Metal Gear Solid 2 isn't how I remember it

[Lucas88]

I've just played MGS1 and MGS2 with the recently released MGS Master Collection. MGS1 is exactly how I remember it -- that is to say, absolutely baddass and a true masterpiece of the late 90s. However, MGS2 on the other hand is now somewhat of a disappointment, nothing like how I used to perceive it when I played it as a teenager in the early 2000s.



Oddly enough, I used to love MGS2. I played the game many times even on the advanced difficulty settings and even to this day vividly remember the more iconic cutscenes and dialogue.

But this time I played it, some 20 years later, the game just wasn't that good. Don't get me wrong. The graphics and gameplay mechanics present a massive improvement on those of its predecessor MGS1 and the soundtrack and cinematics are as excellent as you would expect for a MGS game. And, unlike many critics, I even love MGS2's philosophical exploration of AI, virtual reality and a postmodern data-driven world. However, the characters and some of the dialogue are quite subpar.

First, there is the new protagonist Raiden, who you begin to play as once you reach the Big Shell. Many players hated Raiden simply because he wasn't the fan-favorite protagonist from the first game Solid Snake. However, there are various legitimate reasons why Raiden sucks.

Not only is Raiden a gay-looking prettyboy who could never have appealed to the predominantly male millennial fanbase of the time but he is also incredibly cringe from the beginning with his dumb comments, inexperience, constant whiny attitude in the face of adversity, and his soap-opera-like drama with his girlfriend Rose via the Codec. Raiden comes across as a typical Gen Z kid before Gen Z was even a thing. His cringe and goofiness completely ruined the atmosphere for me and took me out of the game. Compare that to the original protagonist Solid Snake who's a seasoned veteran, total baddass, real alpha male, as rugged as they come, 180 IQ genetically altered supersoldier, charismatic womanizer, and polyglot who speaks six languages, and the difference is night and day!



In fact, Raiden is so effeminate and gay-looking that he is even confused as a woman in one scene:





Second, the game's primary location the Big Shell is so repetitive and lacks diversity. It consists of nothing more than a conjunction of hexagonal struts which surround two cores. Everywhere looks almost the same and it gets boring really quick. It doesn't get interesting until you board Arsenal Gear right at the end.




Third, the bosses were a bit mediocre. MGS1 had iconic and challenging bosses such as Revolver Ocelot, Grey Fox (ninja), Sniper Wolf and Metal Gear Rex, but MGS2's bosses are nowhere near as iconic and are quite easy to beat (only Fatman is a difficult boss due to the bombs that you have to disarm). The Harrier is surprisingly easy to take down once you learn its movement and attack patterns. Vamp isn't much of a challenge either. The 20 something Metal Gear Rays that you have to destroy at the end of the game pale in comparison to the single Metal Gear Rex that you fight in MGS1. And, finally, Solidus is far easier to beat than Liquid is in the first game due to MGS2's superior gameplay mechanics.



But I'm not here just to talk shit about MGS2. There were still some things that I really do like.

For example, the shocking discovery that the Colonel and Rose are AI programs and Raiden's suspicion that the whole mission is a VR simulation during the last part of the game after you board Arsenal Gear. The game just becomes creepy in an interesting kind of way and the philosophical stuff gets deep. This part of the game makes up for the rather lackluster Big Shell part.






All in all, MGS2 has some extremely interesting themes and an incredibly dense story as well as the same musical and cinematic brilliance as any other MGS game, but the new protagonist is just too cringe and his dumb dialogues ruin the game's atmosphere. Back when I was a teenager, I didn't have the social savvy to understand this and so I loved the game in its entirety but now as an adult I am able to see the truth.

@Pixel--Dude
@WanderingProtagonist
@Natural_Born_Cynic

[WanderingProtagonist]

I've just played MGS1 and MGS2 with the recently released MGS Master Collection. MGS1 is exactly how I remember it -- that is to say, absolutely baddass and a true masterpiece of the late 90s. However, MGS2 on the other hand is now somewhat of a disappointment, nothing like how I used to perceive it when I played it as a teenager in the early 2000s.



