Metal Gear Solid 2 is a strange game in many ways. Back when it first game out it was very divisive and often got derided for it's "bait and switch" with having the player control Raiden instead of Snake for 90% of it as well as the plot being very incomprehensible at the time but has gotten many in recent times be more appreciative of it since it made many interesting points and basically predicted the world as it is today.
As for me, I always found MGS1 to be the more consistent narrative and MGS2 while having interesting themes and concepts scarifices so much for them. Back when I finished MGS2, I found the gameplay of it to be better than it's predessesor but now I think MGS1 is the more consistent game in terms of gameplay too and I never found MGS1 to be a great game in terms of gameplay, more on that later.
The story in MGS2 starts off well enough, the opening cutscene where Snake jumps on to the Tanker invokes a lot of Predator vibes with stealth camo, the music makes for a calming stealthy atmosphere as well as the cutscene cinematrograhy is an improvement over MGS1 and the latter game already set a high bar in terms of production values in games. Everything is all fine and good, there is an aura of mystery of what Snake and Otacon(Snake and Otacon's save game coversations are also really entertaining) have gotten themselves into, why are Russians mercs on the tanker? What exactly is so special about it? What exactly is it hiding? All of this is mystery is built up well and far as openers are concerned, I do like how it got me engaged quickly enough even if the cutscenes can be lengthy but that improved production values really does help elevate it. This over reliance of well made cutscenes starts working to the game's detriment, more on that later.
Everything is all fine and good and then a twist later in the mission where it is revealed that Ocelot is not working for the Russians but instead he is working for the Patriots but is he really? This now leads me to the first thing that divided people back in 2001 regarding the MGS story and that is Ocelot being possesed by Liquid Snake's arm. First of all, how did Ocelot even somehow get Liquid's arm especially when the latter's body was closely guarded and Snake and Otacon had to through hurdles to procure it but Ocelot was able to find Liquid's arm and is also able to able to attach it on to him? Then there is the fact that Ocelot seems to be working for the Patriots yet they are okay with a Ocelot attaching a mind controlling arm on to himself? A mind controlling arm that is also the persona of one of their worst enemies. Also, who's side is Ocelot even on anymore? The series makes it more convoluted the more it goes on but in the context of this game, it all started here.
I get that apparently Kojima was "forced" to make MGS2 and wanted to leave the series after Solid but at the same time, this was a rather silly way to bring back a previously deceased villain even if he never planned on a follow up to Solid.
This leads to the next divisive aspect of MGS2, the game somehow took a wacky and over the top premise like the first MGS and made it even dumber and wackier. It depends on the execution but I got to admit, that MGS2 got so stupid that even I questioned the plausiblity of it. MGS1 was wacky and stupid for sure but that game was dumb in a more endearing way. At least in the universe of that game, a physic character like Pyscho Mantis, a character you'd find in a superhero story is somehow in a more "grounded" spy thriller setting but at the very least a government or military would want to use a character like Psycho Mantis for something. Same goes for characters like Revolver Ocelot, Sniper Wolf and Vulcan Raven, silly and weird but they were on the verge of being plausible enough.
Enter MGS2, you got the aforementioned arm possession, a fat guy on rollerskates who can somehow quickly plant bombs, a supposed vampire with a healing factor who can run on water while also making ridiculous dance poses while killing people with knives, a woman who has a device that can defend against bullets and heavy armaments, a harrier battle on an enviromental clean facility, and the former president of the Unitied States being a clone of the previous game's protagonist that also has Doctor Octopus arms that can shoot missiles, and uses swords. MGS2 is even dumber the it's predessesor which is fine but at the same time, it amping up the stupidity can also make it's more serious moment give a severe case of tonal whiplash that MGS1 managed to avoid in some ways.
This leads me to my next point, Dead Cell is a downgrade and aren't as engaging as Foxhound were. Dead Cell has less memebers than Foxhound did and this might sound great on paper since less characters mean more development but much of Dead Cell no shows for so much of MGS2's "run time" and most of the many lengthy cutscenes are dedicated to the themes. As a result, there is rarely if ever any interactions between Fortune, Vamp and Fatman. There is only one villain interaction in the whole game and that is between Fortune and Vamp and that one has me asking questions more so than I find to be compelling like why does Fortune not know Vamp has a healing factor even though they have been on missions together. Fortune herself mainly has screen time early in the game and most of her interactions consist of her angsting about why does people involved with her die and why can't she get a soldier's death" with not much else. Vamp is basically more of an obstacle in Raiden's way than having any geniune character himself and most of his backstory being relegated to optional codec calls. Fatman might be the best of the bunch since his rivalry with Peter Stillman and the former's dislike for him gives Fatman more agency in the story. Since Peter is a character Raiden and Snake interact with the game is allowed to flesh out Fatman that doesn't involve optional codec calls. It also allows the game to flesh out it's themes of passing on one's legacy that involves using its characters rather than long exposition dumps.
