Konami
Metal Gear Solid 2

Hideo Kojima might really get on your nerves. And I wouldn't blame you.

With his eternal youth vibe and megalomaniac habits like "updating Twitter every moment to let you know what I ate and what I pooped today," he instantly makes you want to kick him in the gums.

But there’s no denying that the national hero Kojima is both a genius and a sly fox, and usually, these things go hand in hand.

Let's give credit where credit is due: if the first Metal Gear Solid (we're talking about the 3D one), in the blessed year of 1998, is a milestone in video game history, a great part of the credit goes to him. You recognize his touch, the eccentricity of the Japanese game designer in the manga aesthetics that characterize the protagonists and side characters, in that patchwork that combines all those real elements (continuous citations and references to real events like the START treaties) and unreal elements (telekinetic powers and cyborg ninjas) that make the Metal Gear saga truly ingenious.

But of course, Kojima's creativity doesn't stop here; it goes beyond, with primordial forms of metagaming (the controller with Psycho Mantis) and continuous treats that genuinely enrich the main offering.

Metal Gear Solid, the blessed year of 1998, is a masterpiece and that seems well-established. At the time, it became one of the main reasons for owning a PSX.

And as such, it couldn't avoid receiving a sequel, because come on, deep down, that’s how Kojima made his money, let’s admit it.

The sequel - Metal Gear Solid 2 - was released only in 2001 and carried a heavy burden.

First, it had to be a worthy successor to its predecessor. It had to guarantee a certain level of quality, you see. Secondly, it had to please the tastes of all those early PS2 adopters who were disappointed by the lack of quality titles for the console, especially considering the hefty price at the time, nearly seven hundred thousand lire, which was - well - keenly felt.

Back in the pre-MGS2 era, about a year or more before the launch, little was known. There was a demo tied to another game (I believe it was ZOE) that lasted just enough to drive fans and lucky PS2 owners wild. As mentioned, it didn't take much: graphics that were photorealistic for the time, a mature tone, and Solid Snake. Even just the trial of a single demo sparked talks of an announced masterpiece. But as we know, the future is uncertain, and sometimes fate makes things unpredictable, ironic, and extremely amusing.

The launch of MGS2 was one of the most entertaining video game releases in history. Critics were practically split in two between those who didn't understand the work and tried to comprehend it, generously giving it high ratings out of trust, and those who dismissively rejected its hermetic nature. As for the players and fans, better not to even go there. Forums worldwide (or at least the few proportional to today's numbers that already existed) were literally invaded by fans complaining about having to play for 20 minutes to watch a 2-hour cutscene. Then they also discovered that the protagonist of the adventure, their "mediator," would not be the Snake of Plisskenian memory but someone named Raiden, an awkward, effeminate agent in action for the first time.

They also complained about the excessive similarity of the situations they faced, too reminiscent of Snake's first adventure, the constant sense of déjà vu experienced, and especially the incomprehensible ending that didn't clearly convey its direction.

Thanks, Kojima

On the other hand, when I played MGS2 at the time and completed it in two days, I was bewildered. I really didn’t understand this Metal Gear Solid 2; it was something inherently new and "different." I had played many video games until then, even though I was barely more than a thirteen-year-old, but that MGS2 had something more.

Today, in hindsight, I can say that Metal Gear Solid 2 was and is more than just a video game in the "classic sense of the term"

It is a played treatise on the aesthetics of video games. It is a video game that reflects on its language, its role in society, and on itself. And it mocks everyone, fans and critics, casual and hardcore. Because there is nothing more absurd than buying a video game only not to play it (or to play it very little) just as there is nothing more absurd than buying the sequel to a game and finding out you’ll play as another character. But then, the stroke of genius: the video game TALKS to us. Raiden is what all protagonists of all video games generally are: a conduit, an avatar to experience, detached from having a being-in-itself. There is the utmost contrast - we manipulate an ambiguous character who lacks a personal identity, and we feel uneasy. But the Raiden of MGS2 is the equivalent of a Link from a Zelda. He is a conduit and, as such, must represent everyone and no one, therefore the player. Who finds themselves in the role of a "no-one" representing themselves in that universe of the game.

And what a universe of the game, full of absurdities and non-sense that we perceive as such simply because it is NOT our world.

There is one scene in all the long cinematic sequences of MGS2 that shook me, one in particular where Snake Plissken points to the bandana talking about infinite ammo: here, to the vast majority of gamers, that scene was bothersome because it didn’t make sense and seemed like such a scene in a realistic/futuristic context like that of MGS2 was out of place, as much as vampires walking on water. At this point, I propose a question: why does a scene like this seem out of place to you but it doesn’t seem out of place to play as a plumber in overalls who grows by eating mushrooms and does nothing but jump? Well, when you have an answer, let me know.

Finally, one cannot help but be amazed at the enormous social SATIRE present in the final portion of the game. The analysis of the self-referential and meta-ludic message unfolds in all its power, expanding and encompassing society, culture, life, posing existential questions about it.

Raiden becomes Raiden when you, the player, literally stop playing, when the curtain falls amid the lights of New York and jazz.

When do you, like John Doe, become such in the world you live in? Note that in the final part of the adventure, the Patriots try to bomb Wall Street...

In short, Metal Gear Solid 2 can be hated or loved (if it’s not evident, I love it), but it must be credited. And a profound allegory of reality and video games themselves. But above all, drum roll - the first meaningful video game that bears significance - an inseparable fact for any work of art. Art is where there is a symbol and a meaning represented by it. And art is that symbol carrying meaning: MGS2 is this. It’s a video game that tells us something beyond the game itself. And for this reason, it is a FUNDAMENTAL piece in the world of video games, for this medium, it is an art-game.

It’s almost laughable to realize how video games are only now considered forms of art with this medium's acknowledgment when titles of this caliber already existed way back in 2001, and how such titles were harshly criticized.

It's paradoxical to consider The Last of Us the peak of maturity for this medium, it's paradoxical to flunk Metal Gear Solid 2 because it's not played, because it is NOT a video game, because it IS the Trout Mask Replica of video games.

Final considerations:

1) I understood this growing up, back then I wasn't a genius, and perhaps I'm still not, I believe the industry at the time was too naïve, Kojima later realized the direction things were going and released an equally beautiful but more "canonical" Metal Gear

2) This is a sociological experiment

This is it