Oddly enough, I used to love MGS2. I played the game many times even on the advanced difficulty settings and even to this day vividly remember the more iconic cutscenes and dialogue.

But this time I played it, some 20 years later, the game just wasn't that good. Don't get me wrong. The graphics and gameplay mechanics present a massive improvement on those of its predecessor MGS1 and the soundtrack and cinematics are as excellent as you would expect for a MGS game. And, unlike many critics, I even love MGS2's philosophical exploration of AI, virtual reality and a postmodern data-driven world. However, the characters and some of the dialogue are quite subpar.

First, there is the new protagonist Raiden, who you begin to play as once you reach the Big Shell. Many players hated Raiden simply because he wasn't the fan-favorite protagonist from the first game Solid Snake. However, there are various legitimate reasons why Raiden sucks.

Not only is Raiden a gay-looking prettyboy who could never have appealed to the predominantly male millennial fanbase of the time but he is also incredibly cringe from the beginning with his dumb comments, inexperience, constant whiny attitude in the face of adversity, and his soap-opera-like drama with his girlfriend Rose via the Codec. Raiden comes across as a typical Gen Z kid before Gen Z was even a thing. His cringe and goofiness completely ruined the atmosphere for me and took me out of the game. Compare that to the original protagonist Solid Snake who's a seasoned veteran, total baddass, real alpha male, as rugged as they come, 180 IQ genetically altered supersoldier, charismatic womanizer, and polyglot who speaks six languages, and the difference is night and day!



In fact, Raiden is so effeminate and gay-looking that he is even confused as a woman in one scene:





Second, the game's primary location the Big Shell is so repetitive and lacks diversity. It consists of nothing more than a conjunction of hexagonal struts which surround two cores. Everywhere looks almost the same and it gets boring really quick. It doesn't get interesting until you board Arsenal Gear right at the end.




Third, the bosses were a bit mediocre. MGS1 had iconic and challenging bosses such as Revolver Ocelot, Grey Fox (ninja), Sniper Wolf and Metal Gear Rex, but MGS2's bosses are nowhere near as iconic and are quite easy to beat (only Fatman is a difficult boss due to the bombs that you have to disarm). The Harrier is surprisingly easy to take down once you learn its movement and attack patterns. Vamp isn't much of a challenge either. The 20 something Metal Gear Rays that you have to destroy at the end of the game pale in comparison to the single Metal Gear Rex that you fight in MGS1. And, finally, Solidus is far easier to beat than Liquid is in the first game due to MGS2's superior gameplay mechanics.



But I'm not here just to talk shit about MGS2. There were still some things that I really do like.

For example, the shocking discovery that the Colonel and Rose are AI programs and Raiden's suspicion that the whole mission is a VR simulation during the last part of the game after you board Arsenal Gear. The game just becomes creepy in an interesting kind of way and the philosophical stuff gets deep. This part of the game makes up for the rather lackluster Big Shell part.






All in all, MGS2 has some extremely interesting themes and an incredibly dense story as well as the same musical and cinematic brilliance as any other MGS game, but the new protagonist is just too cringe and his dumb dialogues ruin the game's atmosphere. Back when I was a teenager, I didn't have the social savvy to understand this and so I loved the game in its entirety but now as an adult I am able to see the truth.

@Pixel--Dude
@WanderingProtagonist
@Natural_Born_Cynic

I vaguely remember a few things from MGS series, the last one I played was MGSV and I didn't like the Middle East setting. Plus the open world aspect of it was very boring. You mentioned how Raiden ruined MGS2 for you, lol he kind of got a little cooler in MGS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UMb-ubySec
He wasn't as melodramatic in the fourth game and ended up getting his own spinoff in MGS Revengence which wasn't very good for an action ninja game compared to how the action played out in Ninja Gaiden. Overall I hated Raiden as well.

