Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

something that made playing this game for the first time more fun was that i had recently revisited metal gear solid and more recently played the first half of mgs v along with death stranding one and two. basically, i am thoroughly kojima-pilled, but i think that knowing what his deal is is sort of essential for actually enjoying these games because the first time i tried mgs2 i just got annoyed and bounced off it because i thought the controls were weird.

this time at least, i met it on its own terms, which felt good, but i think it does speak to a weakness in his games (much like souls games) where you sort of have to be on board with what's on offer before you can actually make the most of what's happening. sticking with it ended up being a real delight, down to the extremely cheesy bosses and the absurd story.

a few comments:

• the boss music, "yell dead cell", just a really lovely, ridiculous, jungley breakbeat track that feels extremely of its time.
• kojima loves new york and he especially loves john woo. i thought maybe the woo doves would be entirely tongue in cheek because of the way bird poop ends up playing a mechanical role in the navigation around big shell. imagine my surprise that he saved their appearance for the last possible moment.
• the forced camera angles here and the first person toggle is so weirdly endoaring, it's not great, but it's not terrible and i think it's gotta be intentional, because nearly every stage likes to play around with how much you can see or don't see and it seems to indicate something in play testing where they must have realized that players weren't varying it enough.
• the idea of the offshore rig and the way that it hides intent behind its mundane facade and empowers these quasi-legal entities is really interesting, i'm not at all surprised that he would return to this in peacewalker and in mgs v.
• the gender politics of the game are less rough than they could be but ee's character is just mind boggling.
• at least two of the bosses, i ended up defeating with cqc and not with a weapon, which i have to imagine was intentional???
• the explosive search stuff was goofy and fun.

i think overall a fun game and i think would be more fun at around 80% its size, some of the big shell moments felt like they dragged a bit, but not enough to detract from the game.

So, over the past couple years I have been slowly playing through the Metal Gear Solid games in chronological order and I finally got to MGS 2. The gameplay was enjoyable though occasionally clunky especially when it came to the hanging or slight parkour parts. But it usually takes me awhile to get into the mechanics of the Metal Gear series since I've been playing them quite far apart and they do change quite a bit.

The boss fights were awesome as usual but this is where the story really stands out. MGS had an interesting story and the messaging in these games always hits pretty hard but MGS 2 just covers things that seem even more likely to be real. The use of AI, the control of information, and other things buried deep in society. I also did not hate playing as Raiden instead of Snake like many people apparently did when it released.

I still think MGS 3 is my favorite overall but this is a really "Solid" gaming experience and the story/lore dump is crazy.

To my friend who told me MGS2 is his favorite, I can certainly see why. Thanks! Definitely recommend people who are a fan of stealth/action games to go back and play this on whatever you can. I'm also looking forward to the Snake Tales extra content.

4/5

Played on PS5 in Master Collection Vol 1 - about 12 hours in total. Played alongside the State of the Arc podcast.

This was a fun one. I liked that it was in many ways modelled after the first game (and this came into play in a cool way later on) in story and vibe, and also gameplay.

There is a lot of detail and nuance to the gameplay and systems which is really impressive considering when this game came out. It's everything good about the first but refined. Having played Snake Eater before this I found the controls pretty easy to use. Whenever I get into a rhythm with these games they present a boss or scenario where I have to shake things up.

The story is interesting, and I was hooked by all the layers of mystery set up. I think the payoffs were not mind blowing for me but satisfying enough. It's all very Kojima and occasionally eye rolling for me. I laughed out loud a few times which is fun.

I overlooked a lot of wonky gameplay issues in the first game because it was a PS1 game. But my patience only goes so far and I thought a PS2 game would be a bit easier to pick up and play.

That said, this is clearly another game that massively influenced the genre - and as with the first game, the attention to fine details is very impressive.

Kojima’s writing continues to be hit or miss moment-to-moment (dialogue, exposition, etc.), but there’s no denying he’s an interesting storyteller and that this game was dealing with themes and ideas way ahead of its time. The last 1-2 hours were fantastic.

STEALTH ACTION - Raiden confronts a shadowy conspiracy involving a new Metal Gear and global information control.

PROS:

++ Engaging and interesting narrative. The story was far more engaging than MGS1. Both the immediate story (stopping Solidus and Dead Cells) and the underlying story (the ultimate goal of the Patriots) were very interesting.

