History YMMV / MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty

%% * HoYay: It's a ''Metal Gear Solid'' game. And one where a DepravedBisexual joins the fray!

** During The Patriots' conversation with Raiden before the FinalBoss, [[spoiler: A.I. Rose]] remarks that "Genes don't contain any record of human history." Six years later, ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' would disregard that statement for the sake of its FramingDevice.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Fans disappointed with the Snake Tales which act as a NoBudget rehash of several events in the main game felt the entire mode should have been focusing on [[AnotherSideAnotherStory Snake's perspective]] during his mission at the Big Shell.

** Snake's stern warnings about the dangers of "turning war into a video game" can seem even more chilling today than they did in 2001, both on the side of video games ("realistic" shooters like ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' becoming ridiculously popular in 2007 - the same year the Tanker chapter takes place in, even) and on the side of actual war (thanks to the advent of drone warfare).

%%zce, needs explanation * HoYay: It's a ''Metal Gear Solid'' game. And one where a DepravedBisexual joins the fray!

** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port contains several bugs, but most egregiously, it cuts the framerate in half, despite being on stronger hardware than even the [=PS3=] used for the ''HD Edition'', let alone the original [=PS2=]. Because the game was made with 60 fps in mind, this also causes other graphical glitches, especially in the rain-covered Tanker Chapter. The port can also randomly crash on the VR screen.

** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port contains several bugs, but most egregiously, it cuts the framerate in half, despite being on stronger hardware than even then [=PS3=] used for the ''HD Edition'', let alone the original [=PS2=]. Because the game was made with 60 fps in mind, this also causes other graphical glitches, especially in the rain-covered Tanker chapter. Also the port can randomly crash on the VR screen.

** By the time of the release of the PC port of the game, around 2003, two years after the game first came out for the [=PS2=], reviews of the game had already abandoned trying to keep the game's DecoyProtagonist a secret. That, and everyone knows that the game's ending is rather ''demanding'' of the player.

** For years, the game was panned for not living up to the massive hype created by both its demo and its status as a sequel to its highly successful [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid predecessor]], and much of that ire was directed at Raiden, who surprised players by becoming the playable character after [[DecoyProtagonist spending the prologue as Solid Snake]]. Raiden was the complete opposite of what players expected from Snake: instead of being a gruff and manly veteran, Raiden was a naïve and emotional pretty boy who frequently argued with his girlfriend, which clashed harshly with Western expectations of masculinity. The despise for Raiden got bad enough for Creator/HideoKojima to include some SelfDeprecation about him in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' before revamping his characterization in later games [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap to much acclaim]]. However, as ''[=MGS2=]''[='s=] reputation [[VindicatedByHistory improved]], so too did Raiden's portrayal in it, with fans coming to both recognize his more sympathetic traits as a traumatized ChildSoldier and appreciate his role in deconstructing the series' relationship with its fans.

** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port contains several bugs, but most egregiously, it cuts the framerate in half, despite being on stronger hardware than even then [=PS3=] used for the ''HD Edition'', let alone the original [=PS2=]. Because the game was made with 60 fps in mind, this also causes other graphical glitches, especially in the rain-covered Tanker chapter.

** The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port contains several bugs, but most egregiously, it cuts the framerate in half, despite being on stronger hardware than even the [=PS3=] used for the HD version, let alone the original [=PS2=]. Because the game was made with 60 fps in mind, this also causes other graphical glitches, especially in the rain-covered Tanker chapter.

** While the [=PS3=] version of the HD re-release plays just fine, it has an infamous GameBreakingBug that causes the game to consistently freeze during the (unskippable) credits sequence with no real known solution.[[note]]A makeshift solution involves turning off [=PS3=] notifications and not wearing body armor when dealing the final blow to Solidus, but it doesn't always work.[[/note]] While it doesn't really affect someone just playing the game once to see the story, it makes accessing the final stats and NewGamePlus (with its associated rewards) a serious hassle since the game only makes a viable save file after the credits end.

** The swimming controls are weird, unintuitive and rather squirrely to get a grasp of. And then the game throws you into sections where they have sea mines ready to take chunks off of your health bar if you mess up -- and then an EscortMission of guiding someone back ''through'' these areas, with their own oxygen meter to manage to boot. This was so infamous that numerous gaming news outlets at the time called attention to and lambasted these sequences above all else, regardless of their thoughts on the rest of the game; they were more controversial to some than ''Raiden himself''.

