Metal Gear Solid 2

[Straylight]

Quite possibly one of the finest PS2 titles around. I got my brother this for Christmas, and watched him complete it. I've got about half way through myself. Good game, and a really great storyline. I like the attention to detail, and all the extra things you can do (eg. if you shoot a lot of seagulls, the colonel guy calls you up and complains about it )

[Michael]

Hmmm, there's a lot of contraversy over this. IMHO, It's not the best MGS. I blame Raiden, he's not Snake and he's not very manly either. The gameplay was nice, and the boss fights were excellent, but it had to many cut scenes. Like I said, they messed up when they brought Raiden into it. Not a bad game though.

[Link Antilles]

I have the X-box version. Got it fer $15! It's a awesome game, a little short. I think the cimea scene time was as long as my game time, lol. The story's good, but it gets alittle odd at the end. The graphics are good, but it really shows it's age. Yeah, my real complaint is Raiden.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Yeah, I love that game. I've been playing it to death, digging it up and playing it some more just to get as many dog tags and find as much secret stuff as I possibly can. I do agree, however, that if there had to be a new playable character, I wish it were anyone but Raiden. He's a whiny, effeminate wussy-boy, 'nuf said.
But whatever, I'm just looking forward to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

[madphilb]

I thought the game looked pretty good, even for it's age... I've seen alot worse.

My biggest complaint (aside from the game being a bit short in some ways) was with the camera system and the controls.... but not enough to keep me from finishing the game.

A follow camera or even a full time 1st person view would have been nice (the levels all seem to be full 3d). It wasn't totally unbearable.

The controls is what fustrated me... taking advantage of the analog buttons is nice, but I found that I'd 1) fire the gun when I didn't want to, 2) not fire when I wanted to, 3) mix up the lean/draw buttons.

The Harrier battle has got to be one of the coolest boss battles I've had in any game...

If they took a few lessons from Ubi (Splinter Cell) and the big N (Zelda, think Z-targeting) I'd be chomping at the bit to get my hands on another game in the series (as it is, I still wouldn't turn it away )

Frankly I'm a fan of the whole "stealth" thing, having first played Deus Ex, then becomming a "taffer" (Theif)... it's nice to do something other than the whole "go in guns blazing" thing.

[Kisa]

Metal Gear Solid is cool. I like it! My bro has the PC version.

[Michael]

There's a PC version?

[Bobtheduck]

There is a PC version of MGS, but not Sons of Liberty... There is an x-box version (substance) when Konami was betraying the evil japanese ruler for the evil world ruler (hehe) and did a string of x-box ports of the best PS2 games (Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, DDR)

Mildly on topic, but do you know what is really going to make me mad... If both (not either, but BOTH) of these things are true about MGS3:

1.It's solid snake you play as (the real one, not Big Boss)
2. It's still in the sixties...

If both of those things are true, it'll screw up the whole series... Snake was JUST BORN in the 60's, in the Les Enfant Terribles project (along with Liquid and Solidus) so to have him alive before he was born, or toss in some sort of time travel thing or some weird mess like that will make me disown the series... If the previews placing it in the sixties are wrong, I'll be fine with it being Solid Snake, and even being a prequal (maybe doing a PS2 rendering of the first Metal Gear game for MSX... That would rock... I'd love to see Grey Fox non ninjafied) or if, what I suspect, it's not Solid Snake but in fact Big Boss (they may still call him Solid Snake, because his "Big Boss" title came later) then I will also be happy, but from what people like x-play (who haven't played the first two metal gear games, in all likelihood, 'specially since the second one was Japan only, they probably played, if anything, "Snake's Revenge" which isn't canon)
keep saying. I hope that's not the case...

Speaking of disowning, I learned a rather unpleasent fact today... [spoiler=age warning]The marine commandant at the beginning was Bisexual. He has a daughter (Fortune) but was also lovers with Vamp. It's not something that shows up in the normal course of the game, but if you talk to "Pliskin" at the right time, he'll tell you about Vamp and the reason he's called that isn't because of his favorite dish, but because of he's bi... Man... From MGS to MGS2, they had to throw in all sorts of controversial things... Everyone's a rat (except Emma, but including snake, otacon, rose...), there was incest (which was also statuatory rape, since he was a minor at the time) and even homosexuality... It's like "We know we're getting an M rating, we may as well earn it"[/spoiler]

I wonder how much new controversy will sneak it's way into "Twin Snakes", though any additions would have to mean a change in story...

[Bobtheduck]

*deleted*

[Bobtheduck]

I thought the game looked pretty good, even for it's age... I've seen alot worse.

My biggest complaint (aside from the game being a bit short in some ways) was with the camera system and the controls.... but not enough to keep me from finishing the game.

A follow camera or even a full time 1st person view would have been nice (the levels all seem to be full 3d). It wasn't totally unbearable.

The controls is what fustrated me... taking advantage of the analog buttons is nice, but I found that I'd 1) fire the gun when I didn't want to, 2) not fire when I wanted to, 3) mix up the lean/draw buttons.

The Harrier battle has got to be one of the coolest boss battles I've had in any game...

If they took a few lessons from Ubi (Splinter Cell) and the big N (Zelda, think Z-targeting) I'd be chomping at the bit to get my hands on another game in the series (as it is, I still wouldn't turn it away )

Frankly I'm a fan of the whole "stealth" thing, having first played Deus Ex, then becomming a "taffer" (Theif)... it's nice to do something other than the whole "go in guns blazing" thing.

