This review contains spoilers
If I were to ask anyone what the pinnacle moment started the new millennium, it would not be when the ball dropped at midnight, New Year's Eve that began the year 2000. No, I think everyone would agree that the true moment that signaled that the previous century was gone and a new era was ushered in was on a sunny Tuesday morning on September 11th, 2001. This was the day the world was catapulted out of the 1990’s/past century into the modern age with a horrific wake-up call. Referencing 9/11 may be a dour and somewhat tasteless way to begin a review for a video game, but is it inappropriate considering the game in question is a Metal Gear Solid title? If the first Metal Gear Solid acted as a grim prediction of 21st-century politics and technology of unparalleled scope, then its sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, is a depiction of a world that is simmering in the stew of 21st-century turmoil.
The shocking thing is that Metal Gear Solid 2 was completely developed before that unforgettable morning in mid-September when the world changed for the worse. It was released two months after 9/11, and the events that occurred were still rattling around in our shell-shocked minds. What better way to quell our trauma-induced discomfort than to play a video game that revels in political conspiracy, government espionage, or a group of terrorists housing weapons of mass destruction? What initially was the exciting next-gen release of an enormously acclaimed title on the PS1 suddenly became the most relevant piece of media to the first big political event of the 21st century. Most likely, this is a coincidence. Kojima can center the plot of his game around any number of conspiracies, and they might vaguely connect to 9/11. However, the fact that this game is set around New York City AND one of the central goals in the game is preventing a widespread tragedy in the city is a wild coincidence. Content involving the Statue of Liberty being destroyed had to be cut in post-production due to the events of 9/11. That’s spooky. Is Hideo Kojima that insightful about world relations, or is he a bonafide clairvoyant that we should reprimand for not using his extraordinary powers to prevent 9/11 from happening? Whichever it is, I wretch at the thought of giving him that much credit for either scenario. I get the impression from the content of Metal Gear Solid 2 that Kojima wants us to come to these conclusions, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a contentious entry to the franchise for several reasons, and a few of those reasons solidify my position in the camp that criticizes it.
For a game with a radical auteur direction, it’s still a sequel that has to establish a sense of familiarity for the player. The sequence that sets this sense of familiarity takes place on a stormy night on the George Washington Bridge that connects Manhattan and New Jersey. A hooded man walking on the bridge jumps off of it, supported by a bungee cord to break his fall. The man lands on a tanker anchored offshore and unsheathes his cloak to reveal the enigmatic Solid Snake. Otacon signals Snake with a codex call to brief Snake (and the player) on the mission. Otacon has gotten word from a reliable source that a new model of Metal Gear is being housed in the basement of this tanker. Instead of destroying the abominable machine, Snake has to merely descend to the bunker and take photos of Metal Gear as proof that it exists. This breezy operation goes awry when Russian mercenaries invade the tanker and kill all the marines on board. Snake must then do what he does best: retrieve proof of the new Metal Gear in the bunker while avoiding being seen on the way down.
One meta aspect of Metal Gear Solid 2 that also applies to its themes of burgeoning technology of the 21st century is that it was an early title on the PS2, Sony’s sequel to their trademark early 3D console released at the turn of the millennium. A new century/millennium meant there was progress to be made in gaming, and graphics are an obvious point of evolution. I can’t think of a finer point of graphical advancement than with Metal Gear Solid 2. MGS2 is fortunate enough to succeed in a game of the early 3D era, so the advanced piece of hardware will prove to be an inherent significant improvement. The codex calls feature 3D talking heads that look exactly like their 3D models outside of the calls. The mouths of the characters move while they are talking, a drastic improvement on the most awkward graphical aspect of the first game. These improvements greatly aid the cinematic qualities of the series, but they aren’t just impressive compared to the first game on the PS1. Metal Gear Solid 2 is arguably the best-looking game on the PS2, and I’m astounded that it came out as early as one year into the console’s lifespan. Everything from the characters, settings, and backgrounds practically looks real here. The foregrounds of Shadow Moses were a tad indiscernible due to the PS1’s limitations, but the dark, damp bunker Snake finds himself here looks clear as day with cascading rain effects for a hint of realism. Despite only a few aesthetic aspects that look dated now, MGS2 still holds an impressive graphical standard. It also helps that all of this is supported by one of the smoothest framerates on the console. Kojima’s mission with the first MGS was an attempt to make a blocky-looking game feel as cinematic as possible with precise direction. The technology offered only one console generation later allows Kojima to make something that fully meets his ambition.
