the "Metal Gear Solid" series. He has also worked on projects in other media, such as contributing design work to "Godzilla: Final Wars." Many of his works have been anthologized in print form.

Shuyo Murata

Born in Tokyo in 1970. Joined Konami in 1995, where he directed, wrote and starred in various radio dramas, including "Click and Dead Netway Sweepers" and "Metal Gear Solid." Moved into game development in 1999, going on to work on titles such as "Zone of the Enders 2: The Second Runner."

0479

第四篇文章是mgs4的综合简介

MGS4 Introduction

War has changed.
It's no longer fought for nations or ideologies. Nor over spoils or ethnicity.
It's now a never-ending series of boundless proxy conflicts fought by mercenaries and machines.
War, with all the lives it claims, has transformed into an efficient, painless business.
War has changed.
ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons and use ID-tagged ordnance.
The nanomachines in their bodies not only regulate but nurture their abilities.
Genetic control, information control, emotional control, combat control...
Everything is monitored and controlled.
War has changed.
Military strategy has shifted from one of deterrence to total control, removing the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction in the process.
The control of the battlefield also means the control of history.
War has changed.
With the control of the battlefield, war has become universal.

When the first real-time demonstration of Metal Gear Solid 4 was shown at the recent Metal Gear 20th Anniversary Party, the audience of industry insiders gathered from around the world sat in amazement. Depicting a Middle Eastern town lying in ruins from repeated bombings, it is an environment so life-like, you can practically smell the dust and smoke as main character Solid Snake twists and crawls his way through the devastation. In one section of the town, PMC soldiers are locked in a continual battle with local militia fighters. The infiltration of the battlefield -- that is the concept behind Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

The game is set several years following the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. As short a temporal span as that is, the world has greatly changed. Following the takeover of the Big Shell in MGS2, PMCs have replaced national militaries as the primary instrument of war. A PMC is a private military company, a corporation that not only directly participates in combat operations, but also provides logistical support, tactical advice, and trains and educates local soldiers. Free of any national ideology, they could be called war profiteers who offer their services to the highest bidder.

PMCs have already made their mark in our world today, as seen in conflicts in countries such as Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda and Afghanistan. MGS4 builds upon that history, with the U.S. government having mandated that all PMC soldiers be injected with nanomachines following the Big Shell Takeover. Armed with ID-tagged weapons and their abilities, tactical information, and even emotions strictly under control, these soldiers of fortune participate in conflicts around the world as a new profit paradigm begins to emerge. All personnel and weapons are monitored and controlled by a system known as SOP, which physically prevents a PMC's operatives from so much as pointing a gun at their clients while at the same time placing the battlefield under the management of private enterprise. As a result, conflict continues to expand, with PMCs extending their influence accordingly. War has already become intrinsically connected to global industry and is a necessary existence.

While monitoring PMC activity for an auxiliary organization of the UN Security Council, Roy Campbell learns that the collective military power of PMCs now rivals that of the United States. He also discovers that the five biggest PMCs are actually dummy corporations for a larger mother company. The name of this mother company is Outer Heaven, the paradise of endless conflict for soldiers once envisioned by the legendary mercenary, Big Boss. In charge of Outer Heaven is Liquid Ocelot, now completely controlled by Liquid Snake, another snake who inherited Big Boss's genetic legacy along with Solid Snake.

Solid Snake heads to the battlefield of a Middle Eastern country to eliminate his renegade brother. The man still a youthful warrior only several years ago now sports a face lined with wrinkles and a white head of hair. What could have caused him to age so rapidly? Appearing before this older Snake is a new breed of enemy, the Beauty and the Beast Unit. War turns both man and woman into monster, and the members of the Beauty and the Beast Unit are true monsters forged by war. The man cursed to a brief existence versus a squadron of beasts -- both created by man's mistakes. Will the cycle of conflict ever have an end?

