I now know why everyone hates Metal Gear Solid: 2

IanBrazen

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Conrad Wentzel said:
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.


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.
No I completely understood all of the story. I think its a FANTASTIC story I just think its not told very well.
The same thing with the star wars prequels, I think they are great story's, but the story's are told very badly.
If MGS:2 was less heavy handed and it explained things more through cutscenes and game play instead of the codec I would probably enjoy it just as much as snake eater.
Matthew94 said:
The bosses are boring an unimaginative, they are probably the worst out of the 4 games.

The game essentially ends after act 2. Acts 1 and 2 were the only acts with decent gameplay, the rest is just a way to push the plot forward.

Gaping plot holes, where did raidens second arm go?

Every bloody cutscene starts with "the nanomachines..."

The codec is WOEFULLY underused and as a result all that plot trivia gets put into more cutscenes rather than bring optional.

Drebin's shop unbalances the whole game. You may say "don't use it" but it doesn't matter, 95% of gamers are still going to use it.

Big Boss coming back, really?

I could go on.
You know what, now that you mention it, the game is probably a lot worse than I let myself believe lol.
I just block out most of the bad stuff and let the good parts shine in my memory lol.
I pretty much agree with all you said.
However the one thing that really bugged me was Naomi trying to have a tragic death scene with the damn little robot. It just made me laugh.
Otacon used the stealth camo in the first game, why couldn't he use it here?

Oh and johnny is a bullshit character, and should have just stayed a joke.
lemby117 said:
IanBrazen said:
Besides the fixed camera I have no problems with the game play
Wait are you saying that the fixed camera is only present in MGS2? because thats what turned me off of the series is that not there in all the other games?
They all had fixed cameras, but mgs2 was the worst one imo. I dont mind fixed cameras as long as they are done well.
 

ten.to.ten

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I'd actually argue that if the MGS series has a black sheep it's MGS1, the only one in the series that isn't packed to the brim with fucking insano mind bending plot twists. I mean it has some plot twists, some very good ones, but when I first played MGS2 and whoever it was was revealing who The Patriots were to Raiden my jaw hit the floor, and it only escalated after that. MGS1 seems much more like a conventional, vanilla action/espionage game in comparison to the rest of them.
 

MetricFurlong

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Arqus_Zed said:
As for the third and final installments in the Shadow Hearts series... I've already voiced my complaints numerous times before: lousy characters, lame story, only five fusions (really, five? compared to the 20 of SH or the 23 of SH:C?) and no evolution what so ever in terms of graphics and gameplay. Hell, they even took a couple of steps back: the stellar chart system isn't nearly as interesting as the Key of Solomon mechanic, the CG cut-scenes aren't as impressive and most environments don't leave much of an impression. Not to mention that the franchise used to mix genuinely deep, heavy and even horrific moments with some truly funny moments. This one was just a silly slapstick fest. The only solace is that Yoshitaka Hirota still provided a kick-ass soundtrack. Still, worst way to end a trilogy. Ever.
The irony of it is that From The New World was intended to be a break from the previous games to attract new players. It didn't work, and most of it's faults just annoyed the fans of the previous games (all 12 of us). I'm still not sure what exactly whoever came-up with Mao's ability quests was thinking (other than they needed something even less practical than Hilda's shape-shifting). The story is particularly grating considering that the only real emotional depth we see in it are from the villains, while the player is stuck following the story of Blond Young Male Protagonist#73 and Miss Fanservice.
 

The Wonder of the net

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I still think that Metal Gear one two and three are good. Solid sci-fi but its the new one coming out. Rising Revengence. That sounds utterly retarded. If you are going to do "Revengence" at least put out Metal Gear Rising because at this point the plot holes with Raiden will not become clearer if you try to work at it. Just cut your losses and if you want to make a Sci-fi hack and slash make a new game franchise. Other wise still kinda looking forward to Metal Gear Rising.
 

Pink Gregory

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The Wonder of the net said:
I still think that Metal Gear one two and three are good. Solid sci-fi but its the new one coming out. Rising Revengence. That sounds utterly retarded. If you are going to do "Revengence" at least put out Metal Gear Rising because at this point the plot holes with Raiden will not become clearer if you try to work at it. Just cut your losses and if you want to make a Sci-fi hack and slash make a new game franchise. Other wise still kinda looking forward to Metal Gear Rising.
Half of the appeal of the Metal Gear series is it's audacity.

