A good sequel
Metal Gear Solid 2 starts 2 years after the events on Shadow Moses (MGS1), and Snake has now (together with Otacon) joined "Philantrophy" which is an organisation which purpose is to destroy the various Metal Gears that have been made after the incidents in MGS1.
The game starts on the George Washington Bridge, where we see Snake (in stealth camouflage) jumps onto an oil tanker which is supposed to hold a new Metal Gear weapon called "METAL GEAR RAY".
And to start of with, Snake's objective is to get inside the ship, and get to the cargo hold, where the new Metal Gear is supposed to be held.
But before he even got inside the ship, the ship is getting boarded by Russian soldiers led by General Gurlukovich, and they soon have the ship under their control..
And then, Snake's mission gets rather difficult...
I don't think i'll say much more about the story, but i'll say that the story is great.
But there is one thing that was kind of a letdown for me (and other MGS fans as well), and that is Snake's part in the game...
He is still a central character in the story, but i isn't really the main character anymore.
After the Tanker chapter, the players get to know a new guy called Raiden. which is a rookie Fox-Hound operative, and he is the character you will control from there on.
But (unlike many people) i think that Raiden is a good character (although he isn't as great as Snake is).
The other characters you encounter in the game as the story develops are also pretty interesting.
Game-play wise.. this game is pretty good, but not great.
The controls are good and easy to learn and all that, but if you skip the cut-scenes and CODEC conversations, this game would be pretty short.
In other words.. this games has a lot of cut-scenes, and most of them are very long.
So if you don't like games which has a lot of cutscenes, the MGS games are not for you, because if you skip all the cut scenes, the story would be hard to understand.
When it comes to graphics, the game looks really good (at least it was really good when the game was released back in 2001).
And sound wise, the game has great voice actors, and the music is awesome.
To end this review i would like to say that i enjoyed this game a lot, and if you liked MGS1, then you will probably like this one as well...