Metal Gear Solid 2 is the type of experience that is simply unmatched, you won't find anything like it.
The gameplay is a pretty logical upgrade to MGS1, a lot smoother and improved exactly where it has to be, creating a very responsive and pleasant experience which, while it doesn't measure up to MGS3 (no shit) still feels very good, at least in my opinion. I've had other people tell me that it didn't age well but honestly i'd say it did. MGS1 is really the only MGS that has suffered hard the passage of time in regards to gameplay. I feel like it's thanks to the Master Collection giving me a consistent 60 FPS with no emulator slowdowns and the ability to comfortably use any of my controllers that I had such a good time on the gameplay side of things, because I definitely recall having a harder time all of my previous playthroughs on emulators or native hardware (i hate the dualshock).
The graphics are a step down? I mean, not really... You still get a really good looking game for it's time, very well shot with awesome cinematics and generally good ambience, but you also can't help but feel that something is missing. The gripping atmosphere of the original game is kinda lost here and replaced with another, "good but not quite" one. Given that MGS2 is a game with a good atmosphere sandwitched between two games with sublime atmospheres, it really seems like MGS2 suffered the fate of being the "we're still figuring out how to properly develop for the hardware" game out of the 3. Still, while the atmosphere might not be there, i really dig the general aesthetics. Besides, some of the details are pretty insane for a 2001 game, though i'd rather not talk about them because you've probably already seen a million top 10 videogame easter eggs highlighting the exact same few details over and over because that's how you feed the machine and make the money
And the story, here's where the game really gets meaty. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has arguably the best story of any game i've ever played. It's probably not an exageration to say that it's one of the best videogame narratives of all time. It's an incredibly subversive, deeply touching, borderline lifechanging and scarily premonitorial plot, written and presented in incredibly smart ways and threaded together incredibly tightly. No game will ever pierce through your chest, plunge out your heart, and then put it back in with a fierce desire to live on like this one. It's very, very hard to believe that this game was written in 2001. Everytime I tell people around that this game predicted modern society I kinda feel like a cornball, but it's really funny how it's just, true. Bar for bar Hideo Kojima just pondered his orb and saw what was coming and he just wrote that shit without missing a beat. I'm running out of positive adjetives
It's the best game of all time go play it
The gameplay is a pretty logical upgrade to MGS1, a lot smoother and improved exactly where it has to be, creating a very responsive and pleasant experience which, while it doesn't measure up to MGS3 (no shit) still feels very good, at least in my opinion. I've had other people tell me that it didn't age well but honestly i'd say it did. MGS1 is really the only MGS that has suffered hard the passage of time in regards to gameplay. I feel like it's thanks to the Master Collection giving me a consistent 60 FPS with no emulator slowdowns and the ability to comfortably use any of my controllers that I had such a good time on the gameplay side of things, because I definitely recall having a harder time all of my previous playthroughs on emulators or native hardware (i hate the dualshock).
The graphics are a step down? I mean, not really... You still get a really good looking game for it's time, very well shot with awesome cinematics and generally good ambience, but you also can't help but feel that something is missing. The gripping atmosphere of the original game is kinda lost here and replaced with another, "good but not quite" one. Given that MGS2 is a game with a good atmosphere sandwitched between two games with sublime atmospheres, it really seems like MGS2 suffered the fate of being the "we're still figuring out how to properly develop for the hardware" game out of the 3. Still, while the atmosphere might not be there, i really dig the general aesthetics. Besides, some of the details are pretty insane for a 2001 game, though i'd rather not talk about them because you've probably already seen a million top 10 videogame easter eggs highlighting the exact same few details over and over because that's how you feed the machine and make the money
And the story, here's where the game really gets meaty. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has arguably the best story of any game i've ever played. It's probably not an exageration to say that it's one of the best videogame narratives of all time. It's an incredibly subversive, deeply touching, borderline lifechanging and scarily premonitorial plot, written and presented in incredibly smart ways and threaded together incredibly tightly. No game will ever pierce through your chest, plunge out your heart, and then put it back in with a fierce desire to live on like this one. It's very, very hard to believe that this game was written in 2001. Everytime I tell people around that this game predicted modern society I kinda feel like a cornball, but it's really funny how it's just, true. Bar for bar Hideo Kojima just pondered his orb and saw what was coming and he just wrote that shit without missing a beat. I'm running out of positive adjetives
It's the best game of all time go play it