Friday, January 6, 2012

Konami files 4 – Metal Gear – and an explanation

As promised, another day, another file drop, and the reason for the files being leaked. If I don't see this spread across at least 5 gaming news sites, then I've obviously not generated enough hype for this stuff. I mean, it's Metal Gear!
(hilarious heading photo taken from a NeoGAF thread)

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Ever wanted to read the entire script for Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel on the GBC, in either Japanese or English prior to editing and insertion in the game? Now you can!

*LINKS DELETED*

By this point most people will know who our mystery interview is – I won’t say the name since at least it gives the forums something to talk about. But I will print an excerpt from the big interview feature, which explains why the files were released. As our generous benefactor put it:
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For over a decade, I did right by *****, Konami and other ***** clients despite not having signed an NDA. I continue to maintain non-disclosure for the last group, though any secrecy in those Word and Excel files expired as soon as the titles hit the shelf. The obligation I chose to feel towards Konami and ***** ended after the former demanded I expunge mentions of my own work from my own website, and the latter ferried that message.
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That’s right, Konami attempted to censor one of its freelance employees, which is just the tip of the iceberg of all the political wranglings we discussed. The interview itself is in the hands of site founder Kurt, currently at MAGfest I believe. But it will be formatted and designed for publication within the next few weeks, to coincide with our new CMS launch.

The interview will be the first for said benefactor, and as promised reveals fascinating anecdotes from every corner of the industry. Besides Konami there’s also discussion about Kenji Eno’s company WARP and something for Namco fans to enjoy too. Alongside will be the final file drop, even bigger than the Ghost Babel files, and the real one to anticipate. What it is, most can probably correctly guess by now.


Points of interest in the Ghost Babel files:
* There are two large files titled MG English Final and MG English full. What are these? They contain a bunch of what appears to be hexadecimal coding alongside the ASCII dialogue. Is it some kind of partial source code? Discussion at RHDN implied no, but then I never supplied them with the file itself. If someone finds an interesting use for it, please let us know.

* There’s a file called “E-Changes post 9.1” – does this pertain to changes made after 9/11? I have no idea, since there’s not much dialogue in said files.

EDIT 7/1/11: As pointed out, Ghost Babel was obviously released in 2000, so the post 9.1 must mean something else. Apologies for this mistake, I knew this, but at the same time MGS2 was released in 2001 and it was on my mind and, given that it's our next release alongside the interview, it was on my mind when typing. Freudian slip as they say! Again, apologies for the quite obvious mistake.
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I could ask out benefactor for clarification, but I think it’s more fun this way. Get cracking, chaps!

There’s also a ton of other stuff, like the entire Radio Play dialogue, files noting other changes, pretty much the entire script. Theoretically you could do a text dump of the ROM, but this is much cooler.

Stay tuned for the big interview and final file drop.

(Images borrowed from GameFAQs, because I really can’t be bothered cropping the ones I took)

9 comments:

  1. badass. played the shit out out Ghost Babel back in the GBC days. Couldn't believe how they fit the gameplay from MGS in there. Nice work Konami, but dick move regarding your translator.

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  2. Thanks for this!

    Will the interview be redacted like the above excerpt?

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  3. Nice. I'm actually REALLY interested in the interview because of the WARP/Eno mention. I know Kenji was highly influenced by Kojima when it came to the Dreamcast version of D2, as Kojima is mentioned in the credits at the end and hell, the game borrows heavily from MGS in terms of tone and use of video footage at one point in the game.

    Also, Gungage is a funky import run 'n gun that looks like it was going to be localized here but wasn't. It's not a "great" game by any means, but it was fun and would have probably done pretty well in the post Metal Gear PS1 days.

    Well, except for one of the lead character's names. Wakle Skade is pretty lame for a gun toting badass...

    Oh, thanks for uploading all those files. I love behind the scenes stuff like this purely from a historical perspective.

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  4. The Game Boy Metal Gear came out almost a year and a half before Sept. 11, 2001. MGS2 was censored after the attacks, not Ghost Babel.

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  5. You've made me so hyped up for the interview...

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  6. The D2 and WARP comments don't mention Kojima. That part is just an informal chat about working on the game's script, and showing the interviewee our article on the series.

    There will be no redactions in the final interview. I assume you're referring to the ***** used for one of the company names? I just did that to maintain a little mystery to things, otherwise everyone would be Googling the name, and the company itself might step in.

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  7. d2 is the best game ever.

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  8. Is this still coming (the interview, I mean?)

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