++ Excellent characters. I loved the characters in the game. New ones like Raiden, Solidus, Vamp, Fortune, and Fatman were quite memorable for their quirks and personalities. And returning characters were further developed and became more likeable (Solid Snake, Revolver Ocelot, and Otacon).

++ Raiden. I really liked Raiden being the main character. He is a great lead and I like the dynamic and relationship he forms with Solid Snake.

++ Improvements to gameplay. Though you still have to wrestle with the camera and controls, the combat feels much better in MGS2.

++ Great production quality. All the good things MGS1 did is still present in this game (cinematic cutscenes, stellar voice acting, great boss fights, and memorable music).

++ The social commentary.

++ The double plot twist. (Big Shell was being used as a simulation to train Raiden to become like Solid Snake by replicating the events of Shadow Moses), which was followed up with another plot twist (the S3 plan did not actually stand for Solid Snake Simulation).

CONS:

-- Fixed angles. The fixed camera is still something that I feel did not improve too much from MGS1. It still caused some complications in combat and stealth encounters.

-- Frequent interruptions. Though I highly enjoyed most CODEC calls, there seemed to be so much more of them in this game. Many came abruptly and they frequently interrupted the action. Also, CODEC calls with Rose were quite annoying.

-- Clunky controls. The control scheme aged poorly for me. Shooting in first-person took some time to get used to.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was the only Metal Gear Solid game I played before my thirties. When it came out in 2001, I was twelve. I rented the game from Hollywood Video, and played through the entire game in one sitting on a lazy Saturday.

Needless to say I didn't understand any of it, and I never played any Metal Gear Solid game again, until I played Kojima's Death Stranding last year. It's not a Metal Gear Solid game, of course, but I was so impressed by the world, story, and gameplay of Death Stranding that I knew I needed to give Kojima another chance. So this past December I played through Metal Gear Solid 1 with the intention of slowly working my way through Kojima's oeuvre.

What a game. I couldn't believe it. I had to remind myself constantly that this game's contemporaries were barely beyond the Super Nintendo; here instead was a piece that felt so thoroughly modern, that mastered 3D gameplay and storytelling in a time when those techniques were just being invented. This was truly a video game of its own future. Metal Gear Solid pulled me through it with such intensity, I couldn't put it down. I remembered vaguely the strange, confusing feelings I had as a young person playing the sequel, but I didn't really think much of it, and was mostly just excited to play through MGS2 with these new adult eyes.

Was Metal Gear Solid 2 exactly what I expected from a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 1? No, it was not. And I think that was probably the case for most people. If Metal Gear Solid 1 in 1998 was five to ten years ahead of its time, Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2001 was fifteen to twenty years ahead of its time. But rather than being ahead of its time in terms of the artform of video games, Metal Gear Solid 2 was ahead of its time in terms of its plot, its story structure, its politics, and its ideology. Metal Gear Solid 2 should be remembered as one of the most prescient pieces of science fiction ever written. In Metal Gear Solid 1, Kojima was channeling the likes of James Cameron, and made a big awesome action-movie video game the likes of which the world had not yet seen. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima was channeling the likes of Ray Bradbury, and made a post-modern, internet-trolly, video game version of something like Fahrenheit 451.

Understanding Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2023 is a completely different ball-game from understanding it in 2001. 9-11 had happened mere months before. "Social Media" wasn't even a thing. My peers and I were only just dabbling with "digital presence" with things like AOL Instant Messenger. I was twelve. Understanding Metal Gear Solid 2 in any intellectual capacity then, for me, was just…. Not possible. Based on the contemporary gaming literature, few adults could understand it at the time, either. It's mind-boggling that Hideo Kojima could even make the game. How did he know what was going to happen?

I have, as an adult, literally seen Twitter create revolutions in the Middle East. Soon after this, I saw, in real time, those same social media tools be slowly dismantled of their utility right in front of us, so those sorts of things wouldn't happen again, at least with those tools. There wasn't even any need for a secret cabal, or a secret underwater nuclear powered AI-harboring server farm, to make this happen. Billionaires purchase newspapers and Twitters just to shape the message. Investors demanded their returns, and "The Algorithm" began to dominate our feeds, not our friends. My settlement from the mid-2010's Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal class-action-lawsuit will be arriving soon; "The Message" was shaped so hard that it was finally determined to be illegal. Maybe those lawyers are the real life Snake and Otacon, fighting against the Man…?

Is the gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 2 as good as Metal Gear Solid 1? It's arguable. It's very similar; the environments are more baked, with more environmental interaction, so it's definitely plussed, but not drastically different. I found the boss fights to be just as exciting as in Metal Gear Solid 1, and every set piece of the game was exciting and memorable.