The bunker mission essentially serves as an extensive tutorial to introduce Metal Gear Solid 2’s new mechanics and reacquaint players with the old ones. Stealth is still key to success, and Snake achieves this with the same sneaky tactics. He still crawls through tight vents, chokes out guards in his way, and hides under a cardboard box to avoid being detected. Overall, Snake’s tactics have not changed. What has changed is the ease of executing these stealthy missions for the player. For instance, holding the R1 button will activate a first-person mode with a free-range camera view. This is mostly used to make shooting more accurate, but the player can also survey the area more clearly with this extra perspective. One of Snake’s first weapons is an M9 that shoots tranquilizer darts instead of bullets, disposing of those nosy guards without warranting any unwanted attention. The player can now hide in lockers when evading the guards, which is much more effective than hiding under a box. The game adds a “caution” level on the alert meter after successfully evading the guards that involve increased security for an extended period. I recommend hiding in the lockers for this period. It may last for a long duration of time, but it beats facing the SWAT team of guards that ambush the player if they try to stay and fight. Cheeky Kojima even supplies a variety of lovely Asian girls in many lockers for your viewing pleasure. All of these changes, especially the first two I mentioned, are such a godsend that I could weep tears of joy.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and this sentiment involves some of the more negative changes Metal Gear Solid 2 makes. To access the radar for the area, the player must find a workstation and manually download the map. The workstations are fairly easy to spot, but having to do this makes it apparent that the developers don’t understand what the radar is for. Having a map of the area isn’t a convenient way to direct oneself around the room to get to the next one; it’s to navigate around the guards in the room without being spotted. I’d often alert the guards on my way to the workstation because I couldn’t see their line of sight. These workstations are also the only way the player can access the game’s options menu. I’m sure these workstations have some significance to the themes of technology MGS presents, but I can’t admire their depth when they are inconveniencing me. Another thing one might notice when Snake is low on health is that the remainder of his health turns a yellowish orange, and there is a blipping sound. This means that Snake is bleeding out, and his health will decline until he dies. That is unless he has a bandage in his inventory to patch up his wounds. The bleeding can also be cured with a ration. The number of rations in the field also greatly outnumbers the number of bandages, so it’s a wonder why bandages were introduced in the first place. As for the bleeding mechanic itself, it certainly gives the player more incentive to remain cautious. The only times where I was annoyed with the mechanic were during boss fights, instances where I had to involve myself with the enemy and take damage.
These negative changes are not the core reason I find fault with this game. Overall, complaining about them comes down to nitpicking more than anything else. The divisive factors that make Metal Gear Solid 2 are much meatier and egregious than a few minor discrepancies. The main one that everyone bellyaches about comes right after the tanker mission and wears out its welcome for most MGS fans. When I discussed the new game mechanics MGS2 offers, I used Snake as the playable character to reference every action. This is to be expected because Solid Snake is indeed the playable character in the tanker mission, all of the new features apply to the tanker mission, and he’s the face of the Metal Gear franchise. My big reveal is that I only referred to the new features that apply to Snake in the tanker mission to avoid spoilers. After Snake uploads the pictures of Metal Gear to the workstation, his egress is halted by Revolver Ocelot, who has betrayed his Russian comrades for his self-interest. One might not notice at first glance, but Ocelot has acquired a new arm after it was severed from his body by Gray Fox in the first game. This new appendage has a few drawbacks, however, as Ocelot becomes possessed by none other than Liquid Snake at random occurrences. Ocelot ostensibly took Liquid's arm and crudely applied it to himself, figuring Liquid wasn’t using it anymore because he was dead. Tough break, Ocelot. A possessed Ocelot murders the marine captain and capsizes the tanker, leaving everyone in a watery grave. Otacon bellows a classic “SSSNNAAAKKKEEE”, but there is no game over screen to follow as this scene was intentional. This scene may suggest a grim twist of fate for our hero, but some might question killing off Solid Snake and remain skeptical. One’s suspicions could be relieved in the next scene when good ol’ Roy Campbell is briefing a man with the codename Snake while swimming into a cargo bay. The skeptical feelings may return when the player notices that this Snake has blonde hair and doesn’t sound as gruff as usual. Colonel then changes this Snake’s codename to “Raiden” when it dawns on the player that Snake might be dead, and they’ll have to play as this guy for the rest of the game.
I’m more ambivalent towards Raiden than anything else. He draws a lot of ire from franchise fans, and it’s not surprising to see why. Is it hated for his pretty-boy looks and his confused, puppy-dog expressions? Is it due to his disturbingly wide, child-bearing hips protruding from his skin-tight bodysuit? No, it’s simply because many fans felt betrayed by having him as the central protagonist of MGS2 instead of Solid Snake, especially after playing as Snake at the beginning of the game. The familiarity Kojima established in the tanker mission was just a ruse to keep the player’s guard down and then pull the rug out from under them. It’s wise to always expect this kind of thing from such a subversive series, but I can imagine why it upset many people. I don’t mind Raiden because at least he isn’t a downgrade from Snake in terms of gameplay. Raiden’s range of movement is just as slick and acrobatic as Snake’s, arguably even more so because Raiden can do a catapult. All of the new features are translated to Raiden for the rest of the game as well, so the developers, fortunately, don’t leave the player hanging in the gameplay department.
Raiden is, however, a completely different character to Snake in terms of characterization. The player shifts from controlling a grizzled combat veteran with a weathered face of experience to a bright-eyed, clueless dork whose only experience in battle is VR training. Raiden is a rookie, and his mission here is a big step out of his comfort zone into the fray of real danger. While Raiden's lack of experience will not be a detriment to the player, especially if they’ve played the first game, the frame of the story will treat Raiden as if this is his first time walking. The Colonel claims he has confidence in Raiden, but this conflicts with his constant codex calls during the mission in which he acts like an overprotective parent teaching their child how to drive. The codex calls with the Colonel in the first game had some leeway for banter between him and Snake, establishing a genuine relationship between the two beyond their roles in the mission. The interactions between the Colonel and Raiden are all business, sacrificing any levity the first game had. Raiden doesn’t have the confidence to be glib on a mission.
