“Land, Friends, dignity, all sold to the highest bidder, The United States Of America!” – Colonel Gurlukovich
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is the 2001 follow up to Hideo Kojima’s 1998 masterpiece Metal Gear Solid.
Following the incident on Shadow Mosses island players once again gain control of Solid Snake. Snake has started his own anti Metal Gear organisation “philanthropy” with Otacon. After reports of the US marines unveiling a Metal Gear (Metal Gear Ray) Snake gets himself onto the tanker just off Manhattan where the unveiling is to take place. His mission is to acquire evidence of “Ray” and get this evidence back to Otacon. This relatively simple sounding plan goes to hell however, as Snake arrives on the tanker so too does a team of mercenaries who take over, this is just the beginning. Soon thereafter Revolver Ocelot (Shalashaska) comes aboard and hijacks “Ray”. The mayhem caused by Revolver Ocelot leads to the sinking of the tanker and apparent death of Solid Snake.
2 years later FOXHOUND agent Raiden is sent to infiltrate the Big Shell and off shore decontamination facility set up after the oil spill caused by the Manhattan tanker incident. The Big Shell is where the president is being held hostage, after a routine inspection is interrupted by a terrorist group who call themselves the Sons of Liberty who take control of and threaten to blow up the Big Shell (this would ignite the crude oil in the Manhattan Harbor and burn the chlorides used during the cleanup, creating high levels of dioxins that would wipe out the bay’s ecosystem and become the worst environmental disaster in history) unless they a receive 30 billion dollars. On top of this the terrorist leader claims to be Solid Snake.
Gameplay wise this was quite an improvement over MGS1. The you were now able to aim and shoot in first person view, so now you can shoot at any area of an enemies body and when you shoot the enemies react accordingly.
First Person Aim
The graphics are a world better than in the first game, the textures are so much smoother and the people now have more defined features.
MGS1 Graphics
MGS2 Graphics
Harry Gregson-Williams’ score is superb. Every time i hear the theme song I get an overwhelming urge to play this game.
A fair number of Metal Gear Solid fans didn’t like Raiden when he was introduced all the way back in 2001, calling the change in protagonists from Snake to Raiden a bait and switch. Raiden is an interesting character, he is on his first field mission unlike Solid Snake who is a legendary soldier, this I think makes him a more relatable character to gamers, maybe not as cool as Solid Snake but a good character in his own right.
The story telling i this game is high caliber. When players are not in control the story is told through long cinematic and visually stunning cutscenes. The story is also told through codec conversations.
The Codec
In the codec conversations there is a wealth of great dialogue and funny back n’ forths between characters. The codec can be used at anytime and is a clever in-game hint system if you call someone when you are stuck for what to do.
Some great stealth gameplay, fantastic score and a brilliant story make for a must-play game.
10/10 – Cody 8/10 – Jason N/A – Michael N/A – Matthew N/A – John 90%
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