Caltrops - Gamerasutra - Re: in defense of MGS2

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by FABIO 04/30/2003, 10:55am PDT

Lizard_King wrote:

I never played any of the previous Metal Gear games.

Then pick up both a PSX and Metal Gear Solid 1 which should cost you about the same amount that MGS2: "charge you another $50 for what the game should have been in the first place" Substance and you will easily see how much of a better game it is.

First, let us confront the issue of the main plot, as contained in the Plant level. Now, there is definitely a pretentious art fag school of thought that will whine endlessly about how surreal and deep it is to have your character run around naked for an entire level. There is the opposing view, which is convinced that all successful Japanese game designers are subject to some rule forcing them to structure their game sequels around the most effeminate and irritating male lead possible (That means Raiden, Tidus, Dante "Pretty Boy with the Coin" of DMC2 etc). But it does not really matter; what this game really excels at is the gameplay. The fact that the plot occasionally interjects some enjoyable "what the fuck?" moments helps, but it is the gameplay combined with the fact that the cut scenes are 95% skippable that make this game worth revisiting. I cannot think of a single recent action game that has even attempted to have a coherent, original plot (Halo fanboys need to read more if they are so certain that it is not one more cliche), and while the general mediocrity of the business is no excuse, I think there is something to be said for a designer that just says the hell with it and hands us Die Hard V as directed by Fellini's retarded cousin. It is really not that difficult to shut out the surface layer of confusing, uninteresting bullshit, just as one mutes the television during the Tidus/Yuna cutscenes in FFX.

Disagree. The plant portion was dull. It had an incredibly dull layout (6 rooms of roughly the same size and shape all connected by the same "shoot the drone" bridge minigames), fetch quests (bomb defusing, although the sniping part was cool), horrible boss pacing (4 hours between the first boss, Olga, and the second, Fatman), and plot elements that ripped off MGS1 verbatum and are explained away with bizzaro logic rather than the truth of "we didn't feel like thinking of anything new".

The boss AI is far from perfect. The bosses all have pretty regular patterns, and in that respect the game resembles a platformer. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how open you are to being creative with a game's logic in mind. Even while beating the game through on extreme level, I still came up with a few new ideas on how to deal with the increased difficulty of each boss; while some require only greater accuracy and concentration, others require a radical shift in tactics, such as the Harrier with its suddenly murderous machine gun, or Fatman without the help of radar.

The bosses sucked. Aside from Olga, who was decent (which takes place on the "non-suck" tanker level), the only fun boss fight was the harrier. Ironically, the easiest boss of MGS1 was metal gear itself (bonus points to the genius who points out the misuse of "ironic" first!). It seemed impossible at first, but once you nailed down the pattern you could beat it every time without taking any hits. All the bosses in MGS2 were just like that. Worse then that actually, Fatman was just plain annoying (oh no! one small charge of semtax will bring this entire platform down!) and do I even need to mention the metal gear Ray fight? The pointless last boss fight?

If you think shooting someone in the head and stashing them in an equipment locker, then having one of his fellow guards get suspicious and follow the trail of blood straight into the claymore you planted isn't cool, then I don't know why you are playing games designed by Japanese people at all.

Yes it was cool, the first dozen times I did it. But like with any novely in any game, once it wore off I just sticked with what worked rather than what looked cool. Simply switching to 1st first mode as soon as you entered a new room and shooting everyone with the silenced SOCOM was far more effective than any sneaky tactic you could employ. This method also points out an embarresing flaw in the AI: if a guard is tranquilized a patrol will be sent to investigate his not reporting in, however if you shoot him to death no one will ever get suspicious. OOPS!

An added element of challenge exists in the dogtag system of unlocking extras, where in addition to the games normal goals you go about sticking guards up and depriving them of their identification, is so peculiarly illogical that one could easily be tempted to ignore it. But it adds a whole new dimension of challenge to the game, in a very Japanese minigame way, and on harder levels is in many ways more challenging than some of the bosses.

Well I guess if you found collecting all 50+ dog tags fun then you'll enjoy anything. Did you also think chocobo racing in FFX was a hoot? Minigames and extras should be fun, not tedious affairs just to say that you've completed every challenge a game has to offer. Besides, the extras sucked. MGS1 gave you the ninja's cloak suit. MGS2 gives you....fucking different colored wigs? If you enjoyed finding out which wig matched each game mood, then maybe you should pick this up.

Which is where we get to the Substance version. I think PS2 players were given the shaft the first time around. Substance provides through its VR missions not only a much more situation specific sort of challenge minus the plot, but it provides you with the training that is absolutely necessary to enjoying the game itself a great deal more. They are diverse in a way that the standard plotline can only dream about, by which I mean that they can be really fucking strange at times, and I'm not just talking about the naked thing again. The missions are brief and cathartic, and they contain the element of puzzle solving to a much greater degree to the very constrained resources you are provided with in each level.

Hey! VR missions! Something that should have been there in the first place! RAWK!

Neither MGS2 nor Splinter Cell have any claim to realism, unless you regard Tom Clancy's version of the world as anything but based on real equipment.

There's a huge difference between realistic and "holy fucking shit does this get any more retarded?".

Splinter Cell has no plot, for all practical purposes, just mission objectives, so there is no reason to really compare them in that respect. But, annoyingly, Splinter Cell does not give a damn how well you use your skills or if you avoid using the cheap and easy solution for every situation; you pass the level just the same whether you got killed a dozen times or none. In MGS2, like Hitman, you are graded on your efforts, and it does matter whether you took 2 hours or 20 seconds to get past a certain part. That, in and of itself, makes it far more replayable than SC could ever be.

And for those efforts you receive....more wigs!