The one person on this mission who does have a personal relationship with Raiden is his girlfriend, Rose. Yes, Raiden’s girlfriend monitors him, and her codex channel acts as the save feature. A resounding “Why?!” may resonate with everyone as to why she’s here, and I’m still wondering after finishing this game. It’s most likely to humanize the soldier to compensate for Raiden’s conversations with everyone else sounding so sterile, but their relationship delves into the most irritating humanization possible. Raiden and Rose are at the point in their relationship where one side feels alienated from the other and decide to have quarrels regarding their sense of emotional distance via the codex calls. She only refers to Raiden by his first name, and I’m astounded that the Colonel doesn’t scold her for doing so. Does anyone enjoy eavesdropping on the dispute between one of their friends and their significant other? No one does, and experiencing this is just as tiresome in a video game. I would call her to save my game and then get an earful about how “Jack” doesn’t cater to her needs anymore for five minutes. It makes me miss Mei Ling’s ancient Chinese proverbs.
Raiden’s mission is a classic hostage rescue affair on the high perches of the Big Shell decontamination facility located over the deep waters off the shores of New York City. Big Shell was erected here to clean up the residual oil from the capsized tanker a few years prior. Revolver Ocelot has returned to the crime scene with another gang of eccentric terrorists, and they’ve got some big named hostages as collateral. As a setting, Big Shell is a total deviation from the dark, Alaskan tundra that surrounded the base of Shadow Moses. The sun shines outside the facility, accompanied by the bluest of skies. There are constant sounds of seagulls squawking instead of the howling of timberwolves, and the waves of the ocean waters below crash against the facility. Don’t be misled by the seemingly less hostile atmosphere; the whole facility is swarming with guards, and the ciphers hover over the waters to catch Raiden with just their peripheral vision. The steep, balance-board rafters that make up the foundation of Big Shell’s outside sections are flimsy and will often result in Raiden falling to his untimely death. Because of these treacherous obstacles, it’s wise to know the facility's layout, and its design allows the player to do so easily. The Big Shell facility comprises two main cores with many struts circling it, connected by outdoor bridges. The struts are labeled with letters of the alphabet, with struts A-F circling the first core and G-M circling the second core. The entire map is well organized, and its cyclical nature allows for easy access to other areas of the map. The entire layout of Big Shell will become comfortably familiar to the player, and backtracking is so much more manageable as a result.
Gallivanting around Big Shell’s towering struts are the eccentric super-terrorists, a franchise staple. Revolver Ocelot is the one familiar face (with Liquid being the other familiar voice) out of them, but a whole new crop of baddies is here to replace the ones from FOXHOUND. Their squadron is referred to as Dead Cell, ironically a former anti-terrorist group that has gone radical ever since their original leader died years prior. A few Dead Cell members have perished since, but those active here are Fortune, Fatman, Vamp, and Solidus Snake. Fortune is a woman who shares similar physical characteristics with Storm from X-Men. She’s got long blonde hair, dark skin, and an energy rifle that’s as big as her. Her special ability is having any projectile weapon like bullets and missiles zoom past her like her body emitting an opposing polarity field. This is not a power she wears with honor, as it is a curse for her. Fortune is suffering from the grief of the deaths of her husband and her father (the marine commandant from the tanker mission) and feels as if she is cursed to not die like some kind of martyr. Fatman is a rotund albino man who specializes in demolition tools and rides around on roller skates. He betrays his fellow Dead Cell members by planting bombs around Big Shell to blow it up, and disposing of his bombs becomes a central objective during a large portion of the overall mission. Vamp is an androgynous man with long hair and fangs with supernatural powers relating to his vampiric presence. Like a vampire, Vamp cannot die, so defeating him numerous times in the game only deters him slightly. As one could imagine, all of the Dead Cell members make up the boss fights of the game, and fighting against the members of Dead Cell is much more underwhelming than the fights against FOXHOUND. The fight against Fortune is a stalling bout, and the core of Fatman’s fight is just freezing more bombs. The main fight against Vamp is challenging and has a loose fighting structure for the player to take advantage of, but this fight is ultimately mitigated by the fact that Vamp can’t be defeated. The most interesting Dead Cell member is Solidus Snake, but the fight against him on Big Shell is just a more erratic version of the chopper duel with Liquid in the first game. Dead Cell are as interesting as FOXHOUND as villains, but they fail to make for engaging bosses.
All this seems a tad much for a rookie like Raiden to handle on his own. Fortunately, some “new” faces come to aid Raiden in rescuing the hostages and taking down Dead Cell. During Raiden’s first encounter with Vamp, a man who has a strong resemblance to Snake saves Raiden from the bisexual beast. While this man could be Snake’s doppelganger, he claims his name's Pliskin (which already gives it away that he’s Snake if anyone is familiar with Kurt Russell’s character from Escape from New York, an obvious influence for the character of Solid Snake). Plisken aids Raiden by providing him aid during some boss battles, freezing Fatman’s bombs, and giving Raiden some pointers on how to survive on the field. There is also the demolitions expert Stillman assisting Raiden, but he dies early on from one of Fatman’s explosives. To no one's surprise, it is then revealed that Pliskin is Solid Snake, and he’s brought Otacon on the mission with him. Since the tanker incident, Snake and Otacon have been working together independently from the American government. Otacon is present on this mission for another reason, however, and it’s a personal one.
One of the hostages Dead Cell has taken is Otacon’s estranged step-sister Emma who Otacon playfully refers to as “E.E.” She’s an engineer working for Arsenal Gear who Raiden and Snake need to deactivate Arsenal with a virus. Physically, she’s as frangible as a flower and pitiful as a whimpering puppy. Rescuing her as Raiden is an exhausting escort mission where the player has to assist with EVERY obstacle along the way. During the portion where Raiden and Snake are sniping claymores and guards out of Emma’s path, Vamp pops out of the water and inflicts Emma with a fatal stab wound. They get her back to the core of Shell 1, where she dies in Otacon’s arms. This scene may seem contrived, but I started to choke up when Emma’s parrot mimicked Emma’s longing for Otacon, and he broke down. I never expected to have any emotional standing with Emma. Her helplessness during the escort mission made for one of the most infuriating parts of the game, but her death made it so impactful. It’s a seminal moment for Otacon as a character who, until now, was only another one of Snake’s aids. I stated that an awkward hiccup in the first game was Otacon attempting to sympathize with Snake’s loss of Meryl with his loss of Sniper Wolf, but his loss here makes up for that in spades. This arc with Emma would’ve been much more pertinent if she was involved with Shadow Moses in the first game instead of Big Shell here.
