Who is Hideo Kojima - creator of Metal Gear Solid

Hideo Kojima, born August 24, 1963 is a Japanese video game designer originally employed at Konami. Formerly the vice president of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, he is currently the head of Kojima Productions. He is the creator and director of a number of successful games, including the Metal Gear series, Snatcher, and Policenauts. He has also produced both the Zone of the Enders and Boktai series. Kojima is consistently named by fans and industry experts alike as being one of the most influential and innovative Video Game Directors and Writers of all time, as well as being on many all time director top ten lists. Newsweek named Hideo Kojima as one of the top ten people of 2002.In 2008, Next-Gen placed him #7 in their list of "Hot 100 Developer 2008."

His Metal Gear series of games contains elements of magical realism and often breaks the fourth wall. He is also well known for a quirky and somewhat irreverent sense of humor, and his frequently disarming and powerful plot twists.

In the 1980's Kojima went to work for Konami on the MSX computer as a designer for video games. He was not up to speed with the programming at that point and had a hard time.

The first game he was involved with as a director was Antarctic Adventure, Penguin Adventure. The first game he developed was Lost World but it was not released. Metal Gear was his first game to be released in 1987 for the MSX system. Until it was developed for the Nintendo system it was not played in the United States. The changes done to the game to bring it to the Nintendo system were done without Kojima.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990 for the MSX in Japan. The game was a big hit for it's storyline and gameplay style. The use of Cut scenes was introduced as were radar the ability to crawl and enhanced charactor behavior. It was not released in the U.S. until it was included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence in 2006.

Back in 1992 Kojima released Snatcher for the PC which then went to Sega. He then designed policenauts which was a sci-fi theme game in space. These two games were big hits in Japan.
When Metal Gear Solid was released in 1998 for playstation, Kojima reached celebrity status. The game was the first to use 3D graphics and voice acting.

Kojima also produced Zone of the Enders in 2001 and in 2003 produced Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand for Game Boy Advance. In 2004. Kojima designed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for PlayStation 2.

There was a sequel of Boktai, Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django for Game Boy Advance. Also released was Metal Gear Acid for the PlayStation Handheld which focused more on strategy. Kojima wanted Solid Snake to be in Super Smash Bros. Melle but was unable to pull it off.

Kojima co-directed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots which is due out June 12 2008. He says this is the last Metal Gear game he will be directly involved with.

A movie has been talked about from back in 2006. On IMDB.com we see it is due in 2009 but not much info is available. On IMDB.com, it says the plot synopsis goes like this -

"This film follows a similar plot to the popular computer game and follows Solid Snake on an adventure to destroy Metal Gear Rex, a mobile tank capable of firing nuclear missiles from any terrain."

Kurt Wimmer is listed as director with writting credits going to Hideo Kojima. Christian Bale was rumored to be playing part of Snake.