What a masterpiece.

The amount of themes it tackles and how much it still relates to today. From personal themes to society themes. How digitized information from one person carry a tremendous amount of power. Also how censorship is (maybe) not all bad. Because of how many there are false information, half truths, brainrot information and content and how it regresses us. Individual has so much power to control the masses because the information is not validated. People dont want to find the truth, they stick with the 'truth' they want to hear. and because of that they fell into their little ponds. The digitized world is a doubled edged sword.

Raiden as a character is also well fleshed out with his problems and all. It talks about facing your past, and stop hiding behind 'false truths' that we use to not face the real problem ourselves.

Kojima is a fucking genius. He really is a visionary. The game is weird, controversial, funny, and profound at the same time.

this is a silent hill 2 type game where it's become so thoroughly analyzed, so heavily entrenched in video games discussion and culture, so deeply "canonized", that it feels trite to write anything new about it. the bar for entry for a worthwhile piece on this is so high, that it just feels like a pointless exercise, i presume outside of just serving as a stream of conscious diary as a means to unravel my own thoughts. because outside of that, what is there to say that hasn't already been said a million times in a million ways?

it's good! very good! probably not perfect, the stealth gameplay doesn't have enough differences from mgs1 to not make keeping your eye locked to the top right of the screen for 80% of the game the optimal way to play it, and the constant backtracking in the first half is annoying as hell. i'm still not particularly convinced on "stealth games" as a concept (the most i have been convinced was hitman 3, which is maybe just because there's so many systems and ways to approach anything that you can direct it the way you want and ignore everything you don't want to do). in some ways this gets closer to what I want with mechanisms like tranq darts you actually want to use and first person aiming (both very welcome additions), but then it undoes that with the very aggressive search parties and their generally ridiculous cooldown times. like, i know this is to discourage being found, but i think it goes too far, and i often found myself just running into enemies trying to die & respawn the second i was spotted. spending 20 seconds getting shot at and respawning is often a more preferable outcome than sitting in some corner or vent or cabinet for over a minute, wasting ammo and health if you get caught, all of which feels like a misstep in player direction. maybe this is because i played it on too hard of a difficulty for my own personal enjoyment, but I played on normal, so, like, whatever. i am realizing though that although i'm deeply fascinated by how kojima writes, i'm not generally enthralled by his gameplay systems, so i'm probably going to have to get over my inner "normal is the intended experience and either direction is a compromise" and just play future MGS games on easier modes where they exist.

as far as narrative, yep, it's good, but you don't need me to tell you that. being light with specifics here since it's probably experienced best without knowing in advance everything it's planning to do (and as previously stated, i dont think i could give a read on this that wouldn't be better expressed by a million other essays), but obviously pretty much everything from the back half is stellar and really retroactively makes the first half much better than just being ok. the story goofiness seems to be remarked on a lot, but even if i prefer the more all-out flavors of something like killer7 or southland tales more, i think it's fine that it's in here. if you know anything about my preferences i'm a huge fan of wild tonal shifts, so even though i'm not huge on the parts here that resemble a schlocky action movie, i can appreciate their existence causing the more heart-to-heart moments to stand out more. one thing i didnt expect though is the complete absence of a desire to play metal gear rising lol, why do we need more raiden and why does it need to be more epic funny flashy action. i'm sure theres more, but the way that game gets sold makes it seem like its gotta be built off of a complete misreading of the text here lol, but whatever, that's a side tangent.

it does suck how much of this game has leaked out into the internet, making it one of the first games to join the ranks of "lots of the best scenes have been spoiled by default by memes" where itd later be joined by stuff like undertale, just a shame when that happens really. so many audio clips that are heard best in the context of this game, regurgitated through "top 10 craziest video game moments" videos and videos titled things like "this game PREDICTED the internet..." maybe there's something to be said about the internet itself preserving all the minutia of this game, and constantly bombarding anyone remotely interested in video games with it, but i'm not smart enough to do more than a vague gesture towards it and go "wow just like some of the themes that are explored in this game!"

looking forward, i'm still definitely going to play mgs3, excited since i know a lot less about it, and my further figuring out that i like kojima's stories but not so much his gameplay has made me even more curious to try his 90s ADVs snatcher and policenauts. i first touched the metal gear series by playing like 15 hours of mgsv when i was like 14 and tapping out not even that far in when i got to some tank mission that was too hard or something, so i feel like im gonna be happy to finally loop back around with that one eventually probably in quite a while, even if i have noticed that people do kinda put the first 3 mgs games on a pedastal above the rest of the series. its been said a million times before but kojima really did change how video game narratives get done, and its funny to see criticisms that they're too much like movies when it seems like one of his main hallmarks is weird robust & innovative gameplay systems lol, and still being one of the only game storytellers that can actually tie those two halves together with any degree of competency or originality

This game feels like an honest ramble from a drunk person. Sure, it doesn't make much sense, but damn you can feel the heart behind every word.

It has like 5 plot-twists. There are tropes around every corner. It breaks the fourth wall constantly. It is so stuffed full of ideas about politics, philosphy and what it means to make an impact. All these things don't really come together into something coherent, but they give you a vivid picture of the thoughts and worries of those who made this game. Beautiful

finished this about a week ago but never got to writing my review until now but here we go

MGS1 is a game i found immense enjoyment in plot wise, gameplay wise not so much. gunplay and boss fights especially felt like a chore, mostly due to being a PS1 game. due to the jump to PS2, MGS2 improves on MGS1’s flaws and then some, using new innovative ways to fight enemies, and having actually good boss design this time around.

MGS2 starts with the tanker section, in which solid snake and otacon return after hearing word of a potential metal gear being held on a u.s. marine corps tanker. while snake goes to investigate things quickly go wrong as a group of russian mercenaries take over the ship in order to steal the metal gear. in this section snake must sneak by the mercenaries and sneak further into the tanker to verify the existence of this new metal gear. followed by the tanker section is the plant section, where one of the larger twists in the game is revealed, you don’t play as solid snake. you play as raiden, a vr trained soldier who’s mission is to save the president from a group labeling themselves as the sons of liberty. i’m going to choose not to write about the specific events of both of these sections because a game of this type of quality deserves to be experienced first hand rather than read about.

MGS2 is without a doubt a masterclass in storytelling. while at the surface i found the overarching plot to be convoluted and confusing, the further i went into the game the more astounded i found myself to be. the CODEC calls were a huge part of what made MGS1 unique, and in this game they’re even better. the calls between raiden and rose especially were absolutely amazing and learning about their backstory together was something truly special. the plot twist toward the end is something absolutely unpredictable that left me truly amazed at just how much kojima thought of while writing this game, once it was revealed thinking back on earlier sections of the game caused me to think differently of those sections in the best way possible as the new information was given to me.

gameplay in MGS2 is largely improved from MGS1, it’s much smoother and features new mechanics that make things like combat and traversal much easier and more fun. the addition of first person aiming makes stealth much more easier and fun to use, especially when you take advantage of being able to hold up enemies and making them shake off their belongings like dog tags or ammo. new stealth mechanics like being able to peak and shoot from cover make boss fights a lot more fun as it encourages the player to use their surroundings to avoid enemy gunfire. MGS2 also adds a new rolling mechanic which allows faster traversal across short areas, which can also be used to cross short paths without being spotted by enemies.

in short, MGS2 is an absolute all time masterpiece with truly wonderful themes all made possible by the genius of Hideo Kojima. this game has easily helped cement MGS as one of my all time favorite game franchises due to its wonderfully unique writing and stories. easily one of the greatest games i’ve ever played, and it truly helped me understand the genius of Kojima.