Psychopulse
Parting is such sweet sorrow
This has been on my mind recently. I came across this discussion:
http://z3.invisionfree.com/Malstroms_Comments/index.php?showtopic=1067
Excerpt:
I never was a Metal Gear person anyway, and I can see why I never could get into the series. Oddly, I liked Snake's Revenge on the NES. It's upsetting what's happened to Konami over the years.
http://z3.invisionfree.com/Malstroms_Comments/index.php?showtopic=1067
Excerpt:
Kojima is my pick for the industry's "Evil Miyamoto". He is, in effect, what Miyamoto would be if Miyamoto were a man lifted up and supported by the mainstream game industry.
Miyamoto, at his best, helps lift up the company he works for. He aids in expanding their horizons. He's a valuable asset.
Kojima however, is a vampire. His vision, his projects, and his ego, have sucked Konami dry of all other resources and driven away all other talent. Konami basically exists to fund Metal Gear games. All their other series and classic titles have been pushed into niches or put on the shelf permanently. Castlevania was relegated to portable systems until a farmed out project - Lords of Shadow - was given to /Kojima/ to help supervise. And that game isn't even really a Castlevania game. It started as an unrelated action title and has a pseudo-Castlevania protagonist shoe-horned into it.
I read recently that Konami has lost even more talent that isn't Metal Gear related; the guys who used to make up "Team Silent" have all gone to small developers like Grasshopper. (Probably explaining why the Silent Hill name is now farmed out to western developers. Nobody is left inside Konami who can make the games.)
Bear in mind though, that this trend started years before Konami put Kojima on a throne. They were always very industry oriented, and began driving their best talent away by forcing them to work on products designed to milk markets and use cheap licenses.
I never was a Metal Gear person anyway, and I can see why I never could get into the series. Oddly, I liked Snake's Revenge on the NES. It's upsetting what's happened to Konami over the years.