While Emma’s arc stands out to me and is a sizable chunk of the game, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the overarching story. It’s hard to tell what the meat of the story is because it’s a total mess. I’ve heard of A plots and B plots, but the overarching themes and story points in MGS2 run the gamut of the whole alphabet. MGS2 inflicts excruciatingly long swathes of exposition on the player during what seems like every single cutscene. Even the conversations between Raiden and Rose serve as long points of exposition about their relationship. The Emma arc is almost ruined with long elucidations regarding the GW project and Otacon’s soap-opera family life. The first game presented plenty to unpack, but the exposition was used sparingly compared to the amount presented here. I can’t even appreciate the odd moments of levity here like Raiden slipping in bird shit, Raiden getting groped by the president, and Snake and Otacon’s complicated bro-handshake because they are weighed down by the gunk of plots A through Zed. At least the main objective of freeing the hostages is the core arc here, right?
Nope. After Emma dies, the game kicks the complicated switch into high gear to mold the rest of the game. I’ll try to explain everything and wrap everything up into a semi-neat package. Think that Psycho Mantis was the biggest Metal Gear mind-fuck? It has nothing on the end of MGS2. Olga, the first boss from the tanker mission, aids Snake in capturing Raiden and taking him to Solidus and Ocelot, where he is held captive in a torture device similar to the one from the first game. Raiden escapes bare-ass naked, rendered helpless because both hands have to cover his ding-dong. He gets many strange codex calls from the Colonel and Rose, ranging from breaking the fourth wall to silly non-sequiturs. Something isn’t right here. Snake meets up with Raiden, gives him a katana, and explains that betraying him with Olga was a means to infiltrate the core of Arsenal. Snake and Raiden fight their way into the core, where Raiden then fights six versions of Metal Gear Ray in a cybernetic arena (it’s not as hard as it sounds). Solidus and Ocelot show up to provide yet another long stretch of exposition that explains Raiden’s backstory. Raiden was a child soldier in the 1980s known as “Jack the Ripper,” Solidus killed his parents and adopted him as a child. Metal Gear Arsenal loses control and crashes into New York City. Raiden and Solidus have a final fight on a New York landmark with dueling katana swords, and Raiden saves the day.
That’s a rough summary of what occurs at the end of MGS2, but it’s the underlying context that molds it (or does it?). The main antagonists of MGS2 are not Dead Cell or any other terrorist but a group called the Patriots. The president explains to Raiden that the Patriots are the ones who pull the strings of America, and he is merely a figurehead to assuage the general public. GW on Big Shell exists to keep the Patriots in power by providing fake information to the people of America. Revolver Ocelot is a Patriot agent who has a list of their names, and Solidus used to be the president who was pulling for the Patriots in the first game. He’s also another clone of Big Boss like Solid and Liquid. The whole game is a virtual simulation of the events of Shadow Moses fitted for a VR soldier like Raiden, explaining the cracks in the system at the end. Defeating Solidus at the end seems like our heroes are getting one step closer to eradicating the Patriots and their oppressive control. Still, Ocelot’s disc claims that all of these men have been dead for over a century. All of this is supposed to point to themes of personal autonomy for every individual.
The Psycho Mantis portion of MGS1 was a mind-fuck that pleasantly shocked and awed me for its innovation, but the more severe one here made my brain feel violated. A moderately complicated base plot regarding a hostage mission has imploded into a clusterfuck of ideas and subplots with no cohesion or integral structure between them. I forgot to mention Rose being a patriot double-agent and holding Olga’s child hostage, but I can’t incorporate those subplots smoothly just like Kojima couldn’t do it. There are many interesting and provocative themes here, like the manipulation of information and reality becoming less structured moving into the digital age. Still, these points are crushed under the weight of everything else the developers are trying to get through. Metal Gear Solid 2 is the video game equivalent of Infinite Jest or Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. These are all works of art with interesting and unique spectacles marred by the influx of ideas and their multiple footnotes that the whole thing becomes indigestible. Some smug jackasses might argue that I’m not intelligent enough to “get it”, but you know what? The smartest way to interpret what’s being presented here is to analyze it and conclude that there is nothing to get. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that Kojima needs to undergo surgery to remove his head from his rectal cavity.