Director Hideo Kojima has revealed the keyword to MGS4 as being "sense." After discussing in MGS2 that which we should pass on, he has chosen that which we cannot pass on as the theme of MGS4. "Old Snake," having devoted his life to combat, now relies on his inner sense as he faces off against a new generation of soldiers whose emotions are governed by SOP. As previously mentioned, the concept behind MGS4 is the infiltration of the battlefield. Snake once again infiltrates the ever-changing battlefield alone, though this time it is a battlefield of situation more than location. In PMC-militia conflict regions, PMC forces and militiamen wage intense, repeated battles with one another. The PMC may advance, but the militia soon hits back. Snake can assist and fight alongside either PMC or militia, or he can simply lay low amid the chaos while advancing to his objective.

At his disposal are his OctoCamo suit, a dynamic camouflage outfit, his Solid Eye information device, and Metal Gear Mk. II, a miniature remote-controlled terminal. With a combat system linked to SOP, the rules of infiltration have been rewritten. Combining numerous new gameplay elements with a high-fidelity simulation of reality made possible only with the power of PlayStation 3, players are in for an experience unlike any other. This is the climax of Metal Gear, replete with extreme realism and thrills 20 years in the making.

0479

最后一篇文章讨论了黑水等问题

The next, and last, article is by Isaku Okabe, a well-known Japanese military affairs writer. What's interesting is the well-publicized incident with Blackwater (a PMC), when Blackwater operators massacred a group of Iraqis, occurred almost to the day this pamphlet was released at the start of last year's TGS. He raises that very subject in the article.

And doesn't "Blackwater" sound like it could come straight from MGS4? Even their logo.




The Business of Modern Warfare


It used to be the case that you could divide everyone on the battlefield into three basic groups -- friendly combatants, enemy combatants, and non-combatants, or any unarmed civilians unfortunate enough to be caught between the two. As we stand at the dawn of the 21st century, however, a new group has emerged: armed "employees." Employees of private military companies (PMCs).

Participating in conflicts for money was once the job of the mercenary. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, European monarchs and lords used capital to gather soldiers to fight their wars. The Swiss soldiers who guard the Vatican today are a remnant of that tradition. But following the French Revolution, citizens became the soldiers, and war the task of state governments. This shift displaced the mercenary, forcing them to fight for governments, non-governmental organizations, or even individuals conducting unofficial wars. From the 1970s to the 1990s, these soldiers of fortune took part in anti-government uprisings and coup d'etats in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and countless other regions across the world.

Following the end of the Cold War, a new organization, the PMC, has emerged as a separate entity from the mercenary. With the world no longer at the brink of all-out conflict, the major powers slashed both military spending and troop numbers. At the same time, they began to outsource parts of operations, such as logistics and transportation, to the private sector. Even before this, however, the U.S. military would employ charter flight companies whose affairs almost exclusively involved the transport of military supplies and personnel. Tolerance of private enterprise participation in actual missions was surprisingly high.

We also saw the emergence of companies whose job is to dispatch security personnel to protect members of businesses and international organizations working in areas of conflict. Oil companies, construction companies, and transportation companies are typically active around the world, sometimes having to work in dangerous regions. In the event that a local government is unable to provide adequate protection, it is frequently extremely difficult from a political standpoint for the company's country of origin to send military personnel in their place. In such cases, private enterprise fulfills this function for workers and facilities through its heavily armed and highly trained employees. It is well known, for instance, that Halliburton, with which U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is closely connected, has its own dedicated security arm.

Furthermore, U.N. organizations that provide food and medical aid lack their own means of transport. Even upon requesting air transport and pilots from an allied military, these decisions take time to arrive and often require negotiations between the country in question and the organization, delaying the speed at which the organization can act. This is where businesses that supply transport ships, helicopters, and pilots come in. There are also businesses that specialize in dispatching instructors to educate military and police units in smaller countries when they lack the proper experience and know-how necessary for expanding their operations. The field of PMCs is almost as varied as the number of PMCs themselves.

PMCs are participating in the current conflict in Iraq and efforts to restore security to the region (as slow as progress is). PMC convoys guarded by PMC combat operators transport materials and supplies for the U.S. military all the while dealing with the threat of ambush. These activities occassionally lead to hostile engagements, often with deadly results -- Japanese among the victims.