Aside from that MGS3 made me hate Snake, he was trained by a woman how to fight aka The Boss. She whooped his ass countless times in MGS3, even broke his damn arm. Granted it wasn't the same Snake from MGS1, it was the Big Boss version, the one that Solid Snake is cloned after. So basically Big Boss was The Boss's bitch throughout the entire MGS3, she even kept Volgin in check, and he's a big ass Russian dude that doesn't look like someone that should be taking orders from women or anyone. If they remake MGS3 (Which they are) expect to see some heavier woke shit in it that's going to make The Boss even more dominant as a woman and the possibility of her beating Snakes ass even worse. She broke his arm and even threw him off a bridge with one hand. He spent a majority of the game groveling at her feet pleading, and begging.

It was the worse MGS3 experience for me, a lot worse than dealing with Raidan in MGS2 if I must be honest. I did not like the idea of a strong male learning his combat skill from a woman....It was terrible. I started to suspect Hideo Kojima to be somewhat of a feminist because he did the same thing with MGS4, he had Meryl dominating her fiance, she was in charge of an entire military unit...And she even insulted Snake and he just took her shit and did nothing to defend himself against her arrogant attitude. If they were to remake these games they will be a lot worse. I like MGS1 the most up until Meryl ruined some of it for me...I hate the women in MGS games except for Naomi Hunter although it sucks she's the one that tried to kill Snake out of revenge but she felt guilty for it after seeing how the virus caused his advanced aging and he was suffering horribly bad from it.

I believe some people didn't like a lot of the heavy handed politics which was a major staple of every MGS game, the politics weren't as bad as the gender political shit or the woke politics that appear in most modern games these days unless you consider Big Boss getting his ass kicked by a woman throughout the entire game woke, and learning how to fight because of her...Which is quite embarrassing for a man soldier.....I couldn't stand watching him get dogged around in MGS3, he got his ass kicked more by The Boss than he did by Volgin. She even slapped the young Ocelot, and he also took it. I will admit the younger Ocelot was more cool and laid back than his original self from MGS1 and MGS2 he almost didn't seem like the same guy at all, but Liquid Ocelot was even more dangerous.

It's a shame Eva died in MGS4, she wasn't so bad. I would have preferred she lived instead of Meryl lol. And even though she had a dominant role, she wasn't obnoxious or annoying. Though I hated her in MGS3, she was better in MGS4. I do agree that Snake should have been the main protagonist for the sequel instead of Raidan. But when I saw his new look in MG4 I wanted to play as him instead of Old Snake. He was still quite mopey, and emo-ish to some degree but that was like near the end of the game when he found out he had a Son. He didn't talk so much through most of the game, he would say a few words I mean lol he's no Rikimuru from Tenchu, one the last greatest Ninja's ever since Hayabusa. Metal Gear had a lot of potential, but I would hate for these games to get remade....The 21st century of today everything just tends to worsen. Graphics improve but character personalities get destroyed in the process...Just look at Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes....They ruined the characters really bad in those remakes.

I would say that Raidan was inexperienced which is why he was difficult to accept in the second game. He did slightly improve in the fourth game despite he wasn't playable until he got his own game, then they flopped on his personality again by trying too hard to make him way too serious. It was forced. Snake was serious but also cool, calm, and collected. You knew that if you listen to his conversations he had with the women in MGS1 and how that progressed over into MGS2 where he became a bit more serious. I will always prefer the MGS1 snake over all of them. He was too boring and depressing in MGS4, plus I hated them aging him like that too even though it was part of the plot and the illness he had from Naomi injecting him to get back at him for what he did to her brother Gray Foxx. Of course Snake was certainly the very idea of what an alpha male is.

They still make male characters like that in video games, Chris Redfield in RE Village is proof of this but the women have also gone from feminine to equally as masculine as the males which is why you see so many of them demonstrating very dominant traits and roles in most video games. In Metal Gear 4, Snake let Meryl literately talk down to him like a child and it's like "What the f**k? This isn't the Snake from MGS1...Why is he taking her shit?" I'm guessing he was just too old, miserable, and tired from the virus killing him to care that Meryl was being a bitch.
The games were ahead of their time, remakes wouldn't be so bad if I had a higher tolerance level for them but I hardly do.