Put it this way, John Cygan has been apparently signed up as a voice actor.

John Cygan as in the voice of Solidus Snake.

Solidus Snake, who died in MGS2, and

who's body was destroyed and burned in place of Big Boss'

That's so ridiculous that it's awesome.
 

The Wonder of the net

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PieBrotherTB said:
The Wonder of the net said:
I still think that Metal Gear one two and three are good. Solid sci-fi but its the new one coming out. Rising Revengence. That sounds utterly retarded. If you are going to do "Revengence" at least put out Metal Gear Rising because at this point the plot holes with Raiden will not become clearer if you try to work at it. Just cut your losses and if you want to make a Sci-fi hack and slash make a new game franchise. Other wise still kinda looking forward to Metal Gear Rising.
Half of the appeal of the Metal Gear series is it's audacity.

Put it this way, John Cygan has been apparently signed up as a voice actor.

John Cygan as in the voice of Solidus Snake.

Solidus Snake, who died in MGS2, and

who's body was destroyed and burned in place of Big Boss'

That's so ridiculous that it's awesome.
But didn't they just leave Solidus Snake's body there? I mean it would be like taking the watch off a dead guy. He won't use it now.
*had to edit due to my bad spelling*
 

Marcus Kehoe

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But that's why MGS2 is so awesome, it's the ultimate troll game. disregarding all the thing Kojima wanted to do i'll go with whats in the game.

Spoilers

we all know we had to play Riden but we wanted snake, and so does Riden. Your basically doing everything snake does and riden want's to be snake, but he's not. your basically watching snake kick ass, snake is still the main character and your almost just a side character.

the people you are fighting are actually the good guy's and every 10 minute you find out that whatever you where just doing was not what your supposed to be doing.

And the best one is at the end. Kojima basically is making fun of you for playing the game by having everyone tell you where playing a game and that you have no life, and that you should go exercise.

kojima is the best troll, and he does it in the best way. /He makes an awesome game to cover the trolls, but oh are they there.
 

ZippyDSMlee

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I hated the music and hate the music in the GC remake of MGS 1 ;_; It threw me off the series......
 

Gone Rampant

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It's what I call "Invisible War" syndrome. The critics and newbies to the franchise loved it, but the fans hated it with a passion. For IW, it was because it had to live up to the original Deus Ex, but in the case of MGS2, it's because the fans hate Raidan more the Big Bad.
 

RJ 17

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Perhaps my problem was that MGS 2 was the first (and only) game in the series that I played, but the reason I didn't like it (other than thinking Raiden was a complete tool) was that - despite being told how the game tries to be more realistic with it's science fiction, offering actual explinations for things like what's her face having "bulletproof luck" actually being shielding technology - the game just didn't make any sense to me at the end. You defeat Vamp by knocking him into that hyper-oxygenated water (or whatever) which basically means that if you fall in, you're going straight to the bottom and it will most assuredly lead to your death. Sooooo how did Vamp come back later on? And if the entire game is real - and not as I had assumed due to the ending, a combat simulator that Raiden was plugged into - then how the hell does Snake have an actual Infinite Ammo Bandana?

Edit: I will say this, though, MGS 2 let me pull off on of the funniest things I've ever done in a videogame to this day. It was at the part where you have to dress up like a terrorist. I had gotten an alarm and had the search team called in. With absolutely NOWHERE to go, I did the only thing I could: hopped into a locker. Sure enough, they search the lockers 1 by 1, finding me standing there in the last one wearing my terrorist outfit and.....then they called off the search and went away. As though it's perfectly normal to find one of their comrades just chilling out inside of a locker. :p
 

IanBrazen

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chimeracreator said:
I haven't played the MGS series, but given the fact that his original post complained about the game's story being delivered poorly saying that he failed to understand it doesn't have an bearing on his criticism. In literature and most multimedia the rule is SHOW don't TELL. This means that you should SHOW character traits or relationships through their actions rather than delivering it via exposition because the result will always be more powerful.

