| Publisher: |
Developer: |
Genre: |
Players: |
ESRB: |
| Konami |
Konami JPN |
Action |
1 |
M |
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
Reviewed by: DarkClown
Hideo Kojima is considered a genious among most gamers who have played his games, and this reflects in Metal Gear Solid 2. The gameplay is fun and addicting, and while getting stressful at times it's never enough to make you want to stop playing the game. The controls are good, but sometimes feel a bit akward moving around with the analog stick because one can tell that it was meant to be played using a d-pad. The graphics are extremely dated, but were top of the line when it was first released a year or so ago. For a reason that is beyond me, there is a lot of slowdown in the game, which only strikes me as poor programming because I noticed no slowdown on the PS2 version.
Gameplay: Gameplay is where Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance excels. The radar system is excellent, but after you beat the game you will be too dependant on that, as is shown when most gamers play through the "Snake Tales" he has no radar, so it is much more difficult. The game is like an interactive movie, which is good but can sometimes get aggrivating because you find yourself wanting to play, not watch the cutscenes every couple of minutes. The cutscenes are also very well done, and look excellent. Later on in the game the cutscenes get to be excrutiatingly long, but they're quite rewarding if you do watch through them because the game is full of interesting plot twists.
Graphics: The graphics are grainy, and pixellated. Of course no one noticed this a year ago when the game first came out on the PS2, but now with games like Splinter Cell and even Halo they just put this games graphics to shame. Although grainy by todays standards, the game is very detailed, so this gives it more points in the graphics area. When the player shoots a bag of, say, flour, it goes everywhere and makes a huge mess. Not only is this a cool effect, but is also useful in the gameplay because you can use that to see some infrared lasers (among various other ways). It's also detailed down to the Maxim advertisements on the wall, or the bottles that shatter magnificently as you shoot them with your gun. I am being harsh on the graphics for a reason, this is the XBOX, and with games out that excel this area and also gameplay it shows that gameplay doesn't have to suffer as the graphics get better so there really is no excuse for poor graphics. Except that it's a port of a PS2 game, but they could have at least smoothened it out a bit.
The animation is great, but also is way over-used. An example of this would be when you shoot someone, and kill them with one shot them always grasp out for you as if somehow hoping to get help from you before they fall over motionless. This was a, for lack of better word, an interesting animation the first time you see it. But, it gets old after a while when you're plowing through hordes of enemies and they are all doing the same animation!
Controls: The controls are great, except you can really only move in eight directions since it was originally made for the d-pad. Sometimes Raiden would find himself running into many walls as I struggled with the controls in tight spaces, or sometimes even falling off rafters. I was suprised at how well the PS2 controls translated to the XBOX controller, other than the minor complaint about the d-pad to analog controls, it works quite well. The only other thing that there is to gripe about is the camera view, which got very aggrivating. It would have been nice to be able to rotate the camera so the player could look around instead of being constricted to the area of view from above.
Replay: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance has awesome replay value. The game originally was critisized for being so short (I beat it in about 8 hours the second time through) so the added bonuses are welcomed with arms wide open. After you beat the game, or before you beat it if you choose so, there are "VR Missions" and "Snake Tales". These are both great bonuses that are like gifts to XBOX owners for waiting the extra year to play, and it almost makes it worth the wait. You won't be beating everything in MGS2 in a week, and you'd be lucky to beat everything in a month because there is just so much material here.
Sound: The sound effects are the same throughout the game, and aren't anything really to go on about. The footsteps change sounds when on metal versus concrete, and each gun has it's own sound. That is about as good as it gets though, because the rest of the sounds are highly overused. When shooting someone, they make the same sound or two when you fire the killing round. Not that this ever gets tiresome, but it could have used a few different sounds.
Overall Presentation: Overall, Metal Gear Solid 2 was an amazing theatrical experience. It seemed more like a movie than a game because you spend just about half the time watching cutscenes or reading conversations on the "CODEC". The cutscenes were well done, and fit the gameplay well. You will feel satisfied after beating the game, similar to the feeling you get after watching a killer James Bond movie.
Scores:
Gameplay:  9.6
Graphics:  7.5
Controls: 7.8
Replay: 9.8
Sound: 7.6
Total Score:  8.4
|