[Lucas88]

I would say that Raidan was inexperienced which is why he was difficult to accept in the second game.

What is funniest of all is that Raiden was in reality a child soldier and therefore already a war veteran but chose to hide his past due to intense psychological trauma and pretended to be a rookie with only VR training. This is clever from the standpoint of the story's plot and perfectly reflects the game's overarching theme of illusion. However, Raiden's inexperience, although feigned, is really frustrating for the first-time player, especially after playing as Solid Snake during the initial tanker mission, and it just ruins the game's atmosphere for many. But I don't think that Hideo Kojima even cared. MGS2 was so hyped that it was going to sell anyway.

MGS2 had the potential to be an absolute masterpiece and indeed does include some excellent themes and plot twists which make the game quite enjoyable towards the end, but it just so happens to have been let down by poor character development and mediocre gameplay during the middle part of the game.

I mean c'mon! The Big Shell is mostly boring. You spend the first part searching for bombs and disarming them in a handful of hexagonal struts that are all similar and have no real individual character as part of a mission that feels uninspiring. Then you have the hostage situation in the second core but by that time you're so tired of seeing the self-similar areas of the Big Shell that rescuing the hostages just feels like a chore.

It disappoints me that a game with such an interesting plot and theme and cutting-edge cinematics can have such weak gameplay throughout a significant part of it.

Furthermore, as I mentioned in my OP, the bosses in MGS2 are also quite uninspiring, with the exception of Solidus. They should have come up with more of them and made them all larger-than-life characters like the bosses in MGS1. MGS works better when it is strongly boss-driven due to its cinematic nature and grandiosity.

[WanderingProtagonist]

I would say that Raidan was inexperienced which is why he was difficult to accept in the second game.

What is funniest of all is that Raiden was in reality a child soldier and therefore already a war veteran but chose to hide his past due to intense psychological trauma and pretended to be a rookie with only VR training. This is clever from the standpoint of the story's plot and perfectly reflects the game's overarching theme of illusion. However, Raiden's inexperience, although feigned, is really frustrating for the first-time player, especially after playing as Solid Snake during the initial tanker mission, and it just ruins the game's atmosphere for many. But I don't think that Hideo Kojima even cared. MGS2 was so hyped that it was going to sell anyway.

MGS2 had the potential to be an absolute masterpiece and indeed does include some excellent themes and plot twists which make the game quite enjoyable towards the end, but it just so happens to have been let down by poor character development and mediocre gameplay during the middle part of the game.

I mean c'mon! The Big Shell is mostly boring. You spend the first part searching for bombs and disarming them in a handful of hexagonal struts that are all similar and have no real individual character as part of a mission that feels uninspiring. Then you have the hostage situation in the second core but by that time you're so tired of seeing the self-similar areas of the Big Shell that rescuing the hostages just feels like a chore.

It disappoints me that a game with such an interesting plot and theme and cutting-edge cinematics can have such weak gameplay throughout a significant part of it.

Furthermore, as I mentioned in my OP, the bosses in MGS2 are also quite uninspiring, with the exception of Solidus. They should have come up with more of them and made them all larger-than-life characters like the bosses in MGS1. MGS works better when it is strongly boss-driven due to its cinematic nature and grandiosity.

I would say that MGS2 honestly had three great bosses. Solidus, Vamp, and Fatman both weren't so bad. I just hated how you had to fight Fatman though. He was an interesting boss story wise but annoying to fight because you had to disable all of his bombs. I played the game on Extreme and that Harrier boss fight killed me 200 damn times, that's how hard fighting that annoying aircraft was. But yeah I do agree with the boring environments, I think that's why I played MGS2 a lot less, but played the ever living shit out of MGS1 and MGS3 even though I hated the plot and couldn't stand Big Boss being so passive to The Boss.

