This review contains spoilers
"Building the future and keeping the past alive are one in the same thing."
(Some spoilers ahead)
Seeing how the game came out in 2001, I was expecting a lot of headaches from the gameplay but I thought it was great. The game genuinely felt good to play and the amount of attention to details for a game that came out 20+ years ago is just lunacy. Actual fights and shootouts do feel uncomfortable to play but it's a MGS game, the point is that you don't get seen.
Speaking of MGS 2 being ahead of its time, the story. Snake not being the protagonist was polarizing af when the game came out but Raiden was such a great character. Kojima did something very unique when it came to his relationship with the player. Raiden is a stand-in for the player in the game’s world, the fact that most of his training came from imitating Snake in virtual reality (like how our “training” came from the first game where we were also mimicking/playing as Snake) and how the Big Shell Incident is the Patriots forcing Raiden to play out what happened at Shadow Moses (which is why this game and the first one share so many similarities). His lack of experience makes it so he’s finding everything out along with us, making him more relatable.
Despite that, Raiden is also a character in a story. His arc is all about starting to live for himself instead of just following someone else's orders. This applies to the Patriots (who were manipulating him throughout the whole game) but on a more meta level, this also applies to us the players. In the end, we stop playing as Raiden because he no longer has to do what we tell him. He’s free
The final stretch of this game was so thought-provoking, Kojima is a brilliant writer I swear. The way it dives into AI and the “digital age” more than 20 YEARS AGO is just amazing. The ethical dilemma that the Patriots AI provokes in the player had me mesmerized. Is the AI wrong for trying to preserve only the information necessary for humanity’s development, filtering out the rest? Is Raiden wrong for thinking humanity deserves the right to decide what information is worth preserving or not, even if we are wrong? Is our advancement and prosperity as a species worth it at the expense of our freedom? Arghhhh this game
Phenomenal game all around. Everything from the gameplay to the narrative was handled with such care and attention. I think it’s never been more appropriate to say that something is “ahead of its time” than with this game. The themes that MGS 2 dives into are more relevant and poignant now than they were when it came out. Kojima made a game for people living in the 2010s and 2020s back when the world was still in 2001, that is what being ahead of his time means.
(Some spoilers ahead)
Seeing how the game came out in 2001, I was expecting a lot of headaches from the gameplay but I thought it was great. The game genuinely felt good to play and the amount of attention to details for a game that came out 20+ years ago is just lunacy. Actual fights and shootouts do feel uncomfortable to play but it's a MGS game, the point is that you don't get seen.
Speaking of MGS 2 being ahead of its time, the story. Snake not being the protagonist was polarizing af when the game came out but Raiden was such a great character. Kojima did something very unique when it came to his relationship with the player. Raiden is a stand-in for the player in the game’s world, the fact that most of his training came from imitating Snake in virtual reality (like how our “training” came from the first game where we were also mimicking/playing as Snake) and how the Big Shell Incident is the Patriots forcing Raiden to play out what happened at Shadow Moses (which is why this game and the first one share so many similarities). His lack of experience makes it so he’s finding everything out along with us, making him more relatable.
Despite that, Raiden is also a character in a story. His arc is all about starting to live for himself instead of just following someone else's orders. This applies to the Patriots (who were manipulating him throughout the whole game) but on a more meta level, this also applies to us the players. In the end, we stop playing as Raiden because he no longer has to do what we tell him. He’s free
The final stretch of this game was so thought-provoking, Kojima is a brilliant writer I swear. The way it dives into AI and the “digital age” more than 20 YEARS AGO is just amazing. The ethical dilemma that the Patriots AI provokes in the player had me mesmerized. Is the AI wrong for trying to preserve only the information necessary for humanity’s development, filtering out the rest? Is Raiden wrong for thinking humanity deserves the right to decide what information is worth preserving or not, even if we are wrong? Is our advancement and prosperity as a species worth it at the expense of our freedom? Arghhhh this game
Phenomenal game all around. Everything from the gameplay to the narrative was handled with such care and attention. I think it’s never been more appropriate to say that something is “ahead of its time” than with this game. The themes that MGS 2 dives into are more relevant and poignant now than they were when it came out. Kojima made a game for people living in the 2010s and 2020s back when the world was still in 2001, that is what being ahead of his time means.