JJNN Wednesday: Games - 13

Welcome again to JJNN for Wednesday January 21st, 2009. Today we will be talking about the Metal Gear Solid Series.

Metal Gear Solid is a video game series that dates back to 1998. The game was a huge hit that sold over 6 million copies. The director of the series, Kojima Hideo, went on to make many sequels and prequels to the original game. The basic story is about a solder with the code name Solid Snake. He goes onto missions and has the plot of the games unfold around him. In the original game he is young, but in the newest installment he is getting up there in age. Just to give you a feel of the game here is a look at the newest game:



This game is not really news because it came out a little while ago. The news is where the series director got his inspiration for the series in the first place. It turns out that Kojima Hideo is a huge movie fan. He loves to watch lots of movies and absorb their ideas. According to this article Kojima Hideo got together with Tsutaya (sort of like the Blockbusters/Net Flix of Japan) to share with everyone the movies that gave him inspiration for this game series. There are 15 movies. If you know the movies and the game series see if you can connect the dots between the two.

Here are the movies in no particular order:
The Guns of Navarone
The Great Escape
Goldfinger
2001: A Space Odyssey
Planet of the Apes
The Deer Hunter
Dawn of the Dead
Full Metal Jacket
Predator
Die Hard
Heat
Black Hawk Down
Children of Men
The Bourne Identity
Casino Royal

There are some really good classic movies in there mixed up with some more modern fair. All in all a good list of movies to watch whether you are interested in the video game series or not.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 映画(えいが). It is pronounced eiga and means movie. The movies in Japan are so expensive to go to. I can bring my whole family to watch a movie in America for the same price as one ticket in Japan. Bah!

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.