I also hated the jungle because it was difficult as hell to see where the enemies were half the time so I would spend the majority of the game crawling on the ground to avoid being spotted which I did not like. MGS3 also had the worse bosses out of the entire franchise but MGSV didn't really have bosses at all. In MGS3 they were just very generic bosses...Hardly any back story to them. As for Metal Gear 2 it's a hit or miss, I hated the environment and you spent about 80 percent of the game there after leaving the ship. When the game was being advertised they always showed the ship part of the game with you playing as Snake. I believe they were afraid to show off Raidan because they knew the game was going to get backlash for it. My biggest gripe with MGS was the cloning plot, would have been better if Snake never was a clone of someone else. A vast majority of people will agree that the PS1 Metal Gear is the best one of the franchise, gameplay wise Metal gear 4 would be the clear winner, same thing with MGS5 that improved upon the gameplay mechanics, you were able to roll faster, crawl faster, climb over obstacles quicker.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

@Lucas88

Sorry, I'm not really familiar with Metal Gear Solid series.
I just think both Metal Gear Solid and Hideki Kojima are overrated.
More of a Resident Evil fan.

[Lucas88]

An excellent video which explains the overarching theme of MGS2:



While MGS1 explored the theme of genetic determinism vs. nurture, MGS2 explores the concepts of mimetics and the illusory "realities" that they create. Indeed, during the course of the game, it is increasingly revealed that the protagonist himself is a victim of deception and he is forced to face the truth that the whole mission that he's been doing since the beginning of the game might be in fact all an illusion. Subtopics explored in this installment include realistic AI, secret deep-state organizations, media coverups, and information control.

Here is another video which largely echoes my own sentiments pertaining to the game:



Points in the video:

The Big Shell is largely boring and repetitive as you play the second part of the game as Raiden.

The bosses who form Dead Cell are a knockoff of those of MGS1's Foxhound and happen to be much worse.

Raiden's dialogues are terrible.

BUT, the game becomes insanely interesting and philosophically deep once you reach the Arsenal Gear part near the end.


A video by the same creator of the first one which explains the meaning behind the S3 Plan (Selection for Societal Sanity) and its relationship to our modern Internet Age:




And, finally, an almost 10 minute dialogue from the game recounting to history of the Patriots (a secret deep-state organization akin to the Illuminati or Freemasons):

[WanderingProtagonist]

An excellent video which explains the overarching theme of MGS2:



While MGS1 explored the theme of genetic determinism vs. nurture, MGS2 explores the concepts of mimetics and the illusory "realities" that they create. Indeed, during the course of the game, it is increasingly revealed that the protagonist himself is a victim of deception and he is forced to face the truth that the whole mission that he's been doing since the beginning of the game might be in fact all an illusion. Subtopics explored in this installment include realistic AI, secret deep-state organizations, media coverups, and information control.

Here is another video which largely echoes my own sentiments pertaining to the game:



Points in the video:

The Big Shell is largely boring and repetitive as you play the second part of the game as Raiden.

The bosses who form Dead Cell are a knockoff of those of MGS1's Foxhound and happen to be much worse.

Raiden's dialogues are terrible.

BUT, the game becomes insanely interesting and philosophically deep once you reach the Arsenal Gear part near the end.


A video by the same creator of the first one which explains the meaning behind the S3 Plan (Selection for Societal Sanity) and its relationship to our modern Internet Age:




And, finally, an almost 10 minute dialogue from the game recounting to history of the Patriots (a secret deep-state organization akin to the Illuminati or Freemasons):

Dead Cell was still better than the lazy group they had in MGS3, MGS4 was just a bunch of women based off real life models which I thought was stupid. You didn't know this until you had to fight them outside their suits. I then read that the women inside of them were modeled after real models. They were interesting bosses though in their "monster" forms. Just boring as hell to fight.

[Lucas88]

Dead Cell was still better than the lazy group they had in MGS3, MGS4 was just a bunch of women based off real life models which I thought was stupid. You didn't know this until you had to fight them outside their suits. I then read that the women inside of them were modeled after real models. They were interesting bosses though in their "monster" forms. Just boring as hell to fight.

I've actually started playing MGS3 with my brother and we've just gotten to the part where you fight The Pain -- i.e., the bee guy.

