METAL GEAR SOLID 2: Sons of Liberty - Master Collection Version

I now understand the hype behind Raiden, he's such a good character and i actually loved this game

I understand why this is one of the best games ever made.

little twink boy finds out the government lies to you.

I think that was Solid Snake?

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I feel like it's a genuinely impossible effort to try and even bring anything new to the discussion regarding one of the most rightfully celebrated experiences of the entire medium, but HERE I GO- I find it so fascinating that someone who did not care for the original [i]Metal Gear Solid[/i] like me was able to come away from the experience of its direct sequel as easily one of my all-time favorites. There's a lot of things that help with that! Having the technical bandwith to breathe and fully flesh out its stealth sandbox & animation work was so huge, helping it feel like the kind of project Kojima Productions had always wanted to make at first but were limited by the PS1's narrow boundaries? It's just telling that Big Shell is intentionally a horribly "boring" setting compared to Shadow Moses's fortress, yet I found the moment-to-moment experience so much more rewarding and open to experimentation that Moses ever was. But obviously, none of these even come close to how groundbreaking and shocking its narrative still is TO THIS DAY. The insane level of detail and humanity the team was able to bring to these characters so early into the medium's history alone should be worthy of praise, but to use such a love letter to cinema & camp for a blatant deconstruction of games as an art form? To use every players' expectation for a "fun sequel" against them? And to deliver such a horrifying revelation regarding artificial intelligence, the reality of the capitalist + war-mongering heart that fuels the The American Empire, and showcase just how easily our entire concept of reality can be reshaped under a culture that revolves around what we already want to believe? YEESH. Missiles, guns, drones, soldiers. None of these even matter to the system itself. Mere pawns like this are nothing compared to the shear power of information. Why expend such resources to curb a rebellion when you can simply mold each little citizen into the good pet they want to be? If you can simply give the common crowd just enough suffering to overwhelm their mind yet just enough comfort and "choice" in their life to pacify them, you won't even need to stop a rebellion from happening. Teach the good little citizens to vote, to passively protest, to feel like they're making a difference against the overwhelming scale and brutality of the very ideology they've been raised since birth to protect. Feed them, in their entertainment & politics & education to conform and obey. It's all just a fun little game, isn't it? It's oh so fun to obey. To carry out orders. To check off little missions and levels. Perhaps if you work hard enough, you can even "win" as a little worker bee and be the perfect doll in the role you were intended to play. And for anyone who dares defy the system? Make an example out of them. Turn them into terrorists, into fugitives, into despicable monsters trying to destroy YOUR loved ones and who deserve to be punished. Maybe if they hadn't been so loud and dangerous and scary, things wouldn't have ended up that way. And as such, almost any action taken against the Empire will only strengthen its strongest defense - the notion that even the very people who suffer under it will defend it to their dying breath if they're given the smallest comforts to pacify them. The bread and circuses are quite fun once you ignore the horrors, after all. It is exactly this reason why information is everything. Information is the key to controlling everyone. It is why digital surveillance and censorship and age verification and every other fascist operative to nail down the internet's free natures has been so craved by every world government at large. It is why generative AI has been so strongly pushed by our ruling corporations to strip its people of their very humanity, their literacy, and their ability to critically discern what they see. The biggest threat to the system's own future is being able to spread ideas or information that counters its own narrative. It is much easier to eliminate the possibility of any curtain than to convince someone to not look behind the curtain, after all. But as [i]Metal Gear Solid 2[/i]'s own sci-fi future has only solidified more into our own reality over the decades, one thing becomes abundantly clear. There might be far more of a chance for us to break free of the chains of authoritarianism than Kojima's prediction. Even as world governments have tried harder and harder to prevent any information outside their own narrative from spreading, the internet's digital access has proved that much more vital. Genocide that previously would have been silently swept under the rug is now such common knowledge that a tax-funded apartheid state's own existence might not be guaranteed anymore. The waning cries of late-stage capitalism are hurting people enough to finally let calls for socialist reform bleed through the censors. Even marginalized identities like Black, indigenous, and queer communities are able to break through so much of the social barrier placed on decades past through establishment media. Not everything about the internet's Wild West approach has been a plus - just look at the terrifying amount of radicalized fascists that grow every day - and the consolidation of the internet under for-profit businesses has undeniably squeezed much of the good out of it; but maybe some solace can be taken in one thing. It is overwhelmingly obvious at this point that the system cannot sustain itself anymore. It is scared and desperate to keep hold of its own slipping grasp of power. And as much as it cracks down that much further on any attempts to escape, more and more people slip through the cracks. I don't quite have the faith to believe that a project as daunting and encompassing as the American Empire might fall within my lifetime. But I still have hope that its people can realize collectively just how empty the "freedom" we have been promised really means in practice. How all we have to lose is the chains wrapped around our wrists. And how a better future is so within our grasp with enough empathy, enough love, and enough solidarity to push through our conditioning towards the kind of world those before us failed to deliver. Ultimately, even a work as shockingly anti-authoritarian and prophetic as [i]Metal Gear Solid 2[/i] itself can so easily be adapted as yet another tool of capitalism's control. It's all a silly little game you can buy and experience and play, yet place the controller down after the credits roll and carry on living as before. But I can just hope that it, like The Matrix or many countless other works of art from the time, can radicalize a few souls out there. That those who loved it can strongly analyze who they want to be in spite of the limitations placed upon us and how they can fight for a better world. Art and consumer products will obviously never fan the flames for revolution; something like that [b]can never and will never be televised.[/b] But I love art like this that can inspire us to think more deeply about our own way of living in spite of that barrier. I severely doubt most capital-g Gamers had this as their key takeaway from Sons of Liberty. So many refused to even engage with it after Raiden was revealed as the true protagonist, after all. But I suppose in that way, it just reveals how much more work there is to be done. And to use the system's own words against it, I urge everyone to [b]turn the game console off right now[/b] and start working for the future you want to see. It can be a comfortable life living exactly as you, the player, are meant to be played. But is this really the life you want to live?

MGS2:SOL is my least favorite one; I just couldn't enjoy the gameplay as much as MGS1/MGS3. However, this collection is a must. Players will always complain. I have finished all three and only had one game crash on MGS3 due to changing tabs during a loading screen. All games ran exceptionally well, graphic setting options are a delicacy and the bonus content for those long time fans puts the cherry on top. Hideo Kojima's work is definitely on a different level.

Често раньше игра не сильно нравилась но перепройдя сегодня я понял что это наверное лучшая часть серии(в мгс 4 еще не играл) в этой игре хорошо все гейплей,сюжет и музыка всем советую пройти