* ThatOneAchievement: The trophies for completing the VR Missions. If one were to attempt these trophies while playing the stream-able version of the HD collection, it has become practically impossible. The [=PS4=] controllers have none of the [[PressureSensitiveInterface pressure-sensitivity]] that the [=PS2=] ones did; even the [=PS3=] controllers had it to an extent. That means anytime an assault rifle is used, the second you press square, Raiden or Snake starts firing immediately- which means triggered alert phases (ruining hold up missions), and burning through ammo quickly.

* TakeThatScrappy: "External Gazer" takes a good bit of piss out of ''Metal Gear Solid 2''[='=]s story, even more than ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' did. The much-loathed romance angle between Raiden and Rose is lampshaded by their VR avatars, the misdeeds of which earned "the combined hate of the entire universe" and whose mere presence "has the ability to destroy a world."

* ValuesDissonance: Part of the reason for Raiden's lukewarm reception in the West, at least in 2001. In Japan, there isn't nearly as much stigma against [[{{Bishonen}} men with feminine features]], and it's actually very traditional to cast them in heroic roles.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny:
** While some of the later video games released were acclaimed for its deconstruction of the medium, ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' is now considered the earliest popular example to explore this.
** Anyone who played the games from the ''[[UpdatedRerelease Subsistence]]'' edition of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' tends to find the old overhead view from this game difficult to get back to grips with.
* TakeThatScrappy: "External Gazer" takes a good bit of piss out of ''Metal Gear Solid 2''[='=]s story, even more than ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' did. The much-loathed romance angle between Raiden and Rose is lampshaded by their VR avatars, the misdeeds of which earned "the combined hate of the entire universe" and whose mere presence "has the ability to [[StrangledByTheRedString destroy a world]]."

** In the Plant mission, your support team can get on your nerves. Especially in the early game to explain gameplay mechanics you probably already picked up on the Tanker.

** Fatman's fight is very fun as well. You are fighting against a fat evil bomber on roller skates.

** Creator/QuintonFlynn's performance as Raiden in the English version. Some feel that he did a very good providing his voice, while others believe that his performance made Raiden seem too whiny. Not helping matters is that in the Japanese version, Raiden has an awesome baritone voice.

** For years, the game was panned for not living up to the massive hype created by both its demo and its status as a sequel to its highly successful [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid predecessor]], and much of that ire was directed at Raiden, who surprised players by becoming the playable character after [[DecoyProtagonist spending the prologue as Solid Snake]]. Raiden was the complete opposite of what players expected from Snake: instead of being a gruff and manly veteran, Raiden was a naïve and emotional pretty boy who frequently argued with his girlfriend, which clashed harshly with western expectations of masculinity. The despise for Raiden got bad enough for Creator/HideoKojima to include some SelfDeprecation about him in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' before revamping his characterization in later games [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap to much acclaim]]. However, as ''[=MGS2=]''[='s=] reputation [[VindicatedByHistory improved]], so too did Raiden's portrayal in it, with fans coming to both recognize his more sympathetic traits as a traumatized ChildSoldier and appreciate his role in deconstructing the series' relationship with its fans.

* EndingFatigue: The battle with the [=RAYs=] seems like the climax of the game... except there are a good forty minutes of cutscenes/codec messages between that and the final fight with Solidus. And after ''that'', there's another ten minutes of cutscenes.

** [[MadBomber Fatman]]. Despite only appearing for one boss fight and not being as important to the overall plot as Fortune or Vamp, he's managed to remain fondly-remember for being a [[LargeHam hammy]], LaughablyEvil [[AxCrazy kook]] who doesn't give a shit about any of the [[GambitPileup gambit pileups]] his allies are engaging in, and instead only cares for the endless destruction his explosives cause.

** The M9 tranquilizer handgun, or the silenced SOCOM. Take your pick. Both are capable of instantly incapacitating headshots from distances that only a sniper rifle would remain accurate at in RealLife, the ammo is extremely common, and abusing them almost guarantees you never being seen. The M9 is arguably the better of the two, since you [[DiscOneNuke get it far sooner]] (you start the Tanker with it and get it from a locker in the first room in the Plant) and don't aim it down the iron sights, meaning the gun takes up less of the screen in first-person view, and the laser is much easier to line up shots with than the SOCOM's ironsights. Plus, your endgame status is better if you don't kill anyone, and you get extra dog tags from the bosses to unlock goodies for NewGamePlus. Meanwhile, the silencer for the SOCOM comes literally about an hour into the game. This gets reversed on higher difficulty levels, where even tagging an enemy in the head for an [[InstantSedation instant knockout]] with the M9 will have them get back up faster than it'd take for you to pause the game and go piss, while outright killing people with SOCOM headshots remains as effective as ever.

