Moose tries to play Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

I say "tries to", because even though I'll be playing on Easy, it wouldn't necessarily be the difficulty that would cause problems. I'm just not that fond of stealth on general, and the gameplay in MGS always seemed weird to me. But the MGS collection popped up on Plus for Vita so I thought I'd give it a try. I watched a playthrough of MGS1 and actually liked it quite a lot. I liked the characters, the way they interacted, I liked the plot (as mad as it was), loved all the weird meta 4th-wall-breaking stuff, and the attention to detail and numerous easter eggs were very impressive for a PS1 game.

So on to MGS2.

Two years after riding into the Alaskan sunset with Meryl Snake is back hunting Metal Gears. Ocelot got away with all the data at the end of MGS1 so now everyone can build a Metal Gear, but Snake is after a particular one that's supposed to be better than all the others, that's supposedly in a ship on the Hudson River. Ocelot is watching, and he got a new hand from somewhere.

An early example of why I don't get on with MGS:

I'm sneaking down a hall and Otacon calls to warn me about the laser detection beams. He says to break open a fire extinguisher to show where the beams are so I can avoid them. Seems easy enough. I walk towards the fire extinguisher and set off the lasers. BOOM. Game Over. Next time I shoot the extinguisher. Now I can see where the beams are and crawl under them. I wander through the next room, come back having forgotten about the lasers, and walk straight into them again. But I noticed that the extinguisher powder made Snake sneeze, which was cool.

I liked that the first boss battle of the game was against a pregnant woman. I also liked that she had armpit hair. I can't remember ever seeing a woman with armpit hair in any entertainment medium where it wasn't just a joke about how ugly or dirty the woman was. Hideo Kojima is a genius.

MGS2 is garbage. Only Baal likes it.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

I liked the plot (as mad as it was)

You're going to love this then.

My second encounter with lasers didn't go any better. No fire extinguishers around, but Otacon told me to shoot the control panel. The control panel is the bit with the green light. So I shoot that, walk forward, and still get blown up. There was another control panel hidden where the green light wasn't visible that I also had to shoot. Hideo Kojima's a tosser.

Kaio wrote:

MGS2 is garbage. Only Baal likes it.

I like it. ...But then, I also like DMC2. So I guess I'm always gonna be "that one guy". -_-

Okay, got into the ship's hold where the new Metal Gear, RAY, is being kept. Got caught a few times because I didn't realise the metal floor plates made your footsteps louder, even though it doesn't actually sound any louder. Took some photos of Metal Gear RAY as proof that the marines were secretly building it.

But then the Russians that had taken over the ship turned up, with Ocelot. They wanted to steal Metal Gear to revive Mother Russia and all that bollocks. The same plot that everything with Russian villains in it uses, yawn. But Ocelot betrayed them and killed them all. He doesn't want to use Metal Gear to help Russia, he wants to return it to the "Patriots", or "la-li-lu-le-lo", whatever the fuck that is.

Also Ocelot's new hand is Liquid Snake's hand and Ocelot is now possessed by Liquid. Oceliquid escapes with Metal Gear, sinks the ship, and frames Snake for the whole thing.

Okay, a lot of crap just happened.

After the tanker blows up it cuts to two years later and a big complex has been built around the wreckage to deal with the clean up and environmental hazard. It's called the Big Shell. Some terrorists have taken over the Big Shell and are holding the President hostage there, demanding 30 billion dollars. The leader of the terrorists is claiming to be Solid Snake, but Snake apparently died when the tanker sank.

So a team of Navy Seals is sent in to rescue the President, as well as a FOXHOUND operative codenamed Snake. But that get's changed to Raiden pretty quickly. He's there to also rescue the President, but for some reason the mission is a secret and he's not in contact with the Seals. Which seems dumb. Why send two teams in to do the same mission and not have them in contact with eachother?

Raiden also notices that there seems to be a 3rd party, since someone had already cut a hole in the fence he went through, and knocked out all the guards in the first area. We get a very brief glimpse of the intruder and it looks like it's Solid Snake. There was also a lot of cockroaches in the first area. Weird.

Raiden is taking orders from the same Colonel that was in MGS1, and he has his own save-woman called Rose. Rose is his girlfriend or something, I assume. She calls him Jack is said to know him very well. She keeps asking him if he knows what tomorrow is, but he doesn't. Hopefully it's not something dumb like her birthday or an anniversary.

Raiden's radar has to be activated for each new area you enter by finding a node (that's "node", not "nerd" you deaf idiot Raiden), so I was skulking around doing that and listening to the tutorials when there was word from the Navy Seals. Raiden's not in contact with them but the Colonel is listening in on their operation anyway. They found the President but then got attacked and killed by someone/something.

I'm not sure if Raiden was the best person to send on this mission. He seem to have only done VR training, and not even daylight VR training, unless I'm missing something. He's also clumsy. He can't even step on bird shit without falling over.

