All those who have played at least one Metal Gear Solid they know and do not know they know Policenauts.
Let me explain: various references to this graphic adventure of 1994 are constant throughout the saga of the great master Hideo Kojima. I am among those who devoured the Metal Gear saga and for this Policenauts - or rather what is represented by Policenauts, that is robot and astronauts with guns - I've always seen it in all Metal Gear Solids.
Think MGS1 and the boss fight against Gray Fox in Hal Emmerich's laboratory, a real sanctuary dedicated to Policenauts complete with posters (and also cut scenes, since, when Hal, once beaten Gray Fox, describes his fascination for robots, I appear footage of the game in question). I recently set out to play it and see what the predecessor of the MGS saga could offer. Getting it was quite difficult, given that the game itself - unlike its previous Snatchers - is not it has never been located either in America or in Europe. In fact, many have wondered why, given that the game had had a good response from Japan. Kojima himself had declared that this lack found its causes in the difficulty of synchronizing the lips of the characters with that of the voice actors, but the reasons seem other, involving the unfortunate fate of the console on which Policenauts was originally published, the Sega Saturn. For years, therefore, many fans, including myself, have thought that this masterpiece was relegated to Japan. The situation changed in 2009, when a group of hardcore fans of Maestro Kojima proposed one complete translation of the Playstation version, released in 1995. In 2012 also the version for Sega Saturn had its translation, with a lot of improvement to the whole sound system, because yes, even small things such as the noise produced by the extraction of the gun or the noises of the environment that they are the background to the dialogues and play a fundamental part in this graphic adventure.
Policenauts was originally proposed as "the next generation of Snatchers“, A game also developed by Kojima, which had had a large following both at home and abroad, so much so that it had been translated into English for Sega CD. Like Kojima over the years he has hinted at his own obsession with cinema often led him to insert numerous citations within his products, or even a borrow some iconic characters to readjust them to his narrative universe. Already Snatchers, boasts of numerous citations to cinema masterpieces such as Blade Runner, just think of the protagonist, inspired by the character played by Harrison Ford, Rick Deckard (fun fact: Kojima will come to self-refer: in MGS4 the robot that accompanies Snake throughout the adventure - the Metal Gear Mk. II - comes from Snatchers).
Quotes also obviously abound in Policenauts at the cinema, starting with the two protagonists Jonathan and Ed who remember the crackling duo Mel Gibson - Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. Even the character of Meryl (!) appearing here for the first time, albeit in a very different guise from MGS1's inexperienced recruit.
Policenauts is part of the kind of point & click graphic adventures that made the nineties so great. The story takes place in 2030, between Earth and the first terrestrial colony created in space, Beyond. In this context, halfway between the detective and the sci-fi, we find Jonathan Ingram, charming detective ready for anything, and his investigation into the disappearance of a man, Hojo Kenzo, which will lead him and meet again many old friendly enemies . Between settings that wink at the 80s and hyper-technological exoskeletons, the gameplay consists of stages of exploration, puzzles to solve and moments à la Time Crisis, in which you have to shoot enemies by moving the pointer (moments that are compatible with the light-gun). The gameplay can appear a bit too repetitive at times, especially for the fact that to advance you have to dissect ALL the conversations with the other characters, and then put up with a whole series of dialogues that sometimes go a little too far from the plot. However frustrating the structure may seem "event> dialogs> select each option> fail to move forward because you just skipped that option there”, However the game is worth being played for the immersion factor.
To learn more:
Rebound: Metal Gear Solid
In fact, we can speak of the excellent characterization of the characters, which emerges for example from the precise direction of the dubbing, organized in such a way as to make those who live on Earth and those who live on Beyond speak with different accents, so as to bring out even more that sort of underground tension between the Earth and Beyond. The Earth is now invaded by pollution, the climate has gone mad and the fall of human civilization seems palpable. Beyond, on the other hand, is brilliant, new but under the control of the multinationals. And as if that weren't enough, it produces huge quantities of waste that are even polluting space. The graphics sector and the aesthetics that Kojima wanted to create can be summarized as follows: Beverly Hills Cop meets Space Dandy, the mix is perfect! Each screen appears rich in detail, colorful and well constructed in aaesthetic that winks at all the Japanese animation of the 80s. Same thing for the cut-scenes, really enjoyable and which aim to build an atmosphere that only Kojima - man made 70% of cinema - can create. The player then finds himself in a huge scifi anime, in which every detail contributes to the sense of immersion in the future.
I dialogues obviously play a fundamental role, with a truly excellent cast of voice actors: even if the undersigned knows nothing of Japanese, however, he could hear the great dedication of the voice actors, each presented together with the dubbed character, in full Kojima style. From this point of view the game was futuristic: it was one of the first to be able to boast of long dialogues recited and recorded in the studio.
