Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of LibertyPlaytime / 21:21:06
Save / 17 Times
Continue / 197 Times (I'll explain)
Alert Mode / 141 Times
Persons / 273 Killed
Rations / 94 Used
Code Name / Jaws (Apparently I kill people more than most?)
What a trip. Since most of you have already played this one, or know enough about it to have decided not to, I probably not going to post a full length review (plus I've been scattered my various impressions across multiple threads on this forum already).
I played the game on the Hard Difficulty. My understanding is that in so doing I unlocked even more difficult difficulties, but should I ever play this game again there's no chance in hell I'd make the experience drag out any further (I think an average playthrough is only supposed to take about 12ish hours). So I died, a lot. Early in the game, I realized that it autosaves every time I move from one area to the next. While this was true of
MGS, the areas felt a lot larger. So, when I got discovered in
MGS I would do my best to run and hide somewhere and then continue on. In
MGS2 sometimes you'd barely have a hallway as an area. If I got discovered and shot, and I ran into the next area, it would auto save with me being wounded and being pursued so that if I died, I'd be stuck in the same shit situation (or at least at a compromised amount of health). So more or less, if I got found out/damaged at all, I would just stand still and let myself get massacred because I didn't want to accidentally cross a boundary that meant I was screwed later.
Additionally, there's a late game fight against Metal Gears and the number of Metal gears you fight is purely determined by the difficulty you have it set on. I think hard means 7? (Apparently there's a setting where it's like 25, kill me now). Anyway, once you get the rhythm down it's not a big deal, but I lost a lot of lives before learning that rhythm. Whatever, I don't have to justify myself, I beat the damn thing, I'll die as much as I want to along the way.
I want to say that Kojima was at his most Kojima with this game, but I haven't played the next couple so I'll withhold judgement, but man did this get weird/tone whiplashy. In
MGS there was a whole philosophical speech at the end of the game.
MGS2 really kicks it up with a philosophical speech over shots of New York, followed by the credits and more shots of New York, followed by essentially the same speech delivered by another character over even more shots of New York. Given that New York was only briefly mentioned once by one of the characters and then the rest of the game occurs at sea, I didn't realize it was such an important thematic location. Anyway, yeah,
MGS2 has more plot twists than a
Matrix film has kung fu and slowmo. I know it's a masterpiece of style, but I'm at a loss to describe what exactly that style is.
So, highlights:
1. Shooting people with a tranq dart, dragging them into a corner, then blasting them in the face never got old, not once.
2. Katana=Bullet Shield? Yes please.
3. There's not a programmed intentional Snake fight in this game. However, when I first encountered Snake, I drew my weapon on him, and he snapped to attention and was ready to shoot me with his M4. I was like, hell yeah, it's going down. He kicked my ass. When I encountered Snake later in the game, I figured out how to kill him. You ain't so tough Snake!
4. Less of a highlight, more of a "wait, what?" moment. There are a lot of lockers with lady posters inside them. If you hide inside of a lady poster locker, and you look down at them, the screen will zoom in slightly and it will make a weird noise. Took me too long to realize this was Raiden kissing the posters. Perv.
5. That Purple Space Worm though.
6. I said this already, but Fatman on Rollerskates is the best thing ever. I didn't think I would finish this game. Then that happened, and I knew I'd get it in this month.
7. Every part where I wasn't underwater.
8. Totally disrupting the mechanics of a boss fight by abusing claymores never got old, not once.
EDIT: 9. Some of the best man butts in gaming history!All in all, I understand why people were frustrated that they were stuck playing as soft voice/softer hair (Raiden) instead of forever pooping face (Snake), but I didn't mind the change of pace. It's a worthy successor that takes an already bonkers source material and treats with just as much deftness, and seriousness the second time around, for an ever grander, even more bonkers, adventure. I think I gave
MGS low marks because I was frustrated by the controls and the hamfisted moralizing, but now that I've spent a month in the world of impaired vision and impaired subtlety, their charms have grown on me. I think both
MGS and
MGS2 are probably 8/10 games if not 8.5/10 games just for their originality.
Finally, among the game's moralizing, someone went off about how people just put anything online and then everyone will believe whatever lies they want to just to make themselves feel better. Would it be "Fake News" if I said this game was ahead of it's time?