I now know why everyone hates Metal Gear Solid: 2

[Hosker]

I really like MGS2, codex and all. Perhaps it's the nostalgia talking, but I still enjoy playing it nowadays. I can't think of my own example right now, but Dragon Age 2 might end up being that if 3 turns out good.

 

[IanBrazen]

guys im not defending the game, but if you dont like or care for the codec parts, just skip ém. Still the gameplay itself is pretty flawed, and those underwater parts - damn that was some controllersnapping frustration

I f I could have skipped the codec scenes without skipping MAJOR plot points I would have. Half the story is told in codec so I would be skipping half the story.

Metroid Other M was the "black sheep" of my favourite game series.

THE BABY! lol sorry dude couldn't resist.

I liked MGS2, it was quality and got better as the game went on. MGS4 is my "black sheep", the game is just plain shit.

I'm not saying your wrong but I did enjoy MGS4...well most of it, I have serious problems with two scenes.
Don't worry I wont start anything I'm just curious why you hate it more than two.

 

[razer17]

Not everyone hates MGS2. RAiden is an awesome character, and the gameplay was the best in the entire series. MGS3 has a better story, but MGS2 had the sword section at the end.

 

[Skops]

I love MGS2, and I don't mind Raiden as a character.

My Black Sheep of the MGS Series isn't really the game itself, because in my opinion, it's my second favorite: MGS4.
MGS4 just, has too much self parody, and too many things I can't take seriously. I look at almost every cutscene in Chapter 1 with Johnny repeatedly shitting himself, MG mk.11 being practically sentient cartoonishly falling over, the '10 second spider stance' introducing Old Snake, the statue's dick falling off, "No Place for Hideo" box, Johnny's "Stance"... I can go on, but this is just the first chapter. Never mind the infamous Liquid Ocelot standing on a boat doing the finger guns for 30 seconds.... There's too many self cracks in MGS4 that it's more suffocating than the actual story that surrounds it.

I still love the damn game, and I've played through it 17x.

 

[Mr.Governor]

MGS2 was my first MGS game I ever played and since I didn't know Snake was such a badass at that time,I was ok with playing as Raiden instead of snake.

 

[PromethianSpark]

While i take the the OP's cristicism onboard, all the the responses are bullshit. The Majority of old skool MSG fans hatted it because they didnt, play snake. Sons of liberty, despites its flaws, had the most intriguing narrative in the series. In fact, MSG 4 makes no sense wif out playing it. That being said Kojima still shyed away from it in telling his story, because of how badly ppl reacted too it, even though he was tip towing around the real story he wanted to tell!

 

[SergeantAnt]

Yeah after playing all the MGS games 2 is very much the weirdest one, especially all the codecs in the end. For some reason though i didn't mind raiden at all. Probably because I just played them for the first time when the HD collection came out so the swaparoo didn't surprise me at all. Loved the gameplay though, in some ways even more then 3 and 4, don't know why just liked the isometric view!
And yeah 4 was definatly the goofiest of the bunch. Got to the point of sheer stupidity here and there even, yet i still LOVED it

OP: Probably Resident Evil 5. It's co-op focus and it not feeling like a RE game to me at all sucked, at least 4 still felt like RE.

Final fantasy 12 and 13 stand out a fair amount, 12 more-so actually but i enjoyed it much more then 13.

And Kingdom Hearts 358/2. Absolutely hated that game, it's stupid board thingy it used, how you had to "explore" the worlds, the story, just everything about it.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

Thats a hard question, it is usually the other way around. Usually there is one game I like the most out of a series.

I actually don't really play series after the first game. Like Bioshock and Dead Space. I liked the games so much, I didn't bother playing the sequals in case they would ruin the great feel.

If there is a series I like, I usually don't have a black sheep, but I might have a favorite.

 

[bioject]

I am a BIG Metal Gear fan, but to be more specific I am a Big Big Boss fan because MGS:3 is the one I first played.

ever since then I played them all with the exception of portable ops and (until now)MGS:2.
So I got the HD edition a little while back, I mean two Big boss games for the price of one how could i resist.

However I told myself that I should play 2 first after all its the only one in cannon I haven't played yet.

Besides the fixed camera I have no problems with the game play, its excellent for its time, my problem is with the story.
MGS:2 in my opinion had a lot of potential to have a great story.
Its premise and set up is very intriguing, and with the exception of one, all the characters are interesting.

But holy hell someone really should have told Kojima "Show. Don't tell"
It feels like half the game I'm staring at the codec screen while two people ramble on about King Kong or chop sticks in someones hair.
The codec sequences are in a word oppressive!
Even the big reveal at the end is all told through the freaking CODEC!
I kept wanting to jam my finger on the square button.

I liked Raiden, and still do, however I think his albatross is his girlfriend Rose who is barely a character and more of a plot device.

Ill stop here before I turn this into a review.
My question for you folks is: What is the black sheep of your favorite game series, and why?

Now I need to play Snake Eater to get the bad Metal Gear taste out of my mouth.

Honestly if you didn't like Metal Gear Solid 2 because you thought the story was bad, it was probably because you didn't understand it. It was sort of like how I hated Fight Club the first time I saw it because I was too young and stupid to understand the deep concepts explained in the movie.

Read this plot analysis guide and then tell me if you think the story still sucks:
http://junkerhq.net/MGS2/

If you want to talk about a horrible game, look at MGS4. It not only defeats the message the story of MGS2 told, but it destroys the stealth gameplay the franchise was known for. I remember it was easier to go guns blazing in MGS4 than to actually sneak your way through the levels.

