CyReN said:
I've never played the series but have heard great things, has the series aged terribly or will it still play good compared to todays "standards", also any series or games that compare to this?
It's extremely different to other games so it's hard to compare it to any standard. Stealth games in general have no real standard, you have games ranging from Splinter Cell Chaos Theory to Thief 2, both extremely good stealth games but worlds apart from each other.
The gameplay in MGS2 is excellent. Think of it like Pac-Man you have a top-down radar view of a simplistic maze that you use to gauge enemy positions. Guards have set patrol routes and you simply navigate these corridors around or through the guards. Guards will NOTICE things like:
- You shoot a wall near a guard
- A guard sees your footprints
- A guard or security camera discovers a body,
- A guard discovers a strangely placed cardboard box, empty weapon magazine, or porno magazine (HINT: you can distract guards with things like this)
- Every area has a guard reporting on the status of that particular area. If you neutralize that guard or his radio, HQ will wonder what has happened after a passage of time and send an investigation squad
Guards that are CAUTIONED will call other, better-equipped guards into the area. You go into an ALERT status if:
- You use an explosive or shoot a gun without a silencer
- A guard sees you and alerts HQ before you can neutralize him or escape into another area
- A security camera spots you
Enemies respawn INFINITELY in Alert mode and always know your general location in the area and even the areas near the initial area, you can only neutralize so many before you must hide. That's the basic gist of Metal Gear Solid gameplay. Boss fights have their own respective patterns that you must learn. MGS3 and Peace Walker are similar to MGS2, but take place in more open, less maze-like areas.