I found the controls to be almost flawless... I especially like that it makes perfect use of the touch sensative buttons, so I could laser aim my automatic weapons, which was impossible in MGS. It's funny again, that the things I was most disappointed by was the LACK of GOOD boss battles in the thing... I mean, there was Fatman, the harrier, vamp, the rays, and of course solidus... The Fatmat battle was great (much better than the pathetic fortune battle) The harrier was ok, but it wasn't that different from the Helicopter battle of MGS and it wasn't as fun as that battle, in my opinion. Vamp was a dumb battle and the rays were rediculously easy. Solidus was decent, but it was no "Liquid" [spoiler]of course that's because Liquid was the genetically superior brother[/spoiler] So, really, it's Fatman and the Harrier, but nothing stood up to the Liquid fight. I hope that the great boss battles from MGS survive in Twin Snakes.

Oh, and I loved the angles... I HATE first person games, so that would have not been an option for me (though I played Metroid Prime just because it was a metroid game, and I've been a fan since I was 6)

Also, I don't think auto-targeting would be a good thing... It's not right for this genre...

I haven't played Splinter Cell yet, but frankly I think all SC is, is a beefed up Metal Gear clone with worse acting... Evolution and not Revolution...

That reminds me:

There was a game developer that said they purposely made the acting in their games bad to keep from "distracting" the play and being able to "project themselves" onto the characters... I must say that is the worst reasoning I've ever heard... Bad acting distracts me and keeps me from being immersed... If that's the effect they were going for, it's best to not have ANY acting. I get much more into FF6 than I really do with FF10 because I get annoyed by the acting most of the time. MGS's acting wasn't flawless, but it was about the best on any game, and it was at least PASSABLE (not like the rushed spurts on FF10) and kept me engrossed in the story.

[cbwing0]

I bought this game, and played it for a while. It does have some funny stuff, like the Vulcan Raven action figure, but that doesn't make up for the overall frustrating nature of the game. I also watched someone else complete the game, which is, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy the game and story. I really liked the boss battle theme, and the cutscenes. However, I found the actual gameplay to be rather boring and tedious (ok...crawl under the lasers, then sneak around taking pictures, then disarm the bombs...what fun!). I'm not really a big fan of the stealth games; and I much prefer to go in with guns blazing, or at the very least to not be penalized for fighting/brutality. The story was good until the end...

[spoiler=ending]when I was turned off by the whole "spirit of the founders" nonsense, and the metaphysical nonrealism/sujectivism underlying it. I think they were trying too hard to make something that sounded creative and intelligent at the same time, ending up with pure silliness[/spoiler]

If I could do it over, I would have bought something else instead, and just watched one of my friends beat the game to get the story.

[Bobtheduck]

To me, the last half of MGS2 was much like "Serial Experiments Lain", which I loved, so I love the story. It is true about penalizing brutality... I mean, I felt guilty everytime I shot someone in the game... And, while I love to play around, I would accidentally hit Emma and it was funny, but then I took the sniper rifle and zoomed in on her face, and it was like she was a real person... I couldn't do it even just as a joke (you'd instantly lose) because she seemed so real to me... It's mostly because she has an identical personality to one of my friends... Actually, to a girl I liked for a good deal of time. Every little thing Emma did was just like this girl...

The controls were fine. I rate MGS an 85 and MGS2 a 90 out of 100. MGS2 had 15 points worth of better stuff, but 10 points worth of BAD CHANGES. I hated the boss battles, and I hated the boss battle music, that screaching thing and the techno theme really got on my nerves... I loved the music for MGS's boss battle... HGW wasn't made for looping songs. All of his "event" songs are fine, especially the opening theme, which was incredible, but his in-game music sucked in my opinion. Oh, and Raiden... That should technically be in a spoiler (because many people don't know about him, he wasn't advertised and was kept out of magazines early in the game's release because he was to be a complete secret) but I agree that he was about the worst part of the game... I did like how the opening showed the mantle being passed, if you pay attention to the whole thing.

[spoiler] Believe it or not, Emma's death didn't bother me the first time I played it... Actually, it was just routine (that was before I knew this girl I was talking about) but the death that got to me was Olga's. When Solidus is holding her up with his tentacle things and takes that pulse rifle and blows her brains out, all in slow motion and looking like she's going to be rescued, but she's not... When I saw that scene for the first time, I about broke my friend's PS2 controller. It didn't make me sad as much as it made me angry. I hadn't gotten that mad at a video game since Ninja Gaiden.[/spoiler]

P.S. The seagulls... hehehe. That is so fun, but I feel so guilty afterwords... The same thing in MGS. I loved to kill the rats and also kill as many of VR's Ravens as I could. When you do that, he talks about how much of a monster you are when you go to fight him... That's the only time the Lord's name is used in vain in the game is when the colonel calls you up and tells you "You're there to (do whatever it is you're doing) not be a G__D____ Exterminator"

The story of MGS2 did depart from the reality that the Metal Gear series had (well, except for 1. Grey Fox surviving his body bursting into flames which really ammounted to 8-bit limitations, and 2. Vulcan Raven... That says it right there) and that was a bit unnerving, but the constant twists and turns that the game took didn't bother me in the slightest, as did not the whole "Patriots" thing. There is speculation about the place the Freemasons as well as the Illuminati have in American Politics, and with one or two exceptions, every president we've ever had has been either a freemason or a skull and bones. That sort of twist wasn't all that fantastic by my judgement, if you follow conspiracy theories. Kojima did his research very well, and even if it's not true, it's not made up by him, but something well researched and corobberated. I love the twists, things like that really interest me (See the movie The Game with Michael Douglas.)

I'm not so sure if I'm as thrilled about all the R-rated material they added between MGS and MGS2, though... I'm not talking about the violence, either (though a couple scenes were particularly stark)

Oh, by the way, there's a funny part you may want to check out... First you have to go to special, then read the "review" of Nastasha's exposé on shadow moses. After that is a book that someone wrote about her book... What follows is pure hillarity... "Reality hit me like a frozen tuna"