Another strong point is certainly the soundtrack, which speaks for itself with the magnificent main theme, which resonates in all turning-points of the story.
(Does it remind you of anything? Spoiler: MGS 1!)
The title is certainly solid as a whole, and then it doesn't last long, I finished it in 10 hours. However, there is no lack of imperfections, some of which are typical of Kojima himself, such as for example the non-jumpable dialogues, which often act as boner-killer in the most excited moments. Another flaw is still the repetitiveness of the sequences, which I mentioned above. Here then I insert a small personal rant: throughout the game we see these mega-tech robots called EMPS. Alche think "I can't wait to fly them!". SPOILERS we will never fly them, and moreover when we fight them, they will come down with pistols. Meh
However, the biggest flaw is one: the disarming linearity of the plot and twists on the phone. It's not to be a snob, but after the intricate plots, twists and turns and all the uncertainty of Snatchers and Metal Gear, herea story that allows a glimpse of the ending from the first hours of the game and that leaves little room for sudden upheavals: if a character appears unreliable or grins badly, then SPOILER is the villain. One of those obvious things that I didn't expect from Kojima, but that however it is offset by the excellent construction of the main characters, each with their own shadows and unresolved issues. In defense of Kojima, however, I can say that what made Lethal Weapon the cult it is is certainly not the plot, but the characters. And then this game has one thing that Lethal Weapon doesn't have, which is the basic message that the Great Master wants to deliver to us.
What Hideo Kojima builds is a world in space, Beyond, perfect and functional, especially with respect to the Land, in which crime as well as pollution now appear out of control. Beyond at first glance may appear to be some kind of hi-tech Noah's ark, in which those who live there are destined to save themselves and take charge of the development of the human race. So much so that many behaviors that on Earth, called Home, are acceptable and widespread, on Beyond are a serious offense, like smoking, associated with the obscene act in a public place, as if to say “Hey Jonathan Ingram and your cigarette always in your mouth! Here we are responsible and we wanted to leave our vices behind! ”.
But is not so.
The more you delve into the Beyond environment, trying to understand what happened to Hojo Kenzo, the more you discover that technological advancement has not led man to become more responsible, but above all it has allowed his vices to evolve accordingly. The drug favorite of the inhabitants of Beyond, the Narc, it is refined in super advanced systems and this makes it one panacea: you get high with doses below a milligram, consequently it is untraceable in the blood, and therefore allows you to keep your addiction hidden.
The story in which Ingram is involved touches a whole series of points that are exploited by Kojima as a sort of window from which the player can see what happens when technological development does not correspond to a moral one. Technology for Kojima is a neutral factor, which if it falls into the wrong hands, like that of money-hungry multinationals (or terrorists with long hair and a giant ego, right Liquid?), Can do much more harm than good. Another theme addressed by Policenauts is that of organ trafficking: human beings who are killed and kept in a state between life and death, called biomort, to use them as organ containers, which will then be sold to the highest bidder. "Horrible! Why does this happen? " asks the incredulous Ingram. The game answers him: man has expanded without being aware of his limits, in fact living in the colony leads the human body to a biological deterioration that affects some organs before others. And by the law of supply and demand, the demand for kidneys, livers and God knows how many other parts of the body increases. Man's neglect of his limitations leads him to create an organ market, in which the goods are not artificial organs - which the game often tells us to be unattainable - but organs of living people, of other men. People like us, people we met and talked to in the game. In conclusion, if the message in SYM is "NUCLEAR BOMBS ARE DANGEROUS", here the message is "THE HUMAN RACE IS NOT YET READY FOR SPACE AND MAN STILL HAS A LOT OF WAY TO GO". If man has a faulty morality, it will remain faulty both on Earth and in space, even though he tries to disguise himself behind the latest generation robots and highly advanced industries.
In conclusion, the big question - would you recommend Policenauts? Belly: yes, play it! For the 80s merged with cyberpunk, for the atmospheres à la Kojima and above all for the fact of to be able to make sense of all those references that storm the Metal Gear Solid saga. And why Hideo Kojima, we call him great teacher not for nothing.
BONUS The whole game is studded with, if not studded with easter egg, which in turn refer to the first Metal Gear. Some of the juiciest - and who make you say "I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" - the aforementioned Meryl and his friend Dave (!) that the Policenauts are part of the unit FOXHOUND (!!), the bar visible in the first cut-scene is called Solid Snake, and the white blood, which flows in the veins of all the cyborgs on Beyond and which will then also flow in the veins of MGS4's Raiden. Nice, huh?
