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[VulcanRaven]

Metal Gear Solid 2 was released just few months after 9/11 so they made some changes to the final cutscenes at the time. They removed the American flag from the flagpole during the final boss fight against Solidus. It was supposed to fall on him after the fight but that was removed too. It might seem like a small change but it does make the scene lot different. Its great to see it being restored using available data:



Its interesting to see how the camera angles and what Solidus does when he falls make more sense now. In the video at 7:46.

From the video description:

A restoration of the American flag in Federal Hall, it was removed from the game due to 9/11.The video showcases everything that can be technically restored with the available data, sadly some animations are completely gone like the one where the flag is being dragged off from Solidus' corpse

As pointed out in the comments, the flag that falls on top of Solidus according to the script included in The Document Of MGS2 is not the flag from Federal Hall, it's unclear if that changed or not during development because of how the final cutscene is structured, it's also not clear when or where the flag is supposed to fall off either, so in the video I made it happen after Raiden's final "slash".The flag disappears in the following scene as there's GCL scripts to hide\unhide the flag on top of Federal Hall and I've made use of it, whether they're there for debugging purposes or because of how the cutscene changed compared to what's specified in the script included in TDOFMGS2 is unknown, so take that whole sequence with a grain of salt.

I've been wanting to make this video for a long time, since 2017 when I first showcased it without animations, back then I wasn't exactly optimistic in accomplishing a "full restoration" considering the code to play the animations is gone in the stages w61a and d080p08, on top of that the cutscene data doesn't reference the flag fall animation anymore. Since my programming and reversing skills have improved since then, I've decided to take a crack at it and try to restore as much as possible.

Also Arsenal Gear crashing into Manhattan with unused low quality models:

A showcase of the unused LOD models present in the polygon demo stage (d080p07), they were originally meant for the Arsenal Gear crash scene.While the GCL scripts still place them in the stage, they're set as "hidden" as they were probably original meant to be "unhidden" depending on the progression of the scene, my guess is that after the AG would go through the Verrazzano Bridge, with some clever camera work, it would get repositioned back to where these models are set.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

 

[RaduN]

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

The only thing "awesome" about that version is that it >exists<. Otherwise it is a technical mess, with shit performance and a fuck ton of missing special effects.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

Solidus was misunderstood.

 

[kevboard]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

the Xbox port was horrible sadly.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

The only thing "awesome" about that version is that it >exists<. Otherwise it is a technical mess, with shit performance and a fuck ton of missing special effects.

It has more content.

Better graphics.

Faster loading.

The addition of solid snake stories.

It is a very good version on the Xbox, ps2 and GC generation.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

the Xbox port was horrible sadly.

Really???

I see it run great.

 

[kevboard]

Really???

I see it run great.

...yeah no. lower framerate than PS2, longer load times, and lowe quality transparency effects.

that game stacked transparencies like a motherfucker, which the PS2 was designed to handle with ease. but on basically any other system you gotta brute force that.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

...yeah no. lower framerate than PS2, longer load times, and lowe quality transparency effects.

that game stacked transparencies like a motherfucker, which the PS2 was designed to handle with ease. but on basically any other system you gotta brute force that.

.

And I enjoy it.

 

[Segaswirl]

The only time I noticed the framerate dip on the Xbox version was with the rain on the tanker at the start. Didn't make a good first impression though, should have been better.

 

[SlimySnake]

Really???

I see it run great.

it couldnt handle rain. the rest was fine.

It's stupid that they censored it.

it made perfect sense. game was released 2 months after 9/11. cant have a ships crashing into NYC and possibly the world trade centers.

 

[solidus12]

Solidus was misunderstood.

I am

 

[Judge Magister]

Makes total sense, it's a nice detail and it's a shame it was removed. Storywise, 2 is maybe the most interesting Metal Gear.

 

[Kuranghi]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

It wasn't censored, it wasn't the right time for that imagery, maybe could've re-enabled it later after but I don't think this was the wrong thing to do in this case.

 

[Drew1440]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

It is until you go outside in the rain on the tanker then the game goes full slow motion. Plenty of Xbox games have rain weather effects without any issues but Konami couldn't adapt the Xbox port for it.

