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ArbitraryWater

Internet man with questionable sense of priorities

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I play old games (Metal Gear Solid 2)

By ArbitraryWater 17 Comments

It's been a while, but I am back once again to tell you kids about old games that I have decided to play. This time however, I'm going to talk about a game that is actually popular and not totally niche like all the other post-goldeneye stuff I have looked at. That's right. MGS2, which I got as part of the MGS Essentials collection that a friend gave me for Christmas. This is the one I finished first, which means that I will probably do MGS 1 and 3 later on down the line. 

Metal... Gear?

But anyways, I probably should start out by admitting that my first real taste of Metal Gear was The Twin Snakes, which probably makes me a heathen in the eyes of the MGS fanbase for some reason. I liked it. But yeah, MGS2 came out in 2001, and the updated version that I have came out in 2002. It adds a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter, like VR missions and some sort of weird skateboarding minigame that plays like a watered down version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
 
First, the gameplay. MGS 2 is very much an old stealth game, in that you have to sneak around dudes and if you get discovered you will probably die. However, most enemies can be easily dispatched with a tranq shot to the head, which removed a lot of the challenge of actually sneaking around. It's clunky and extremely game-y with the way it's presented. The game that the stealth is built around however, suffers from some of the cardinal sins of video games, namely excessive backtracking, escort sequences, and timed missions. None of the particular instances in this game are extremely offensive or long (although I could do without the hand holding that makes you go 5 times slower), but they are annoying. But then again, nobody enjoys Metal Gear for the way it plays. I sure as hell don't, which is why I will probably never touch any of the VR missions. In summation: Gameplay = Bad.

 Hideo Kojima hates you. Fission Mailed
 With the gameplay out of the way, it's time to talk about why this game matters at all: The story. I had a general knowledge of what happened before I played the game, but I would say that it was well worth my time to finish it myself. First off, the tanker chapter does a great job of making you assume that you are going to play as Snake the entire game, which is the first of many upraised middle fingers from Hideo Kojima to his fanbase and everyone else.  But really, it's mostly just setup for the Plant chapter, which stars Raiden. Raiden as a character... sucks. He is naive, somewhat annoying and he looks like a girl (i.e. He could be the lead of a Final Fantasy game) and fails to impress as a main lead when compared to Snake, who shows up in a supporting role as the fake Navy Seal Iriquois Pliskin. However, he is still less annoying than Otacon, who is not only a creeper but also a whiny bitch (which gives him my Shinji Ikari award for most unlikable character meant to be sympathetic). The story goes through the motions of procedurally making everything piece of initial information false, including the purpose of the mission, the demands of the terrorists, the reason for rescuing the president until we all just find out that all the events up to that point were orchestrated by the Patriots (Who are evil and control everything) and that Raiden was just a pawn the entire time. Needless to say, I could go on and on about the story, which I definitley enjoyed, but I'm sure there is nothing to be gained by doing so. In summation: Story = Good.
 
In conclusion, I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 2 a lot more than I thought I would at first, mainly because of the obnoxious stealth gameplay. However, the story is great because of how balls to the wall crazy and willing to fuck with you it is, almost to the point that feel like it would make a better anime than a game. But thankfully it isn't because, as we all know: Anime is for jerks. And with that, I'm off. 
 
Next Up: Either MGS 1 or 3. Maybe I will just do both in one post.
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