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Metal Gear Solid 2 is one of the more morally ambiguous stories in the series. Though the Sons of Liberty's methods are extreme, the conspiracy they're fighting against is very real. The epilogue leaves the question hanging of whether the world is a better place without Solidus.
- Analysis
Metal Gear Solid 2 and its Deconstruction of Video Games...
- YMMV
Metal Gear Solid 2 was not the first game in the series to...
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All I want is to be remembered. By other people, by history....
- NightmareFuel
According to Kojima's script in The Document of Metal Gear...
- Analysis
This page lists characters who first appeared in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Beware of unmarked spoilers for the game's prologue, the Tanker Chapter. For other characters in the franchise, see the Metal Gear character index at Characters.Metal Gear. Characters that debuted in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released in 2001. Released on PlayStation 2, it added the ability to aim weapons in first-person view, as well as additional support for melee-range combat. The graphics also improved significantly; the textures for faces were no longer only 8 pixels across.
The gameplay hasn't exactly aged well, but it wasn't bad at all. The story was also great. Next came MGS2, which was very nice. I loved seeing Snake from a different perspective (and that Konami-Code handshake was badass), but please, somebody tell me exactly what happened during the final sequence.
- Overview
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- Symbolism
- Reception
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
(メタルギアソリッド2 サンズ・オブ・リバティ, Metaru Gia Soriddo 2 Sanzu Obu Ribati?, commonly abbreviated as MGS2) is a stealth action game directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It is the fourth game in the Metal Gear series produced and directed by Kojima and is the direct sequel of Metal Gear Solid. Its release was followed by an expanded edition, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, a prequel to the entire Metal Gear series, followed in 2004. In 2008, a direct sequel, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, was released.
The game was well-received, shipping over 7 million copies worldwide. It received a metascore of 96 on Metacritic and average of 95.09% on GameRankings. While the gameplay and graphics were universally acclaimed, critics and fans were divided on the philosophical nature and execution of the game's storyline, which explores the themes of memes, social engineering, political conspiracies, and artificial intelligence. Critics and fans were also divided on Raiden, a new character who serves as the main protagonist for the majority of the game, and the length of the game's cutscenes. Over the years, the game has seen greater acclaim.
Two years after the events of the Shadow Moses Incident, Solid Snake and Otacon, working as Philanthropy, receive intelligence of a new type of Metal Gear being transported through the Hudson River. As Snake boards the tanker, it's seized by a group of Russian mercenaries led by Revolver Ocelot, intent on stealing the new Metal Gear.
Another two years later and the Big Shell, the offshore clean up facility constructed in its place is taken over by a terrorist faction calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. New FOXHOUND operative Raiden is sent in to neutralize the threat. However, all is not as it seems.
Memetic engineering (the theory that ideas, beliefs and thoughts can be isolated and controlled) is the theme of this game. The aim of the Patriots is to control the flow of information through society, censoring what they deem to be "trivial" or "biased". With the dawn of the digital age, information can be spread more openly and freely by individuals.l, but this carries the risk that such information is biased or outright incorrect, thus allowing lies to become an ingrained part of human culture and slowing down the evolutionary progress of humanity. As they are machines, the Patriots' AIs have the ability to be completely objective in relation to the information they encounter. They can logically decide what the best or most reliable information is without letting personal opinions interfere with their conclusions, therefore eliminating bias by filtering information on the Internet and disrupting the dissemination of lies that come with the digital age.
Solid Snake's philosophy is that humanity needs to find something worth believing in and pass it on to future generations. Over the course of the game, he teaches Raiden to question what he believes in and as a mentor like figure, encourages him to come to a new understanding about life and what information he wants to pass onto future generations. Through the way he influences Raiden, Solid Snake is representative of a hope that humanity can use the benefits of the digital age without allowing lies and falsehoods to corrupt people's outlook or culture.
Substance is also a theme within the game. For most of the game, Raiden is a blank character with no ideological beliefs or attachment to the conflicts he's taken part in. Unbeknownst to him, he has been controlled and used his entire life. This lack of identity is symbolically shown when Rosemary talks about his bedroom being an all white room with nothing more than a bed and a desk. It is not until near the end of the game, when Raiden confronts Solidus, that he reveals a dark troubled past and is forced to confront his own lack of identity. At the game's conclusion, Raiden acknowledges his dark history but chooses to embrace Solid Snake's ideology of fighting to protect future generations and becomes confident in finding truth for himself. It can be said that Raiden becomes Solid Snake's memetic successor by the end of the game; by adopting Snake's beliefs and thus creates an identity he chooses for himself rather than one that was forced upon him.