 

[delfrickintree]

Are these just videos or will they be playable via mod on some platform?

 

[VulcanRaven]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

How did they handle the pressure sensitive face button functions on original Xbox? Did it have them like PS2? 360 didn't support them.

Are these just videos or will they be playable via mod on some platform?

Looks like they are only videos.

 

[MayauMiao]

The only thing "awesome" about that version is that it >exists<. Otherwise it is a technical mess, with shit performance and a fuck ton of missing special effects.

I remember the slowdown in the rain section, made the Xbox version feel inferior. Same goes with the Silent Hill 2 port. Made worse that OG Xbox never did get MGS3.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

It's stupid that they censored it.

I’d love a window to the alternate universe where MGS2 released with the cut content.
It’s only fair to guess that the shitstorm would bury MGS forever and damage everything connected to it, including the PS2 itself and the video game scene and market at large. MGS2 would later be rediscovered and become a cult classic, but releasing it with that content in November 2001 would have been a very, very bad move. “Tone deaf” is an abused expression today, but in this case it would definitely fit.

 

[RagnarokIV]

How did they handle the pressure sensitive face button functions on original Xbox? Did it have them like PS2? 360 didn't support them.

Xbox had pressure sensitive face buttons.

 

[FewRope]

I actually remember this being on my Substance PS2 copy, European tho

 

[EDMIX]

It's stupid that they censored it.

The Xbox versión of MGS2 is awesome

wow, come on, you have to be sensitive to cultures folks, omg.

Look ,someone is crying this scene could have been in the game, like...wow Konami is just insensitive, its like they are trying to be offensive /s

 

[VulcanRaven]

I actually remember this being on my Substance PS2 copy, European tho

That scene was there but the flag definitely wasn't.

 

[awwr999999]

...yeah no. lower framerate than PS2, longer load times, and lowe quality transparency effects.

that game stacked transparencies like a motherfucker, which the PS2 was designed to handle with ease. but on basically any other system you gotta brute force that.

Any idea why those PS2 effects never left the PS2?
The move from PS1 to PS2 was pure improvement across the board with zero downsides.
The move from PS2 to PS3 'lost' those transparencies along with a lot of great visual effects the PS2 has.

 

[kevboard]

Any idea why those PS2 effects never left the PS2?
The move from PS1 to PS2 was pure improvement across the board with zero downsides.
The move from PS2 to PS3 'lost' those transparencies along with a lot of great visual effects the PS2 has.

the PS2 generation was the last generation where consoles had truly bespoke hardware.

the PS3 was already a step towards a PC like architecture. sure the PS3 had the Cell CPU, but in the end what that thing was was the exact same IBM PowerPC CPU design that the 360 used, with some multi-purpose helper cores attached.
the GPU was just a cut down PC GPU.

as games became more complex it was easier to just go with a generic GPU instead of designing expensive purpose made GPUs and CPUs

 

[SkylineRKR]

Any idea why those PS2 effects never left the PS2?
The move from PS1 to PS2 was pure improvement across the board with zero downsides.
The move from PS2 to PS3 'lost' those transparencies along with a lot of great visual effects the PS2 has.

Architecture, PS2 had a very high fillrate relatively speaking. They could render a lot of textures with the available bandwith, ofcourse being in SD resolution helped out. The read-modify-write method was superior on PS2, according to Yamauchi:

When the [PlayStation 2] came out, one unique characteristic of that system was that the screen fill rate was very fast. Even looking back now, it’s very fast. In some cases, it’s faster than the PS3. There, we were able to use a lot of textures. It was able to do that read-modify-write, where it reads the screen, you take the screenshot, and you modify it and send it back. It could do that very quickly.

“I don’t know if anybody remembers, but when the PS2 first came out, the first thing I did on that was a demo for the announcement. I showed a demo of GT3 that showed the Seattle course at sunset with the heat rising off the ground and shimmering. You can’t re-create that heat haze effect on the PS3 because the read-modify-write just isn’t as fast as when we were using the PS2. There are things like that. Another reason is because of the transition to full HD.”