57. We're almost halfway through and I just reached my first Metal Gear title, woo boy! I'm sure some people may be a bit surprised to find this game on my list as this entry was for the longest time within the franchise the very definition of "love it, or hate it". I happen to fall into the love it category, though I can still be pretty critical about it's faults.150679-Metal_Gear_Solid_2_-_Sons_of_Liberty_(USA)-5.jpgmetal-gear-solid-2-sons-of-liberty-was-the-game-that-stopped-me-being-a-fanboy-220-body-image-14.jpgMGS2: Sons of Liberty, takes place two years after the previous game. Ocelot sold the schematics for Metal Gear REX on the black market, and now the world is filled with Metal Gear units for various nations and terrorist organizations. Snake and Otacon formed Philanthropy, a non-government organization that opposes Metal Gears and proposes to have them outlawed. On the side, the two of them will often sneak in and destroy these Metal Gears when the U.N. fails to be firm. The group has gained a lot of notoriety partly due to these activities, but also due to Snake's rise of popularity in the aftermath of Natsaha's book detailing the Shadow Moses incident. When the game opens, Snake is in New York, infiltrating a Tanker ship on the Hudson that secretly houses the U.S. Marines new Anti-Metal Gear unit, Metal Gear RAY. Snake is simply coming in and taking photos, but the missions catches it's first hitch when the ship is taken over by Russian mercenaries led by Revolver Ocelot and his old friend Gurlukovich. Sneaking his way past the mercenaries, Snake eventually finds RAY and begins his mission but when Revolver Ocelot crashes the scene, it ends badly for everyone and Snake is ultimately blamed for the incident and presumed dead, in addition to an environmental plant needing to be built to clear up the mess.Fast forward a few years, the plant is taken over by Dead Cell during an inspection by the U.S. President, and FOXHOUND sends in their newest recruit, Raiden to rescue him. Raiden, a rookie member of the outfit with only VR training, is completely flabbergasted by the surreal nature of the mission as he deals with the kooky Dead Cell led by the former U.S. President and third brother of the Big Boss clones, Solidus Snake; conspiracy after crazy conspiracy; some very questionable character expansions; and the fact his girlfriend is part of the mission support team and won't shut up about whether Raiden remembers that tomorrow is their anniversary or not.MGS2 is a pretty surreal game for the series and for the longest time, many fans really didn't know what to think of it. The controversy of the protagonist switch, the surreal plotline that made you question if it happened or not, and the game's lack of a real ending didn't exactly go over so well with fans back in 2001. Which may be the reason why Kojima chose to troll all of the fans again by something very similar with MGSV. Still, the games underlying themes about information in the digital age and how it reflects our reality is probably more relevant today in an era of fake news, social media creating ideological safe spaces for fringe beliefs, and people still giving a damn about Justin Beiber and Kanye West. I don't usually like to use the phrase "ahead of it's time" but I feel it's safe to say that in historical hindsight, MGS2 certainly was from a narrative perspective. As time goes one, I have come to appreciate the game's story more and more despite it being my least favorite part initially.I'm also the odd duck in the franchise who never had a problem with Raiden. I liked the twist of his introduction, and I never found him too angsty cause he was pretty much an "every man" in the wacky MGS world. I'm sure if Kojima had ever gotten around to remaking the original Metal Gear with rookie Solid Snake, he would have also been spending half his time whining to Big Boss while sucking on his thumb like a baby for comfort. With that said, I'm a little miffed with what Kojima did to the character in later installments as I felt Raiden was compelling enough without the "badass" upgrades and I actually found him more unintentionally goofy and angsty in the sequels than in his proper game. Rose on the other hand, is pretty annoying and she's probably the most blatant example of why this mission feels so off. Initially I thought it was just the way the story went, but when she came back in MGS4, I came to realize that I simply don't like her. In fact one of the major gripes I do have with the game is the lackluster mission control team. The various characters you can chat to were highlights for me in the first and third entries, so it always makes me a bit sad that the one in this game was kind of dull, especially when design documents released later showed that Raiden was meant to have a proper team. Dead Cell was also a bit of a dud as well minus Solidus Snake. Again, they were sandwiched between two better teams and while Dead Cell had a better backstory than the Cobra Unit, it never translated well into gameplay as most of the fights with the team range from boring to just annoying. Vamp was another character I felt MGS4 ruined. Oddly enough though, the battle with Olga is probably one of my favorite fights in the series despite being a showcase for the games new physics engine. With all that said, MGS2 was a massive improvement from a gameplay standpoint, despite introducing the ultimate crutch of any stealth run, the silenced tranq gun, the game is fairly challenging compared to the previous entries due to new mechanics like first person aiming, bodies needing to be hidden, and new enemy units like the bane of my existence, Cipher Units. The game's A.I. is also hyper competent and the games more narrow layout made getting spotted pretty easily and usually a quick death if you weren't on your toes or didn't have the grenade launcher yet. Despite my initial problems with the story, I felt even then that MGS2 had more rewarding gameplay than it's predecessor, and that sentiment has never really gone away either. The Tanker sequence is still one of the high points of the franchise for me and probably my favorite sequence. This is the first of five Metal Gear titles to be on this list, and I feel being in my top five is kind of a nice testament to this game's quality. It has aged far better than I really thought it would and I feel it's the one entry that has truly be vindicated by history despite all the issues it caused on release. Of anything, this game ruined Kojima's ability to ever really surprise the fans again as fans wised up and carefully combed trailers and his interviews to the point where most fans usually guess all the big moments of his later games.