how many of you understood metal gear 2 story? (1 Viewer)

[felix_suwarno]

i dont understand it at all, even though the enemy characters explained everything word by word what they want to do, what they have done, and what their feelings are.

felix sucks.

 

[Joseph Young]

Felix,
You're not alone. A number of gamers have expressed discontent over the baffling and superfluous exposition in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I found it so frustrating and unfullfilling that I actually lost interest at the final boss battle with Snake
and simply stopped playing.
I think this brilliant cartoon sums it up rather nicely.
MGS2 is a game that needs to be appreciated for the small touches, much of the gameplay (what little there is in relation to the overlong cut-scenes) and Hideo's eye for detail. Taken on a larger scale, the game fails in the story department but has elements which still make it a worthy game.
Joseph

 

[Jason Quillen]

Phew. I'm about 3/4 of the way done and I've been having a little trouble grasping it thus far. The gameplay is entertaining as hell, but so far the story has really left me mostly in the dark.

On another MGS note, they need to chill out with the codec calls. Nothing annoys me more than watching a 10 min cut scene and then getting 10 codec calls without even taking a step.

JQ

 

[Scott L]

Though the first part of the game was great, I lost all interest after controlling that whiney little brat Raiden.
"We didn't do this in VR! We didn't do this in VR!!!"
I honestly didn't care for the story anymore (what little I understood) and stopped playing.
Great graphics though!

 

[Oscar_R]

I'm currently in 11th grade. I have over 60 bullies, and no friends. Get this, these bullies actually gave me some valuable rewards, but they may not know it. Think of it this way. I have a massive defense value that is more than 50% above average. With 121 being average, I currently have 194. I've taken so much damage and recovered so often, that my DEF raised so much in exchange to being more resistant [caused from such a thing called "natural selection" (?)]. The following statement may confuse you, but it is extremely amazing, and gifted by bullies: I absorb insults. All insults have a positive effect on me, not negative (!). The worse the insult, the better the effect! Strange huh? So, really, when bullies insult me, they are doing more good to me than they are to them. Weird huh?



Now, when I get to my maximum anger value (it can take up to 10 minutes to get it), I can unleash a very powerful attack that you will never be able to dodge (unless your EVA was higher than 35.6%!), and it can do as much damage to actually get someone in critical condition (us humans have 19801 HP as an average, but this attack can do about 18000 HP of damage. I've never used it, but, if anyone picks on me now, they'll really pay the price. Thankfully, as soon as I use this attack, I need to waste another 10 minutes to get it active again). Great for thieves who steal around me, because I can knock them down with this attack and my SPD! When they get me angry, I warn them carefully about it many times.



I do have a mental problem known as "OCD". I'm not sure what it is exactly, but currently I'm obsessed (sp.?) with disks, and file extensions. For example, I would finish a sentence like the following: "I like to play with computers and experiment, dot, 'e' 'x' 'e'". The extentions usually vary, but most of the time it's referring to an URL file [I often pronounce it "RL", as in "Earl"].



I have no clue why I have no friends (I may right now, but two don't seem to do much, either my way or his way). I've never had a single friend for... 6 years or so (!). What I believe it is is that whenever I do make a friend, after as little as eight days, they turn against me as if they were bullies. They never apologize, make up for it, or anything. After this happens, I try for another one. The same thing occurs again. The odd thing is that a very few are temporarily friends, but turn neutral instead of mean. They are okay, but after some circumstances (i.e. gradual neutralization), they are as if I almost never met.

 

[Gary King]

Yes...

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game that is in desperate need of a good director, script writer, and scenario designer.

What bothered me the most were the instances where I would watch a 4 or 5 minute cutscene followed by another 3 or 4 minutes of CODEC (after the first CODEC sequence, I just started reading them, rather than listening), finally return to the gameplay, walk across an empty hallway, and then watch another 4 or 5 minutes of cutscene followed by 4 or 5 minutes of CODEC.

Which wouldn't necessarily be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that the story is down right stupid (and gets worse as the game progresses -- I thought the prologue segment was pretty damn good), and there are so many segments like it.

 

[Joseph Young]

The following statement may confuse you..

Oscar, I think you've managed to one-up the script development team responsible for MGS2's convoluted plot.
You'll have to explain this one to me at Scottie's later over darts.
Joseph

 

[Oscar_R]

I would, but I'm going snowboarding with Brad. Sunday there's a bbq at Joel's house though.

Guess i should make this relevant to the thread for once huh? Personally I liked the story for the game. It wasn't till the end of the game that everything became a convoluted mess. This still did not take away from the great time I had playing, all 10 hours of it......

 

[Yoshi Sugawara]

I played the Japanese version of the game, and yes it was very convoluted, but I understood most of it.

I think the story had an overdose of plot-twists - I felt like the game was telling me, "How about THIS?!?" during the final half hour. Since the gameplay is so good, they could have just had a simple terrorists vs. good guys story and that would have been enough.

I think the Japanese screenwriting in general tends to ramble and go all over the place - so it wasn't really a surprise.

 

[Sean Oneil]

Understood, and bored as hell.

Actually, I could not take anymore of this game after the whole EE scenario -so I traded it in.

The CODEC calls were maddening! Every few steps, you get a CODEC call, and DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA. The whole thing seemed incoherent as hell. Hopefully, this will be refined if there is ever an X-Box release of this game.