What I found a little less memorable, a little less fun, were the pieces in between the boss fights and major set-piece action sequences. While Metal Gear Solid 1 felt like I was tied with a rope around my waist, being pulled through the game at a breakneck speed, Metal Gear Solid 2 has a rather uneven gameplay pace. On more than one occasion I was left with a feeling of, "I'm not exactly sure what to do now to overcome this challenge" that I didn't appreciate. Coupled with a less-forgiving level and encounter design, and an overall higher ceiling for difficulty than MGS1, the actual game part of MGS2 was not as strong for me as MGS1.

But as I have already discussed, what this game actually has to say more than makes up for any muddled game design. I was enthralled by the cutscenes. When the General started talking about using AI to shape digital discourse, with Elon Musk having just purchased twitter so fresh in my memory, with ChatGPT freaking people out left and right, knowing how Donald Trump and other autocrats are elected, it just resonated. I loved it. It didn't seem weird or outlandish. It felt like a totally legitimate science-fiction interpretation of the world as I know it today.

That's how I know that Hideo Kojima is truly a generational genius. He saw where we were going, and the rest of us didn't understand it until the world itself caught up with what he had portrayed in his fiction.

I wish I could have played Metal Gear Solid 2 with an emulator to more easily get past some of the difficulty spike portions that challenged me -- if you feel like you won't be able to play it successfully, or feel like it would be too hard to finish, I encourage you to watch a playthrough on YouTube, just to experience the story.

There's no better time in history for it than right now.

I am at the final boss and I am finding it so hard.

Gonna keep trying, I will beat this one.

It’s kinda nutso how relevant the plot of this game is to our modern age of social media and AI. Truly above and beyond MGS1, which was more like a a rote action movie in comparison. I love what is being said in MGS2, it’s almost prophetic.

It’s also fascinating that it had roughly the same plot as Bioshock, in terms of the protagonist, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone ever say that Bioshock was using MGS2’s plot idea. It’s because MGS2 is so bizarre that no one even realized, I think.

Okay thanks to everyone’s encouragement I pushed past the bombs! I actually thought the fight with the roller blading guy (god Kojima is weird in the best possible way) was really fun, and it’s so well designed how they set you up for success by having you (probably, if you’re a clever enough player) collect all the claymores before the fight so you can use them against him. I am feeling the excitement again!

For whatever reason I'm having a harder time moving through this one than MGS1. I'm at the part where I have to go through the facility defusing bombs. It's not not-fun, but it's also not really that fun I guess? I feel like the first one just kinda drove forward relentlessly with action and intrigue. I feel a lot more, not aimless, but like there's more filler, and for some reason feel like the stealth gameplay is more punishing compared to the first one, which might explain why I feel like it's longer. It's taking me longer to do things because I'm failing a lot more.

I dunno, I think I need to get over this hump and hopefully it will engage with me.

Finished story and reached credits on Easy

Final thoughts:

Overall, the game feels... incohesive? Don't get me wrong, the game still has many highs. It starts out really strong with "Metal Gear Theme" that originated from this game, which is one of the best video game themes I've ever heard of. The first 20% feels excellent like a great and logical follow-up to Metal Gear Solid, especially that I found it funny how Otacon was constantly butchering the Save dialog!

... But then the rest of the game? I'm just not as invested, unfortunately. Raiden feels like a weaker protagonist, and I found Rose's constant relationship talks throughout the game just... annoying. The new offshore Rig setting only feels like a less interesting Shadow Moses Island, especially the bosses, while interesting on their own right, have archetypes that feel so similar to the previous game too (even though this was entirely intentional due to plot reasons).

I also feel this there's just too much convoluted information in this game compared to the previous entry for me to comprehend. Even though long cutscenes are to be expected for a Metal Gear Solid game, I found the ones in this game to be too long and pace-breaking. I won't lie that the themes brought up are interesting and is somehow even more true in the present day, with confirmation bias growing even strong due to internet posts and social media! Also, it's fun to see the origins of "Fission Mailed".

At least the controls are also much less clunky in this game compared to MGS 1, even though it's still rough by modern standards.

While I'm not completely satisfied with how all overall the place this game felt to me at times, it still brought up interesting ideas that didn't make me regret playing this one. In the end, I feel MGS 2 is more of a love or hate title depending on your experience.

Critics' Score:

Metacritic: 96/100

Famitsu: 38/40

Game Informer: 10/10

EDGE: 8/10

GameSpot: 9.6/10

IGN: 9.7/10

(Review of the PS3 remaster in the HD Collection)

A fantastic game from beginning to end. Another testament of Hideo Kojima’s genius as a designer; I have only completed three game of his: MGS, MGS2 and Death Stranding. All three of them have surprised me in one particular regard: the incredible depth of their gameplay -and their flabbergasting stories-. It's possible that Sons of Liberty, takes the prize from them all, this is a game that thrives in the smallest of details.

Those shine the most during gameplay, I regret not having a formal list of things that really caught me off guard, although I am acquainted enough with Kojima, to be aware that he loves those tiny details. From having Snake catching a cold: a sneeze is a storm when you are trying to be stealthy, remember to have your cough medicine; to the many ways you can defeat bosses: if they caught your shadow, have you tried shooting the lamps?; to the incredible amount of stuff, the player is able to do: placing adult magazines to “captivate” a guard’s attention, you can go prancing in front of him, but they are all simps, they don't pay attention once the booby trap is set. And all this isn't even the tip of the iceberg; variety in gameplay is extraordinary and explained with minimal tutorials, you can ask via codec for information, but I haven't done much of the sort, as I felt the game invites to do trial and error, it feels great when some stuff, that seems unlikely to work, ends up working wonders; and to sum it all up, the gameplay is fun, I have enjoyed my time with this immensely.

It should be noted, although it's one of the main reasons of its impact: the bravery in changing the main character after the prologue and although Raiden isn't Snake, he lacks any sort of charisma but that in itself is an important theme on the game, the presentation of Raiden as the pawn, a man who lives closeted in himself is noticeable from the beginning, he is intriguing and it sets the tone of mystery of the game, where things are not what they seem.

Hideo Kojima’s stories are one of a kind, his writing in itself would be enough for me to qualify him as an “auteur”, his voice is unique and personal. Clearly he puts a lot of thought into the intricate ideas that he wants to express, he also manages to startle me with a lot of “WTF moments”, genuinely “WTF” might be the only sentence I have pronounced while playing the game. His writing is always a roller coaster, not only of emotions but of quality too; the dialogue easily veer from the incredibly deep philosophical discourse, or basically predicting the dangers of the Internet to the campy, absurtdist, self-parody. It can also go from striking me with its profoundness, to making me clench my jaw so hard that my teeth begins to shatter. And although, I can be often harsh with stories, specially when they fluctuate so often as this -although it's expected from its maximalist tale, it has a lot going on-Kojima always manages to deliver its mind-blowing and its astonishingly cheap twists alike with the same grace and personality, which beckons me to not only love them and find them unreasonably enthralling. It also awakens my admiration not only to the genius designer, but the unique storyteller that is Hideo Kojima.

Score: 100/100

I was really excited to get into the Metal Gear Solid series, after listening so much about it, so I picked up the HD Collection and started it. Metal Gear Solid 2 was a really weird experience for me.

The graphics for that era are great and the controls actually are really good and I didn't have a problem using them. Also it is a well directed game. The shots and the camera were placed correctly. The cut scenes were really well made actually, even if they would go on for a great amount of time. I mean throughout the whole game there were these cut scenes that would go on for like 5-10 minutes, but near the end it was extreme and I am talking 40 minutes level of extreme. Still they were there to move the plot forward, so I did find their place, even if at points I would have preferred to be split better. And the voice acting is really great! After playing some of the first Resident Evil this really stood out!

Now when playing a game the first thing I look at is the story and here the story is... it is something. I mean I don't feel like I lost a lot because I hadn't played the first game. Sure certain characters I didn't know already, but I got to learn them through this one. But the story got really complicated. I mean it started pretty simple and as it would go on I felt more and more lost.

There was this whole bigger picture it is trying to create and the game wants to open the world of the game, but by doing it, it leaves a ton of questions unanswered that I am sure are answered in later games and I liked that, but by playing this I just felt really lost and more and more information were given as it would go. And as it would conclude it got kinda unrealistic and that was kinda weak. I actually really liked its plot and its meaning, I just felt like it was over-complicated. And I think that the game had much more to tell than games of that time. So yeah I really loved the plot, but at the same time I was really confused and that's why I found this a weird experience. Still excited for the rest. Also can I find somewhere the first MGS for the PS3?

Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2) improved on all of the things I disliked about the first game and had a much more captivating story.

