Retro Gaming Australia

Hideo Kojima is known for being active on Twitter, and today he let loose some knowledge regarding his two cult classic titles, Snatcher and Policenauts.

Snatcher was originally known as Junker, after the protagonist’s organisation in the game, but Konami found that the name was too similar to a mahjong title, and changed it. Kojima had to think of a new name – he wanted to avoid using Snatcher after naming Metal Gear after the game’s enemy, and briefly considered the name New Order before settling for the game’s final title.

Policenauts was originally entitled Beyond, but Konami was unable to obtain a trademark for the name. Apparently the game was also intended to be for a “Cinematic Virtual Reality” genre (similar to Metal Gear Solid’s Stealth Espionage Action) – Konami found nothing trademarked along these lines when the project started in 1990, but the term had been trademarked by the time the game was to be released and the naming was dropped.

Source: Andriasang

More details have come to light on the Snatcher radio drama, Sdatcher. Some of the cast has been revealed, and it includes many of the voice actors used for the Japanese dub of the Metal Gear series, including Akio Ootsuka (Solid Snake) Kikuko Inoue (The Boss) Houchuu Ootsuka (Galvez) Yumi Kikuchi (Mei Ling) and Tomokazu Sugita (Kaz Miller). Hideo Kojima and Suda 51 will have cameo appearances.

Meanwhile, Kojima revealed that although he personally does not have any plans to remake Snatcher or develop a sequel, he is more than happy for someone else to do it. When asked about his opinions on L.A. Noire and doing a Snatcher title in a similar vein, he stated “I would love to do something like Snatcher, but I do not have the time or the means to do so. But if anyone else would like to develop it, I would love it.”

Source: Andriasang and Joystiq

In the latest episode of the Hideradio podcast, Hideo Kojima announced that he and Suda 51 (Goichi Suda) are working on a radio drama adaptation of Kojima’s cult classic Snatcher.

That’s all well and good, except that they already announced the project – in 2007. (continue reading…)