As many of you may know, the Death Stranding World Strand Tour kicked off today at Paris at the occasion of the first day of the Paris Games Week convention live from October 30th to November 3rd. Obviously, the venue of Hideo Kojima coupled with the ( more surprising ) venue of long-time Metal Gear Solid character designer Yoji Shinkawa meant that a new trailer for Death Stranding was bound to air later in the afternoon. But what was more exciting aside from the final trailer that delivered a lot was the presence of Hideo Kojima himself. Man, I’d never thought that Kojima looked even more handsome in real life, like I seriously couldn’t believe what I was just witnessing from my still young eyes ; THE Kojima was here, the one who created the Metal Gear Solid series, directed the ill-fated masterpiece P.T. demo which I’ve already made countless praising on, and helped cement to some extent the reason why video games are now seen as mature, complex, political, and simply ‘ cool ‘ by global standards.
It’s crazy how much fame this dude has all over the gaming fanbase and when, after what seemed like long minutes of waiting in frustration and constantly delaying the hype, Hideo Kojima was finally coming on stage, and the audience went mad, absolute mad ; it was like greeting in a rockstar. In fact, I shouted so loud at every possible occasion that my voice went almost extinct from repeatedly shouting in line with the rest of the crowd ‘ KOJIMA, KOJIMA, KOJIMA, KOJIMA, KOJIMA ‘ while some people were wise enough to bring in their personal copies of past Hideo Kojima games and frenetically wave in sight of him to gain his attention, and acclaiming the trailer as the cast credits rolled. To give you an idea of how the reception of Kojima’s arrival went, get a load of this :
If someone here ( somehow ) manages to find me in the crowd ( I’m wearing a Luigi hat ), then you’re a mad lad.
But like I said earlier, the real deal was when we were invited to come and be taken photos of attendees with Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa. To be honest, at first I was a little worried seeing the ridiculous amount of people desperately waiting to meet two legends of the videogame industry on stage only then for this moment to be immortalized. However, the amount of people meant that there was no time of any other additional nit-picking, like having them sign autographs for the fans or having the fans ask them questions, it was pretty straightforward ; one picture taken every 15 seconds approximately.
So we barely made through half an hour when it was finally my turn to meet two unprecedentedly respected figures in the gaming industry and community in the person of Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa. One thing that I will regret though is that obviously since it had to be done quickly, I had barely enough time to engage a brief contact with both persons, and aside, I always struggle to remain mentally focused with how I’m going to engage with ‘ popular ‘ people when I turn to be actually in front of them. Nevertheless, being in physical contact with the boys just felt surreal to me. And although I felt like my face in the picture ( I was internally panicking at this moment what face to do ) makes me look like I’m a psychopath ( judging by the perspective, I understand why xD ), the unmeasurable aura that spawned out of both Kojima and Shinkawa made this picture all the more valuable to me, and will forever remain so. It was very brief, but intense.
This is me in the middle, with the lords in their glorious form.
So yeah, for those who saw the trailer online or we’re not physically here during the convention, this may not have been a huge deal compared to the other past reveals of Death Stranding. But as someone who was physically ‘ there ‘ when the trailer rolled after Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa kindly made part of their actual presence at the convention, this breathtaking ( literally I’m tired of screaming ) moment will remain immortalized for the many years to come. Now I know that perhaps some lucky people here have gotten the chance in the past to also meet Kojima in person and that it would not maybe not matter as much seeing me meeting up with Kojima as they’ve already done so in the past, but for someone like me who still happens to question his life on a daily basis, this made all the difference. I mean you really have to be ‘ there ‘ to fully understand what I mean ; it’s not all the time you happen to be attending a convention where one of the most celebrated game designers of history also happens to be passing by.
