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[bishopcruz]

Welp, just finished playing through the original MG port on the Vita MGS collection, and am now moving on to the sequel. I played this quite a while back, but never made it very far, though I was impressed at just how much like MGS1 it was, even though it was seven years earlier on a much more limited piece of hardware.

I'm still pretty early, and coming off of the original Metal Gear the gameplay is already miles ahead of its younger brother, especially with little things like cones of vision, sound attracting guards, ducking through vents and hiding in trucks.

It's also nuts just how much more codec dialog there is. MG1 had practically none, and I feel like in the first 20 minutes or so of MG2 there have been 3 characters introduced, each with multiple lines of dialog available.

While I respect what the original Metal Gear did, it's clear that THIS is where the metal gear we know and love began. Kojima had already started telling his politically tinged Sci-Fi stuff with Snatcher, and here he goes further into telling his whole "THE US SUCKS" story. We also get our first nonsensical retcons, Black Ninja's story is just odd, especially considering how he went out in part 1, and it is also here, where the idea that Outer Heaven wasn't some crazed country with an evil double crossing dictator began also. It really is an interesting tonal shift. How many games start out by saying that yeah, all that shit out did in part one, yeah you were in the wrong? Kinda nuts for 1990.

So, anyone else play through this? Any tips for my run?

 

[IrishNinja]

yeah, i didn't get to play them both until MGS 3 subsistence, but my experience was quite similar: so much of MGS1's events going down in 2D, it was cool to see how very ambitious he was way ahead of the 3D era. i played metal gear & snake's revenge as a kid, but the former would be hard to return to now, admittedly.

expect more craziness in 2, as well as more polish and if i recall correctly, a couple areas that might require checking a guide - at least, i had to, thought it's been a few years so i forget the details, except that there's a few things that go down that feel slightly retconned now. and yeah you're already seeing the expansion of dialogue/character there.

this thread has me finally wanting to go play MGS gameboy/ghost babel or whatever, the only top-down one ive not yet played...heard good things as well!

 

[Bear]

From what I've played of the original MG games, I liked this one the most. The mechanics are more polished and enjoyable than the other classic 2D games, and it still manages to hold up well. It's impressive to see how much of the MGS experience really started here.

I never got very far since I mainly played it on the Subsistence disk, but I'd love a portable DD release.

 

[Screaming Meat]

yeah, i didn't get to play them both until MGS 3 subsistence, but my experience was quite similar: so much of MGS1's events going down in 2D, it was cool to see how very ambitious he was way ahead of the 3D era.

Same here. It was a really good experience, but I'm not sure if I'd play it again... it was quite hard!

 

[Joqu]

Metal Gear 2 is a great game, more people should play it.

You should definitely check out Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color too if you want more 2D Metal Gear goodness.

 

[anotherVegan]

Metal Gear 2 is a great game, more people should play it.

You should definitely check out Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color too if you want more 2D Metal Gear goodness.

MG2 and Ghost Babel (known simply as "Metal Gear Solid" on the GBC) tie for best Metal Gear games ever in my book. Same basic gameplay as MGS without several 20 minute mini movies bogging down the gameplay. Both are very ambitious and well worth any gamer's time.

 

[IrishNinja]

MG2 and Ghost Babel (known simply as "Metal Gear Solid" on the GBC) tie for best Metal Gear games ever in my book.

bold statement! looking forward to giving this one a go

 

[eso76]

amazing game, my favorite in the series.

Well balanced and some truly impressive game design to make those ideas work in 2d.
Thinking of binoculars letting you peek nearby rooms for example.

MGS is basically a MG2 remake, most ideas are taken from MG2SS and translated in 3d.
Vents, trucks, items, puzzles.


HINT: I remember playing this on a MSX2 emulator on PC later and increasing speed/overclocking because things were moving too slow. Improved replaying the game tremendously.

Also, great soundtrack.
None of that generic orchestrated shit.

 

[Sub_Level]

No tips, just consult a walkthrough for some of the more obtuse parts of the game (I recall something weird involving a bird)

Also: manikins

The 2D gameplay of MG2 continued all the way into MGS2 really. In that game you finally had first-person aiming, but at it's core much of the game could still be played off the radar. MGS3 and especially MGS4 finally changed things up enough.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Best game of the series.
and I played it for the first time after MGS1 & 2 so it isn't nostalgia.

its basically an MGS1 prototype.
also such a good soundtrack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeX-DqGihko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDy1wGTSxXU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9_wDcVBng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z03yhlCCs5s
and my favorite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X64cdNP1WoU

The original Metal Gear is a little dull by comparison though.

 

[Bluekaveli]

7 years later and everyone now sees the truth. I've been saying MGS2 is the best for a decade and only received disagrees. But everyone knows that Jack is the man with the plan.

 

[anotherVegan]

7 years later and everyone now sees the truth. I've been saying MGS2 is the best for a decade and only received disagrees. But everyone knows that Jack is the man with the plan.

We're not talking about Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty on PS2. We are talking about Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake on MSX. Released in 1990.

bold statement! looking forward to giving this one a go

Track it down, it's quite fantastic. If it ever appears on the 3DS VC I'd scoop it up in a second, even though I already own the cart!

