46.
Okay, so this game does feature a giant robot as well, but let's face it, Metal Gear is rarely really about the title machine. For most Western fans, MG2 was either the ill-conceived Snake's Revenge or simply the Previous Mission Briefing found in the Extras for MGS1. It wasn't until the Director's Cut version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence that the West got an official release of this lost gem of a game. For those who don't know, the original Metal Gear did find it's way Stateside with a terrible NES port from the original MSX. The port completely scrambled the original games structure and removed and added things that make it both easier and more difficult than it needed to be. It's practically a different game and when Kojima finally saw the port, he quickly disowned it. Despite all that, it actually sold pretty well over here and so Konami asked for a new entry but gave it to a completely new team. Funny enough, Snake's Revenge is closer to the original MG1 than the actual port was. Kojima, didn't even know about it's existence until he had a conversation with one of the developers for it. He initially disliked it, but has apparently warmed up to it over time. Still, he was spurned on by the development team to make a proper sequel to Metal Gear, and in 1990, he did so on the fledgling MSX2.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake begins four years after the events of Metal Gear in the "distant future" of 1999. The relationship between the Cold War enemies are thawing, and for the first time since the Cold War started, it looked like the threat of nuclear war may come to an end. Unfortunately, not everything is so rosy. Mankind has over-indulged in their love of oil, and now all the reserves may soon dry up, leading the world into a major energy crisis. With alternative fuel sources still decades away, the world fell into a major economical crisis, until a Czech biologist named Dr. Kio Marv discovered a type of synthetic algae that can convert spent oil back into usable hydrocarbons at an inexpensive level which he called OILEX. The crisis seemed to be over before it really began until Dr. Marv was kidnapped on his way to a U.N. meeting. As the world government investigates his disappearance, they soon notice a connection to a small but dangerous nation called Zanzibar Land.
During the ensuing years between the Outer Heaven incident and the oil crisis, a small nation to the south of the U.S.S.R. declared it's independence from the mother land. With the help of mercenaries and PMC groups, the small nation was able to win its independence. Soon after, it used its forces to to attack nuclear facilities and stole enough resources to become a nuclear power, allowing it to survive without further retribution from the superpowers. With nuclear weapons, one of the most advanced armies in the world, and now the secret to OILEX; Zanzibar Land was in position for a serious shake up of the global power structure. Understanding the delicate situation, the U.S. tasked FOXHOUND to once again lead a covert infiltration mission in order to rescue Dr. Marv and thwart Zanzibar Land.
Colonel Campbell, the new CO of FOXHOUND calls out of early retirment, the Outer Heaven hero Solid Snake for the missions. He's supported through codec by Master Miller, the trainer for FOXHOUND; Jacobsen, a zoologist and foody; Kessler, a retired merc and specialist on the industry; and Holly, a journalist and undercover CIA agent who has also infiltrated the base and supports Snake. Starting Metal Gear tradition, the simple rescue mission quickly becomes more complicated as Snake's first opponent is a technologically advanced ninja who is revealed to be Kyle Schenider, the resistance member who helped Snake overthrow Outer Heaven. Snake learns that after he destroyed Metal Gear and defeated Big Boss, NATO forces indescriminately carpet bombed the region, killing both Outer Heaven and resistance members. Kyle himself nearly perished and was captured by the forces and experimented on until Big Boss arrived and saved him. Realizing Big Boss is both alive but also the leader of Zanzibar Land, Snake quickly learns that many of his allies from Outer Heaven have returned. Dr, Madnar had alos been kidnapped and brought there to create the new Metal Gear D, and Snake's friend Grey Fox was now Big Boss' second in command. Battling skilled mercenaries, meeting the undercover agent Gustava Heffner and discovering her connections to Grey Fox, the staggering amount of war orphans being protected within the facility, and several tricks and traps that Snake is only bale to overcome thanks to Holly, and Snake's mysterious "No. 1 Fan. Solid Snake tears through a pretty dramatic adventure that culimnates in a final bout with Big Boss himself.
MG2 is an interesting game to play through, on the one hand, it retains one foot in the past with several gameplay conventions and story beats from the original Metal Gear, on the other hand, it's easy to see the proto-development of the MGS franchise with this game. MG2 is more story driven and action packed than it's predecessors with the foundation of several Metal Gear gameplay conventions such as crawling, 2 step alert modes, Soliton Radar, and better use of hiding for stealth. The story introduces a much more varied and better defined cast and some of the series well known tendencies of subverting a "black and white" scenario are clearly here.
