By: Ozzymadeo

I tend to think that Sony held back the good games just to compete with the X-Box and Gamecube. We've seen highly anticipated games such as Soul Reaver 2, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3 come out. All had hype and various levels of success. But I think its pretty safe to say, that the level of anticipation for these games was nothing in comparision to that of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

The original Metal Gear Solid was about as close as you could get to a perfect game. Holding high marks in every category, its success was well deserved. And when the sequel was announced the hype machine was on. I hate to say this, but I don't think Metal Gear Solid 2 meets the hype. If you don't want spoilers, then quit reading right now.

From the get go, you're going to be hooked. Once again to take on the role of Solid Snake and this time you're back to kick some more Metal Gear ass. Or are you? For the first hour or two of the game, Snake sneaks through a large tanker that houses the latest variation in the Metal Gear line. After that, no more Snake. Thats right. No more Solid Snake.

"WTF" you ask? My thoughts exactly. After the first part of the game you take over the role of "Raiden" a rook fresh off a heaping load of VR training. The bulk of this game features him, doing much of the same things that Snake did in the original. You do eventualy run into Snake, and trust me, the "Escape from New York" reference is lost on nobody. But how can this
really be a Metal Gear game if you're not actualy playing Snake? I bought this game for Snake, not "Raiden". If I wanted Raiden, I'd go play one of the thirteen thousand Mortal Kombat games. I suppose playing as Raiden wouldn' be so bad if he wasn't such a greenhorn who comes off at times as an ignorant fool.

Its said that a hero is only as good as his villians. And in this game, the villians were certainly lacking. "Dead Cell" is nothing compared to the Fox Hound group from the first game. Fortune has some great background music, Vamp is an adequate villian and Ocelot is as good as ever. Still, they're no Foxhound.

A few old characters come back. Solid Snake of course. And Otacon. Plus another character or two that'll bring back some fond memories. Still, character wise, the game is lacking.

The gameplay is of course strong and even improved upon from the first game. Small things like hanging off a catwalk add a lot to the game. Shooting in the first person mode is a wonderful option that I highly recommend you abuse as much as possible.

Thus far, with the current marks I'd say the game would be running somewhere around a "D". The real trick comes with the story. The story starts out strong and gradualy develops into an egrossing plot of many twists and turns. But it just doesn't know when to stop. Eventualy the twists and turns just get annoying and the layers of conspiracy just get more and more
convoluted. I realize they've got a lot more space to work with on DVD-Rom disks but good God, you don't have to fill it all with dialogue. The most hideous example of this would be the hour long combination of movie and dialogue before the final boss fight. I crap you not. A full hour!

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a good game. Its just not the game that it was hyped to be. Then again, if you only play as Snake for 15% of the game, then its not a true Metal Gear Solid game, now is it?

Overall Grade: B-