Metal Gear Solid 2: The Original Next-Generation Video Game
Looking back at Kojima’s enigmatic second “Solid” entry
So, like, in Metal Gear Solid 2, there’s this guy who attached another guy’s arm to his very much arm-free elbow. The transplant apparently included a hidden extra: the spirit of a dead terrorist who’s the genetically identical twin of this guy’s sworn enemy. Ghost terrorist — using this guy’s body — then steals a giant, sea-faring robot that makes animal noises right from under the nose of the US military.
Describe it as inventive storytelling, describe it as amateur schlock, but I totally buy it — I’m totally in. This poor man has been possessed by a sentient appendage who wants to do some very bad things with some very big robots. And as Metal Gear Solid 2 sold around 7 million copies with a Metacritic score of a whopping 96, it seems that some very smart people over at Team Kojima managed to convince a fair few of us that a robot-hijacking terrorist ghost arm was a totally acceptable thing back in 2001.