And to finish, it would have been criminal to close this thread without mentioning how much
MiyazakiHatesKojima
’s rare dedication for Hideo Kojima helped me get more interested into the man’s career. If you’re reading this man, I’m really grateful to you for having made me care this much about Kojima to the point of yelling the shit out of me even as someone who has yet to play a single Hideo Kojima game until now. But hopefully this picture will cement the new-found appreciation I have for the man and lead in the future to a series of fascinating discoveries in the man’s past games. So if I’m here talking about this or having created a lengthy thread about P.T. that did justice to the legacy of Silent Hills, it’s all thanks to
MiyazakiHatesKojima
once again. I know that you jokingly made me part of your desire on the Discord server of having an autograph signed by Kojima of your part, and even though the occasion sadly never got to materialize, I genuinely think that you were the one who deserved a safe spot to be at my place at that moment, I mean you’re the one true Kojima specialist here !
To buckle things up, this year’s edition of the Paris Games Week convention was arguably my most memorable yet, with other brief discoveries such as my first hands-on Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Ring Fit Adventure ( which are definitely very solid titles to play ), had the chance to view a 45-minute presentation on Cyberpunk 2077 ( which honestly kicks major ass ) that was loud as fuck, played some old retrogaming games mainly on the Sega Saturn ( a gaming system that definitely had to suffer from a shitload of events despite having some undeniable qualities ) and above all walked a marathon for more than 7 hours. If after that I’m not exhausted I don’t even know how can I feel painless. Is it the amount of Ice Tea ( here’s to product placement furtively placed and you’re not realizing ) that I drank ( even while writing this thread ) or actually all the glasses of apple-kiwi-cucumber juice from this morning ?
We both sighted at random directions clueless of where we were supposed to look at during the photo
If someone here ( somehow ) manages to find me in the crowd ( I’m wearing a Luigi hat ), then you’re a mad lad.
But like I said earlier, the real deal was when we were invited to come and be taken photos of attendees with Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa. To be honest, at first I was a little worried seeing the ridiculous amount of people desperately waiting to meet two legends of the videogame industry on stage only then for this moment to be immortalized. However, the amount of people meant that there was no time of any other additional nit-picking, like having them sign autographs for the fans or having the fans ask them questions, it was pretty straightforward ; one picture taken every 15 seconds approximately.
So we barely made through half an hour when it was finally my turn to meet two unprecedentedly respected figures in the gaming industry and community in the person of Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa. One thing that I will regret though is that obviously since it had to be done quickly, I had barely enough time to engage a brief contact with both persons, and aside, I always struggle to remain mentally focused with how I’m going to engage with ‘ popular ‘ people when I turn to be actually in front of them. Nevertheless, being in physical contact with the boys just felt surreal to me. And although I felt like my face in the picture ( I was internally panicking at this moment what face to do ) makes me look like I’m a psychopath ( judging by the perspective, I understand why xD ), the unmeasurable aura that spawned out of both Kojima and Shinkawa made this picture all the more valuable to me, and will forever remain so. It was very brief, but intense.
This is me in the middle, with the lords in their glorious form.
And to finish, it would have been criminal to close this thread without mentioning how much
MiyazakiHatesKojima
’s rare dedication for Hideo Kojima helped me get more interested into the man’s career. If you’re reading this man, I’m really grateful to you for having made me care this much about Kojima to the point of yelling the shit out of me even as someone who has yet to play a single Hideo Kojima game until now. But hopefully this picture will cement the new-found appreciation I have for the man and lead in the future to a series of fascinating discoveries in the man’s past games. So if I’m here talking about this or having created a lengthy thread about P.T. that did justice to the legacy of Silent Hills, it’s all thanks to
MiyazakiHatesKojima
once again. I know that you jokingly made me part of your desire on the Discord server of having an autograph signed by Kojima of your part, and even though the occasion sadly never got to materialize, I genuinely think that you were the one who deserved a safe spot to be at my place at that moment, I mean you’re the one true Kojima specialist here !
We both sighted at random directions clueless of where we were supposed to look at during the photo
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