Metal Gear Solid 2 is a steaming pile of piss -

[Cyclonus]

OK, I know I'm late to the party here. MGS 1 was one of my favourite games on the PS1, but I kind of fell out of playing new games during the PS2 era and only got back into it when PS3/Xbox 360 launched. So I had played MGS1 a million times but none of the others. I recently decided to play through the whole series in order (including Metal Gear 1 and 2 originally on the MSX which were quite good for their time.) But then I got to Mgs2 and good lord...

Spoiler: In case you're one of the few who never played it

It wasn't even playing as Raiden for most of the game instead of Snake, I had already heard about that and was expecting it. And the bit on the ship was good, I wish the whole game was set there. But Ocelot being possessed by Liquids arm? What the fuck? And the big shell was boring and terrible level design. And even though I expected Raiden, I fucking hated him. And the bosses were shit apart from Fatman. And Campbell and Rose being AI is something I don't even understand. The whole ending made no sense. And the music is shit, which was a great disappointment because the soundtrack to MGS1 is one of my all time favourites.

I heard Hideo Kojima wanted it to be "post modern" and to "defy player expectations". So fucking what? If I opened the game case and a midget jumped out and punched me in the balls it would also defy my expectations, doesn't mean it would make a good entertainment experience.

I'm in the middle of MGS 3 now, which is better. Still disappointed about the music though. And it's weird to play as the guy I slaughtered like a hog at the end of Metal Gear 2, but good weird. I'll see how the rest of the series plays out.

 

[Y2K Baby]

OK, boomer.

 

[Drain Todger]

MGS2 was genius and predicted the meme wars.

 

[Chin of Campbell]

Piss is a liquid and cannot form a pile you fucking degenerate

 

[ChucklesTheJester]

MGS2 was genius and predicted the meme wars.

Metal gear and memes go hand and hand.

 

[Cyclonus]

Spoiler

As much as I love Snake and hate Raiden, I would actually have more respect for MGS2 if Snake was dead or dying. I thought he was supposed to be dying of Foxdie?

Maybe that'll be addressed in the rest of the series, I'll have to see. Seems that they completely ignored it in MGS2 though.

 

[XYZpdq]

everybody just pissy because they wanted to play as Rugged Dickman and not Flippy Twinknerd

 

[Dom Cruise]

I've always loved MGS2 but to be fair I played MGS1 and MGS2 around the same time, so there was no build up or expectations or hype for 2 for me, so I just accepted it as it was, in recent times I have wondered what it would have been like had Kojima not gone so postmodern and meta and had we played as Solid Snake for a full game again, there's certainly a special magic to MGS1's storytelling that was never captured again.

So I can certainly understand people's disappointment better now, but I do still think it was a bold experiment worth trying because there's stuff in MGS2 that is frighteningly prescient now.

And just in general I've always appreciated that Japanese "mindfuck" style of storytelling ala Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain of which MGS2 is a perfect example.

 

[HeyYou]

Even if you hate the story the gameplay is rock solid. Just press start you baby.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The expression is "steaming pile of shit" not "piss."

 

[Pissmaster]

It's a pretty interesting game with some unbelievable Deus Ex style redpilling near the end. It was very much ahead of its time for a game released in 2002.

 

[Cyclonus]

The expression is "steaming pile of shit" not "piss."

What can I say, I'm a sucker for alliteration.

 

[John Titor]

The Campbell is an AI thing was about how everyone bullshitted you from the start and you went along with it because you took everything at face value. Notice how he's referred to as the Colonel instead of Campbell?

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

What can I say, I'm a sucker for alliteration.

Pile of puke would have worked better.

 

[Arrakis Sandworm]

I thought S.Snake was only engineered to live to certain age as a "fail-safe." He wasn't necessarily dying of FoxDie. Please correct me, if wrong.

After the Konami meltdown and Death Walking Monster ad, I think DSP was right all along about Kojima. My understanding of why MGS1's story was so good was because they hired a translator that actually translated the game in a way that is palatable to English speakers. Kojima couldn't have this, got pissy, and demanded all future translations be as true to Japanese as possible. Which is just awful. As a small example, if we translate Ocelot's famous line "you're pretty good" directly you'd get "(you're) senses are good / you have good senses." Not horrible, but just awkward. I think this why the dialogue was just awkward as shit in everything after.

I am pretty sure Raiden was born out of a focus group of teenage girls (that wouldn't even be playing the game). The group said that Snake was too boomer and not cute enough. Thus Raiden was deemed a necessity. A very rough gestalt, but close enough.

Even though the series is my favorite of all time, I really hate that they killed off Liquid. I hated the business of Liquid coming through Ocelot and hated it even more when they failed to fully follow through with the retarded idea. If that's the clownshow you came up with at least commit. Liquid was the most interesting character. Even more so than Big Boss. Only because we already knew who Boss was and what he did. If MGS4 ended with a final fight between Snake and Liquid, that would have been one of the most glorious video game deathmatches in history. Ocelot's character never really grabbed me. Cool, but I found he somehow always had some kind of plot armor. He seemed to always be perfect and never was in any true danger.

Fatman was easily the best written antagonist. Fortune put me to sleep. Vamp seemed like he'd be cool to a Japanese audience. Solidus caught my interest, but just screamed "I am gonna die at the end!" In MGS1, Raven, Ocelot, Wolf, Mantis, Liquid, Ninja and even fucking Decoy Octopus were all amazingly written, compelling characters. Also, Emma was introduced WAY too late in the game for me to feel the amount of weight in her death as the game wanted me to feel. It hit me based on my love for Otacon alone, but it feels like "so you've met E.E. annnnnnd she's dead. Thanks for moving the plot, sweetheart." Olga suffered similarly. She wasn't really introduced or maintained in a way that really made me feel anything for her.

The end was pretty damn cool though and I legit thought my PS2 was haunted. I restarted like 5 times and quit playing to search the internet for an exorcist.

6/10

 

[TaimuRadiu]

Agnese Kaku made up a bunch of shit in her translation and bragged about it. That might have been a factor.

 

[ProblematicUser420]

I replayed it and MGS 1 month ago after not touching it for over a decade.

Tanker is great stuff.

Big Shell is horribly designed, feels it was designed for First Person headshots and not pure sneaking like most of Shadow Moses.

It really falls apart after the Harrier fight imo. Kojima lost his mind making a whole act that weird platforming/swimming section. Arsenal is great but too short for a recovery imo. The fact the Arsenal Escape works so well is what leads me to say the big shell was designed around shooting more than sneaking as when you lose all your equipment suddenly everything works again.

Dialogue is dumb but its Kojima without a competent editor so no surprise there

 

[verissimus]

The Campbell is an AI thing was about how everyone bullshitted you from the start and you went along with it because you took everything at face value. Notice how he's referred to as the Colonel instead of Campbell?

Snake refers to him as that often in MGS1.

 

[John Titor]

Snake refers to him as that often in MGS1.

Yeah but not in tge codec. It's suppose to be a subtle clue that there's something wrong, like "Plisskin's" blatant lies.

 

[MrTroll]

There is no good MGS game.