I recently beat Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2) for the first time and by golly is it a strange game. All the silly ridiculousness of Metal Gear Solid 1 is pushed to an higher level, and the serious topics become ever more abstract and heavy. In MGS2 you have both a fancy dancing vampire who can walk on water, as well questions about human nature and the power of memetic legacy. It feels like a game at war with itself: there is extreme camp and extreme seriousness. I believe the dissonance created by extreme camp, and heady seriousness is exactly what makes Metal Gear Solid 2 so memorable.
Things kick off with a bang (literally) in the first mission, but after its completion the game says “You know that protagonist we’ve established in previous games, the one you’ve been playing for the past hour sneaking around a ship? Well fuck you, here’s our new guy”. If I was playing in 2002 the game would have totally subverted my expectations, but I’m a fantastical space man of the future where information never dies, so I was aware of MGS2s infamous bait and switch opening. Enter Raiden, voiced by Quinten Flynn (got it memorized?), who in almost every way is the opposite of our established series protagonist Snake.
Metal Gear Solid established Snake as a gritty, experienced, no-nonsense, multi-talented, action hero badass who could give any hollywood cliché a run for their money. Snake’s confidence is backed up by experience. At the start of Solid 1 he’s already successfully completed two mission and killed the legendary mercenary Big Boss. In MGS his character develops further, from action hero badass to…well an action hero badass who’s a bit more self aware. Raiden, on the other hand would be more at home in an anime drama with his flair for the dramatics. He starts of cocky and confident, but it’s a much different confidence than Snake’s.
Raiden’s confidence is presented to us as a false pretense; supposedly gained only from VR training he’s gone through. In his own words Raiden says “I feel like some kind of legendary mercenary”. I can’t deny this, I can’t tell him how he FEELS, but the game is quick to slap him in the face and remind him he’s just a scrub hyped up on VR. Things don’t get any easier for Raiden. He begins to lose his cool and start to panic as what he understood as his reality unravels around him.
Raiden’s descent is highlighted by the fact that he’s the only character in the game who experiences any real development or growth. Everyone else we see is fairly one dimensional, not demonstrating much growth during the events of the game! Especially not Snake, he seems to exist to be that cardboard cutout version of his most badass elements from MGS1. Antagonists aren’t much better: Solidus isn’t a particularly memorable villain with his knockoff doc-oc suit, and muscles that can SWOLE at will; Vamp is pure camp; Emma is there to make Otacon cry again; Ocelot is there to be a turncoat, Olga doesn’t shave her armpits; and Fortune does stuff. Honestly I had to go look up a list of these characters names because so many of them are so non-essential to the meat of what I feel this game is trying to tell. Fortune, I had to look up Fortune okay.
I mean Fortune’s character is perfectly fine, and the voice acting isn’t bad. She’s motivated by revenge, her preferred weapon is a railgun that would look more at home mounted to the back of a military jeep, and she gets an incredible Jean Gray moment towards the end of the game…but nothing really happens with her…She’s just kind of there being a sad sack. Which I guess was the point…And most of my arguments about the frivolousness of the supporting cast can be refuted by that very statement. Towards the end of the game when you get the massive exposition dump its learned that everything you’re doing was an elaborate simulation of what Snake went through during Shadow Moses, so I guess they’re not supposed to be that memorable. MGS2’s supporting cast is there to just fill roles in a simulation…oh yea I forgot Fatman too.
But a supporting cast of husks works to the game’s favor because it drives the focus to Raiden who unlike his fellows goes through an incredible amount of growth. Starting as a cocky, whiny face-punchable sap, he begins to question his orders, question his mission, question reality itself! He sticks up for himself and his feelings, he becomes more self-actualized, and eventually accepting his convoluted, dark past saying “Fuck it, I’m gonna be my own person” deciding to become the master of his own fate. Like a bunch of happy clowns dancing around a sobbing man whose sadness is emphasized through contrast.
But you know where there isn’t much contrast, there isn’t much dissonance, and there isn’t much to remember? The combat. MGS2 plays almost exactly like MGS1, in fact most of your weapons are identical, and some of them even operate more poorly than they did in the game that came before (I’m looking at you Nikita). I don’t have much to say about the combat in MGS2 because what is there to say? Did you play MGS1? Did you like the claustrophobic camera angles and staring at the soliton radar? Then you’ll like MGS2 just fine. I did, it was fun enough, but its simply less memorable than other elements.
Memorable is the word I’d use to describe Metal Gear Solid 2 overall; the game possesses a striking quality that is hard to forget. Yea, the writing is questionable at times, and most of the characters are obnoxious at worst and forgettable at best, but there is something charming about just how earnestly the game wants you to take its message seriously. I was lulled into a false sense of comfort by the both over the top and boring as shit side characters and main objective of “save the president” that I was blindsided when the game handed me a Katana and then proceeded to question my understanding of reality and the meaning of truth. It certainly got me to think. GW talking about how much data we generate is junk…how misinformation is spread easily, rewarding the development of “convenient half-truths”, how humans are unqualified to determine what is passed on… Individuals having too much power for an “immature species”. It’s the “humans are the real virus” trope but framed here and in our current climate it speaks quite profoundly. Its awkward, and campy, and poorly written, but I will not forget this game, it has seared itself into my memory like a showtune singing chestbuster.