Defining Moments - Playing The Metal Gear Solid 2 Demo
When people talk about what they want in a “next generation” videogame experience they usually state that they want something fresh and innovative, something that leverages new technology to deliver an experience unlike that which has come before. When I hear the term “next-gen,” my mind goes to the time I spent in 2001 with the demo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
For me, Metal Gear Solid was a crowning achievement on the PlayStation. The story and characters set my imagination ablaze and the tense cat-and-mouse stealth gameplay felt unlike anything else I had played before. If MGS was a game, then MGS2 was an event. I remember when the first trailers came out showing the game off: the graphical leap between the two games was astonishing. Polygonal, roughly hewn puppet theater gave way to real people, expressive and dynamic, and environments rich with texture. The excitement was palpable and came on in such a deluge in the coming months that it could be credited in no small part with stealing thunder away from Sega’s ill-fated Dreamcast.
Zone of the Enders released for the then-new PlayStation 2 in March of 2001. A fast-paced action game that pitted giant, flying robots against each other sounded appealing enough; that its unique concept was bolstered by impressive visuals and the knowledge that it was in production by the same studio that delivered Metal Gear Solid ensured that it gained its share of attention. In a marketing masterstroke, Konami included something very special in every copy of Zone of the Enders: a playable demo of the immeasurably hyped MGS2, several months ahead of its estimated release time frame.
The result? ZOE sold nearly a million copies, an impressive feat given the PS2’s then relatively small user base. The side effect? ZOE’s myriad charms were almost immediately brushed to the side in favor of the extraordinary technological and design marvel that MGS2’s vertical slice embodied.
And what a vertical slice! I’ve already touched upon how drop-dead gorgeous the game was: there wouldn’t be another realistically-styled game that would have this much of an impact on me until Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009. It was so much more than good graphics that made me fall madly in love with it, however. MGS2 is a game stuffed with hundreds of small details that add up to a distinctive, compelling whole. MGS2’s demo wasn’t just prettier than anything to have come out before: it was more interactive.
The demo opens on a military tanker sailing in a storm down the Hudson River. Rain lashes convincingly against Snake and his surroundings, bouncing off of surfaces. Snake’s breath is visible, obviously cold. The game’s union of tech and design in the name of interactivity makes its debut when you take down your first enemy soldier.
In the previous game, downed enemies would simply disappear. Now their bodies remained and could, and should, be dragged out of sight before their comrades spotted them and went on the alert. Dragging the first enemy soldier to the side of the ship revealed a gate that they could be pushed through, their bodies given to the violence of the waves below.
The enemy AI was fiercely intelligent. Although their field of view was still narrow and they were as forgetful as before, new wrinkles made possible by the tech led to them feeling like real, tangible threats. They would call for back up on their radios which, if your aim was true, you could shoot out. But if you shot them while they were speaking you would send the guards they were talking to into an organized frenzy, forcing you to adapt to a far greater threat.
I have a string of incredible memories born from getting into trouble on the deck of the ship. I had two guards on my tail and made a mad dash for a door. I opened the hatch in a hurry, mashing the triangle button to turn the valve, and suddenly Snake grunted in bewilderment as he pulled the valve right off the door. I stared mouth agape at the screen, now a sitting duck for these two guards. I used Snake’s increased agility to somersault delightfully awkwardly into one of them and made a beeline for another door, which was in better condition than the other and lead me safely inside.
Once inside I marveled at the droplets of water dripping off of Snake onto the floor and the way that the bright fluorescent interior displayed a realistic harshness for a few seconds before Snake’s eyes (and thus the player’s) adjusted to transitioning from the darkness outside. I was caught completely off balance by guards noticing and tracking me by the wet footprints I left behind on the linoleum floor until Snake dried off. I laughed at the fact that he could actually get a cold from being out in the rain too long, alerting enemies’ to your presence via a loud, uncontrollable sneeze.
I think every player that spent time with the demo remembers shooting bags of flour and fire extinguishers to blind guards and firing bullets into ketchup and wine bottles, marveling at the game’s physics as they realistically shattered. I remember making music by shooting pots and pans in the kitchen, holding up guards to shake them down for items, hiding in lockers and peering out of the grates at encroaching threats, and doing dozens of pull-ups to increase Snake’s strength. I recall the demo’s boss, Olga, trying to flashblind Snake with a spotlight and the way that you could shoot out the light or shoot a tarp and use its flapping in the wind to obscure her vision.
So often the titles that ring in the next generation of consoles fail to live up to expectations. Rather than leveraging new systems to genuinely further the twin arts of technology and design we get experiences that play identically to that which has come before, with only a fresh coat of paint to differentiate themselves. Tech only matters when it has a direct impact on the rest of the gaming experience and playing the MGS2 demo for the first time was an exemplary and revelatory demonstration of this notion.
More than just prettier graphics, the demo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty blew the doors out on interactivity, applying its tech to allow players to connect with and alter the game space in ways they could have only dreamed of on previous generations of console hardware. Experiencing Hideo Kojima’s vision of the future of game design for the first time taught me much of what I look for from games to this day and stands out to me as one of this medium’s defining moments.