In video games we get to add an extra dimension to this called DO don't SHOW. Where we can further increase the power of a plot point's delivery by reinforcing it through a player's actions or the game's mechanics. Be it in God of War where you press the buttons causing Kratos brutalize enemies or Deus Ex where as your character progresses through the game you become more than human thus delivering through mechanics the argument for transhumanism.

To use horror as an example this is what the three look like:

Tell: "I am very scared right now, a monster is trying to eat me."

Show: "Oh god oh god oh god... where is it? I can't see it... all I can hear is the scuttling."

Do: "Oh crap... it's behind me... where's the door! WHY CAN'T I OPEN THE DOOR I KEEP PRESSING E! Nooooooooo!"
That's extremely well put.MGS3 actually makes you pull the trigger that kills the boss in the end of the game, I cannot think of a better example besides the one's you already listed.
Gone Rampant said:
It's what I call "Invisible War" syndrome. The critics and newbies to the franchise loved it, but the fans hated it with a passion. For IW, it was because it had to live up to the original Deus Ex, but in the case of MGS2, it's because the fans hate Raidan more the Big Bad.
You are completely missing my point. I like Raiden. I like the game play. I like just about everything about it except the way the story is told.
I will sit through the most heavy handed drivel, and I even watch bad movies for fun. BUT when the fake Colonel Campbell is telling Raiden his evil plan for at least 10-20 mins and the only way I can entertain myself is constantly zooming in on the character portraits then the story teller has failed.
Because that is what its supposed to be about, entertainment.
This isn't the story that will change the face of the world, its supposed to be fun and engaging.
Period.
 

Thomas Hardy

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One of the things I find funny is that "The Legend of Zelda 2" and "Mario 2" here in the west were essentially games from other franchises who were repackaged into the brand to make them sell better. Hence the utterly different mechanics and style.

The first 2 Shadow Hearts games were connected to a PS1 game called "Koudekella" (s/p?) whose title character makes a cameo in SH1. (Her son happens to be a playable character too). Essentailly, either these three games simply share a continuity or the actual "Shadow Hearts Trilogy" begins with a game without "Shadow Hearts" in the title. The worst thing with New World (for me) was they totally disregarded many aspects of the Setting (in the full literary sense) laid down in previous games. Its like King Arthur pulling out an Uzi instead of Excalibur in the middle of an otherwise failthful re-telling of Arthurian legend.


Where things REALLY tend to go wrong is something every teacher on the planet SHOULD be taught before they set foot in the classroom but few learn:

"Keeping things a little different each time you give a lesson keeps things fresh and interesting. Vary the presentation a little, vary the tools, vary the challenges. Never EVER deliberately sabotage your students by testing them on material they were not prepared for or deliberately use "trick" questions because at that point you are simply making the challenge difficult without adding anything to your instruction. Simply prune away any unneccessary elements and you will be astounded by the ingenuity of your students."


--Mr. Kojima.

Please put the pencil down. Attempting at every turn to subvert a player's expectations and add unneccessary - and LENGTHY - plot twists in every installment of your games is a violation of the above rule. You may think you are being clever by subverting the scripts a player learns through gameplay to try to elevate the dramatic plot twists. Don't. Stop. Stop Immediately! Such subversions are why people hate Raiden and will continue to hate him. You programmed into MGS:2 that Raiden is NOT Solid Snake (the protagonist of your series) NOR is the Player. Your escalating use of cutscene and excessive monologue/dialaogue at the expense of action and play is not helping your games it is HURTING your games. No matter how much you may want it to be, the player is not another nameless, faceless part of the support staff and trying to deliberately seaparate the player from the actions of Solid Snake induces resentment. It would be much the same as a Chef asking restaraunt patrons not to touch the food he prepared. Removing all the familiar elements while simultanously forcing a hundred unwanted elements on us is NOT FUN. We buy your games hoping that THIS time you have finally come to your senses and STOPPED. One by one we are losing faith. Stop being clever and START being GOOD!

--Signed, a fan who stopped buying your games after the NES era.
 