The boss battles are more varied and better defined in this entry. The bosses of MG1 felt like typical arcade fodder outside of Coward Duck and the actual Metal Gear defense system battle, but here the bosses all have more exciting nuanced gimmicks to play around with. Blackcollar Ninja can attack from angles and while keeping his distance, Running Man plays keep away as you have to beat him before the room full of nerve gas kills you, Ultravox/Four Horsemen ambush you in an elevator so you have to balance the inclosed space with taking them out quickly, Blaster Man traps you in a room with barriers while he lodges grenades at you from the ceiling, Predator/Jungle Evil hides in tall grass for the series first attempt at a sniper duel, and Night Fright is a completely invisible enemy you have to use sound to find. The gimmicks are more memorable and fun, but sadly most of the boss fights are fairly easy. In additon the game continues the inevitable clash with a Hind D that stuck around for the first three entries, and we get our first battle with Metal Gear which is probably one of the easiest fights in the game unless you care about your final score. The actual final boss fight with Big Boss himself is actually more puzzle than an actual fight as he chases you around the room while acquiring more Key Cards and items to make a makeshift flamethrower to deal with him.
Of course it's the puzzle aspects of the games that are always nice and MG2 is no slouch. MG2 shares a lot of elements with old school PC Adventure titles as the game makes heavy use of a manual to figure certain things out like Codec Frequencies, and a morse code cheat sheet. Sadly, the Western release lacks any of this and it's one of the most glaring flaws in this title as you'll definitely want to keep Google close to you for help on some of the game's more eclectic puzzles. The game also is filled with some pretty silly elements like Japanese "Singing Sand", using an owl to trick a guard it's night time, and dealing with the lethally poisonous Zanzibar Land Hamsters. There's also an item that plays the Zanzibar Land National Anthem that makes every enemy on the screen stop what they're doing and salute. On the flip side, there are some clever puzzles like the introduction of the Temperature PAL Key puzzle MGS1 fans will know well, the overall layout of the base is also better contructed than other Metal Gear titles which makes backtracking less of a chore, though I will say that MG2 introduced the annoying "boss can only be beaten with a specific weapon and now you have to stop all progress to backtrack all the way back to the weapon storage floor to get it" syndrome that plagued the next two installments. One issue it retained from the original MG1 was how Key Cards only opened their corresponding door, meaing you had to hold several cards and keep switching them to see which one would open the door. Thankfully, MG2 introduced Color Cards that did the effect of three levels of a card to help mitigate inventory searching but chances are you'll not figure out where these cards are until near the end of the game when it's almost pointless.
Easily the biggest change from MG1 here is the narrative as I demonstrated above. While it falls short of the convoluted and socially aware sequels, MG2's story is pretty powerful for a game of its time, easily rivaling RPGs. Here we really get to see the earliest elements of what would layer become trademarks of the franchise. Every one of Snake's former allies who return in this installment all betray him or are fought as enemies if not both, Holly and Gustava both have concepts that will be reused for Meryl in MGS1, and we watch as Snake deals with one green horn female agent who can't seem to stay out of trouble while also dealing with one the he quickly grows to respect before she winds meeting a fateful end. While most of the bosses are one note wonders, Snake's conversations with Kyle (Black Ninja/Blackcollar), Grey Fox, and Big Boss are the earliest examples of the gut-wrenching monologues that several memorable bosses will later use. The game also tries for a more cinematic approach compared to it's sequels with character portraits, more dialogue, and some interesting sequences that make the game try to be more epic than it's 8-bits could muster which is quite impressive.
As I've been hinting to for awhile now, and for those who remember the original version of this post will already know, MGS1 borrows heavily from MG2 in both concept and design. In fact in Japan where MG2 was known, many fans thought MGS1 was a remake of this entry. So it's really interesting to play this game with knowledge of MGS1 though I imagine for some people it will feel a bit dated. Still, it's obvious that this entry, combined with Kojima's future projects in the form of Snatcher and Policenauts would pave the way for one of the most important games of the 3D Era of gaming. Sadly, while it will never likely come to pass in any capacity I would be happy with, I was kind of hoping this entry and the original MG1 would have gotten the remake treatment by Kojima, especially since both of these entries suffer the most retcons out of any entry in the franchise. Alas, it will likely never happen.
Thanks to the re-release of MGS3: Subsistence on the Legacy Collection, it's not too hard to get this game nowadays legally. I strongly encourage Metal gear fans to check this one out as MG2 is really a lost gem in a franchise with a pretty strong track record. The music is good, the gameplay is basically 2D MGS1 (or Ghost Babel for those who played it) and it features several important moments that help bring context to the drama that will unfold in future installments.
Original Gushing
Okay, so this game does feature a giant robot as well, but let's face it, Metal Gear is rarely really about the title machine. Originally an MSX title, Metal Gear was properly released in the West with MGS3: Subsistence over ten years ago, along with a non-butchered version of the original Metal Gear. Metal Gear 2 owes it's existence to the comically bad Snake's Revenge, a side-scrolling action sequel to the original Metal Gear that Konami ordered up, but gave to a completely different development team. Kojima was not amused when he first learned about it, and in his usual OCD kind of way, he eventually was able to get the greenlight on making a proper sequel to Metal Gear based on his own input and design.
