Metal Gear Solid The Master Collection finally gives the most underrated Metal Gear game its due

The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 is finally here, offering players the chance to revisit the first five mainline games in the Metal Gear franchise, along with a handful of spinoffs. The first major release since 2018's Metal Gear Survive, Master Collection Vol. 1 is an absolute joy, compiling these classic games together for modern audiences. Compilations and re-releases always come with a sense of reappraisal and one game that especially benefits from the reevaluation of its inclusion in Master Collection Vol. 1 is 2001's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Originally released for the PlayStation 2, Sons of Liberty takes place in 2007 and 2009, a few years after the events of 1998's Metal Gear Solid. In the wake of covert operative Solid Snake's disappearance, a rookie named Raiden is tasked with rescuing the American President from an oceanic environmental protection platform Big Shell. Learning that the federal government is secretly puppeteered by a shadow organization known as the Patriots, Raiden moves to stop the villainous Solidus Snake, who plots to seize control of the Patriots through the help of an advanced artificial intelligence.

Snaa-raiden

 At launch, Sons of Liberty endured criticism and controversy for keeping its protagonist switch secret until the game's release. To maintain the surprise, pre-launch trailers featured Snake in sections of the game where Raiden was the only playable character while the North American packaging prominently displayed Snake. The swap to Raiden as the game's protagonist left a sour first impression among players and one that overshadowed the quality of the overall game itself, as well as its prescient narrative themes.

More than just its electoral intrigue and the idea of an artificial intelligence program being the primary antagonist, Sons of Liberty weaved in socio-political commentary and themes that were way ahead of their time. To keep humanity and its perception under tight control, the rogue A.I. floods the internet with an overabundance of frivolous news and data as a form of social engineering in the Information Age.

To better put this in historical context, Sons of Liberty came out two years before Myspace – the first recognized American social media platform – launched, along with its idea of social media manipulating public perception of facts. In a society where the terms and concepts like “fake news” and fifth-estate warfare dominate popular online platforms and forums, producer and director Hideo Kojima really was able to see how cyberspace could negatively affect how we digest information before it all went to pot. 

And this isn't to say that Metal Gear Solid 2 is all conspiracy theory-driven commentary and conjecture, it's a solid installment in the franchise and a major technical forward from the original Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation. The gameplay mechanics have been expanded to give Snake and Raiden more agency, including the possibility of switching to first-person aiming to allow for more tactical targeting. The stealth mechanic is improved to add more environmental effects to sneaking around and maintaining cover while enemy A.I. has also been noticeably upgraded.

Kojima and the Metal Gear franchise would continue to hone its gameplay and hold its place as the premier stealth action series in the industry beyond Sons of Liberty. The franchise would continue to suggest concepts that would come to fruition later, like the rise of private military corporations in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but never quite to the same eerie level as Metal Gear Solid 2. With the game over 20 years old now and well past the sting of not being able to play the majority of the game as Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty really benefits the most out of any title in the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection as a game that's improved with the passage of time.

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