Showing posts with label jeremy blaustein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jeremy blaustein. Show all posts

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Snatcher Sega CD ported to iOS...?

I recently interviewed Jeremy Blaustein, along with David Hayter and other Metal Gear folks for a print magazine, and while these interviews and snippets of them will appear on HG101 in the near future, this snippet of speculation is too cool to wait for.


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Jeremy Blaustein still speaks with friends at Konami, and he recommended they should put the original Sega CD version of Snatcher on iOS. As he explained: “Apparently they can't release it because right now Mr. Kojima is doing this radio play for Snatcher and isn't interested in releasing the old Snatcher at this time. One has to believe that he's keeping it, you know, up his sleeve to pull out when he needs to. I'm just speculating that it will be the next thing that Mr. Kojima will put out, since it's too good of a property.”

It is an excellent property, and admittedly this is speculation, because no one wants to speak too much on the record, but Kojima's popularity continues to soar, his MGS series is on everyone's mind, plus the Radio Drama is being unofficially translated by fans, surely if there was a time for Snatcher to be ported to iOS it would be soon? (if you've not checked out the fan-translation of the radio drama, do it now, it is a phenomenal achievement)

And, because it's so damn awesome, here is another photo from Jeremy's personal collection, taken during the Snatcher voice recording sessions.
Posted by Sketcz at 12:22 PM 3 comments
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Friday, November 18, 2011

1UP Presents #3: The Sketch Issue


I recently interviewed Jeremy Blaustein for a top secret article (I'll put scans up in December), and along with some fascinating discussion about various things (such as the potential future of Snatcher), he mentioned he was also featured in the final print issue of 1UP magazine. I didn't actually realise they did a print version, until discovering this final issue, but it seems like a hard-hitting release which tackles a difficult subject: Our final print issue looks at how Japan's earthquake changed developers, the man who created Street Fighter, Fumito Ueda, and more (plus 40+ original sketches from industry artists). I'm especially impressed that they rounded up numerous artists to produce original artwork for earthquake relief - not only will it make a beautiful coffee table, but it's the kind of thing you can feel good supporting. Jeremty's interview is alongside Akira Yamaoka's for a discussion on Silent Hill 2's risky design. Sounds like a fantastic issue.
Posted by Sketcz at 3:19 AM 3 comments
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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Snatcher recording session

Jeremy Blaustein recently posted this incredible photo on his Facebook page, from recording Snatcher, which he has given permission to be shared elsewhere online. It's such a great snapshot from an interesting period in history (the change from cartridge to CD-ROM), that I'm reposting it here. Click the photo for a larger image.

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Jeremy Blaustein said:
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The only Snatcher recording session photo. 1993. Historic. Most people agree this is the first video game ever made with good voice acting. — with Lucy Childs, Jim Parks, Jr., Ray Van Steen, Michael Blaustein, Susan Mele and Jeff Lupetin.
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The Facebook page had tags, so I've had to add letters for ease. For a detailed character gallery, check out out THIS PAGE.

A - Lucy Childs (Metal Gear; Female Employee)
B - Jim Parks, Jr. (Random Hajile; Napoleon; Jean Jack Gibson; Ivan Rodorigez)
C - Ray Van Steen (Benson Cunningham; Harry Benson; Elijah Modnar; Chin Shu Oh; Narrator; Ramen Guy)
D - Michael Blaustein
E - Susan Mele (Jamie Seed; Fortune Teller)
F - Jeremy Blaustein
G - Jeff Lupetin (Gillian Seed; Snatcher)


Although their names weren't tagged, I presume the two ladies in the background, next to Susan Mele, are Kimberley Harne (Mika Slayton) and Lynn Foosaner (Katrina Gibson; Lisa; Telephone Operator). Or possibly the other way around.


Photos like this, taken using actual camera film and then later scanned in, are great. The fashions, the lighting, the texture that genuine camera-negatives give a photo, all add to the atmosphere when conveying that moment in time. I often wonder why we don't see more such photos from such events - perhaps no one thought to take them, or perhaps they're sitting in a drawer somewhere? Regardless, it's excellent to see these things resurface years later.

Snatcher was a defining moment in games for me, from when I first saw previews of the original and then later when I saw previews in GameFAN on the PS1 update, to when I was lucky enough to find someone selling their Sega CD games in a local paper, and then playing it and describing it to friends, none of whom had any idea what I was talking about because no one owned a Sega CD and they were all about the PS1. Their loss I say. And as others have said, the acting really was top notch.

Also, is it just me or does Jeremy look a bit like Ryo Hazuki in that leather jacket? It's worth noting HG101 has a lengthy interview with Jeremy, including his work on Shenmue. Check it out HERE if you hadn't before.
Posted by Sketcz at 4:09 AM 3 comments
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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Lesbian character in Suikoden 2


After much painstaking work, I reveal to the world Suikoden 2’s openly lesbian female NPC.
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I recently wrote an article for a UK print magazine on localisation, which I’d hoped would feature these 3 screenshots. Someone sent me scans of the article today, and it turns out they weren’t used. Which is fair enough, I guess. But having spent close to 4 hours trying to grab them, I feel they’re too good to go to waste.

