RydonStarLives
Member
So, I have been playing through some of the Metal Gear Solid Collection, and I wanted to get some thoughts down and get you fine people on Gaf's fine thoughts as well. So without any further ado, let's jump in and spoilers ahead!
METAL GEAR SOLID 2: Sons of Liberty (I want one of those Sons of Liberty flags to fly on my front porch come Memorial day)
Yes, I started with MGS 2. Mainly due to the fact that 1) I hadn't played it since back in the early 2000's and 2) I watched a Digital Foundry on the MGS 2 Tanker Chapter and it got me to want to play it.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the flow of this game, or at least the story. It starts off so awesome! You see the same underwater infiltration opening like in MGS 1, while also getting a run down from the Colonel of the terrorist threat to the Plant (built to handle the clean up from the Tanker incident two years earlier). We get all these great shots of helicopters jetting around the Plant to deliver the separate SEAL team, it's SO COOL! Looks great, and is a great way to start the game. Then the proceeding game starts very similar to MGS 1, which is on purpose and revealed why at the end of the game. After the initial opening though the game slowly goes down hill. You have to thwart a bomb threat to the Plant (fighting the first boss, which once revealed is a fat guy with painted finger nails, drinking a mix drink with a crazy, and wearing roller blades), then have a Non-boss fight with Lady Fortune (just lay on the ground behind some crates for about 5 min and Boss fight ends), fight Vamp (which in the story doesn't really do anything since he comes back), and eventually get captured like in MGS1. After getting out from capture, the whole plot gets laid bare, and what a doozy of a plot twist it is.
Turns out you are playing a simulation setup by the Patriots (An Illuminati like org. that controls everything from the shadows) to perfect the ultimate solider, Solid Snake (S3). Which to me seems like a more meta commentary from Kojima on the actual player wanting to play again as Solid Snake and not really getting to do that. Is it interesting, yeah, does it make a great game ... eh. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a bad game. On the contrary there are a lot of great qualities in it like a lot of attention to detail (break bottles individually, tons of codec conversations), fun things to do (side flip kick soldiers, level up grip with pull ups or drop grabs) cool additions to the MGS format (First person view, Hold up guards, hanging/jumping), and a somewhat interesting story (at least at the beginning). But the story devolves down into something kinda lame and hard to follow, and if you don't spend time running around the plant after you get access to all key card levels, then you won't even see a few of the Struts within the game. So on the whole it is kinda limited in that regard.
Compared to all the other MGS games this is for sure at the bottom for me, but I do think it is good. Most importantly, if the Marvel and Star Wars movies from Disney have taught me anything it's that, even with a good formula (Read MGS 1 plot and gameplay) when done repeatedly even with slight tweaking, the whole series bleeds into itself and each entry doesn't really have as great an impact as it could have. In other words, I might not like MGS 2 compared to MGS 3 and MGS 1 but at least it stands out and on it's own. Kojima did his thing, which to me, is taking his games one at a time, pushing the limits and changing things up. That is a really difficult thing to do, especially if you have a hit on your hands.
Executive Producer 1: "We just made <Insert massively successful IP here> and people love it, what do we do about a follow up?"
Executive Producer 2: "Uhhh...I don't know. Let's just do the same thing as last time, but update the graphics and tweak the gameplay slightly"
Executive Producer 1: "So same plot, change some characters out, have the main character go through the same arc?"
Executive Product 2: "Yeah, that's a safe bet"
I think this is why I keep coming back to Metal Gear Solid and replaying the games, and also keep a tab on Kojima and what he is making. He at least makes his own thing, and it might not work every time but at least it is something with some substance, flare, pizzazz.
Welp, that was way longer than I thought it would be. What do you guys think on MGS 2? Or any of the other Metal Gear Games? I plan on playing through the other games as well, starting up MGS 4 next. I might write up something on that if anyone is interested, or even if no one is interested.
METAL GEAR SOLID 2: Sons of Liberty (I want one of those Sons of Liberty flags to fly on my front porch come Memorial day)
Yes, I started with MGS 2. Mainly due to the fact that 1) I hadn't played it since back in the early 2000's and 2) I watched a Digital Foundry on the MGS 2 Tanker Chapter and it got me to want to play it.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the flow of this game, or at least the story. It starts off so awesome! You see the same underwater infiltration opening like in MGS 1, while also getting a run down from the Colonel of the terrorist threat to the Plant (built to handle the clean up from the Tanker incident two years earlier). We get all these great shots of helicopters jetting around the Plant to deliver the separate SEAL team, it's SO COOL! Looks great, and is a great way to start the game. Then the proceeding game starts very similar to MGS 1, which is on purpose and revealed why at the end of the game. After the initial opening though the game slowly goes down hill. You have to thwart a bomb threat to the Plant (fighting the first boss, which once revealed is a fat guy with painted finger nails, drinking a mix drink with a crazy, and wearing roller blades), then have a Non-boss fight with Lady Fortune (just lay on the ground behind some crates for about 5 min and Boss fight ends), fight Vamp (which in the story doesn't really do anything since he comes back), and eventually get captured like in MGS1. After getting out from capture, the whole plot gets laid bare, and what a doozy of a plot twist it is.
Turns out you are playing a simulation setup by the Patriots (An Illuminati like org. that controls everything from the shadows) to perfect the ultimate solider, Solid Snake (S3). Which to me seems like a more meta commentary from Kojima on the actual player wanting to play again as Solid Snake and not really getting to do that. Is it interesting, yeah, does it make a great game ... eh. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a bad game. On the contrary there are a lot of great qualities in it like a lot of attention to detail (break bottles individually, tons of codec conversations), fun things to do (side flip kick soldiers, level up grip with pull ups or drop grabs) cool additions to the MGS format (First person view, Hold up guards, hanging/jumping), and a somewhat interesting story (at least at the beginning). But the story devolves down into something kinda lame and hard to follow, and if you don't spend time running around the plant after you get access to all key card levels, then you won't even see a few of the Struts within the game. So on the whole it is kinda limited in that regard.
Compared to all the other MGS games this is for sure at the bottom for me, but I do think it is good. Most importantly, if the Marvel and Star Wars movies from Disney have taught me anything it's that, even with a good formula (Read MGS 1 plot and gameplay) when done repeatedly even with slight tweaking, the whole series bleeds into itself and each entry doesn't really have as great an impact as it could have. In other words, I might not like MGS 2 compared to MGS 3 and MGS 1 but at least it stands out and on it's own. Kojima did his thing, which to me, is taking his games one at a time, pushing the limits and changing things up. That is a really difficult thing to do, especially if you have a hit on your hands.
Executive Producer 1: "We just made <Insert massively successful IP here> and people love it, what do we do about a follow up?"
Executive Producer 2: "Uhhh...I don't know. Let's just do the same thing as last time, but update the graphics and tweak the gameplay slightly"
Executive Producer 1: "So same plot, change some characters out, have the main character go through the same arc?"
Executive Product 2: "Yeah, that's a safe bet"
I think this is why I keep coming back to Metal Gear Solid and replaying the games, and also keep a tab on Kojima and what he is making. He at least makes his own thing, and it might not work every time but at least it is something with some substance, flare, pizzazz.
Welp, that was way longer than I thought it would be. What do you guys think on MGS 2? Or any of the other Metal Gear Games? I plan on playing through the other games as well, starting up MGS 4 next. I might write up something on that if anyone is interested, or even if no one is interested.