Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Review

Metal Gear Solid is one of the best in strategy/shooters around today. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance has Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and 500+ bonus missions added after it. You control an array of characters with a unique storyline that is almost too complicated to explain. Solid Snake, one of the characters, has his hands full in the beginning and is supposed to have died during a mission but you find him later on in the game with another character as an ally.

The game is harder to control than most games of this nature. The game has weak camera angles that sort of prevent the player from seeing what is actually in front of them. That’s what you have the radar for. The game teaches you everything you need to know about the game at the beginning, but you forget some of it wondering how to do things.

The graphics are superb. The people look, move and react like the real thing. The cut scenes have the greatest animation of any game around. Too bad it has the most cut scenes of practically any game around. Enemies weren’t spared on the animation either. Worlds, environments, and vehicles are amazingly smooth and flawless.

The sound is good in many ways. The voice acting is great for the many long cut scenes that you can and will endure while playing in Sons of Liberty. Guns click and drop rounds as it is being used. You can knock on walls and whistle to get other soldiers’ attention. All of this contributes to the overall effect of the game.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance has taken a creative edge with the adding of the massive amounts of bonus missions. The story is something you would think should become a movie. It may just become as complicated as Vanilla Sky, if it were to become a flick though.

Fans of the first Metal Gear will jump right into Substance. Konami spared nothing in making this version. Newcomers may just join because of skateboarding bonus missions, but they have to beat the other level before that. What can I say, Sons of Liberty may be 20 hours long, but about 5 hours of the game is cut scenes. The 500 bonus missions add to the lifespan, making Metal gear over 100 hours long. This game will not be a game that takes you a week of solid gameplay to beat fully. Maybe a couple months.