I’ve had it up to here (puts hand above head) with Hideo Kojima and his auteur vision. The first Metal Gear Solid tested the limits of what a cinematic narrative could accomplish in the early 3D era without going overboard, but Metal Gear Solid 2 bursts the seams of proper narrative structure. I’m not going to refer to the themes and story of this game as a “postmodern groundbreaker” like everyone else. Rather, it’s the result of a lapse of judgment, control, and self-awareness on Kojima’s part. Kojima’s plan to awe us with a 21st-century spectacle of conspiracy akin to 9/11 ultimately backfired. If it stuck with one theme, like the first game’s themes of genetics and their properties coinciding with one’s fate like the first game, I wouldn’t be so riled up. I’m still conflicted about how to perceive Metal Gear Solid 2. As a game, it’s better than the first one in every way. The new hardware granted Metal Gear Solid with smoother controls, more accessible features, and extraordinary presentation. Still, the fact that Kojima took all of these advantages and turned them into this makes it all the sadder. I cannot in good conscience put this piece of pretentious gobbledygook in higher regard than the first Metal Gear Solid, despite its high quality as a game.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
The shocking thing is that Metal Gear Solid 2 was completely developed before that unforgettable morning in mid-September when the world changed for the worse. It was released two months after 9/11, and the events that occurred were still rattling around in our shell-shocked minds. What better way to quell our trauma-induced discomfort than to play a video game that revels in political conspiracy, government espionage, or a group of terrorists housing weapons of mass destruction? What initially was the exciting next-gen release of an enormously acclaimed title on the PS1 suddenly became the most relevant piece of media to the first big political event of the 21st century. Most likely, this is a coincidence. Kojima can center the plot of his game around any number of conspiracies, and they might vaguely connect to 9/11. However, the fact that this game is set around New York City AND one of the central goals in the game is preventing a widespread tragedy in the city is a wild coincidence. Content involving the Statue of Liberty being destroyed had to be cut in post-production due to the events of 9/11. That’s spooky. Is Hideo Kojima that insightful about world relations, or is he a bonafide clairvoyant that we should reprimand for not using his extraordinary powers to prevent 9/11 from happening? Whichever it is, I wretch at the thought of giving him that much credit for either scenario. I get the impression from the content of Metal Gear Solid 2 that Kojima wants us to come to these conclusions, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a contentious entry to the franchise for several reasons, and a few of those reasons solidify my position in the camp that criticizes it.
For a game with a radical auteur direction, it’s still a sequel that has to establish a sense of familiarity for the player. The sequence that sets this sense of familiarity takes place on a stormy night on the George Washington Bridge that connects Manhattan and New Jersey. A hooded man walking on the bridge jumps off of it, supported by a bungee cord to break his fall. The man lands on a tanker anchored offshore and unsheathes his cloak to reveal the enigmatic Solid Snake. Otacon signals Snake with a codex call to brief Snake (and the player) on the mission. Otacon has gotten word from a reliable source that a new model of Metal Gear is being housed in the basement of this tanker. Instead of destroying the abominable machine, Snake has to merely descend to the bunker and take photos of Metal Gear as proof that it exists. This breezy operation goes awry when Russian mercenaries invade the tanker and kill all the marines on board. Snake must then do what he does best: retrieve proof of the new Metal Gear in the bunker while avoiding being seen on the way down.
One meta aspect of Metal Gear Solid 2 that also applies to its themes of burgeoning technology of the 21st century is that it was an early title on the PS2, Sony’s sequel to their trademark early 3D console released at the turn of the millennium. A new century/millennium meant there was progress to be made in gaming, and graphics are an obvious point of evolution. I can’t think of a finer point of graphical advancement than with Metal Gear Solid 2. MGS2 is fortunate enough to succeed in a game of the early 3D era, so the advanced piece of hardware will prove to be an inherent significant improvement. The codex calls feature 3D talking heads that look exactly like their 3D models outside of the calls. The mouths of the characters move while they are talking, a drastic improvement on the most awkward graphical aspect of the first game. These improvements greatly aid the cinematic qualities of the series, but they aren’t just impressive compared to the first game on the PS1. Metal Gear Solid 2 is arguably the best-looking game on the PS2, and I’m astounded that it came out as early as one year into the console’s lifespan. Everything from the characters, settings, and backgrounds practically looks real here. The foregrounds of Shadow Moses were a tad indiscernible due to the PS1’s limitations, but the dark, damp bunker Snake finds himself here looks clear as day with cascading rain effects for a hint of realism. Despite only a few aesthetic aspects that look dated now, MGS2 still holds an impressive graphical standard. It also helps that all of this is supported by one of the smoothest framerates on the console. Kojima’s mission with the first MGS was an attempt to make a blocky-looking game feel as cinematic as possible with precise direction. The technology offered only one console generation later allows Kojima to make something that fully meets his ambition.
The bunker mission essentially serves as an extensive tutorial to introduce Metal Gear Solid 2’s new mechanics and reacquaint players with the old ones. Stealth is still key to success, and Snake achieves this with the same sneaky tactics. He still crawls through tight vents, chokes out guards in his way, and hides under a cardboard box to avoid being detected. Overall, Snake’s tactics have not changed. What has changed is the ease of executing these stealthy missions for the player. For instance, holding the R1 button will activate a first-person mode with a free-range camera view. This is mostly used to make shooting more accurate, but the player can also survey the area more clearly with this extra perspective. One of Snake’s first weapons is an M9 that shoots tranquilizer darts instead of bullets, disposing of those nosy guards without warranting any unwanted attention. The player can now hide in lockers when evading the guards, which is much more effective than hiding under a box. The game adds a “caution” level on the alert meter after successfully evading the guards that involve increased security for an extended period. I recommend hiding in the lockers for this period. It may last for a long duration of time, but it beats facing the SWAT team of guards that ambush the player if they try to stay and fight. Cheeky Kojima even supplies a variety of lovely Asian girls in many lockers for your viewing pleasure. All of these changes, especially the first two I mentioned, are such a godsend that I could weep tears of joy.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and this sentiment involves some of the more negative changes Metal Gear Solid 2 makes. To access the radar for the area, the player must find a workstation and manually download the map. The workstations are fairly easy to spot, but having to do this makes it apparent that the developers don’t understand what the radar is for. Having a map of the area isn’t a convenient way to direct oneself around the room to get to the next one; it’s to navigate around the guards in the room without being spotted. I’d often alert the guards on my way to the workstation because I couldn’t see their line of sight. These workstations are also the only way the player can access the game’s options menu. I’m sure these workstations have some significance to the themes of technology MGS presents, but I can’t admire their depth when they are inconveniencing me. Another thing one might notice when Snake is low on health is that the remainder of his health turns a yellowish orange, and there is a blipping sound. This means that Snake is bleeding out, and his health will decline until he dies. That is unless he has a bandage in his inventory to patch up his wounds. The bleeding can also be cured with a ration. The number of rations in the field also greatly outnumbers the number of bandages, so it’s a wonder why bandages were introduced in the first place. As for the bleeding mechanic itself, it certainly gives the player more incentive to remain cautious. The only times where I was annoyed with the mechanic were during boss fights, instances where I had to involve myself with the enemy and take damage.