Baneat

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Zenn3k said:
Everyone hates MGS2 because you play as Raiden for 90% of it.

Everyone liked Snake in MGS1, so they were expecting more Snake.
.
But that's wrong. MGS2 had far too little gameplay content and far, far too much soppy and unintelligent drivel in the form of cutscenes and codec. It wasn't cause we liked MGS1's Snake, it was that Snake was in the preview of the game as they only released the tanker mission. They appeared to have baited and switched. People acting like it's been solid snake the entire time through all the prior games? At this early stage there really was no character loyalty.

In MGS2 Raiden's fine. Apart from his stupid bishy hair he's fairly likeable and I get to stare at his package and bum an awful lot so yeah. Raiden becomes insufferable in MGS4 though.

The biggest flaw by far was the cutscene ad nauseum not Raiden's inclusion.
 

Simonoly

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The only thing I can remember about MGS2 is that part during the ending where Snake suddenly appears out of nowhere after an exciting action sequence to lecture Raiden on the meaning of reality (and bacon) with accompanying stock footage of.......stuff. I remember laughing my arse off at that. Sure, it had some interesting ideas, but at the time I just found it fucking ludicrous.
 

TehCookie

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Xiado said:
TehCookie said:
Not to mention a bishounen, for some reason guys seem to hate those characters.
I'd imagine some guys don't like those characters for the same reason a girl might be uncomfortable playing Lollipop Chainsaw or Bayonetta. It's a bit annoying to have the character representing you be a stereotype of what the other gender is supposed to find attractive, and an idiotic stereotype at that. Also, Raiden being a prettyboy wouldn't matter as much if not for the fact that he's inferior to Snake in every way.
I'm not one of the girls who has issues playing as female characters like that, which is probably why I don't understand why men hate it. The majority of the characters are idealized for men I would think they wouldn't care if they had to play on the other side of the fence for a game or two.
 

Zenn3k

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Baneat said:
Zenn3k said:
Everyone hates MGS2 because you play as Raiden for 90% of it.

Everyone liked Snake in MGS1, so they were expecting more Snake.
.
But that's wrong. MGS2 had far too little gameplay content and far, far too much soppy and unintelligent drivel in the form of cutscenes and codec. It wasn't cause we liked MGS1's Snake, it was that Snake was in the preview of the game as they only released the tanker mission. They appeared to have baited and switched. People acting like it's been solid snake the entire time through all the prior games? At this early stage there really was no character loyalty.

In MGS2 Raiden's fine. Apart from his stupid bishy hair he's fairly likeable and I get to stare at his package and bum an awful lot so yeah. Raiden becomes insufferable in MGS4 though.

The biggest flaw by far was the cutscene ad nauseum not Raiden's inclusion.
Forget about Metal Gear on the NES.

For many gamers, MSG was their first game in the series, it was certainly mine. I had an NES and all, but Metal Gear wasn't a game I played.

I played the shit out of the demo tanker mission as I was 17 when it dropped and working at my first job...gamestop (wasn't actually a gamestop when I got employed, they bought us).

I got the game on release day...played that tanker section again, this time for "real"...then Raiden showed up. I didn't even finish MSG2 on my first attempt. I got so annoyed with Raiden and as you said, the boring long dialog codec moments and just shut the game off.

But most of all, I really though Snake was a badass in MSG1, I liked the character, many others did as well. So that "bait and switch" really turned off a lot of players, myself included.

I do think MSG3 is the best in the series though. Best stealth, best action, cool and interesting boss fights (the sniper duel is the best). Can't top MSG3.

Never played MSG4, don't own a PS3.
 

Austin Howe

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Suki_ said:
Austin Howe said:
Syntax Error said:
There's a TvTropes entry for MGS2's ENDING. It concluded that MGS2 established Kojima as a Troll/Magnificent Bastard, and the fans love him for it.
I linked the essay by James Clinton Howell that linked to. I doubt people are reading it, unfortunately.
I started reading it. I stopped when I realised all he was doing was complaining that it wasnt MGS1.
That is not at all the case. The point of the essay is that every moment you expect the game to essentially fanservice you by giving you the "new and improved" version of MGS1 it absolutely refuses for very specific thematic reasons.