Ultimate Face-off: Hideo Kojima/David Cage

MGS creator intrigued by Heavy Rain, sought meeting with Quantic Dream CEO.

By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

This celebrity head-to-head ranks right up there with Frost/Nixon and Angelina Jolie/Megan Fox. Quantic Dream founder and CEO David Cage has revealed to Kikizo that Hideo Kojima sought him out for a "private discussion" last year.

The Metal Gear Solid creator was apparently curious about Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream's latest, possibly greatest project for PS3. "Kojima heard about Heavy Rain last year and we met," Cage explained. "Because everyone told him about Heavy Rain and he wanted to talk, discuss this topic."

As outspoken pioneers in the field of game storytelling, it's easy to imagine what the two icons might discuss. With Heavy Rain, Cage and his team are trying to create a truly interactive narrative rather than the highly linear, hands-off garden variety - to "treat [game] storytelling differently, not through cut scenes but directly through gameplay".

Kojima, for his part, confessed in a Kikizo interview last year that he sometimes "regrets" putting too much emphasis on cut scenes in his work, and that he is researching more dynamic forms of storytelling: "I'm always thinking about it - making it interactive but at the same time telling the story part and the drama even more emotionally".

Sadly, Cage refused to give many details of their conversation, though if his tactfully worded reservations on Kojima's output are any indication, it may have been a heated one: "I certainly respect his work, definitely, although it's not the type of game I want to make myself."

Elsewhere in the interview, Cage expressed his scepticism for Project Natal, talked up Sony's E3 showing and explored the pros and cons of QTE sequences. He also told us that smiling golfers are emotionally primitive. Go read some.