METAL GEAR SOLID 2 - Sons Of Liberty

For a game to be voted one of the best PSone titles of all time, the burden was a heavy one in coming up with a sequel on PS2 that will not only match the ingredients of the first, but also surpass it in order to avoid a more slick re-hash. And how slick it is! If the first one singed your socks and took up all of your free time (& more), you'll get your wish for engrossing gameplay with this sequel granted in multiples. In the first game our lone covert operative (codename) Solid Snake got sent to an Alaskan island, Shadow Moses, where a nuclear facility was under siege. The culprits being members of the Foxhound group. With the sunken tanker in the Manhattan harbour posing a serious environmental threat, the Big Shell was built to contain the situation. But now a terrorist group has overrun the facility and taken some high profile hostages - the president being one of them! A $30 billion ransom demand is laid down or the facility gets blown to bits, not only killing the important hostages, but also creating an ecological catastrophe, which will tarnish the ocean for a century. It is up to you, codename Raiden to stop these nutters. And you're not going to shoot your way out of it Arnie-style. Stealth is of the utmost importance as well as the use of technology with some great new angles like hiding under boxes, distracting guards and so on. Tactical Espionage Action indeed! Your back-up team is in constant radio contact with new information as well as clues on how to access certain situations (the pre-game move-, trick- & tactic guide very handy if you never played the original game - other provisions also made in this respect. You can enter your personal details from name & blood group to date of birth. The back-story from the first game is given in the form of a 10 page "book review" on the incident as well as a 129 page account. But, while it will take a good hour to get into the swing of things, there are still many days of serious action, adventure, plotting & planning ahead in which to allow this game to really get under your skin and take over your life. The attention to detail, well-planned plot and stylish execution of graphics, mood and actions puts this way up there. Metal Gear Solid took the foundation laid by games like Syphon Filter, pushing it several steps further and perfecting it into a semi-interact-cinematic experience of multi-facetted realism and complexity, with you right in the middle of the action. Expect a movie on it soon - but don't expect it to thrill you as much as the game.

6 / B
- PB