Not so long ago, I did a thread about Raiden's lack of rendered manhood.
It kinda got me in the mood of replaying it again. I've beaten this game plenty of times, but thinking about it, I never had anyone to share my feelings toward this game. Most of my friends didn't play Metal Gear, and the ones that did, for some reason, skipped 2 and went straight for the third game, which, admittely, was the crazy fever of the time, especially with all the spanish magazines hyping it to no end.
So, yeah, four years later, the so much anticipated sequel to Metal Gear Solid 1 finally arrived.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
*BEWARE SPOILERS*
This is, by far, one of the most divisive games I've known to this date; on one hand, I think we can all agree that Sons of Liberty's gameplay was a complete step-up from the original Metal Gear Solid: enemies were more self-aware, they employed tactics when you were discovered, patterns weren't that easy to figure out this time, hold-ups, an easier non-lethal method to dispatch enemies, swimming, first-person mode for manual aiming, more interactions with everything, better animations, and all kind of crazy stuff that added tons of value to it, as well.
The problem comes, then, to what that gameplay is adhere to: the story, the atmosphere. The overall tone of the game.
Three main problems appear:
· The player is often tricked by the game. More often than not, whatever you do is effortless.
· Big Shell as a copycat of Shadow Moses.
· The controls.
· Raiden.
I do agree with the sentiment of Big Shell being a big wasted area. In fact, it is probably the most uninteresting map of the whole Metal Gear Solid saga. Too repetitive, and not that joy to navigate (although exploring its big areas is very fun). Plus, the nodes really serve no purpose but to add the annoyance of having to look for the map everytime you get into a different, non-explored zone. Metal Gear Solid 1 gave no reason why your radar displayed the whole map, but it wasn't needed - though much appreciated.
Controls, as some people have pointed out, are rusty, and a lot of people might not enjoy that at all. They're not as responsible as say, Splinter Cell, and I do agree with that sentiment as well. However, they fixed a lot of things on the HD remaster, so go for that.
However, I don't see why the other two problems are that, a problem. They're both interwined, and me, personally, love it.
Right now I've just beaten the Tanker, so I'm at that infamous moment of protagonist-swapping that a lot of people hate. But why? It's something I never understood. Without Raiden, there wouldn't be really Metal Gear Solid 2; Solid Snake had already accomplished everything he had to by the time Metal Gear Solid 1 ends, and by the time Metal Gear Solid 2 starts, he's just a member of a group approved by the UN. Had the game stretched out Snake himself, we would have a different game, one that would be simply repeating MGS1 but without the charm of Liquid Snake, nor the purpose of Shadow Moses. Really, throw Ocelot and a bunch of randoms that want to destroy/conquer the world and that's it.
Instead, the plot takes a very different approach; one that, indeed, mimics Metal Gear Solid 1 but with a spin added to it, and that's Raiden himself. Much like Snake, he's the clueless hero this time, and it really shows. For those worried about Snake, Snake is there, throughout the whole game, more often than not overshadowing and outclassing Raiden in everything they do. And that's great. Kojima wanted to show us how Snake had progressed since MGS1, and while it's not what everyone expected, doing it from someone's else perspective is a great take. There's convoluted mess to be displayed to the player (because there's tons of content that didn't make the final cut) but everything should make sense by the time you reach the ending, with some unanswered questions that weren't any kind of set-up for a sequel; simply, the game demanded the player to extract their own conclusion.
Then, later, MGS3 and MGS4 would heavily retconnect this much to (apparently) everyone's pleasure except mine. They completely destroyed Raiden character by the time he shows up in MGS4. I think Snake's words are akin to what I thought as well: "This is not what I meant". Though, Kojima himself said that MGS2 would be the last in the Metal Gear games, so I guessed that there had to be some kind of contradictions here and there when making the sequels.
But the Raiden persona - who in the gameplay fundamentally works the same as Snake but with different moves and techniques - is something I liked. He's both the protagonist and the player, often asking Snake for advise or seeing how the Shadow Moses hero forsakes his own image, now turned into commercial action figures. He gives you a helping hand during the Snipe section, and he gives you full support when overtaking Arsenal Gear, with his catchy phrase "Infinite ammo!" while pointing at his bandana.
I'll be doing Big Shell now, and probably update this sometime.
But in the meanwhile, what about you, VGC? What do you think about Metal Gear Solid 2?
