Time went by so fast - I was 23 when MGS2 released.
This game's fantastic narrative has transcended its medium; a prophetic phenomenon.
That said, as much as MGS2 is a Masterpiece, it is also a heavily flawed Masterpiece as a game.
Not all means justify the ends - but that is what Kojima did with MGS2. He's a mad genius with
a chaotic mind who could have done with an editor, to curb some of the extreme aspects within
MGS2 while retaining the original goals he set out to achieve with this game at the same time;
- Big Bland Shell: at best, very mediocre and backtracking-heavy corridor level design. Also, Kojima could have easily rewritten
the story a bit to have a reason for it to look NOT sterile and repetitive. MGS3 proves this point perfectly.
Could have looked more like the British Maunsel seaforts; haunting & brooding; very fitting as a setting of espionage and intrigue.
- Raiden as a plot device works perfectly for the end goal of the MGS2 story, but his character model is atrocious.
Just download the extracted 3D model; the anatomy is simply not human. Solid work from a 3D modeling perspective,
but horrible as a design goal execution (realism? hahaha).
Actually, all MGS2 character models suffer a bit from the wide hips + super small torso syndrome.
- Enemy AI was good, but NOT as god-like as many people think. Remember, you can run past their backs, unheard. Totally deaf.
Also, as any MGS game, the game basically cheats to counter the player as it can throw infinite numbers of insta-spawned guards at you, all with automatics.