The game was also considered to be among the first games to push the philosophical concept of postmodernism as a theme. Kojima, in an interview with Wired, also explained that making a post-modern plot line for a game was one of his main goals for Metal Gear Solid 2.
carries the title of "Tactical Espionage Action," and most of the game involves the protagonist sneaking around avoiding being seen by the enemies. The game also features many more elements than its predecessor. The new first person aiming mode allows the player to target specific points in the game, greatly expanding tactical options, while guards can be blinded by steam and distracted by thrown objects. The player can now walk slowly, allowing them to sneak over noisy flooring without making a sound, or hang off walkways to avoid guards. The corner-press move from the original title, which allowed the player a sneak peek around the next bend, is expanded to allow them to fire from cover.
The guards were given more advanced AI "to prevent an imbalance of power," and unlike the original Metal Gear Solid, work in squads. They will call on their radios for a strike team upon seeing the player, then attempt to flank them and cut off their escape while avoiding the player's attacks. If the player is skilled enough, the guards radio can be disabled with a well-placed shot with any firearm. Often strike teams will carry body armor and riot shields, making them an even greater threat. The player can hide from guards and strike teams by hiding in places such as lockers or bathroom stalls.
Boss battles and set-pieces remain a case of finding a strategy that bypasses the defenses of the enemy. However, in a major break from action game standards, it is also possible to clear the entire game, including boss fights, without causing a single deliberate death, through the use of tranquilizer guns, stun grenades, and melee attacks.
The game also features a new character, Raiden, who is more athletic and maneuverable than Snake and also whom the player controls, for the Plant Chapter. Solid Snake is only playable in the Tanker Chapter.
began development in 1999. It was originally going to titled Metal Gear Solid III. The Roman numerals in the title was used to represent the three tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan, the setting of the game. In addition, Hideo Kojima implied that several of the themes he intended to be used in Metal Gear Solid 2 were essentially put into film format by the Wachowskis via their movie The Matrix beforehand.
According to Hideo Kojima in the documentary Metal Gear Saga Vol. 1, the original plot of the game revolved around nuclear weapon inspections in Iraq and Iran. In the plot, Solid Snake was supposed to stop the new
Making of The Hollywood Game
while it was located on an aircraft carrier, in a certain time limit. He was also supposed to defeat Liquid Snake and his group, implying that Liquid had faked his death from FOXDIE in the previous game. However, about six months into the project, tensions in the Middle East began to arise, so the development team decided that they couldn't make a game with such a plot. The tanker in the final version is based on the original plot.
was also intended to reference the novel City of Glass, a novel by Paul Auster published in 1985, most notably in the naming of its characters. Raiden's support team originally featured a field commander named Daniel Quinn (simply referred as the "Colonel" in-game); Maxine "Max" Work, an Asian woman who saves the game data and quotes Shakespeare; and William "Doc" Wilson, the creator of GW. All take their names from key characters in the book, and all three would have turned out to be AIs. None of these characters appear in the final version. Their roles were absorbed by other characters, namely the "Colonel Campbell" simulation, Rose, and Emma Emmerich. Peter Stillman, however, takes his name from another City of Glass character.
A two player versus mode was also planned. However, it was dropped for unknown reasons.
Kojima's choice of composer for Metal Gear Solid 2 was highly publicized in the follow-up to the game's release. Kojima decided upon Harry Gregson-Williams, a Hollywood film composer from Hans Zimmer's studio, after watching The Replacement Killers with sound director Kazuki Muraoka. A mix CD containing 18 tracks of Gregson-Williams' work was sent to his office. Flattered by the research put into creating the CD (as some of the tracks were unreleased, and that what tracks he'd worked on for some films were undocumented), he joined the project soon after.
In order to bypass the language barrier and allow the score to be developed before the cutscenes were finalized, Gregson-Williams was sent short phrases or descriptions of the intended action. The resultant themes then shaped the action sequences in return. Gregson-Williams also arranged and re-orchestrated the original "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" for use in the game's opening title sequence.
Norihiko Hibino, who had composed the music for Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, was responsible for all of the in-game music. He also worked on the majority of the game's cutscenes, re-orchestrating Gregson-Williams' "Main Theme" remix for use in several sequences.
