Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Review (PlayStation 2)
~by tankMage (October 2023)
Score: 9/10
Kojima at his most Kojima.
I’ve always enjoyed MGS2. Even two decades after its release I still remember playing it with friends for hours, often just messing around and shooting enemy soldiers in the junk with tranq darts or watching seagulls drop deuces on the camera when you look up. Yup, my sense of humor was and is immature, so was Kojima’s apparently. As much as I like this game, it does suffer from the idiosyncrasies that often affect the sequels to brilliant games. Much like how Castlevania II is the black sheep of the NES trilogy, Metal Gear Solid 2 is the red headed step child of the 32-Bit Metal Gear series. Everyone loves the first and third titles, but Sons of Liberty gets mixed reviews.
Of course, the main issue detractors cite when criticizing this sequel is Raiden, a blond haired youth who looks like he belongs in a boy band instead of on a battlefield, replaces Snake for much of the game. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of Raiden myself, but I respect the fact that Kojima wanted to add new blood to the series and he did it with respect to Snake. Raiden also becomes a cooler character as the series progresses. Gotta start somewhere, right?
I’ll also add that this game has bigger issues than Raiden. The world feels small, the melodrama often gets ratcheted up to 11, cutscenes drag on forever, and the plot goes into some weird territory to say the least…and yet it’s still a great game. An attention to detail and wild creativity that is seldom seen add magic to what would otherwise have been a rather mediocre stealth title.
Story
MGS2 picks up a few years after the first game. Snake and Otacon are part of a secret organization dedicated to destroying the Metal Gears that the US government is obsessed with building even though a single dude with a rocket launcher has managed to destroy every model. Snake infiltrates a tanker that is supposedly carrying a new prototype of the infamous walking nuke and things start to get crazy from there. In a nutshell, the tanker sinks and someone makes off with the new Metal Gear. Skip ahead another two years and a new member of FOXHOUND codenamed Raiden infiltrates a facility designed to clean up the oil that was supposedly spilled in the tanker disaster.
Things start out normal enough, Raiden and the Colonel from previous games babble at each other over the codec, then Raiden has to sneak around the facility, which is called Big Shell. Raiden soon learns about the Sons of Liberty, a terrorist group headed by a mysterious figure. The members of this group are an odd, motley bunch that include a mad bomber, a chic who’s hobbies revolve around rail guns and self deletion, and a vampire called Vamp. (Really? Vamp? You couldn’t think of a better name Kojima?)
Big Shell is a happening place and Raiden encounters a lot of characters. The cast is largely likable and includes Snake who is crappily disguised as some random Navy Seal called Plisken…get the reference? Characters are fleshed out really well through long codec calls (many of which are optional) and there’s a certain human dignity to much of the cast that is rarely seen in games. The often sad and paranoid tone of the plot is balanced out by a bit of humor too.
It is difficult to really critique the story without giving too much away, but it gets really strange as it progresses. Nothing is what it seems, there’s plots within plots and believability gets stretched really thin. That said, Kojima is a master of somehow making campy video game plots feel real and the world of MGS2 with all of its weird quirks sucks players in.
Graphics
As a PS2 title, Metal Gear Solid 2’s graphics hold up fairly well compared to the first game. A lot of care went into the game’s visual design and it shows. Snake and Raiden leave wet footprints (that enemy troops may notice), bugs can be seen flying around light, shooting bottles of ketchup leaves a red mess everywhere, and there’s even a bucket of ice that will melt if tipped over. Even modern games struggle to build an environment that feels as alive as the one this game sets up.
It’s difficult to find much of anything wrong with the graphics. Any issues I had, like characters not always moving naturally, were more or less common problems in the PS2 days that can’t really be blamed on the devs. If this game has one failing in terms of visuals, it’s that the settings aren’t all that interesting. But it’s hard to fault Kojima for that even, since the simple setting allowed the team to focus on the aforementioned details.
User Interface
The controls in Metal Gear games are nearly perfect and this is no exception. Everything works as advertised and the menus are very easy to navigate. That said, there’s a learning curve that comes with this series and players may find themselves fumbling around as they learn the ropes.