Another issue is that while I don't dislike Raiden in MGS2 as much as players back in the day, I also don't think his character never rises above being just "okay". The big issue is with him is that it barely feels like he has any agency in the story outside of being the protagonist. Many of his conversations consist of people chewing him out, gets bossed around, him asking questions, or people chastising him for being in the dark constantly. It never feels like Raiden is every control of anything. He does start to get more interesting when his backstory of being a former child soldier gets brought up but it is revealed far too late and Raiden never spends enough of the game comtemplating about this for this to be anything more than shock value. I argue Raiden's backstory should've been revealed halfway through the game rather than towards the end, much like Solid Snake's was in MGS1, having a scene where he talks to Rose about Solidus being his adopted father and being a former child soldier halfway through would give the twist more time to breath and easier to process. Lines like when Raiden says, "I knew when I saw him I know I would have to face him" would have much more meaning. Raiden doesn't get much in the way of any control until the very end of the game and by that point the credits already started rolling.
I have been bashing MGS2's story for a while now so I am going to start praising it. When it comes to continuing Solid Snake's story, the game surprisingly doesn't feel forced since Solid's character in the first game was that he was a solider who only knew how to fight but only did it for bloodlust, if you were to continue his story, having him be a pseudo mentor who found his purpose in life would be a good way to follow up on that. His character interactions with Otacon are also endearing since Otacon in many ways gives Snake the motivation to keep going as well as vice versa.
Peter Stillman and President Johnson despite not being major players in the story are memorable characters. Peter Stillman is decently fleshed out and Greg Eagles' voice acting does a good job at making him sound like someone who has committed many sins and deeply regrets it. He also serves his purpose well at being worfed and at establishing how ruthless Fatman has become, and he helps flesh out the themes of the story and Fatman himself.
President Johnson also helps fleshes out the themes of the game of not wanting to be a figurehead and wanting absolute power. He has only one lengthy cutscene but that cutscene does a good job at establishing how great the Patriots' rule is, how they need to function in order to for society to run, and it also establishes how ambitious and far gone Solidus is when it comes to achieving his plan. I like it when one scene established multiple ideas at once and the President Johnson cutscene does just that.
Since I mentioned Solidus, he is also a pretty good villain. He has as an interesting motivation and he follows goals with strong convictions too. John Cygan's voice acting gives him a great larger than life feel to his character, that he is a guy that I could maybe picture myself following, of course I wouldn't but his acting made me believe that and I got to give him and the voice director credit for that. He does sort of make for an interesting enough foil to Raiden even if the latter's lack of character and agency could've made it to easier to be invested in their dynamic.
Of course, this wouldn't be me talking about MGS2 without mentioning it's themes, and they are interesting. The post modernist stuff doesn't interest me. I do however like the stuff involving the digital age and it's wacky predictions of the future that ended up being true today. One particular idea I liked is how the game delibrately tried to recreate the events MGS1 as a part of the antagonist's plans. I have never seen a sequel to this day even try to do this and MGS2 stands out a lot for it. It's also very well foreshadowed too with how you got the hero being inserted by sea, waiting for an elevator to get down, a cyborg ninja, Raiden and Solidus' dynamic being like Snake and his relatives, people dying of a mysterious virus, Otacon losing a loved one, a harrier fight rather than a fight with the hind d all of this feels so meticulous and delibrate that I can't help but want to commend the game for that. It is a theme that does land and it built in within the game itself and doesn't involve a 20-30 minute exposition dump to establish it.
However a major negative that does fall into I said is that while the AI conversation that Raiden has at the end of the game while very memorable and is very thought provoking and predicting much of the future there is one big flaw with it, why didn't Solidus kill Raiden while the latter was talking to the Patriot AI? Solidus had a lot of agency as more than Raiden did, and its hard to believe Solidus would get stand there and let the AI talk Raiden into fighting him instead of just killing Raiden and pretty much getting what he wants. At least with Liquid in MGS1, it was built into his character that he wanted to humliate Solid Snake on a bigger scale and wanted to tell him about the Genome Soliders.
Enough of the story, while I can say I generally enjoyed it in the moment especially towards the end, it does a have a number of issues, and while it has a lot to say and is interesting, it just isn't as consistent of a story as MGS1 was.
The first difference between MGS1 and 2 is the ability to aim in first person and non lethal gameplay with the tranq gun. Both work in tandem to make MGS2's stealth gameplay easier and arguably more brainlessly easy compared to MGS1. In MGS1, while the stealth gameplay was the far from the best of it's time, you at least had to engage with the patrols and avoid being detected, you at least had to be patient and wait for holes in patrols and then make your move.