By using PMCs, militaries can reduce expenses and manpower, and sometimes respond quicker to a variety of situations than they alone or government organizations could. Additionally, as PMC employees are not official military soldiers, they are not included in casualty counts reported by the media. On top of this, PMCs' status in international law is ambiguous at best, with the position of their employees similarly unclear. They also remain outside the chain of command of local forces. Supposing PMC operators were responsible for massacring local residents, it is unclear who would be accountable. The worst case scenario is an armed PMC element going rogue in the middle of a conflict region, completely free from control of any government or organization.

PMC members are typically gathered from militaries around the world, particularly special forces. Lured by higher pay than a military salary, soldiers painstakingly trained by governments are often lost to PMCs. In this way, PMCs are a double-edged sword to militaries. Today, there are efforts underway to clarify the legal status of PMCs, and others to limit their recruitment practices. All the while, their areas of operation continue to grow. If we were to imagine the darkest possible vision of the future, later wars of the 21st century will be fought with military personnel solely in command areas, while robots, drones, and heavily armed PMC employees equipped with computer terminals and bearing the logo of their company on their uniform walk the battlefield... Anyone wanting to witness that nightmare today would be well advised to check out Metal Gear Solid 4. Looking at it another way, one of humanity's curiosities is a fascination with fear.

This time Snake fights in a world dominated by PMCs. A world that requires their power to implement force, check aggression, and preserve peace. A world where economics depends on the "purchase" of PMC combat.

After finishing the game and switching the TV over to the news, what kind of world do you expect to see?


Isaku Okabe

Freelance military affairs writer. Born in 1954 in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Formerly editor of "Air World" magazine and chief editor of "Sea Power" magazine, he offers his commentary in television programs and magazines in addition to participating in the production of anime and other media, including serving as a technical advisor to "Mobile Suit Gundam 00," due to begin airing in Fall 2007. Published works include "Car or Plane? Mk.3."

LonelySnake

拼死拼活翻出一段

1987年，MG发售的那年，出生的人，今年就是成年人了
20年，让一个日本人成长为大人。那时后很多的连载小说都不长。结局不仅仅是结局，每部合金装备都有会提示下一部故事的线索。诚然，合金装备是一个在每部作品中都反映了时势的不停歇的传奇，小岛的“反核反战”思想只是其中的一个环节。那么合金装备到底是什么呢？时代的反映吗？它是索立德斯内克的英雄事迹？当然不是。这是讲述一个人如何走出他一个又一个的阴影，不闪不退。每个读者都应该知道他是谁－－合金装备20年历程的真正主角。合金装备就是我们熟知的BIG BOSS的故事

Kissdreams

......如果这贴是中文的我想回帖率一定很高。

0479

回kd
不见得，恐怕也只是多几贴而已

另外，不是有新翻组么，感兴趣的话翻译吧

LonelySnake

然后拼死拼活翻出第二段

合金装备的故事毫无疑问是BIG BOSS的故事。在合金装备3：食蛇者和合金装备：掌上行动——系列故事时间线上最早的两部作品——担任主角；在MSX2的MG和MG2：Solid Snake里，他作为敌人出现；在后来的合金装备1里，他不再直接出现在故事中，而是一个支配有戏中各种个体的“祸根”。在整个故事流程中，BIG BOSS的存在得到升华：开始是导致各种情况发生的主角，随后是支配情节的反派，最后自己成为了一段情节，故事的一环，经管把这钟转变叫做升华也许太过悲哀，而且把这样的命运称为转变实在滑稽

Kissdreams

LS加油，再拼死拼活几十次你就能加入新翻组了...

LonelySnake

先睡觉了，今晚拼死拼活再也不翻了

蝙蝠侠

[quote=kissdreams;513643]LS加油，再拼死拼活几十次你就能加入新翻组了...[/quote]
翻译组缺人啊……不过毕竟是兴趣爱好，也不能强求什么，尽力而为就好。

LonelySnake

我译完以后发现没挑到重点