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Kojima's Policenauts now playable in English
Now here's some Kojima-related news worth counting down to. The fan translation patch for Hideo Kojima's sci-fi graphical text adventure, Policenauts, is now complete and available for download. The game, originally planned for official release on the Sega Saturn in 1996, was never released in English by Konami, so a group of fans worked to localize and patch the files. Policenauts is an adventure game in a similar style to Kojima's Snatcher, consisting of mostly still images with fully-voiced dialogue and a text-based menu interface. The game follows Jonathan Ingram, a one-time policeman on an extraterrestrial Earth colony, who drifted into space and returned to Earth 25 years later, having been saved by a "cold sleep" system in his suit. Following his return, he works as a private investigator and attempts to solve a murder and a mysterious disappearance. The patch requires a copy of the Japanese PlayStation version of the game and a PlayStation that can play CD-R discs -- that's because you have to rip the game files, apply the patch, and then burn it to another disc. Finally, a reason to dust off that PlayStation you modded to play Beatmania ten years ago! [Thanks, Mike]
Policenauts storms Japanese PS Store
In preparation of Metal Gear Solid 4's release, Konami has unleashed a Kojima classic onto the PSN. No, not the original Metal Gear Solid (that's already available in Japan!). It's Policenauts. This is one of Kojima's earlier works: a graphic adventure game, similar to Kojima's Snatcher. Through its point and click interface, players take control of a cryogenically frozen Jonathan Ingram, who wakes up in the year 2040. His estranged wife asks for his help in finding her missing second husband. After her murder, Jonathan has no choice but to use the clues provided to him and go on a journey through space to fulfill his dead wife's wish.Kojima's Policenauts is joined by another PS1 title, Nectaris, in today's PSN update.
Kojima already seeking out his next title
It really should go without saying, but aside from Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Online, Hideo Kojima has been hard at work figuring out his next move, outside of the Metal Gear franchise. Rumors have been swirling for a year now; everything from a collaborative sequel to Snatcher with Suda51, to a remake of Policenauts, to the heavily anticipated and partially expected Zone of the Enders 3. So, what's he working on?We won't know until 2009, apparently. A formal announcement isn't to be made until after Kojima finishes penning the new title's scenario. This won't happen until after Metal Gear Solid 4 is released and Metal Gear Online given a big push. So, maybe if things go particularly well for Kojima, we'll hear something near the end of the year, but we'll just safely assume we won't know if any of the aforementioned games are coming around until 2009.
DS wishlist is an excuse to talk about Snatcher
We'd like to thank Racketboy for composing this list of games he'd like to see on the DS. Sure, everyone's got their own wishlist, but they're not online, and they don't all include Snatcher and Policenauts. And we want more opportunities to talk about those two games. He's absolutely right that these games are a good fit for the DS: between Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright and stuff like Suda 51's The Silver Case, the DS is pretty much the only system that can be said to be experiencing a graphical-text-adventure boom. It also happens to be the current sales leader. If there were ever a time to shovel all your old adventure games onto a console, this is it.Snatcher and Policenauts are high-quality games that would both sell to and satisfy the Phoenix Wright crowd. Throw a "FROM HIDEO KOJIMA, PRODUCER OF METAL GEAR" sticker on the box and you've got a game that is guaranteed to sell. Here's our totally unsolicited advice for Konami: port Snatcher first, and then if that sells, put some of the profits into translating Policenauts.Other notable games on the list include Metroids (yay) and Pac-Man Vs. We can get behind that, since with Wi-Fi play, we'd actually get to try Pac-Man Vs. against another person for once. Unfortunately, we kind of think that Nintendo is loath to embarrass themselves further by referring back to the GBA/GC connectivity experiment. But more adventure games? That's an easy call.
Fan-translation of Kojima's Policenauts nears completion
While most American gamers know Hideo Kojima as the man behind the blockbuster Metal Gear Solid franchise, the two games he worked on before breaking out with MGS are considered forgotten masterpieces. One, Snatcher, saw a limited U.S. release on the ill-fated Sega CD. The other, Policenauts, has never been available in English. That seems poised to change, though, as Kojima fan-site Junker HQ has just announced the completion of a five-year project to translate the game's text. Only some technical work remains before the translation is released as a patch on the newly relaunched policenauts.net, currently targeted for the second half of 2007. Theoretically, the patch will require a CD-R, an official Japanese version of the game and a modded PlayStation to work, but emulator-compatible ISOs are sure to leak out for the less scrupulous among us. While you wait, check out the game's Wikipedia entry to get some idea of what made the game so special. [Via MetalGearsolid.org]