Gameplay
MGS2 struggles a bit with its gameplay. Sneaking around and disabling enemy soldiers is fun, but there are weak points in the overall design. While Kojima and his team tried to make the missions interesting, some of them feel like busy work, especially the bomb disposal mission early in the game. Other tasks are fairly creative an interesting. For example, Raiden has to dress up as an enemy soldier at one point and figure out how to locate a specific hostage in a highly guarded room.
Then there’s the bosses…oh the bosses. The MGS series really struggled with boss design in the first two games. Sure, the bosses were imaginative, but they are also dumb as bricks. Tricking bosses by hanging from ledges or hiding under boxes is funny and all, but it does not make for exhilarating battles. It’s hard to blame the devs, because stealth is a primary component of the action and it makes sense that Snake/Raiden would be able to outwit their opponents. That said, the final boss fight does present some challenge, so they were at least starting to figure out how to design bosses for MGS games.
Then there’s the actual size of the game, which feels small even compared to its PS1 predecessor. Generally, I’m not one to hold play time against a title, in fact I think the criticism of “Game is too short.” has lead to devs padding content, which just makes for boring games. That said, MGS2 feels like it should be longer. Ironically, the fifteen or so hours it took me to finish the game is just fine in my opinion. The real problem is the in-game map sets up the expectation of a bigger world to explore. The Big Shell is a huge facility that is split into smaller modules connected by bridges. Raiden explores the Big Shell in a fairly methodical manner at first, which sets up the expectation that you’re going to see the whole thing, but in reality only about 60% of the map is exploreable. I’m not sure if I should be disappointed by this, because the game is great as it is, but the map size is misleading nonetheless. I’ll add that the long cutscenes and codec calls pad the game out, but they are sometimes an unwelcome when all you want to do is concentrate on the action.
Finally, lot of the weapons and tools Raiden finds see very little use. For example, there’s only one instance where players have to use the Nikita guided missile and I never used the NVG Goggles outside of trying them out. Don’t even ask about the Grenade Launcher or C4, because I didn’t touch them. While the extra weapons can be fun to play around with at the very least, the fact that so many items are extraneous and the map issue make me wonder if Kojima had set out to make a bigger game. Maybe that’s why there are fifteen minute phone calls between Raiden and his girlfriend.
Music and Sound
If you’ve played an MGS game, you know you’re in for a great soundtrack. In fact, I’d go as far as to say MGS2 has some of the best music on the PS2. Unfortunately, that’s not saying much, because the glory days of video game music were already a thing of the past by 2001. Luckily games like this kept the dream alive to some degree.
The voice acting and sound effects are also superb…mostly. While David Hayter and much of the voice cast did a great job, Otacon’s voice actor seemed to really struggle with some of the more emotional scenes. I can’t really blame Christopher Randolph (Otacon’s actor) for struggling either, because I feel like the bad scenes were a case of Kojima just pushing things too far and showing too much. Then there’s Fortune who must have been fresh out of acting school. I also wasn’t a big fan of Raiden’s voice actor, though his performance is fine. It’s more a case of Raiden just not fitting the role of a heartless assassin very well and the tone of his voice merely reinforces his wimpy image.
Final Thoughts
Metal Gear Solid 2 is an excellent game, but it also comes off as odd and incongruent at times. Hideo Kojima is one of the few devs that really push the boundaries of game design and sometimes that results in unusual products. While I’ve criticized this game a lot, I don’t think I would want to see it changed in any way even if I could somehow go back in time and force the devs to “fix” its flaws. MGS2’s eccentricity makes it unique, especially in an era where games were starting to become more homogeneous. It also contrasts its predecessor and sequel, which were arguably some of the best games ever made. Then again, maybe it’s just the nostalgia talking.
Recommendations
Quirks aside, Metal Gear Solid 2 is essential to the PlayStation 2 experience and everyone who enjoys the console should at least try it. The worst thing that could happen is you waste some money and have something to complain about.
Thanks for reading my Metal Gear Solid 2 review!
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