Metal Gear History: Kazunobu Uehara, MGS1’s PAL bug, and memories of the demos

Metal Gear History : Kazunobu Uehara was the lead programmer for Metal Gear Solid (1998). Here’s an excerpt from "Kojima MGS 2 Development Diary" where Kojima recalls a time Uehara fixed a game-breaking bug in the PAL version of MGS1.

Kojima: "I was contacted by RMC that there was a freezing bug on the PAL version of MGS. Uehara filled me in on the details. It turned out to be memory overload. At the heliport, if you put on thermal goggles the moment the stinger’s 1st person camera broke, it would freeze. We fixed it for handover to CS international tomorrow. Uehara stayed to burn the ROM. He’s been showing confidence, flexibility, and a sense of responsibility recently. It’s a good thing."

When you compare it to today’s standards for releasing games, it shows the challenges of handling regional versions and last-minute fixes in the PS1 era, when physical media made patches MUCH harder. What also stood out to me was Kojima’s praise for Kazunobu Uehara, which reflects the small team dynamics of late ’90s development and how crucial talent like his was. 🤓

This also takes me back to the bugs I found when playing the MGS1 demos before release in Japan. One of them happened when I kept pausing the game while laying C4 and triggering a staggered explosion. If I paused between each blast, I could eventually force the game into an untextured green mode. I first got the idea after freeze framing one of the early trailers and noticing the explosion frames showed everything untextured. It wasn’t game breaking mind you(I did find it amusing though), but I also discovered plenty of out of bounds areas just by replaying and stress testing each area the demo had. 😎🎮

Source: MGN on X