It's not perfect, but it's a great stealth based action game that lives up to the first.
After some years i can finally put my hands on the first MGS sequel, i barely remember some of it's story but there are still on my mind a lot of great memories about it, it was so special and one of the first good stealth games on the market, so it was just matter of time til i could play the sequel, which lives up to the first one name, and helped by the last generation potential, added many innovations while keeping the old style on it.
This time you'll control Snake with the cooperation via codec of Otacon and Campbell on the first portion of the game (and the shorter) but after that the "real game" starts introducing a new playable character called Raiden (he can't throw lightening thru his hands though...) which will receive help from his girlfriend Rosemary and again the colonel Campbell, they are not as nearly as good as Snake-Otacon but a change for a while won't hurt anyone and you'll even start to like them on their own way, the good part is that Snake and Otacon will appear again later on.
The story itself is a typical action-espionage hollywood movie story mixed with some japanese robots here and there and an interesting misterious plot that has some references from the first MGS, there are many plot twists, most of them are great and well done, but at the end of the game everything goes strange and the story really declines, it's a shame cause if that was fixed the game could be even better... as it is it's an awesome title however, in fact that's almost the only thing that should be fixed...
The PS2 graphics managed to conceive on of the best looking titles of it's time, it's not really varied on locations, you only get to play on 2, and they have some similarities as both happen on the sea, and both look quite the same and also look like the first MGS with the proper improvements of course, like the weather on the tanker (there's a heavy rain) which is pretty well done, and the water effects when you have to dive on it, i can't forget the blood stains when you receive many shoots as well as the animations that look fluid though not great they are good enough to be mentioned. Cg's are done with the game engine like in the first but still they are interesting and use some nice camera angles, and movement effects, and by the game's length you have a good number of cgs.
I think however that the sound effects are a little better than what i mentioned before, specially the voice acting which took most of it's first game voices, Snake smooth but strong voice fits him perfectly, and who can forget Otacon's call when you die? it's a classic. Campbell's and Ocelot's voices are back as well, and they are as good as ever, though the sound quality has improved with years obviously, new voices like Raiden's and Rose's are also good and fit the characters but not that good like the others. The effects are great, and keep the level of the voices, shots, alarm sounds, explosions, steps and even the rain or the birds are awesome and just to name a few, music rythms follow the atmosphere of the game and if you are running on a quiet (or cleared) zone there will be a regular rythm or even no music at all at times, but on tense situations, like when the enemy spot you or in boss fights there will be a faster and louder one, and help to keep you sucked on it, trying to avoid it, well you can't avoid boss fights of course...
But you won't like to do that, because those fights are awesome and each one will be totally different from the others, though they are quite intuitive and a little easier compared to the first MGS, at least on the normal difficulty, however the villains this time aren't better at all they make a good group of freak bosses that seem to take the best of hollywood villains... Fighting regular soldiers is fun as well, at the start of the game you won't have many weapons and choices but to put to sleep them or knock them with your bare hands, but for your pleasure you do get many more weapons as you progress which includes explosives, sniper rifles, grenade launchers and many more... which ends on plenty ways to beat the soldiers, including the always recommended stealth to keep your ammo & life. Controls are a little difficult to get used to (specialy passing through 3rd person mode to 1st and then using it, which it's a new feature and a great one but a little weird to use on the first attempts) but are really good most of the times.
You'll probably spend between 15-20 hours over the first playthrough, i beated it on 17:28 and that makes it a long game for the typical 8-12 hours the genre takes, plus if you can get many dog tags you can unlock some stuff for your second playthrough, it's not that easy but there are a lot of this things to get in all the difficulty levels so you'll have to play through all of them if you're a completionist. So there's a good replay value, and at different difficulty levels the guards react different or they do another vigilance routes, and they'll have sharpen eyes and ears as well, that's another reason to try the hardest modes.
It may not be perfect, or as good as GS says, but still it's a great game that i won't hesitate to recommend, stealth and action packed with a good story full of surprises awaits you on this classic sequel, if you didn't played it what are you waiting for? and if you did maybe you could try to beat your own record.
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The Good:
- Boss Fights remain intact and awesome as the last game.
- It's a long one, and there are many things to unlock.
- Varied ways to pass over enemies and weapons to use.
- Some plot twists are great.
- Graphics, sound and cg are just gorgeous.
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The Bad:
- Last hours of the story.
- Raiden is not as good as Snake...
- Environments tend to be repetitive.
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Graphics: 9
Sound: 9.5
Story: 8.5
Characters: 9
Gameplay: 10
Duration: 9
Charm: 9
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Overall: 9.1 > 9.0
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