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is one of the best games of all time. OF ALL TIME.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is one of the best games of all time. OF ALL TIME.

Yup, Its definitely my favorite game of all time.

side note the Yoji redesigns for the characters were much better than the originals

 

[@MUWANdo]

bold statement! looking forward to giving this one a go

Be sure to get the EU version if you can--it contains a bunch of wacky radio drama codecs that are absent from the NA version for whatever reason.

 

[.la1n]

MG2 and Ghost Babel (known simply as "Metal Gear Solid" on the GBC) tie for best Metal Gear games ever in my book. Same basic gameplay as MGS without several 20 minute mini movies bogging down the gameplay. Both are very ambitious and well worth any gamer's time.

This man speaks the truth, I spent countless hours doing VR missions in Ghost Babel. The main game is also up there with MGS for my favorite MG game.

 

[bishopcruz]

Looks like this survived the Xbone news after all.

Anyhow, I've made it a bit farther, and it really is amazing just how ambitious Kojima was with this game. The Hind fight in particular was a much more interesting battle conceptually than it was in MG1, having to fight the helicopter off of your radar was cool if a little anti-climatic.

And again, it blows my mind that MGS1 is a lessening of the insanity of this game. Okinawan squeaking sand? Former Architect Space Ninjas? Former Olympic Sprinters turned mercs? Total nuclear disarmament?

Game is insane. And so is Miller. And the swamp section sucked, hard.

Still, loving this game.

 

[Dvide]

I played both games on the Vita-rereleases of MGS2 and 3. I really liked to see how those two served as a foundation for Metal Gear Solid. The transistion is really clear after experiencing those games.

 

[Sub_Level]

I wish slowbeef's Let's Play of MG2: Solid Snake was still up.

It was one of the first Let's Plays ever before they got all popular and are on every other youtube channel now.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Looks like this survived the Xbone news after all.

Anyhow, I've made it a bit farther, and it really is amazing just how ambitious Kojima was with this game. The Hind fight in particular was a much more interesting battle conceptually than it was in MG1, having to fight the helicopter off of your radar was cool if a little anti-climatic.

And again, it blows my mind that MGS1 is a lessening of the insanity of this game. Okinawan squeaking sand? Former Architect Space Ninjas? Former Olympic Sprinters turned mercs? Total nuclear disarmament?

Game is insane. And so is Miller. And the swamp section sucked, hard.

Still, loving this game.

Nice pun. That was a goddamned nightmare.

 

[bishopcruz]

Well, a bit further ahed now, just got card key 5, and once again stuff from MGS1 reas its head. We have a Meryl bathroom scene here, now with Gustava. We have some pretty obvious betrayals incoming as well (Petrovich, no way in hell he's not working with Big Jesus.) but its still cool.

And speaking of cool we get some great dialogue:

"The Ice... it felt... cold!"

FUCKING AMAZING!!! That might be the best Kojima-ism of all time. Holy crap.

Another question, what the hell is up with the translation? I thought some of the names were different than I remembered from when I tried the MSX one years ago, so I looked them up and yeah, they are changed. Why did they do this, the worst one so far was again with Gustava, why change Frank Jaeger to Frank Hunter? I would understand if they had been using Hunter in all of the previous translations, but this is just... odd. I know Jaeger means hunter, but seriously why?

And is Miller in this game anything but a gibbering madman in his house spouting nonsense? I guess the events of Phantom Pain really screwed with him.

 

[Synth_floyd]

Yup, Its definitely my favorite game of all time.

side note the Yoji redesigns for the characters were much better than the originals

The originals were just ripped off from Hollywood actors.

Sean Connery was Big Boss. Mel Gibson was Solid Snake. Col Trautman from Rambo was Colonel Campbell. Tom Berenger is Kaiser or whatever his name was. Bob Hoskins and Albert Einstein were in there too.

But yeah MG2 is probably the best 8-bit game ever made.

 

[Gloam]

Awesome game, it's amazing just how much of MG2's content is recycled in MGS. Ideas that I thought were crazy cool in 1998 were actually crazy cool in 1992! I remember thinking the translation was pretty good as well, lot of depth and emotion in the cutscenes.

Particularly enjoy the daft sneaking stuff

Spoiler

like the owl

, as well as the creative enemies, though a lot of the ideas show up again later in the series, it's cool to see some of them realized in such a minimal and 'primitive' manner.

Another question, what the hell is up with the translation?

Not sure about the newer translation from Subsistence, but for a long time there was a fan translation floating around that I think was Russian in origin, so that might explain some of the inconsistencies.

 

[bishopcruz]

Ok, Frank Jaeger is a dick, just blew up his girlfriend who only became a spy because of him in the first place. Seriously.

Also, I just realized according to MG2, did the Berlin Wall not come down by 1999? Weird.

It's also great seing Kojima's insanity develop between this and Snatcher, it's kinda uncanny.

 

[bishopcruz]

Ok now we have the freezing rations and the shape changing key. Did MGS1 actually do anything new other than be in 3d? Man had a port of this come out in the 1990s for the genesis or the SNES I would have gone absolutely apeshit.