These negative changes are not the core reason I find fault with this game. Overall, complaining about them comes down to nitpicking more than anything else. The divisive factors that make Metal Gear Solid 2 are much meatier and egregious than a few minor discrepancies. The main one that everyone bellyaches about comes right after the tanker mission and wears out its welcome for most MGS fans. When I discussed the new game mechanics MGS2 offers, I used Snake as the playable character to reference every action. This is to be expected because Solid Snake is indeed the playable character in the tanker mission, all of the new features apply to the tanker mission, and he’s the face of the Metal Gear franchise. My big reveal is that I only referred to the new features that apply to Snake in the tanker mission to avoid spoilers. After Snake uploads the pictures of Metal Gear to the workstation, his egress is halted by Revolver Ocelot, who has betrayed his Russian comrades for his self-interest. One might not notice at first glance, but Ocelot has acquired a new arm after it was severed from his body by Gray Fox in the first game. This new appendage has a few drawbacks, however, as Ocelot becomes possessed by none other than Liquid Snake at random occurrences. Ocelot ostensibly took Liquid's arm and crudely applied it to himself, figuring Liquid wasn’t using it anymore because he was dead. Tough break, Ocelot. A possessed Ocelot murders the marine captain and capsizes the tanker, leaving everyone in a watery grave. Otacon bellows a classic “SSSNNAAAKKKEEE”, but there is no game over screen to follow as this scene was intentional. This scene may suggest a grim twist of fate for our hero, but some might question killing off Solid Snake and remain skeptical. One’s suspicions could be relieved in the next scene when good ol’ Roy Campbell is briefing a man with the codename Snake while swimming into a cargo bay. The skeptical feelings may return when the player notices that this Snake has blonde hair and doesn’t sound as gruff as usual. Colonel then changes this Snake’s codename to “Raiden” when it dawns on the player that Snake might be dead, and they’ll have to play as this guy for the rest of the game.
I’m more ambivalent towards Raiden than anything else. He draws a lot of ire from franchise fans, and it’s not surprising to see why. Is it hated for his pretty-boy looks and his confused, puppy-dog expressions? Is it due to his disturbingly wide, child-bearing hips protruding from his skin-tight bodysuit? No, it’s simply because many fans felt betrayed by having him as the central protagonist of MGS2 instead of Solid Snake, especially after playing as Snake at the beginning of the game. The familiarity Kojima established in the tanker mission was just a ruse to keep the player’s guard down and then pull the rug out from under them. It’s wise to always expect this kind of thing from such a subversive series, but I can imagine why it upset many people. I don’t mind Raiden because at least he isn’t a downgrade from Snake in terms of gameplay. Raiden’s range of movement is just as slick and acrobatic as Snake’s, arguably even more so because Raiden can do a catapult. All of the new features are translated to Raiden for the rest of the game as well, so the developers, fortunately, don’t leave the player hanging in the gameplay department.
Raiden is, however, a completely different character to Snake in terms of characterization. The player shifts from controlling a grizzled combat veteran with a weathered face of experience to a bright-eyed, clueless dork whose only experience in battle is VR training. Raiden is a rookie, and his mission here is a big step out of his comfort zone into the fray of real danger. While Raiden's lack of experience will not be a detriment to the player, especially if they’ve played the first game, the frame of the story will treat Raiden as if this is his first time walking. The Colonel claims he has confidence in Raiden, but this conflicts with his constant codex calls during the mission in which he acts like an overprotective parent teaching their child how to drive. The codex calls with the Colonel in the first game had some leeway for banter between him and Snake, establishing a genuine relationship between the two beyond their roles in the mission. The interactions between the Colonel and Raiden are all business, sacrificing any levity the first game had. Raiden doesn’t have the confidence to be glib on a mission.
The one person on this mission who does have a personal relationship with Raiden is his girlfriend, Rose. Yes, Raiden’s girlfriend monitors him, and her codex channel acts as the save feature. A resounding “Why?!” may resonate with everyone as to why she’s here, and I’m still wondering after finishing this game. It’s most likely to humanize the soldier to compensate for Raiden’s conversations with everyone else sounding so sterile, but their relationship delves into the most irritating humanization possible. Raiden and Rose are at the point in their relationship where one side feels alienated from the other and decide to have quarrels regarding their sense of emotional distance via the codex calls. She only refers to Raiden by his first name, and I’m astounded that the Colonel doesn’t scold her for doing so. Does anyone enjoy eavesdropping on the dispute between one of their friends and their significant other? No one does, and experiencing this is just as tiresome in a video game. I would call her to save my game and then get an earful about how “Jack” doesn’t cater to her needs anymore for five minutes. It makes me miss Mei Ling’s ancient Chinese proverbs.