The game is in need of some serious streamlining -many of the sub-plots could have been eliminated in order to move the game along more quickly. I never understood why seemingly every online and paper game mag went absolutely bonkers over this title -giving it 'Game of the Year' and 'Game of the Show' yada yada yada...

It could have been that great, but because of the execution, IMHO it wasn't.

 

[Gary King]

MGS2 didn't get any Game of the Year awards... almost all of those went to Grand Theft Auto 3 or Halo.

As for Game of the Show... only the prolog was shown at E3 (and included on the ZoE demo disk), and it was an excellent expierence. There were a couple of cutscenes, but most were short sequences of Snake looking around a corner. The gameplay was excellent, and the gameplay/cinema ratio was much higher than later in the game.

The last hour of the game was painful (watch 30 minute video, 5 minute boss fight, followed by 30 minute video... those credits just did *not* want to end.

 

[felix_suwarno]

YIPPEEEEEE!!!!!

i thought i was the only one who hated that game very very very muuuuuuch.

i feel sane again.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Loved the game, could care less about Raiden (he plays the same, so what if I hate the character), and the story was a little too complex, weird, and crazy, but I loved the game overall.

I seriously think they should have spanned the story over several games instead of just one. Granted, it would have to take place somewhere else each time, but it would have come out better.

I like the fact that a lot of it came out like an action movie. The AI, the cinematics, the voice acting, and the realism really pulled me in.

 

[Sean Oneil]

Gary, you are correct MGS2 was runner-up. I guess all the months and months of praise from IGN tricked my brain.
Way off topic for a moment: You may want to check out IGN for some new video of Xenosaga -during combat. It is kind of choppy looking, but I am hoping that is the fault of the CODECand the amount of compression used in the video.
It has some pretty cool battle scene featuring a few mechs fighting it out along with some human? characters. The combat looks a bit slower paced then the original ...I hope that there are no random encounters.

 

[Romier S]

I hope that there are no random encounters.

Nope. Last I read one of the first things they decided was to remove random encounters. You will be able to see your enemies on screen ala Chrono Cross. If anyone has heard different please enlighten us.

 

[Sean Oneil]

Last I read one of the first things they decided was to remove random encounters

That is good news indeed. Now lets all hope that FF XII will follow that example.

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

Here's what I understood the mess of a story to be:

The whole thing was a VR mission. the Patriots wanted to see how far they can make us (the gamer) go. When raiden refers to all his previous VR missions, I think he's referring to the game "MGS: VR Missions". There is even video shown from this game. This tells me that Raiden was there to represent us (the gamer). The game said, The whole plant sequence was a simulation of Shadow Moses (from MGS). Even the characters were similar.

President = Darpa Chief

Ocelot= Ocelot

Emma= Meryl?

Fatman= Raven

Vamp= Mantis

Fortune= Sniper Wolf

Olga= Ninja

Solidus= Liquid

The "Patriots" tested us with the original MG for the Nintendo (in the 80's, when we were about Raidens age?), followed by VR Missions, followed by another test with the MGS2 demo, followed by the final test in MGS2. I believe they said that if we had let the plant blow up, the session would have ended right there. Even when we "died", we would hit continue. Snake was not supposed to be in the Plant, because he shouldn't have been part of the mission. But he snuck in. And Liquid shouldn't have been a factor, but he too snuck in. Either way, some gamers anticipated the release of the game, lost sleep, and played for hours. I can't remember if the "Patriots" made reference to this or not. I think they did, but I can't remember the exact wording. They succeeded in creating a Super Soldier. The Super Soldier was each and every one of us. That's what I think the game was trying to tell me. I doubt if it's right. Somehow Raiden develops his own consciousness and doesn't know why he's wearing someone elses dog tags
. Again, this is only my opinion, but it's the best I've heard so far.

 

[NickSo]

Nothing annoys me more than watching a 10 min cut scene and then getting 10 codec calls without even taking a step.

Hell yeah... THats why i dont like the metal gear series... Too much cutscenes and movies and stuff, not enough play time. If i want a good story and plot, i watch a movie!, or the devs weren't good enough to deliver the story without resulting to numerous cutscenes etc...
But thats just me, im very impatient with video games... only like a handful of my games have a story to them, most are racers, sports, FPS, all of which dont have stories...
But dont get me wrong, im not against ALL story lines, but as long as they're second to the fun and action, im all for it. Like headhunter, theres much more action (which to me = fun), and very little cutscenes... and also, MGS requires TOO much stealth and puzzles, not enough shooting and stuff...
This is also why i despise turn-based RPGs, though Real-time ones vary from game to game since some stories in RPGs are different... Shenmue 1 i managed to play throuhg it... The framerates and slowdown in Shenmue2 has me not playing it... but i will get to it sometime...

 

[felix_suwarno]

if the whole thing was a vr mission, how could snake snuck in?

and i hate turn based rpg with random encounters = i hate FF

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

Felix, I can't explain how Snake snuck in....nor can I explain how Liquid lives on in an arm....nor can i explain how Raiden can walk around carrying all kinds of heavy weaponry (stinger, nikita, etc..) and hide it nicely in his suit. Somethings just require us to leave our rationale at the door. I can't recall the exact quote, but I believe that Campbell and Rose tell Raiden that he's in a VR mission. I could be wrong. I still like the game quite a bit though.