Regarding Metal Gear Solid 2's.....
Cultural impact:
In a 2006 viewer poll conducted by Japan's
Famitsu magazine of top 100 games of all time,
Metal Gear Solid 2 was ranked at #42 in the poll.
[94] In the 200th issue of
Game Informer Magazine in 2009, its list of top 200 games of all time ranked the game at #50 on the list.
[95] Metal Gear Solid 2 was ranked #7 in
Game Informer's 2008 list of the top ten video game openings.
[96] In 2010,
GamesRadar included the game in its list of top seven games "with mega plot twists you never saw coming."
[97] The game was included in Tony Mott and
Peter Molyneux's 2011 book
1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.
[98] It has also been listed as one of the
best games of all time by
Electronic Gaming Monthly,
[99] Empire,
[100][101]GameFAQs,
[102][103][104][105]GameRankings,
[106] IGN,
[107][108][109]Metacritic,
[79] Slant,
[110] and
Stuff.
[111][112]
According to John Linneman of
Digital Foundry, the game was a technical milestone for its time. It served as a
killer appshowcasing what the
PlayStation 2 hardwarewas capable of, with the game setting "a new standard in cinematic presentation" and attention to detail, and demonstrating "huge numbers of enemies on screen with bodies that remain in the scene, the interaction of light and shadow,
physics interactions with real world objects, multi-tiered environments and advanced enemy AI." This made possible new "gameplay opportunities" and a sense of freedom offered by levels "designed as
mini-sandboxes with a tremendous amount of interactivity."
[113] The early anticipation that surrounded
Metal Gear Solid 2 since its
E3 2000 demo has been credited as a critical factor in the PlayStation 2's
best-sellingsuccess and dominance during the
sixth console generation, as well as the demise of
Sega's
Dreamcast.
[72] According to John Szczepaniak, "
MGS2 was the game which single-handedly sold Sony's new PlayStation 2 to the masses."
[114]
In 2009,
Wired included the game in its list of "The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade" at #13, concluding that every "videogame story that subverts a player’s expectations owes a debt to the ground broken by
Metal Gear Solid 2."
[115] The artistic influence of
Metal Gear Solid 2 can be seen in later video games such as
Goichi Suda's similarly postmodern game
Killer7,
[85] the similarly
metanarrative game
Portal,
[116] the
survival horror title
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and particularly the
first-person shooter BioShock,
[117] which featured a similar plot twist to
Metal Gear Solid 2.
[118]Several
game mechanics developed in
Metal Gear Solid 2, such as the
cover system and
laser sight mechanic, have since become staples of stealth games as well as
shooters, including
Kill Switch (2003),
Resident Evil 4(2005) and
Gears of War (2006).
[7][12] The reveal of
Metal Gear Solid 2 also led to the development of
Splinter Cell, which
Ubisoftoriginally intended to be "a
Metal Gear Solid 2killer."
[119][120] According to Kojima,
Metal Gear Solid 2 paid more "attention to the surroundings" in real-time and later "games like
Call of Duty have followed this trend of making your surroundings more realistic."
[38]
WhatCulture noted a number of striking similarities between
Sons of Liberty and the 2014
Marvel Cinematic Universe film
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, including a similar opening tanker mission, shady cyborg-like antagonist, and organization covertly attempting to shape the world's future, as well as a close-quarters combat fight scene similar to later
Metal Gear Solidgames.
[121] Entertainment Weekly noted that the film's opening tanker mission was "rendered as a
Metal Gear Solid stealth mission."
[122] Eye For Film said
Winter Soldier's "opening sequence that will no doubt be familiar to anyone who's ever played
Metal Gear Solid 2."
[123]