No Snake Charmer (Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty (PS2))

Member Name: buttonman

Product:	Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty (PS2)
Date:	15/03/02 (411 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks nice,great action

Disadvantages: Ponderous cut scenes,seems disjointed

Metal Gear Solid 2 : The Sons of Liberty is the most hyped game in history bar none. Forget Final Fantasy, Monopoly or Naughts and Crosses this was seemingly going to be the daddy of them all. As with all great works we were made to wait. With numerous release dates put back the game was finally released in March 2002. If you are cynical like me you'll think Sony planned it this way so as to steal some the X-box's thunder, this console being released scant days later. Still, wrapped up in the hype I paid £270 to play this game not previously having owned the Playstation 2 console nor it's ridiculously overpriced £27.99 memory card. The man in the shop said I was not alone with all of their 100+ copies of this £44.99 title flying off their shelves on release day.

So having paid the price was it worth it? Hmmm let's review the evidence?.

GAME
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No doubt you know all about Metal Gear Solid which premiered on the Playstation three years ago. Briefly you play as Solid Snake a member of Fox Hound who is charged with retaking a base overrun by terrorists. Using a variety of weapons such as a rocket launcher, sniper rifle and machine gun you tackle a wide array of enemies with great names such as Revolver Ocelot and Psycho Mantis. After a lot of twists and double-crosses you face off against your brother, Liquid, and save the day. The titular Metal Gear is a large tank thing that has nuclear capabilities and stopping this is your primary concern.

In 'Sons of Liberty' we find that Metal Gear technology has proliferated with these weapons now in all hands. Our hero Snake and his hacker pal Otacon are part of a body charged with monitoring the Metal Gear programs and stopping the technology falling into the wrong hands.**SPOILER ALERT**

The game opens with Snake's familiar voice over as we watch a man in a mac cross a bridge. We soon realise its Snake as he turns invisible and jumps off the bridg
e and onto a passing boat. After a lengthy cut scene during which your aims and the game controls are explained the fight is on. On this level your task is to located and photograph the new Metal Gear which we later learn is amphibious and called 'Metal Gear Ray'. Things soon go awry when terrorists capture the ship with you armed only with a tranquilliser gun.

This section took me about two hours to finish first time around but given practice it represents an hour's gameplay at most. After a long cut scene the second section of the game begins. This is set two years later on board an anti pollution rig set up to contain the oil spill caused when the ship in section one sank. This time the ubiquitous terrorists have kidnapped the president and threatened to blow up the rig causing an environmental disaster. Initially you assume you are still playing as Snake but when he takes off his mask you see you are playing a blonde pretty boy called Raiden. After a while you meet the real Snake who is masquerading as a Navy SEAL.

The rush is now on to save the president and defuse the bombs.This section takes a lot longer and in truth I've yet to best the final boss.The weapons appear thick and fast but somewhat disappointingly they are all the same as the first game.There are two sniper sections which are good as you can now use the PSG-1 standing up.

The bosses are part of a bad guy group called 'Dead Cell' and I didn't think them a patch on the first game baddies. You take on 'Fatman' (read my diet opinion!) who plants bombs,Vamp a vampire and Fortune a seemingly unkillable opponent.None of these had any great moves and all were dispatched with little effort.

Predictably the game twists and turns with a final twist that'll surprise and enrage you in equal measure.y finish time will be around 12 hours but next time I'll race through it - if I can be bothered. Most of the bonus items are awarded f
or times under three hours so clearly we are not talking about hours of gameplay here.

The game does offer 50 different rankings with top dog being 'Big Boss'.I think I'm heading for 'YTS Trainee'! The cut scenes get worse with one taking thirty minutes! Most of it is utter bull plop with Jack and Rose wittering on for hour for o good reason. We also get a tiresome exchange between Otacon and his sister that rambles on - where's my Stinger missiles!

THOUGHTS
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Clearly this is an important game for Sony and gaming in general. Dooyoo's category for this title had twenty reviews before it was even released all slobbering over the brief highlights on the demo disc. Can it fail? Probably not but it is by no means perfect.

When you load up the game you get a choice of action levels based on how well you performed on the previous game. I chose 'finished it loads of times' and was shot to ribbons immediately. The controls do differ slightly from the original and it takes time to learn a lot about some of the new moves. The innovations don't change much but are good fun. For example if you sneak up on a guard and point your gun he'll usually surrender and start shaking allowing you to grab the contents of his pockets. These can include dog tags, which are inscribed with the names of competition winners and can be viewed on a separate menu. Pointless but fun. You also get a first person view mode which is great for aiming those tricky shots.

Other elements added included better intelligence for the enemies. They now see their fallen comrades meaning you have to hide the bodies to avoid detection. You can also leave girlie pictures to distract them! There is also an enemy attack squad, which is three guys with shields who appear when you've been sighted and who generally beat the tar out of you. I did feel the first section was somewhat limited with Snake armed only with a t
ranq gun. All the baddies have machine guns why doesn't he grab them? Latterly you do get a machine pistol and a Soccom pistol early in section two.The rest show up near the end but I found no use for the C4 (explosives) or the Claymores (mines) and many other items seemed to be there for show alone.

On the graphics front things are glorious. Rain falls into puddles and blood stays on the walls. To be picky some things don't look real such as Snake's bandanna which floats around with a life of it's own. The detail is great though with most things explodable such as the melons on the kitchen.

The biggest downside for me is the flow of the game. Similar to the first you have a Codec, which transmits messages. Sometimes it rings and someone says 'That door is busted, try another' duh thanks. True you can skip through these but first time through you can't tell what will be irrelevant. You also get a lot of cut scenes and I mean a lot. Some are twenty minutes long! I was bored rigid as the protagonists jabbered on about all sorts of nonsense about the meaning of proverbs and what day tomorrow is.

The designers are clearly going for the epic feel with layers of story line and rafts of moralising rubbish. We bought this for action not so we could realise your actions may influence future generations, Snake! I do feel the game designers have started believing their own hype and are using the game as a platform to tell us all to be nice. Yeah, yeah but where is my rocket launcher!

BONUS
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A bonus disc is included with this packaged and as it's DVD format you don't have to watch it on your PS2. Most of the stuff is familiar back-story and designer profiles but there is a pretty decent hour long 'making of' documentary. It warns you not to watch before finishing the game but I did anyway and didn't learn that much. The game creator clearly sees himself as a god like being tel
ling us all about his message and that as Snake passes on his knowledge he does too, to his subordinates at the Konami cookie cutter!

RESULT
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Style wins over substance 2:1

Summary: