60| Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

Released: November 12th, 2001

Definitive Version: Playstation 3; Also on: Xbox 360, PS Vita, PC, PS2, Xbox

It is rare for a game's reputation to change over time. When Metal Gear Solid 2 originally released it was criticized heavily by the fanbase to the point where some even retconned the entry the same way some have retconned Devil May Cry 2. The game was widely seen as inferior to the original in every way with complaints being geared toward the strange bosses, the melodramatic codec scenes, and the lifeless industrial setting. However, by far and wide the biggest criticism toward the game was geared toward the big twist that happened an eighth way through the game. The game opens up with Solid Snake infiltrating a ship as his trusty assistant Otacon received a tip that the ship is carrying weapons of mass destruction. About an hour and a half later the game jumps timelines. The player now seems to be playing a flashback where Snake is at the entrance of Shadow Moses as he waits to go up the elevator. Once in the elevator he takes off his mask, it turns out the player doesn't see the face of an old rugged soldier, but of a blonde haired pretty boy named Raiden. Regularly this change would be enough to have many turn on the game, but the fact that much of the game revolved around Raiden speaking to his girlfriend and being very emotional really dialed things up to an eleven. As a result the game was spat on by the traditional fans.

Fifteen years later however, the game is seen as not only a hallmark of the series, but to gaming in general. Regularly when fans rank the series the game is often ranked toward the top if not at the top of their lists. What was once seen as the black sheep of the franchise is now seen as the black swan. A game that was very misunderstood at release, but over time people began to see it under a different light. Kojima and his crew weren't trying to just push the Metal Gear franchise, they were trying to push gaming in general.

Throughout the game players will come across a theme that revolves around faith in public opinion in the new information age. People are now exposed to a limitless amount of articles, news clips, and opinion pieces due to the emergence of the world-wide web. How exactly can we continue trusting the public at large to lead the country with all of this information when it has historically been shown to be so fickle. In 2001, the game's message and core theme seemed to "out there" to most. It seemed like it was trying to be philosophical for the sake of being philosophical. However, in an age of 9/11 truthers, Muslim extremists, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump being a presidential candidate, the game's message hits very close to home. It was ingenious and just goes to show how Kojima manages to be ahead of the curb in more than just game developing.

All of this doesn't even speak on the game itself. Metal Gear Solid 2 is quite simply the mastery of the traditional Metal Gear formula. What began as a MSX game where the players can only move in four directions and punch walls, players can now crouch, crawl, hide in lockers and boxes, shoot out lights and cameras, obscure lasers, knock on walls, choke out enemies, hold up enemies, interrogate enemies, distract enemies, etc. The game had managed to do a lot for something that, despite the cinematic nature, is primarily played in an overhead perspective. Players will find themselves constantly experimenting with different strategies and tactics in dealing with enemies.

The game's level design is also top notch.It is the last game to put a major focus on backtracking and unlocking rooms and areas via keycard. Backtracking isn't for everyone, but to me there is a huge sense of satisfaction in rewarding the player in remembering the layout of the area and where they have to go to next. The industrial shell complex is perfect for this as it encompasses multiple stories and is all interconnected. This makes the area perfect for the traditional Metal Gear design. Despite the core design of the game being very tight and high quality, this doesn't stop Kojima and his team from experimenting with the game. While much of the game will have the players sneaking around areas and taking out enemies, much of it also contains unique segments that involve swimming, bomb defusing, and even katana wielding. These segments do a pretty good job in always keeping the game interesting and fresh.

No Metal Gear game would be complete without the boss battles, and Metal Gear Solid 2 has some damn memorable ones. While they were often hated when players first encountered them, overtime they have received a soft spot. This includes a roller skating bomber, a woman who can't get hit by bullets, and a vampire. This also includes segments that were beloved from the beginning such as the player taking on multiple Metal Gears at once. Admittedly it doesn't have the best boss battles in the series, but it certainly doesn't have the worst.

While the game is mostly free from criticism today, that doesn't mean that some of the original critique wasn't deserving. The first is that the plot is a bit too nonsensical, even by Metal Gear standards. It is very difficult to follow and often needs a read through a wikia page to even comprehend the basic points of it. Now to be fair it is clear that the game is meant to be confusing by design, but Kojima and crew went a little too far with it. Rather than the game's plot and world feeling mysterious, at times it instead feels like an incoherent mess. On top of that, while Raiden is no longer a character who whenever mentioned inspires seething hatred from fans, he isn't exactly the ideal character to have in the game. I agree with the consensus that despite his troubled past he seems too much like a "pretty boy" for the series. It comes to no surprise that Kojima rebuilt the character, literally, and turned him into a cyborg ninja.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was quite simply ahead of its time. Back in the early 2000s it wasn't as common for series to experiment too much on sequels. Much of this was due to the fact that 3D gameplay was still very new to players so a sequel improving on an imperfect formula was more than enough to hold their attention. However, Kojima's mind has never worked like that. This is why every mainline entry in Metal Gear Solid has been different from the last. Kojima released Metal Gear Solid 3 three years later and stripped the player of all of their high tech gadgets and dumped them in the jungle as they learned to survive in the wilderness. Metal Gear Solid 4 was a hodgepodge of different locations as Snake had "no place to hide" as he was frequently put into wide open areas with patrolling enemies. Metal Gear Solid 5 took Metal Gear to the open world as players had two huge maps to explore containing multiple bases, secrets, and objectives. It seems that Kojima is never content with doing the same old thing over and over. Personally I feel that this is the real reason why Metal Gear Solid 2 had such an initial cold reception. Back in 2001 players didn't know how Kojima operated, but by his later releases they did. Now that players know what to expect from a sequel headed by Kojima, they can look at Metal Gear Solid 2 through different eyes and see it as it deserved to be seen since its initial release.