Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (メタルギア ソリッド2　サンズ・オブ・リバティ) (commonly abbreviated as MGS2) is a stealth action game directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It is the fourth game in the Metal Gear series produced and directed by Kojima and the direct sequel to Metal Gear Solid. Its release was followed by an expanded edition, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, a prequel to the entire Metal Gear series, followed in 2004. In 2008, a direct sequel, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released.

The game was well-received, shipping over 7 million copies worldwide and scoring a metascore of 96 on Metacritic. While the gameplay was almost universally acclaimed, reviewers were divided on the philosophical nature and execution of the game's storyline, which explores the themes of memes, social engineering, political conspiracies, and artificial intelligence.

Plot
Two years after the Shadow Moses Incident, Solid Snake and Otacon, working as Philanthropy, receive intelligence of a new type of Metal Gear being transported through the Hudson River. As Snake boards the tanker, it's seized by a group of Russian mercenaries led by Revolver Ocelot, intent on stealing the new Metal Gear.


 * For a full summary of the Tanker chapter see Tanker Incident.

Another two years later and the Big Shell, the offshore clean up facility constructed in its place is taken over by a terrorist faction calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. New FOXHOUND operative Raiden is sent in to neutralize the threat, but not everything is as it seems.


 * For a full summary of the Plant chapter see Big Shell Incident.

Theme
Memetic engineering (the theory that ideas, beliefs and thoughts can be isolated and controlled) is the theme of this game. The aim of The Patriots is to control the flow of information through society, censoring the public from the things they don't want shared. Solid Snake's philosophy is that humanity needs to find something worth believing in and pass it on to future generations.

Substance is also a theme within the game, as Raiden is a blank character, as he is essentially controlled and used his entire life. In the beginning, he fully believes himself to be Solid Snake, until the notion of meeting the "Real" Solid Snake shows up. When Rose tells him about his room, its an all white room, with nothing but a bed and a desk within it. When he finally meets with Solidus, who had been the first to bring Raiden into war, he ends up having his own substance and personality, as taking down his "father" so to speak, and proclaiming his love to Rose, although she herself was also part of the "Meme" theme up there. The Patriots made the two meet, but there was a false relationship up there, and at the end, it was a true, just love between the two. Raiden was full.

Gameplay
Metal Gear Solid 2 carries the title of "Tactical Espionage Action," and most of the game involves the protagonist sneaking around avoiding being seen by the enemies. The game also features much more elements than its predecessor. The new first-person aiming mode allows players to target specific points in the game, greatly expanding tactical options, while guards can be blinded by steam and distracted by thrown objects. The player can now walk slowly, allowing them to sneak over noisy flooring without making a sound, or hang off walkways to avoid guards. The corner-press move from the original title, which allowed players a sneak peek around the next bend, is expanded to allow players to fire from cover.

The guards were given more advanced AI "to prevent an imbalance of power," and unlike the original Metal Gear Solid, work in squads. They call on their radios for a strike team upon seeing the player, then attempt to flank them and cut off their escape while avoiding the player's attacks. Often strike teams will carry body armor and riot shields, making them an even greater threat. The player can hide from guards and strike teams by hiding in places such as lockers or bathroom stalls.

Boss battles and set-pieces remain a case of finding a strategy that bypasses the defenses of the enemy. However, in a major break from action game standards, it is also possible to clear the entire game, including boss fights, without causing a single deliberate death, through use of tranquilizer guns, stun grenades, and melee attacks.

The game also features a new character that the player play as for most of the game. While Solid Snake is playable, most of the game revolves around the new character Raiden, who is more athletic and maneuverable than Snake.

Development
According to Hideo Kojima, who directed the game, in the documentary Metal Gear Saga Vol. 1, the original plot of the game revolved around nuclear weapon inspections in Iraq and Iran and had Solid Snake trying to stop the Metal Gear while it was located on an aircraft carrier, in a certain time limit, while trying to stop Liquid Snake and his group (implying that Liquid Snake had faked his death from FOXDIE in the previous game). However, about six months into the project tensions in the Middle East began to arise, so the development team decided that they couldn't make a game with such a plot. The tanker in the released game is based on this original plot.

Significant changes to the game's ending were made late in development following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, where the finale occurs. A sequence depicting Arsenal Gear's displacement of the Statue of Liberty and crashing through half of Manhattan was removed, as was a short coda to appear after the credits, consisting of a newscast showing the Statue of Liberty's new resting place on Ellis Island. At the point where Solidus Snake dies, Raiden was supposed to have cut the rope on Federal Hall's flagpole, causing an American flag to fall over Solidus' body, though the development team removed all the American flags from the game.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was also intended to reference the novel City of Glass, a novel by Paul Auster published in 1985, notably in the naming of its characters. Raiden's support team originally featured a field commander named Daniel Quinn (simply referred as the "Colonel" in-game); Maxine "Max" Work, an Asian woman who saves game data and quotes Shakespeare; and William "Doc" Wilson, the creator of GW. All take their names from key characters in the book, and all three would have turned out to be AIs. None of these characters survived to the final edition, their roles being absorbed by other characters, namely the "Colonel Campbell" simulation, Rose, and Emma Emmerich. Peter Stillman, however, takes his name from another City of Glass character.

There were also originally plans for it to include two-player compatability, but it ended up dropped for unknown reasons.

Music
Kojima's choice of composer for Metal Gear Solid 2 was highly publicized in the follow-up to the game's release. Kojima decided upon Harry Gregson-Williams, a Hollywood film composer from Hans Zimmer's studio, after watching The Replacement Killers with sound director Kazuki Muraoka. A mix CD containing 18 tracks of Gregson-Williams' work was sent to his office. Flattered by the research put into creating the CD (as some of the tracks were unreleased, and that what tracks he'd worked on for some films were undocumented), he joined the project soon after.

