My biggest problem with MGS2 wasn't Raiden. It was the bizarre twists the narrative took in the end. It really jumped the shark--naked Raiden took the cake.

IMO, MGS3 was the superior game because it was a relatively straight-forward cold war tale. If a Raiden standalone game keeps the histrionics to a minimum (not to mention whining), it could be decent.

Soheil, if you’re taking articles from your work on Examiner, please remove click-through ads and other unnecessary links from your article. Please use the naming conventions I’ve done above: Bold for games, italics for movies. Thanks in advance.



As for Raiden, I guess after 10 years of games starring Solid Snake or Big Boss Kojima wanted to explore Raiden again and look at the series from a more action-y perspective. At least this time he's upfront about it.

Yeah I stopped playing MGS 2 once I ad to shift to Raiden.  The nail in the coffin was that he kept doing slapstick prat falls when he slipped on bird dung in the start of his mission. Really this is who i am suppose to connect with?  A special ops Foxhound member who slipps cartoon like on bird dung.

MGS2 is a masterpiece. You can all shut the fuck up!!!

Just kidding. :)

I can understand why a lot of you dislike MGS2, but personally I loved it (probably my favourite game in the series). I actually felt the series started going downhill after it, not during it. MGS3 is good, but flawed, and MGS4 is a horrible game. I'm looking forward to covering them in my Metal Gear Retrospective on Bitmob over the next month or two.

As for Rising. Well, I'm not too hopeful. It kind of looks like it's going against the spirit of what a Metal Gear game is, even moreso than how MGS3 and MGS4 did.

I agree with Jason, the problem with MGS2 was the incoherent plot. There was the S3 thing which was called the "Solid Snake Simulator" at first, only to be revealed that it was actually something different, Otacon banged his step mom while while his father drowned, they poured gun powder into Raiden's Rice Krispies, and he and his girlfriend had an emotional conversation about there being nothing in his room. And lets not forget Vamp, who's not called that because he's a vampire, or the la-le-lu-le-lo, or getting possesed by a hand, or the hour long codex conversation before the last boss. Then, the giant oil tanker that the game took place on turned into a giant robot, crashed into the middle of NYC, and a former President of the United States was left on the street in metalic suit with two tentical arms and 2 samurai swords, AND NO ONE NOTICED.

All that considered, Raiden isn't so bad. Besides, after pouring some awesome sauce on him in MGS4, people wanted to play as him again, kind of like what Kojima did with Leo Stenbuck in ZOE2.

MGS2 is great. Although it's a bit blunt, the story is doing some really interesting things on many levels, and I know I risk sounding pretencious here, but I still see a lot of gamers to this day not 'getting' the ideas that Kojima is trying to portray.

As for  Raiden; he was great in MGS2. He offered a new experience to the story, added a more emotional tone to the story and let Kojima develop Snake into a more interesting character. It's a shame that MGS4 that basically ruiend his character by turning him into Grey Fox 2.0, but then again, MGS4 pretty much ruined the entire franchise.

MGS2's story is a far cry from being blunt. It's precisely the opposite; it's very subtle and full of little details.

I think anyone who takes MGS2 at face value will hate it. If you get the message of the game, however, all the "incoherent" parts make sense.

Also, if you want to fully understand MGS2 you need look at it as, chronologically at least, the last game in the series. Expecting an explanation as to what happens afterwards is why MGS4 was such a mess.

Blunt was too strong of a word. Let me rephrase, I believe Kojima put a lot of effort into making his points vocal.

Okay, as a long time metal gear fan here's my perspective. I like all the metal gear games, just like them for seperate reasons. Each one does one thing better then the other games did it, but all of the games do one thing consistently well: having a message that gets misunderstood by half the fanbase.

As for Raiden, he has his own game because both Kojima and the Japanese fans like the character. Americans just can't get over their hot wet man crush on solid snake (don't get me wrong, he's a great character, but his story has been told. Everything that could and needed to be said about the character is pretty much wrapped up and aside from remakes or the occasional prequel he isn't coming back.) Meanwhile Raiden was a decent character for the game he was in. The story was about how information manipulation can turn people into unwitting pawns, and that's what Raiden was. Since he was born until the end of MGS2 he was a pawn of other people and never learned to think for himself. He's annoying because he isn't quite all there upstairs and that's actually pretty good characterization. Turning him into a cyborg is basically his rebellious teenage phase of being anti social on his road to growing up, which is why he's still a bit annoying and naive. With any luck the character will find his own place and the slashy stealth of Raiden will make a good side story to whomever they decide to focus the next proper metal gear game on...if they can ever find anyone to make it since Kojima is probably serious about the whole 'i'm done with metal gear' thing after the third or so attempt to get away from it.