In MGS2, all you have to do now is equip tranq gun, hide behind cover, aim for head in first person and then knock out a guard. All of MGS2's guard evasions with humans revolve around this. Cyphers are a bit better but just throw chaff grenades in tandem with human enemy tactics and much of the stealth of MGS2 can turn into this. An improvement the game could make is have enemies with helmets, riot shields or are armored to mix up the kinds of guards you will be evading.
Guard AI is improved in someways, they will noticed missed shots, hear enemies nearby if you get into fist fights with them up close, they have to call in their radio in order to get a alert instead of the hiveminds from MGS1 and you have a few seconds to run back if they see a small glimpse of you giving you time to retreat, but once again first person aim and tranq gun trivializes much of this.
Tanker section is the worst section since it is easier to cancel radio patrols by running into another part of the level, Plant is an improvement since the sneaking rooms are bigger but the first person aiming, and tranq gun are issues still persist
Caution and evasion phases are great ideas on paper but I would rather die in the room where the objective was close in than run multiple rooms back and potentially lose health and resources
Big Shell and level design aren't very good, lacks atmosphere of Shadow Moses and has even less exploration that MGS1 has. For example MGS1 had more random areas to find game progressing items in. The exploration in MGS1 while feeling entry level at least felt involving, in MGS2 however most of the game progressing items can be found in the Warehouse Strut, the assault rifle, the silencer for the pistol, and the sniper can all be found there, meaning there is no need to look in the other struts, they are nothing more than just sneaking rooms with nothing to find, the keycard system is mostly pointless as a result, you don't need to look around in the other struts outside of the warehouse. You can also loot guards for rations trivilizing exploration even more.
Stealth mechanics are still basic with the radar system might as well replacing the ingame environment and character models, now with the aforementioned issues added on top of that.
Game pacing is still inconsistent, the first few sections is kind of like MGS1 where you have to evade guards with the occasional boss fight but when you to Shell 2, there is a noticeable lack of sneaking and the stealth rooms themselves are much more linear compared to how somewhat open Shell 1 was, it can feel pretty jarring since now with Shell 2 everything feels extremely guided, you think Shell 2 is to be like Shell 1 but with more gimmicks, enemy variety or just something new but instead, the ideas are thrown out but it's just a more linear version with you just going one way with no much to change things up, then there is an escourt mission where all you do is just do the first person tranq gun tactics but now you are babysitter and the rest of the game is action and sword gameplay comes out of nowhere. I'll give MGS2 for introduction freely swinging sword controls a year before Jedi Outcast would but you get this so late in the former game and only use it twice making it hard to feel like the addition was anything substantial
A big issue I have with the gameplay is that there are too many cutscenes and it ruins the pacing making the game hard to play at times, so much of MGS2 is spent doing less than 20 minutes of gameplay, and then 20 to 30 minutes of cutscenes. To name an example of what I am talking about, the Emma swimming section has you swim for about maybe 1-2 minutes preceeded by a 10-15 minute cutscene just to get to the filtration room and then there is yet another 10-15 minute cutscene, this just makes moment to moment gameplay pretty dull since it's getting more and more obvious that gameplay was clearly never the priority. MGS1 at least had a decent amount of challenge and a decent length in between gameplay and story. MGS2 at the very least feels 60% cutscene and while the story isn't terrible, it just doesn't hide the fact that so much of the game is watching a movie.
Hanging mode and body dragging barely gets any use, hanging mode only is mandatory once and that is late game after the harrier battle and body dragging is useless since you knock out every one in the room and they guard will radio in for a status report
Best parts of the game doesn't involve moment to moment guard evasion, some of my favorite moments of the game involve taking pictures of MG Ray, the bomb defusal, the Fatman boss, the sniping for semtex, or any moment that doesn't involve me abusing the first person aim and the tranq gun. They stand out more for not being as one note with easy to abuse strategies. Fatman is one of the better bosses of the game since you have to take out the bombs as well as netrualize Fatman himself. The final boss with Solidus was okay but the fight itself is an exercise of trying to land hits on him with the imprecise sword controls and isn't even as decently made as the Solid Snake vs Liquid Snake fight on top of MG Rex from MGS1.
Overall, while MGS2 is a decent "interactive movie" or "mixed media". The game heavily scarifices everything to gets it's themes across from it's time spent playing the game, to story consistency, to it's villains as well. MGS2 is very much a game that should be experienced by anyone, even if you don't like long cutscenes, but as a game and as a narrative, MGS2 is just "okay". Definately a memorable okay game but an okay game nonetheless.
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