In order to bypass the language barrier and allow the score to be developed before the cutscenes were finalized, Gregson-Williams was sent short phrases or descriptions of the intended action. The resultant themes then shaped the action sequences in return. Gregson-Williams also arranged and re-orchestrated the original "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" for use in the game's opening title sequence.

Norihiko Hibino, who had composed the music for Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, was responsible for all of the in-game music. He also worked on the majority of the game's cutscenes, re-orchestrating Gregson-Williams' "Main Theme" remix for use in several sequences.

As with Metal Gear Solid, the cutscene music includes orchestral and choir pieces, while the in-game soundtrack is scored with ambient electronic music. However, the score as a whole incorporates more electronic elements than its predecessor, in order to reflect the plot's thematic thrust of a machine-dominated society. Rika Muranaka again provided a vocal ending theme, a jazz track entitled "Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday", sung by Carla White. The game's music was released via 4 CDs: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Original Soundtrack, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Soundtrack 2: The Other Side, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Limited Sorter (Black Edition) and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Ultimate Sorter (White Edition).

Reception
As a result of promising trailers and the huge commercial success of its predecessor Metal Gear Solid, there was a high level of anticipation and hype in the gaming community surrounding the release of Metal Gear Solid 2. Metal Gear Solid 2 received a large amount of critical and fan praise upon its release, maintaining a critical average of 95% on Game Rankings, marking it the 4th highest game on the PlayStation 2 and the 17th highest overall on the site, and scoring a metascore of 96 on Metacritic. The game also sold sold over 7 million copies worldwide and won multiple "Game of the Year" awards.

While critics praised the game's level of graphical detail, in particular the use of in-game graphics to render plot-driving cut scenes, the title's storyline was the source of mixed opinions. The storyline explores many philosophical and cyberpunk themes in great detail. Although some have praised Kojima's script, others considered the plot to be "incomprehensible" and overly heavy for an action game. Some also felt that the lengthy dialogue sections heavily disrupted the gameplay, and that the dialogue itself was overly disjointed and convoluted.

Fans were taken by surprise that they took the role of Raiden during the entirety of the Plant chapter. Overall reaction in North America and Europe were negative towards the introduction of Raiden, and was neutral in Japan. Another dispute was the cutscenes which were considerably longer than the cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid, leading to complaints that Metal Gear Solid 2 was more like a movie with interactive sequences rather than a "Tactical Espionage" game.

Regardless of the mixed reviews of the game's drift from action based espionage and its very lengthy cutscenes and confusing nature, the game is still considered a staple in the genre of stealth games, with over 7 million copies sold resulting in the game being the best-selling game in the stealth game genre to date.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance went multi-platform in spring 2003, being released on the Xbox and Microsoft Windows. The new version included several new gameplay modes such as boss survival and the return of VR training and some minor graphical enhancements. The Windows version required an upgrade due to its high graphic content in which the user would need a DVD drive to play the game. Substance appeared on the PlayStation 2 several months later, releasing at the same time that the original version was added to Sony's Greatest Hits lineup.

Additions and changes in Substance include:
 * Addition of a Boss Survival mode (was already included in the EU version of Metal Gear Solid 2).
 * Addition of Skateboarding minigame (PS2 only).
 * Addition of 5 "Snake Tales", feature sized games.
 * Addition of over 500 VR and Alternative missions.
 * Addition of Casting Theater (was already included in the EU version of Metal Gear Solid 2).
 * Alterations of names on Dog Tags.
 * Alterations of Thermal Goggles graphics.

The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2
In the month of September 2002, a Making of interactive disc was released in Japan and North America titled The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2. The disc contained VR Missions, a built-in soundtrack, the mechanics and areas of the game, as well as the ability to look at player polygons. It wasn't literally a "documentary" in a sense as it was more interactive to a degree as it served it's purpose to show the entire game of Metal Gear Solid 2.

It was eventually released in Europe in March 2003, but cost nothing, instead packaged free with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance to compensate for its late release.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinée
An interactive novel similar to Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel based on the Metal Gear Solid 2 comic was released in Japan on June 12, 2008, titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinée. It was released on a DVD and features Japanese voice acting, unlike the Digital Graphic Novel.

Novel
A novelization written by Raymond Benson was released on November 24, 2009. It covers the complete story and was released in Europe in February 2010.

Trivia

 * Metal Gear Solid 2 is the first game to hint that the clones of Les Enfants Terribles age at an acceleated rate, given Liquid Ocelot's comments to Solid Snake aboard the U.S.S. Discovery, and Solidus Snake's advanced age.
 * When the player is aboard Arsenal Gear and fighting through the waves of Tengu soldiers, the screen will suddenly change to the "Mission Failed" screen, but will instead read "Fission Mailed," and instead of a shot of the character's death, the player can still control said character. The word "Exit" is also rendered as "Emit" and "Continue" will be rendered as "Continent".
 * If Raiden calls Pliskin while in the ladies' room, Pliskin will say that he has snuck into similar places in the past. This is a reference to both Metal Gear Solid, when he went into the ladies' room to meet up with Meryl Silverburgh, and the earlier Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, when he did the same in order to meet with Gustava Heffner.
 * Also, if Raiden calls Rosemary, she will show disgust and deem Raiden a pervert, much like how Mei Ling reacted when Snake went into the women's bathroom in Metal Gear Solid. This will also occur if Raiden does anything perverted like taking pictures of another woman's panties.
 * During those conversations, the Colonel will say that he is disappointed, but also tell Raiden to keep the pictures or that he "sympathises" with him.

Notes and references
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