Metal Gear Solid 2

Wow. This game kicks ass. After watching the 9 minute E3 trailer, I knew I had to play this game. Mike, Swifty, Chad, and I headed over to Blockbuster on Saturday and rented Zone of the Enders, just because it has the MGS2 demo disc included. Needless to say, I still haven't touched Zone of the Enders (which is supposed to be pretty cool in itself), and have played this damn demo over and over and over. It lasts about an hour the first time you play it (watching all the cinematics and listening to all the dialog), but you can easily rush through it in less than 15 minutes if you try to beat it as fast as you can.

This game is so cool, Swifty just laughed like a giddy little girl the whole time at how incredibly good it was. (Or wait... doesn't he laugh like that all the time?) The graphics are nothing short of amazing. The rain effects are without question the most realistic ever seen in a video game, and that's only for a part of the game that lasts a mere 5 to 10 minutes! When you switch to Snake's first person view, there are actual raindrop effects like when rain hits a camera lens. Awesome. There are points when the ship rocks and you can see walls of water falling off of the higher decks down below and splashing. In MGS2 you can now actually shoot in First Person View Mode. That makes a lot more sense. Sniping with your tranquilizer dart-armed Beretta 92F is loads of fun... depending on where you the hit the enemy affects how long it takes the medicine to take effect. A shot in the head drops 'em like a sack of potatoes into a deep sleep, but shoot them in the foot and you better hope they fall asleep before radioing their comrades. Of course, you can always just shoot the radio! Or you can throw a chaff grenade, which disrupts the radio communications. Of course, you can still break their necks. Just sneak up behind the baddy, flip 'em over, wait for 'em to get up and then go to work. Or you can take guards hostage and move through areas with 3-5 guards in them without much problem... they don't want to shoot their comrade!

More fun still is the fact that once you empty a clip on your gun, you get an empty clip in your inventory, which you can throw to distract guards. Nothing is more satisfying then tossing an empty clip and watching three guards wander toward it, then putting them all to sleep. Good stuff.

When you are shot, your health will slowly detoriate and you will leave a trail of blood (!) on the floor. That's bad, as the guards will follow it, and then shoot your ass again. That's where bandages come in, these wonderful things stop the bleeding and allow you to continue some silent ass kicking. Oh yes, and the guards that you kill don't just fade away after they die. Oh no. Their dead carcass stays right where you leave it, and if another guard finds it, you can bet they are gonna be mad (not to mention tipped off that someone else is around). But luckily you can drag the dead bodies wherever you want. If you're still outside, you can drag them and throw them off the side of the ship (or do it to drugged guards for an easy kill). If you're inside, you can hide them in a dark corner or perhaps inside a locker!

Which brings me to another point. If you want to run and hide, you can hide in lockers just like in the original. One thing that didn't happen in the original was getting the guards to ogle some fine posters on the inside of lockers! Case-in-point: open up one of the lockers with a hot girl poster on the inside, and hide in the locker opposite it. The guards will drop their weapons and take a fine look at the poster, which is the perfect chance to unload Snake's martial arts combo, which has been refined since MGS. Now it's two punches followed by a totally bad-ass roundhouse jump kick. After dropping both of 'em to the ground, put a tranq in each of them and move on.

But wait, there's more. Almost anything can be shot and destroyed in MGS2. if you need to hide, you can shoot out a couple of lights near a corner and turn it into a dark corner perfect for hiding. Or you can shoot fire extinquishers to distract guards, which makes them easy fodder to shoot from behind. Or you can shoot steam pipes. Or you can shoot bags of flour that get in the guard's eyes! There's one point where you can find the lounge on the ship which includes a full service bar, which would include, obviously, a bucket of ice. Shooting the bucket of ice sends ice all over the counter. Now here's the incredible part: the ice actually melts. Even more realistically, not only does the ice melt, but a bunch of three cubes close together melt slower than a single cube by itself. The amount of detail in MGS2 is absolutely mind-blowing.

I highly suggest you go to Blockbuster and rent Zone of the Enders to get your hands on this glorious demo. It is worth the $5.99 easily. Hell, maybe you could actually play Z.O.E.... it's supposed to be cool too!