The NPC is located in, if I recall, the university town of Greenhill, which isn’t easy to get into. Using a PS1 emulator on my PC, and an original PAL copy of the game, I tried using save states to reach the town. Problem is, the majority are states for the US version, which meant I had to fiddle with conversion programs to change the data in the save file so they were PAL compatible. This required trawling the net for the PAL version’s product code, which didn’t always work on all save states for some reason. Several hours later I had working states. Except that states towards the end of the game don’t allow you to enter the town. So I had to load an earlier state and play for an hour to reach this section.

Oh, the things I do for journalism. It’s a mug’s game, honestly.

The NPC is located on the path up to the Greenhill Academy. She’s clearly female, with a green sash and red hair – Suikoden 2’s standard housewife NPC. Her first dialogue square asks you to say “Hello” in speech marks, to the academy’s receptionist Emilia, after which the NPC sighs.

Box 2 is the big reveal, where the NPC comments on Emilia’s beauty and intelligence, before admitting she’s smitten.

When speaking to Emilia I have to admit the hand-drawn portrait for her conveys a rather attractive image – it reminds me of a girl from my math’s class years ago. She’s also likely to ignite any fantasies the player might have about young, sexy, strict school-teachers, as she quite clearly tells you to behave yourself.

Actually, for those unable to project the hand-drawn visage into something lifelike, I’m surprised to find I actually have a photo (above) resembling Emilia on my harddrive, from my Curious Photography folder. The glasses are a different colour, but they’re certainly the right shape. I can’t recall where I got it.

Speaking with Blaustein he’d commented on the overall difficulty of working with Suikoden 2’s text assets, which weren’t provided in an easy to follow manner. There were also several translators. It was my opinion at the time, that this NPC’s dialogue box had been mixed up with another’s – possibly a male student walking the grounds.

On reflection though, it might not be a mix-up. Instead it’s possibly a cultural difference to the west – especially since the Japanese don’t/didn’t have a strong Christian/Judaic religious foundation, which for a long time governed sexual behavioural norms in western society. Views on sexuality in Japan has shifted over the centuries, and today in anime and manga there’s the genre of ‘yuri’ which covers womenly love, but it’s a catch-all term and manga fans in the west have also created the term shōjo-ai – to describe specifically non-sexual relationships between women (though in Japan itself, the term means something drastically different). I recall reading a source long ago, possibly in defunct magazine Manga Mania or some other publication, which said that female love commonly does happen in Japan between young friends, but it’s something they usually grow out of as they reach marrying age. It could be that the NPC has nothing more than an innocent crush.

Could this NPC be an example of shōjo-ai? Or am I exaggerating a simple mix-up in text files for the sake of a hyperbolic blog post and the excuse to post provocative photos of women with their eyes closed? We’ll probably never know unless we interview Suikoden’s creators.

I had a very vague recollection that one of the key designers on Suikoden 2 was a woman, but searching Mobygame I appear to be mistaken. Does anyone know if this was the case?
Posted by Sketcz at 7:07 AM 8 comments
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

All 42 ghosts from Metal Gear Solid




I’ve recently discovered that a Chinese forum which had a photo of every ghost in Metal Gear Solid went down, and no one else has such an archive. I also discovered that Jeremy Blaustein was removed from the game – contrary to what FAQ writers say, his ghost is not near the corpse of Sniper Wolf – and I dare the gaming world to prove me wrong. Otherwise, here’s 42 shots of the ghosts.
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These were taken by a forumite named WeiZ, also known as Sunye, on the now dead mgscn.com forums. All credit for taking them go to him (though I fully expect other websites to soon claim ownership). If you want to use them, please credit WeiZ/Sunye for taking them, and myself for taking the time to individually upload each one of them.

Sunye states quite clearly (in Chinese) that he could not find Jeremy Blaustein near Sniper Wolf, and speculates as to why. The 42 which he found makes more sense, since it is a round number and fits perfectly onto 6 PS1 memory cards. So why was Jeremy removed? And can you claim to have found him?

Anyway, enjoy! The name goes below the photo.


01. Kazuki Muraoka (not Nakamura, that's part of the opening credits)


02. Tomokazu Fukushima


03. Takanari Ishiyama


04. Nobumitsu Tanaka


05. Kenichiro Shigeno


06. Ryoko Yoshimura


07. Atsuko Ito


08. Takashi Kitao


09. Yoshiteru Kobayashi


10. Kohei Onoda


11. Nobuyoshi Nishimura


12. Ryoji Makimura


13. Masayuki Kobayashi


14. Shigehisa Kozyou


15. Shinji Yamashita


16. Fujimura


17. Yuji Korekado


18. Yukiko Kaneda


19. Daizo Shikama


20. Yoshikazu Matsuhana


21. Hideo Kojima


22. Kunio Takabe


23. Hideki Sasaki


24. Yoriko Shimizu


25. Shiro Mukaide


26. Ikuya Nakamura

27. Yoji Shinkawa


28. Shigeo Okajima


29. Makoto Sonoyama


30. Kumi Sato


31. Scott Dolph


32. Takashi Kinbara


33. Motoyuki Yoshioka


34. Hiroyuki Togo


35. Satoshi Hirano


36. Motosada Mori


37. Kazunobu Uehara


38. Yutaka Negishi


39. So Toyota


40. Mineshi Kimura


41. Ichiro Kutome


42. Takashi Mizutani
Posted by Sketcz at 6:41 AM 11 comments
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