As with Metal Gear Solid, the cutscene music includes orchestral and choir pieces, while the in-game soundtrack is scored with ambient electronic music. However, the score as a whole incorporates more electronic elements than its predecessor, in order to reflect the plot's thematic thrust of a machine-dominated society. Rika Muranaka again provided a vocal ending theme, a jazz track entitled "Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday", sung by the late Carla White. The game's music was released via 4 CDs: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Original Soundtrack, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Soundtrack 2: The Other Side, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Limited Sorter (Black Edition) and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Ultimate Sorter (White Edition).
The background of an E3 2001 poster for Metal Gear Solid 2 features artwork from the 1822 Niklas Müller book Glauben, Wissen und Kunst der alten Hindus (Beliefs, Knowledge and Art of the Ancient Hindus). The image depicts a turtle bearing the 21 worlds of Hindu mythology on its back, surrounded by the world serpent Shesha, one of the primal beings of creation. The image is also featured during the sequence in which the player must navigate Raiden through Arsenal Gear's interior, upon pausing the game with the Start button.
In addition, the poster's tagline notes the use of the snake to symbolize independence by the American founding fathers, and that "only the snake builds a new world." The various imagery can be said to represent the desires of Solidus, Liquid, and Solid Snake, to create a different world from that which is portrayed in the game's storyline. The artwork from Glauben, Wissen und the Kunst der alten Hindus could also be seen to represent either Arsenal Gear or the Big Shell, with the hexagonal designs of the former's hull and the latter's structure having a similar appearance to that of a turtle's shell. Arsenal itself is referred to as "tortoise-like" in Hideo Kojima's "Grand Game Plan."
As a result of promising trailers and the huge commercial success of its predecessor Metal Gear Solid, there was a high level of anticipation and hype in the gaming community surrounding the release of Metal Gear Solid 2. Metal Gear Solid 2 received a large amount of critical and fan praise upon its release, maintaining an average of 95.09% on GameRankings, making it the 4th highest rated PlayStation 2 game and the 27th highest rated game overall on the site. The game scored a metascore of 96 on Metacritic. The game also sold over 7 million copies worldwide and won multiple "Game of the Year" awards.
While critics praised the game's level of graphical detail, in particular the use of in-game graphics to render plot-driving cutscenes, the title's storyline was the source of mixed opinions. The storyline explores many philosophical and cyberpunk themes in great detail. Although some have praised Kojima's script, others considered the plot to be "incomprehensible" and overly heavy for an action game. Some also felt that the lengthy dialogue sections heavily disrupted the gameplay, and that the dialogue itself was overly disjointed and convoluted.
Fans were taken by surprise that they took the role of Raiden during the entirety of the Plant Chapter. Overall, the reception in North America and Europe was negative towards the introduction of Raiden. In Japan, it was neutral. Another dispute was the cutscenes which were considerably longer than the cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid, leading to complaints that Metal Gear Solid 2 was more like a movie with interactive sequences rather than a "Tactical Espionage" game.
Regardless of the mixed reviews of the game's drift from action based espionage and its very lengthy cutscenes and confusing nature, the game is still considered a staple in the stealth game genre, with over 7 million copies sold resulting in it being the best-selling game in the genre to date.
went multi-platform in Spring 2003, being released on the Xbox and Microsoft Windows. The new version included several new gameplay modes such as boss survival and the return of VR training and some minor graphical enhancements. The Windows version required an upgrade due to its high graphic content in which the user would need a DVD drive to play the game. Substance was ported to the PlayStation 2 several months later. It was released at the same time that the original version was added to Sony's Greatest Hits lineup.
Additions and changes in Substance include:
•Addition of a Boss Survival mode (was already included in the European and Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 2).
•Addition of Skateboarding mini-game (PlayStation 2 version only).
•Addition of 5 "Snake Tales", feature sized games.
•Addition of over 500 VR and Alternative missions.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty takes place two years after the previous game, when the world is flooded with Metal Gear derivatives ( "Metal Gear! Can't be...") after Revolver Ocelot sold the plans to Metal Gear REX on the black market.
People also ask
Is Metal Gear Solid 2 a stealth game?
Is Metal Gear Solid 2 sons of Liberty a video game?
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Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty[b] is a 2001 action-adventure stealth video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2. Originally released on November 13, it is the fourth Metal Gear game produced by Hideo Kojima, the seventh overall game in the series and is a sequel to Metal Gear ...