I agree that MGS3's bosses seem even worse than those of MGS2. Young Ocelot doesn't have even half the charm and charisma of the original Old Ocelot of MGS1 and MGS2 and the bee guy just seemed boring and unimpressive. I already have the feeling that most of the other MGS3 bosses are going to be equally as uninteresting.

MGS1 set the bar with its iconic and larger-than-life bosses of Foxhound -- Ocelot, Raven, Gray Fox, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf and Liquid Snake. Logically, in order to have bosses that impress and intrigue the player, any subsequent game must equal or surpass this impressive cast. Unfortunately none of the sequels even come close to achieving this feat. That's why MGS2 and MGS3 feel somewhat lackluster in comparison of the original game despite their superior gameplay mechanics.





By the way, I saw the cutscene where Big Boss is manhandled by his female mentor The Boss. I thought that it was silly to have a large muscular man and elite soldier get beat like that by a woman and even have his arm broken and didn't like it at all.




I like the presence of Eva in MGS3 though. I appreciate sexiness in videogames.

[WanderingProtagonist]

I've been tagged in this so I'll give a response. I haven't played Metal Gear for years. The last one I played was the one in the desert and I didn't enjoy it at all. I found it very tedious and boring.

The original Metal Gear was the best and I think the reason is basically things @Lucas88 mentioned. Although I did have one issue when I first started playing and I don't think the internet was really a thing back when I was a kid. The colonel tells you to contact Meryl at some point and he tells you her codex is on the back if the case or something. My version was a copy so there was no case, just a plastic sleeve. Can you confirm whether this is real or a false memory? Lol

The original Metal Gear had some really unique and iconic bosses that were really interesting. Psycho Mantis you had to put the controller into port 2 so he couldn't read your mind. I had never seen a game do something like that before! It was really cool.

Metal Gear 2 I don't have as many iconic memories aside from my friend singing "I'd walk on water, just to be with you." When Vamp is running across the water. Maybe because the areas all look the same I don't have as many memories that stand out when compared to the first game.

The one with the Desert is Metal Gear V the very last one they made I believe, there was another MGS game that came after it but it was so bad most people forgot it. I don't remember what it was called but it looked like Death Stranding but was a reskinned MGSV only without Snake.

[Lucas88]

The original Metal Gear was the best and I think the reason is basically things @Lucas88 mentioned. Although I did have one issue when I first started playing and I don't think the internet was really a thing back when I was a kid. The colonel tells you to contact Meryl at some point and he tells you her codex is on the back if the case or something. My version was a copy so there was no case, just a plastic sleeve. Can you confirm whether this is real or a false memory? Lol

Your memory is correct. In MGS1 you do indeed have to call Meryl on the codec for her to open the hangar door for you. Her codec frequency was represented on the back of the game's case just as you remember.



Old games from the PS1 and PS2 eras were awesome. They made the player have to think a lot and solve puzzles in order to advance. Some of those puzzles were far from obvious.

MGS1 is a perfect example of that sort of puzzle-filled game.

First, there is the thing with Meryl's codec frequency as we have already discussed.

Second, when you fight Psycho Mantis, you have to change the controller to the port 2 in order to block out your own thoughts and prevent Psycho Mantis from reading them. It's exactly how you remember it and there was nothing as unique in any other videogame at that time. MGS1 was truly innovative.

Finally, and maybe this is something that you don't remember, near the end of the game you have to freeze and then warm the PAL key by backtracking first to the freezer and then to the foundry in order to change its shape (it reacts to temperature) for its insertion into each of the three computers for the launch sequence's deactivation. That is something that you have to work out for yourself before you can progress to the penultimate boss Metal Gear Rex.

The one with the Desert is Metal Gear V the very last one they made I believe, there was another MGS game that came after it but it was so bad most people forgot it. I don't remember what it was called but it looked like Death Stranding but was a reskinned MGSV only without Snake.

I've seen my brother playing MGS5 but to me it looked more like Far Cry than an authentic MGS game!

Here is a video of some of the gameplay set to some awesome in-game 80s action hero music:



I don't know about the whole game but this scene looks baddass as hell!