The gamplay is what I thought was most improvedt. I enjoyed how combat felt when you alerted guards or fought a boss. I had issues landing any hits on enemies in the first game, but things felt more accurate in MGS2. I liked how you had the option of shooting in first person and could also shoot from behind cover. The locker mechanic was kind of cool, especially when it works and the guard walks right past you. I am sad that I wasn't able to fool the enemies as easily with boxes though.

The bosses were really fun. Not just the fights with the bosses, but the stories behind each one. I can't explain how much I've talked about Fatman and Vamp in the past few days, especially after watching the goofy things each of these characters did. I thought the motivations behind each character were really well done.

I can't image how I would have felt about this game had I played it when I was younger. The cinematic scenes in this game are remarkable for running on PS2 (I played the HD remaster on PS3, but I can l tell how impressive the design would have originally been). The camera angles used are totally reminiscent of a movie and did this more accurately than most games do today. Of course this is why Kojima has the reputation he does within the film community, but seeing what he and his team were able to accomplish in 2001 is awe-inspiring.

I know I said the story in MGS2 is better than the first and I haven't elaborated on why, but to do so would take a tremendous amount of time and explanations of specific events within the game.

I highly recommend MGS2!

Played on PS3

“Snake… what took you so long?” -Hideo Kojima

All you have to know is that I am a huge Metal Gear Solid fan, and that picking my favorite game out of the series is extremely hard because I love each one for different reasons. However, I still review each game as objectively as possible. And in case you don’t know: the Metal Gear Solid series is a stealth-action series where you play as special operations soldiers. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty carried the torch from the last game.

Now that you know this, it is time for me to come clean: I have not played the original Metal Gear Solid 2 on the PlayStation 2. The fact of the matter is that I picked up the HD collection back in 2011 for the Xbox 360. Yes, it’s sacrilege, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not important. Unless you’re a purist, the HD Edition is essentially the same as the original. It’s the same experience, but in high-definition. And if it helps, I also have the HD collection for PlayStation 3, so I did keep the series in the family.

This review will serve more as a review for the original version. I want to review the game in the context of the PlayStation 2 era. I don’t remember a whole lot from that era, but I have played many other PS2 games that I can compare it to. So, let’s go back to the early 2000’s: everyone was still itching for more Metal Gear Solid after the first one blew our un-evolved minds. The first game was like receiving the Monolith, advancing our primitive species to reach new heights. Then the PS2 comes along with bigger, better, faster, stronger and harder hardware. With the graphics jump from the PSOne to the PS2, there was so much opportunity for last-gen games to show off.

There really is a huge difference between the graphics of the PSOne and the PS2. I don’t think there has ever been a more noticeable difference between the 3D generations, and there probably won’t ever be another leap like it again. And with the first Metal Gear Solid being such a cinematic experience, it’s easy to see how a graphics upgrade would only enhance it. In Metal Gear Solid, you could not even see the main protagonist’s (Solid Snake) face in-game. Now in Metal Gear Solid 2 you can finally see Snake’s handsome face. And really, isn’t that what everyone wants?

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.com/2017/08/07/metal-gear-solid-2-sons-of-liberty-hd-edition/

10/10!!!

After playing and loving The Phantom Pain, I really wanted to play another Metal Gear game. This was the first one I was able to get my hands on and izzz gooood! Even despite being like 15 years old this game sure does hold up in terms of gameplay and story. Now if you know metal gear you know that its a convoluted mess and this game isn't any different but if you are a metal gear fan then you probably enjoy the mess like I do. Thats probably the thing I love the most about these games, the convoluted, thrilling, extremely-long-cutscene story and the interesting characters that all seem to just pop up out of the woodwork. Theres also many philosophical and social themes running through the franchise that I find truly compelling. Now let me also say that I'm pretty awful at this game. I can't tell you how many times I died, or got frustrated, or had to look up something online because I didn't know how to complete the next task. That being said the game is still really fun to play. Its exciting to just barely sneak past a guard or take them out in a split second timeframe before they set off an alarm or barely escape with your life when they discover you hiding in your trademark box. Now the only gripe I could really come up with is that you don't get to play as Snake through the vast majority of the game but honestly thats just kind of a personal preference I guess because Raiden (the main protagonist) is a really interesting and compelling character in his own right. Overall just daaaaaaaang! I really loved this game and I really hope the next one keeps up the trend of these epic Metal Gear games. This franchise is on the way to becoming one of my favorites.