I have really warmed to Metal Gear Solid 2 recently. The play-to-watch ratio is still disconcerting and disappointing, but nevertheless it's an awesome game and story.
It was a good story, but it wasn't made very accessible. I mean, from the point where you enter Arsenal and things start getting weird... they go all out to throw people off. It reminds me of the Architect speech in Matrix Reloaded. People regard this game and that movie in a similar way - and I don't think it's any coincidence. They could have conveyed it much better IMO. Not that I'm sure I could do any better
:
The Patriots are deleting information from across the world, thanks to a program that was able to spread throughout the world when everyone updated computers in fear of the Y2K bug. This gave rise to an artificial intelligence called GW. The partial corruption of GW, causes codec speeches to get very strange towards the end of the game. Yet, once you're off of Arsenal Gear, the speeches are quite coherent again. In the Document of MGS2, they explain that this is not GW talking anymore, but JFK. Indicating strains of the AI are named after dead US presidents. They didn't make that very clear. They also didn't make it clear if it was the AI itself talking, or if it was some sort of conciousness using the network to make contact with Raiden.
Furthermore, they go head over heels in psycho babble explaining why The Patriots and this AI are deleting information in the first place. The basic gist, if I get it correctly, is this:
In genes, it's the dominant ones that are passed on. Only the strongest survive. That used to be the way with information. Only the good ideas were passed on. But now in the new information age, useless information lives on. Weak information. Information that doesn't aid our evolution. The Patriots or this AI or whatever, make the excuse that they with-hold our freedoms and erase the 'truth' because -- without information being selectively reproduced, bad ideas survive. There is no one truth anymore. Incorrect, malignant, and personal truths can all live on. They're ruling over us because thats whats best for us.
What it did do well though was create this uneasy feeling. Are they right? Or is Solidus right? Can we just be puppets? Is this game forcing me to do their bidding even though it's bad? It seemed uneasy for me killing Solidus, even though actually doing it physically was quite easy. I sided with Solidus in the end. We choose freedom. The good ideas, the truest truths will emerge. And we will continue to evolve and grow. Whoever it is in this game that is taking all of that away from us, and shaping it, needs to be sorted out.
The reason they recreate a similar set of circumstances to Shadow Moses is to show they can manipulate the common man or woman in extranious circumstances, and have them do their bidding. Even having them act in the nature of a legend like Solid Snake. The S3 plan means they not only control the information we have access to, but they use
their information to manipulate to their own means and end... whatever that might be.
On the whole I think MGS, and MGS: Twin Snakes, are superior in terms of
entertainment. But in terms of sheer audacity and relative originality compared to most games - MGS2 stands alone.
I'm totally looking foreward to MGS3. I'll import next month I think
This month is RE4 month!