Set in the "future" of 1999, the world is gripped with an energy crisis as the world's supply of oil is getting dangerously low, and society is too lazy to want to switch over to alternative fuel sources. Luckily, a Czech scientist known as Kio Marv has engineered a new type of algea that can produce petroleum grade hydrocarbons called OILIX. It seemed the crisis would be over, until he is kidnapped by the small nations of Zanzibar Land that had won it's independence from the U.S.S.R. in 1997 during the Mercenary War.
FOXHOUND is called into action, now run by Colonel Campbell after the Outer Heaven scandal of 95. Campbell tracks down Solid Snake, the shell-shocked veteran agent who ended the Outer Heaven crisis and killed the legendary soldier Big Boss. Once again Snake has to infiltrate a major enemy base where he will reunite with old friends, now turned enemies, and discover he's simply just a pawn in a bigger government scheme.
For what is basically the equivalent of an 8-bit title, Metal Gear 2 is surprisingly robust and actually features a more intelligible plot and cast than the first game. Even more surprising is just how much the gameplay has been overhauled and refined. When it really comes down to it, MG2 is basically a 2D MGS1. I've often felt that the biggest success stories of the 2D to 3D transition games of the mid to late 90s usually came down to designers basically just copying and pasting their last 2D titles into 3D games, Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of time, and MGS all share an uncomfortable amount of similarities to their predecessors in terms of themes and gameplay elements, but hey, it worked and better to see these series move on than watch them flounder into obscurity like Mega Man, Sonic, and Castlevania.
Metal Gear 2 and MGS1's relationship is way more apparent than the other examples though, perhaps Kojima took advantage of the fact he knew most non-Japanese gamers have probably never even knew about MG2 existing, but it's funny to note that their are so many similarities between this game and MGS1 that Japanese fans first speculated that MGS1 was just a remake of MG2. No seriously, both games have a cyborg ninja as an enemy who is a a victim of experimentation by shadowy government agencies and happened to use a former friend of Snake whom he thought had died in the previous games, both games have that obnoxious PAL Card puzzle where you have to heat it up and cool it down, and in both games it turns out to be a trick by the bad guys. Snake deals with an undercover female soldier who disguises herself as an enemy soldier, there is a boss battle that involves Snake fighting four heavily armed guards in a locked elevator, and he has to fight both a tank and a Hind D at some point. Both games have a sequence where Snake has to jump down from one tower to reach the other side of the base cut off by natural defenses, you have to rescue a card from a rat, the big battle with Metal Gear is followed by a frustrating fist fight battle with a major antagonist who just won't smurfing die... yeah the list kind of goes on.
While this may sound like a criticism, the fact is, I love me some MGS and so I wasn't really bothered by any of this. In truth, after bungling my way through the very disjointed Metal Gear, playing an incredibly refined 2D MGS in the form of this game was actually pretty incredible. Even the boss battles are actually clever, memorable, and pretty intense. The game introduces the Soliton Radar, the ability to crawl, vastly improves the enemy ability to detect Snake through sound and better sight. The game has some bizarre puzzles but I appreciate them, like one that involves catching a mouth with an important item. You get several types of rations in the game, and the item description actually tells you what is contained in each of them. One ration has cheese in it and you have to use it to lure out the mouse.
The bosses are far more elaborate than MG1 where most of them are just buffed normal soldier with some gimmick weapon. The Cyborg Ninja tries to constantly bum rush you and you have to use the environment to keep the distance between you while you snipe him with your SOCOM. Jungle Evil is one of the less stressful Sniper duels in the series but can still be a pain in the ass, one guy has you fight in a room rigged with explosives, hindering your movement and forcing you to take him down with his own specialty weapon much like the battle against Revolver Ocelot. The final climatic battle itself is also pretty intense being more puzzle meets run away from Jason Vorhees kind of intense as you grab various items to make a makeshift weapon while the boss stalks you around the room with a powerful machine gun. I was honestly pretty impressed how well this game really stood up to time, especially playing it almost twenty years after it was initially released.
The plot is also a bit better with lots of interesting moments between Snake, Gustav, Marv, Madnar, Holly, Grey Fox and Big Boss. The children were especially chilling when you first meet them and learn who is really running the place. It's still comically bad compared to some of the later MGS titles and the game has more wacky video game logic than most entries, but it kind of works for the title. I've been actually meaning to go back to this entry cause I had such a blast the first time through, especially compared to the first game which was more interesting for the novelty, but Metal Gear 2 is, dare I say it? A solid sequel to what will eventually become one of my favorite franchises in gaming. The music is pretty damn good as well as you can tell from the intro screen.