In previous installments, the game always punished you for failing to go stealth. In addition the game had horrible story elements and stupid retcons. Big Boss was dead and in one stupid handwave, they bring him back to pointless tie up all the loose ends and finish the series. I also like how Naomi Hunter saves the day by creating a magic virus that somehow removes the Patriots. In fact even worse was that the Patriots were supposed to be more of an idea that couldn't be destroyed. It was in everything. The fact that they existed in a single location and could be conveniently deleted was retarded.

The reason why you play as Raiden in MGS2 was because Kojami wanted the player to view Snake from a different perspective. In addition Raiden represented the gamer. In the game you recall that Raiden had only ever had VR training. Rose was most likely not so interesting because Raiden had most likely been speaking to the AI construct the entire time. MGS2 was about the flow information and ideas and how they control us. The giant dialogue dump at the end of the game is not something you can just digest in one sitting. It took multiple play throughs and good guide like the one I linked you to, to truly understand the concepts in the game.

I bet you didn't even realize that when you are fighting Solidus at the end of the game, Solidus was actually a good guy trying to stop the Patriots. Raiden was a tool of the Patriots and has no choice but to fight Solidus even though Raiden is ironically on Solidus's side.

I truly believe either Kojomi has gone insane sort of how George Lucas went insane with Star Wars or that he truly did not want to make a fourth game and was forced to by Konami. It would explain why the game basically undid everything the other games setup. I also like how everything in the fourth game was answered with nanomachines. Sometimes if you can't come up with a good explanation, it is best not to explain it at all.

 

[Lunar Templar]

lemme see theres ...

Other M

Breath of Fire V is another black sheep, as well as franchise-killer-apparent.

glad I'm not the only one that feels that way seems like no one remembers those games anymore

DMC2
Mega Man 8
Mega Man X 7
STM: Devil Summoner
Digimon World 3, though not for being 'bad' but for really being the only good one
Bloody Roar 4

yeah, think that about covers it

 

[daveman247]

I liked MGS2, the story was pretty good and some great gameplay. Its the extra vr missions/ snake tales i like the most though. Pure concentrated MGS action. Plus the snake tales i think were better than the main game ^_^

 

[daveman247]

snip

I finally got to play MGS4 a few months ago after borrowing a friends ps3/ game. Some good parts but mostly disappointed :L I also disliked how every plot hole was explained with nanomachines.

Still, at least every loose end was tied up, one way or another.

 

[daveman247]

MGS2 was my first MGS game I ever played and since I didn't know Snake was such a badass at that time,I was ok with playing as Raiden instead of snake.

I did the same thing, the big reveal of who pliskin really was went completely over my head XD

Also at the time my child brain could make no sense of the story, or grasp the concept of stealth.

 

[TallanKhan]

Dragon Age 2, ok its barely a series with only two installments to date but i just hated it. Weak story, a real step back in character development, repetetive locations, enemies, even dialogue, a combat system that was clunky and unintuitive and overloaded with particle effects, a leveling system that activley punsihed you for finding a style you liked and sticking with it, but worst of all, the adding of horns to everything that moved in a decision that i can only assume was an attempt from somone on the design team to satisfy a weird fetish for strangely shaped heads.

 

[Yopaz]

You should look up the amount of cut content from MGS2. There's a ton of it just that we know of. Even more than we do not. That is why MGS2 is so terrible. Passable, but it was supposed to be MUCH MUCH better.

what is the black sheep of my favorite game series? uh.. I don't have a favorite game series. ANd black sheep to me would be a game that's different from the others in the series...and I can't really think of any I've played that were drastically different from the others.

jeese I cannot imagine even more of that heavy handed drivel.
Its hard to believe the game was made by the same people.
Wish they would make MGS:5 about the boss, ide love to see the pain storming Normandy and killing Nazi's with bees lol.

btw I was curious and looked up the definition of black sheep, this is what i got.
1. A sheep with black fleece.
2. A member of a family or other group who is considered undesirable or disreputable.

So I think both our definitions were wrong ;p

Actually your definition was quite sound. A black sheep is considered the outcast of an family the one that doesn't fit in. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game you don't like in a series that you love, thus you could clearly call it a black sheep.

OT: I think I'll have to go with GTA Iv even though GTA isn't my favourite series I have enjoyed all the earlier games I've played. Even the two first games are pretty good at ehat they do. However GTA IV removed the fun by introducing a lot of annoying unimportant people that wants to hang out just so you can become a falling down drunk where you spend 10 minutes just to get to your car or go bowling. I didn't buy GTA IV because I was a big fan of bowling. My black sheep right there.

 

[York_Beckett]

I think my "Black Sheep" would probably have to be Silent Hill: Origins.

I'm not even sure why I didn't like it; I think it's just the fact that it really didn't tell us anything we didn't already know about the story of Silent Hill. Also, it just didn't "grab" me like the other SH games did, even if it did have things I liked about it.

It wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't all that great either. The same goes for Homecoming, which i also thought was okay.

As for Downpour and Shattered Memories, I actually really enjoyed them both. It felt like it was going back to the older Silent Hill formula, while also managing to do their own, new thing. Neither were as good as Silent Hill 2 or 3, but both were really good in their own ways.

 

[PxDn Ninja]

I personally enjoyed MGS:2, but I have played the Metal Gear series from the beginning. That being said, it is definitely the weakest of the series, but by no means is a bad game.

As to your question of the black sheep of our favorite series, I would have to go with Wind Waker from the Zelda series. It's such a terrible game in and of itself, and made worse when you compare it to titles such as Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and even the original Legend of Zelda.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

MGS2 was my introduction to the series, and I liked it. However I agree that the original concept was much better, the game we got lacks some oomph to it.

And goddamn I am so happy, so happy to see that people are critical of MGS4. That game was awful on all accounts that I don't see how people can all MGS4 a good game and still call MGS2 bad.