Raiden’s mission is a classic hostage rescue affair on the high perches of the Big Shell decontamination facility located over the deep waters off the shores of New York City. Big Shell was erected here to clean up the residual oil from the capsized tanker a few years prior. Revolver Ocelot has returned to the crime scene with another gang of eccentric terrorists, and they’ve got some big named hostages as collateral. As a setting, Big Shell is a total deviation from the dark, Alaskan tundra that surrounded the base of Shadow Moses. The sun shines outside the facility, accompanied by the bluest of skies. There are constant sounds of seagulls squawking instead of the howling of timberwolves, and the waves of the ocean waters below crash against the facility. Don’t be misled by the seemingly less hostile atmosphere; the whole facility is swarming with guards, and the ciphers hover over the waters to catch Raiden with just their peripheral vision. The steep, balance-board rafters that make up the foundation of Big Shell’s outside sections are flimsy and will often result in Raiden falling to his untimely death. Because of these treacherous obstacles, it’s wise to know the facility's layout, and its design allows the player to do so easily. The Big Shell facility comprises two main cores with many struts circling it, connected by outdoor bridges. The struts are labeled with letters of the alphabet, with struts A-F circling the first core and G-M circling the second core. The entire map is well organized, and its cyclical nature allows for easy access to other areas of the map. The entire layout of Big Shell will become comfortably familiar to the player, and backtracking is so much more manageable as a result.
Gallivanting around Big Shell’s towering struts are the eccentric super-terrorists, a franchise staple. Revolver Ocelot is the one familiar face (with Liquid being the other familiar voice) out of them, but a whole new crop of baddies is here to replace the ones from FOXHOUND. Their squadron is referred to as Dead Cell, ironically a former anti-terrorist group that has gone radical ever since their original leader died years prior. A few Dead Cell members have perished since, but those active here are Fortune, Fatman, Vamp, and Solidus Snake. Fortune is a woman who shares similar physical characteristics with Storm from X-Men. She’s got long blonde hair, dark skin, and an energy rifle that’s as big as her. Her special ability is having any projectile weapon like bullets and missiles zoom past her like her body emitting an opposing polarity field. This is not a power she wears with honor, as it is a curse for her. Fortune is suffering from the grief of the deaths of her husband and her father (the marine commandant from the tanker mission) and feels as if she is cursed to not die like some kind of martyr. Fatman is a rotund albino man who specializes in demolition tools and rides around on roller skates. He betrays his fellow Dead Cell members by planting bombs around Big Shell to blow it up, and disposing of his bombs becomes a central objective during a large portion of the overall mission. Vamp is an androgynous man with long hair and fangs with supernatural powers relating to his vampiric presence. Like a vampire, Vamp cannot die, so defeating him numerous times in the game only deters him slightly. As one could imagine, all of the Dead Cell members make up the boss fights of the game, and fighting against the members of Dead Cell is much more underwhelming than the fights against FOXHOUND. The fight against Fortune is a stalling bout, and the core of Fatman’s fight is just freezing more bombs. The main fight against Vamp is challenging and has a loose fighting structure for the player to take advantage of, but this fight is ultimately mitigated by the fact that Vamp can’t be defeated. The most interesting Dead Cell member is Solidus Snake, but the fight against him on Big Shell is just a more erratic version of the chopper duel with Liquid in the first game. Dead Cell are as interesting as FOXHOUND as villains, but they fail to make for engaging bosses.
All this seems a tad much for a rookie like Raiden to handle on his own. Fortunately, some “new” faces come to aid Raiden in rescuing the hostages and taking down Dead Cell. During Raiden’s first encounter with Vamp, a man who has a strong resemblance to Snake saves Raiden from the bisexual beast. While this man could be Snake’s doppelganger, he claims his name's Pliskin (which already gives it away that he’s Snake if anyone is familiar with Kurt Russell’s character from Escape from New York, an obvious influence for the character of Solid Snake). Plisken aids Raiden by providing him aid during some boss battles, freezing Fatman’s bombs, and giving Raiden some pointers on how to survive on the field. There is also the demolitions expert Stillman assisting Raiden, but he dies early on from one of Fatman’s explosives. To no one's surprise, it is then revealed that Pliskin is Solid Snake, and he’s brought Otacon on the mission with him. Since the tanker incident, Snake and Otacon have been working together independently from the American government. Otacon is present on this mission for another reason, however, and it’s a personal one.
One of the hostages Dead Cell has taken is Otacon’s estranged step-sister Emma who Otacon playfully refers to as “E.E.” She’s an engineer working for Arsenal Gear who Raiden and Snake need to deactivate Arsenal with a virus. Physically, she’s as frangible as a flower and pitiful as a whimpering puppy. Rescuing her as Raiden is an exhausting escort mission where the player has to assist with EVERY obstacle along the way. During the portion where Raiden and Snake are sniping claymores and guards out of Emma’s path, Vamp pops out of the water and inflicts Emma with a fatal stab wound. They get her back to the core of Shell 1, where she dies in Otacon’s arms. This scene may seem contrived, but I started to choke up when Emma’s parrot mimicked Emma’s longing for Otacon, and he broke down. I never expected to have any emotional standing with Emma. Her helplessness during the escort mission made for one of the most infuriating parts of the game, but her death made it so impactful. It’s a seminal moment for Otacon as a character who, until now, was only another one of Snake’s aids. I stated that an awkward hiccup in the first game was Otacon attempting to sympathize with Snake’s loss of Meryl with his loss of Sniper Wolf, but his loss here makes up for that in spades. This arc with Emma would’ve been much more pertinent if she was involved with Shadow Moses in the first game instead of Big Shell here.