I head over to where the President is supposed to be and instead find a vampire. He's super fast, he drinks blood... He's a vampire. Called Vamp. He's part of Dead Cell, the small terrorist group behind the attack. They're leader is someone called Queen I think. Raiden probably would have died but he was saved by soldier named S... Pliskin. Iroquois Pliskin. Who looks exactly like Solid Snake and has Snake's voice and knows all about FOXHOUND and Dead Cell, but he maintains that he's not Snake and that Snake died two years ago on the tanker, and that Snake himself is the one who sank it. He says he's part of the Navy Seals team

Raiden was able to use Pliskin's gun which is odd, because the Colonel told Raiden he wouldn't be able to use the enemy weapons or Seals weapons because they're all registered to the specific users and can't be fired by anyone else (nanomachines I guess). Raiden didn't pick up on this though. There was also a cockroach on Pliskin. Maybe connected to all the cockroaches at the start near that supposed sighting of Solid Snake?

Pliskin's smart enough to realise that Raiden being there makes no sense, but Raiden won't reveal or doesn't know his true purpose on Big Shell. Pliskin stays behind while Raiden continues to search for the President.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Okay, got into the ship's hold where the new Metal Gear, RAY, is being kept. Got caught a few times because I didn't realise the metal floor plates made your footsteps louder, even though it doesn't actually sound any louder.

Its the grills that make you louder and it is noticeable.

Also point your gun at pliskin while he's sleeping.

This makes me want to go and play MGS4 again.

Moose you are doing a great playthrough, make sure you continue this.

Raiden and Rose's conversations are the WORST.

Kaio wrote:

Raiden and Rose's conversations are the WORST.

Baal loved it all. The pointless sexual frustration with a main character who they seem to want to point fun at constantly.

Raiden is obviously in over his head. On the way to Strut C I saw Queen, a woman who can't be shot. Bullets just bend around her and grenades don't explode near her. She has massive electric gun thing and she disposed of the entire second Seals team. Raiden practically pissed himself.

Also saw Vamp carry the President off. I'm wondering if this is the same President that Ocelot was in contact with at the end of MGS1.

The mission priority has changed. I'm now supposed to get rid of the bombs first and worry about the President later. The Navy Seals brought in the oldest bomb disposal expert they could find so he can't do it, but it's pretty easy. I just have to find the bombs and spray them with some freeze spray. The first one was in the women's bathroom. Called Pliskin while I was in there and he was all "Hey, don't be embarrassed about lurking in women's toilets, I've done it too".

The bomb disposal guy is called Peter Stillman, and he was brought in because Fatman, the third Dead Cell member, was his student and has rigged the Big Shell to blow. Although the apparently the bombs are in the wrong places for an effective destruction, so something else is going on. The Seals also brought an engineer in with them, who's definitely Otacon, but he's gone missing.

I'm going to backtrack to Struts B and A to look for bombs there before going forward to Strut D.

Called Rose to save. Raiden talked about some bad memories or something.

Enemies respawn? That's annoying.

Calling people at random times can get some hilarious results there's a lot more easter eggs in 2 then 1.

Got the bomb on Strut D and made my way to Strut E. EncounteredbOlga, the woman Snake fought on the tanker. She's in control of the Russians since her father was killed by Ocelot on the tanker.

Raiden got the drop on her but she just sort of jumped away and vanished. She was talking over the radio to someone, saying she had seen a cyborg ninja running around. Gray Fox? But he died in MGS1. Mysterious...

Froze the bomb on Strut E, but Pliskin revealed he'd found a lot of bombs that were undetectable on Shell 2. The ones I've been freezing are just decoys, although they could still do some damage.

Peter also confessed that his bad leg wasn't bad at all. He's just been faking it because he wanted people to feel sorry for him rather than be angry with him for screwing up a bomb 5 years ago that killed a bunch of kids.

On the way to Strut F I got a mysterious call from someone calling themselves Deepthroat. But he changed that Mr. X when Raiden asked if he the same Deepthroat from the Shadow Moses incident. Gray Fox was Deepthroat in MGS1, but again, he died. Although Snake is apparently dead too and that's a load of bollocks.

Anyway Mr. X informed me that the bridge to Strut F was rigged with stealth mines. Luckily I fkund the mne detector while mooching about on Strut E, so it wasn't a problem.

Found the socom silencer in Strut F, so that should help. Now I have to back to Strut C to pick up a sensor that can detect the other bombs.

Got back to Strut C without engaging anyone. Go me. Unfortunately when Pliskin froze the last bomb on Shell 2 it triggered the countdown for the remaining bombs, so I only had 400 secondz to race to the bottom of Strut A and freeze the bomb. Which turned out to be plenty of time.

Peter died though because the bombs also had a proximity trigger and he got too close. Now that the bombs are gone I have to rescue the President.

Called Rose to save but she didn't have anything to say.

Pliskin seems to be better at this stuff then you... just saying.

It's his fault the bombs got activated. He should have waited until Peter finished talking.

Ran into Queen/Fortune on the way back to the roof of Strut A (Vamp calls her Queen but she calls herself Fortune). She seemed to think Raiden was someone else at first (I'm guessing Snake), but she decided to fight him anyway. Lots of cockroaches around again.

Had absolutely no idea what I was doing during the boss battle. Just ran around and shot at her and occasionally it seemed to work. Bullets don't hit her so I don't know what I was doing right. But eventually the Colonel called and said Fatman had rigged more bombs on Strut A and was asking for me. Then Vamp arrived and told Fortune the same thing.

Raiden shot at Fortune and the bullet curved round her and hit Vamp in the head. Fortune cried about not being able to die but Vamp wasn't dead either. Apparently he already died once.