Written by GT Staff  on February 01, 2008

Special: There's no immunity here.

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Tomonobu Itagaki
Itagaki has a selection of big-name titles under his belt, including Tecmo Bowl, Ninja Gaiden, and the long-running Dead or Alive series. On one hand, his designs have a painstaking attention to detail that makes them a rich experience. For instance, the environment has an effect on gameplay in the Dead or Alive 2 fighting game. Icy or wet ground affects throw moves, and walls affect how throws and holds are executed. And all moves in DoA had counter-moves, meaning that players had to experiment and find attacks that didn't leave them vulnerable to their opponent. At the same time, though, there's just way too much time spent on the busty female characters' skimpy costumes, including a physics engine that allowed their breasts to react dynamically to moves and strikes. Eventually, this degenerated into Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, which did away with the fighting game completely. Still, the commercial success of the series is undeniable, as is the popularity of the Ninja Gaiden series. Itagaki is currently working on an Xbox 360 version of Ninja Gaiden.

The jury says...
"Itagaki believes his own hype and sometimes that just doesn't end well."

"Breast physics? Come on! Does this guy work for Tecmo or Larry Flint?"

David Jaffe
David Jaffe has opinions and he wants you to hear them. Jaffe's blog routinely features news about his latest project alongside his opinionated comments on everything under the sun. But we listen to Jaffe (or at least tolerate him) because of his creation of two classic franchises: Twisted Metal and God of War. After creating Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 on the original PlayStation, Jaffe stepped away from the car-crunching series and high-profile games in general. But he came roaring back to the public eye with the rebirth of the Twisted Metal franchise with 2001's Twisted Metal Black. This led directly to his biggest project, the classic God of War. After developing the sequel, God of War II, Jaffe opined that he wanted to work on smaller, more personal projects and make gamers cry. This led to the now canceled PSP title Heartland, that would have shown a foreign army invading American soil. While Jaffe was not able to make us cry, he did prove that smaller games can have a high profile with his most recent offering, Calling All Cars! on the PlayStation Network.

The jury says...
"Jaffe is a loud mouth, but God of War speaks for itself."

Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima redefined what a game and a hero could be with his Metal Gear series. Instead of the standard jumping from platform to platform or the mindless gunning down of foes, Metal Gear demanded emotional investment from players the same way movies do. However this comes as no surprise for Hideo Kojima was once a student of film and still remains a huge fan, especially of the cult classics (Solid Snake is borrowed from the John Carpenter film УEscape from New YorkФ). Other instances of Hideo Kojima's homage to films can be found in his pre-Metal Gear games; Policenauts and Snatcher. In Policenaunts the protagonists resemble the lead characters from the movie УLethal WeaponФ, while in SnatcherЕ the entire game is pretty much Blade Runner.

Another hallmark of his games is the use of Уbreaking the fourth wallФ. Kojima, perhaps more than any other developer in the industry, uses this tool to bring the players into the experience and often times remind them that this is just a game. The most famous use of Уbreaking the fourth wallФ was in Metal Gear Solid 2 where the Colonel starts spouting out random non-sense. One of the phrases has the Colonel telling Raiden (the player) "Turn off the game you have played too much." Amazingly though, Hideo Kojima made this actually tie-in with the game's main plot.

While the Metal Gear Solid series may be coming to end this year, Hideo Kojima has plenty in store for fans of his work and even if he didn't his place in gaming history would be forever embedded inside his very emotional and surreal work.

The jury says...
"If anyone can pull off a 'name above the title' credit and not have it seem pompous, it's Hideo Kojima."



Ken Levine
Ken Levine is best known for the phenomenal Bioshock (named Gaming Target's 2007 Game of the Year) but it was his work at Looking Glass Studios that set the stage for Bioshock and gaming innovation in general. Looking Glass was a highly respected development house best known for Ultima Underworld and the stealth genre defining Thief, but it was Levine's work on System Shock 2 that really made the industry sit up and take notice. Incorporating elements from various genres Ц FPS, stealth, RPG, action/adventure Ц System Shock 2 was a gripping and damn scary game that sucked you into its world and never let go. Among the unique and innovative gameplay elements were security cameras and turrets that could be hacked, weapons that degraded with continuous use, Force-like Psionic powers, the ability to level up your skills, tons of hidden areas and items, multiple methods of solving problems, and an engaging story told through emails and the unnerving appearance of ghosts. The game took place on huge space vessel Von Braun, where most of the crew has been brutally slaughtered at the hands of their shipmates who have been mysteriously transformed into murderous zombies. Sound familiar? System Shock 2 was a game ahead of its time and Bioshock is a fitting spiritual sequel that gives Levine and his team the widespread recognition (and sales) they deserved so long ago, and will likely go down as one of the most influential games of all time.

The jury says...
"'Thief.' 'Nuff said. It created a genre and showed us what 3D sound was for. Thief is story, atmosphere, tension. It created a world."

Shinji Mikami
Making your name known in the games industry with the zombie horror smash hit, Resident Evil, is truly saying something. Resident Evil was such an accomplishment that he was promoted as producer of the next two installments. His next big production project was supposed to be another Resident Evil installment but instead a new series was born as an aborted attempt at Resident Evil 4 became Devil May Cry.

Shinji Mikami then vowed loyalty to the Nintendo GameCube. With a new system came new games, Resident Evil 4, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, and P.N. 03. Of these titles, only Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil 4 were received with positive results. P.N. 03 did so poorly; Mikami would step down from his position. He later would join Clover Studios, makers of God Hand and OkamiЕ and nothing else. Though Okami received phenomenal reviews, Clover Studios was closed completely at the end beginning of 2007.

On January 29, 2008, Shinji Mikami announced his new project for Platinum Games (formally SEEDS) has reached development stages. Unfortunately no information is known about the project.

The jury says...
"You've got to hand it to the man who created Devil May Cry by accident."

Meet more developers on the next page and find out which ones got eliminated.