While Emma’s arc stands out to me and is a sizable chunk of the game, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the overarching story. It’s hard to tell what the meat of the story is because it’s a total mess. I’ve heard of A plots and B plots, but the overarching themes and story points in MGS2 run the gamut of the whole alphabet. MGS2 inflicts excruciatingly long swathes of exposition on the player during what seems like every single cutscene. Even the conversations between Raiden and Rose serve as long points of exposition about their relationship. The Emma arc is almost ruined with long elucidations regarding the GW project and Otacon’s soap-opera family life. The first game presented plenty to unpack, but the exposition was used sparingly compared to the amount presented here. I can’t even appreciate the odd moments of levity here like Raiden slipping in bird shit, Raiden getting groped by the president, and Snake and Otacon’s complicated bro-handshake because they are weighed down by the gunk of plots A through Zed. At least the main objective of freeing the hostages is the core arc here, right?
Nope. After Emma dies, the game kicks the complicated switch into high gear to mold the rest of the game. I’ll try to explain everything and wrap everything up into a semi-neat package. Think that Psycho Mantis was the biggest Metal Gear mind-fuck? It has nothing on the end of MGS2. Olga, the first boss from the tanker mission, aids Snake in capturing Raiden and taking him to Solidus and Ocelot, where he is held captive in a torture device similar to the one from the first game. Raiden escapes bare-ass naked, rendered helpless because both hands have to cover his ding-dong. He gets many strange codex calls from the Colonel and Rose, ranging from breaking the fourth wall to silly non-sequiturs. Something isn’t right here. Snake meets up with Raiden, gives him a katana, and explains that betraying him with Olga was a means to infiltrate the core of Arsenal. Snake and Raiden fight their way into the core, where Raiden then fights six versions of Metal Gear Ray in a cybernetic arena (it’s not as hard as it sounds). Solidus and Ocelot show up to provide yet another long stretch of exposition that explains Raiden’s backstory. Raiden was a child soldier in the 1980s known as “Jack the Ripper,” Solidus killed his parents and adopted him as a child. Metal Gear Arsenal loses control and crashes into New York City. Raiden and Solidus have a final fight on a New York landmark with dueling katana swords, and Raiden saves the day.
That’s a rough summary of what occurs at the end of MGS2, but it’s the underlying context that molds it (or does it?). The main antagonists of MGS2 are not Dead Cell or any other terrorist but a group called the Patriots. The president explains to Raiden that the Patriots are the ones who pull the strings of America, and he is merely a figurehead to assuage the general public. GW on Big Shell exists to keep the Patriots in power by providing fake information to the people of America. Revolver Ocelot is a Patriot agent who has a list of their names, and Solidus used to be the president who was pulling for the Patriots in the first game. He’s also another clone of Big Boss like Solid and Liquid. The whole game is a virtual simulation of the events of Shadow Moses fitted for a VR soldier like Raiden, explaining the cracks in the system at the end. Defeating Solidus at the end seems like our heroes are getting one step closer to eradicating the Patriots and their oppressive control. Still, Ocelot’s disc claims that all of these men have been dead for over a century. All of this is supposed to point to themes of personal autonomy for every individual.
The Psycho Mantis portion of MGS1 was a mind-fuck that pleasantly shocked and awed me for its innovation, but the more severe one here made my brain feel violated. A moderately complicated base plot regarding a hostage mission has imploded into a clusterfuck of ideas and subplots with no cohesion or integral structure between them. I forgot to mention Rose being a patriot double-agent and holding Olga’s child hostage, but I can’t incorporate those subplots smoothly just like Kojima couldn’t do it. There are many interesting and provocative themes here, like the manipulation of information and reality becoming less structured moving into the digital age. Still, these points are crushed under the weight of everything else the developers are trying to get through. Metal Gear Solid 2 is the video game equivalent of Infinite Jest or Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. These are all works of art with interesting and unique spectacles marred by the influx of ideas and their multiple footnotes that the whole thing becomes indigestible. Some smug jackasses might argue that I’m not intelligent enough to “get it”, but you know what? The smartest way to interpret what’s being presented here is to analyze it and conclude that there is nothing to get. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that Kojima needs to undergo surgery to remove his head from his rectal cavity.
I’ve had it up to here (puts hand above head) with Hideo Kojima and his auteur vision. The first Metal Gear Solid tested the limits of what a cinematic narrative could accomplish in the early 3D era without going overboard, but Metal Gear Solid 2 bursts the seams of proper narrative structure. I’m not going to refer to the themes and story of this game as a “postmodern groundbreaker” like everyone else. Rather, it’s the result of a lapse of judgment, control, and self-awareness on Kojima’s part. Kojima’s plan to awe us with a 21st-century spectacle of conspiracy akin to 9/11 ultimately backfired. If it stuck with one theme, like the first game’s themes of genetics and their properties coinciding with one’s fate like the first game, I wouldn’t be so riled up. I’m still conflicted about how to perceive Metal Gear Solid 2. As a game, it’s better than the first one in every way. The new hardware granted Metal Gear Solid with smoother controls, more accessible features, and extraordinary presentation. Still, the fact that Kojima took all of these advantages and turned them into this makes it all the sadder. I cannot in good conscience put this piece of pretentious gobbledygook in higher regard than the first Metal Gear Solid, despite its high quality as a game.
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