** Crossing somewhat into HilariousInHindsight meta territory, FBI head Robert Mueller's investigation into the 2016 elections indicted thirteen Russian nationals that were aiding the Trump campaign through data harvesting and social media manipulation. Paul Eiding would do a reading of the report in Colonel Campbell's voice, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWR-zuiIFvQ just to drive the point home]].

** For years, the game was panned for not living up to the massive hype created by both its demo and its status as a sequel to its highly successful [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid predecessor]], and much of that ire was directed at Raiden, who surprised players by becoming the playable character after [[DecoyProtagonist spending the prologue as Solid Snake]]. Raiden was the complete opposite of what players expected from Snake: instead of being a gruff and manly veteran, Raiden was a naïve and emotional pretty boy who frequently argued with his girlfriend, which clashed harshly with western expectations of masculinity. The despise for Raiden got bad enough for Creator/HideoKojima to include some SelfDeprecation about him in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' before revamping his characterization in later games [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap to much acclaim]]. However, as ''[=MGS2=]''[='s=] reputation [[VindicatedByHistory improved]], so too did Raiden's portrayal in it, with fans coming to both recognize his more sympathetic traits as a traumatized ChildSoldier and appreciate his role in deconstructing the series' relationship with its fans.

* MemeticMolester: Vamp. It's not uncommon to see fan art of him doing something like licking Raiden.

* ThatOneAchievement:
** The trophies for completing the VR Missions. If one were to attempt these trophies while playing the stream-able version of the HD collection, it has become practically impossible. The [=PS4=] controllers have none of the [[PressureSensitiveInterface pressure-sensitivity]] that the [=PS2=] ones did; even the [=PS3=] controllers had it to an extent. That means anytime an assault rifle is used, the second you press square, Raiden or Snake starts firing immediately- which means triggered alert phases (ruining hold up missions), and burning through ammo quickly.

* PortingDisaster: While the [=PS3=] version of the HD re-release plays just fine, it has an infamous GameBreakingBug that causes the game to consistently freeze during the (unskippable) credits sequence with no real known solution.[[note]]A makeshift solution involves turning off [=PS3=] notifications and not wearing body armor when dealing the final blow to Solidus, but it doesn't always work.[[/note]] While it doesn't really affect someone just playing the game once to see the story, it makes accessing the final stats and NewGamePlus (with its associated rewards) a serious hassle since the game only makes a viable save file after the credits end.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: An optional Codec with Pliskin will reveal that Raiden used to smoke, but "quit it a long time ago". Just a minor detail, or {{Foreshadowing}} regarding Raiden's stressful past?

* EvilIsSexy:
** Vamp. A DepravedBisexual PsychoKnifeNut [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampire]] [[TheWoobie with a tragic past]], [[HoYay a penchant for getting up close and personal with the resident]] {{Bishonen}} and [[MrFanservice dark hair, a seductive voice and a agile-muscular build]]. Not even his crossing of the MoralEventHorizon caused the fandom to hate him thanks to his alluring presence.
** Fortune is a beautiful woman wearing a LeotardOfPower who’s just as destructive as the rest of Dead Cell.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: By design, ''Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'' is supposed to be incomprehensible and incapable of making sense upon a first play-through of the game as part of its {{Postmodernism}}. Its GainaxEnding, [[TrailersAlwaysLie deceptive marketing]], MindScrew plot even by the standards of ''Metal Gear'', and the TakeThatAudience themes made many people see it as a jumbled mess of a game upon its initial release in 2001. Of course, as the issues of information flow and control of the narrative in the digital world became much more prevalent in real life, this incomprehensibleness is now considered to have made the game age extraordinarily well and reestablished the game as a work of postmodernist art.

** The trophies for completing the VR Missions. If one were to attempt these trophies while playing the stream-able version of the HD collection, it has become practically impossible. The [=PS4=] controllers have none of the pressure sensitivity that the [=PS2=] ones did; even the [=PS3=] controllers had it to an extent. That means anytime an assault rifle is used, the second you press square, Raiden or Snake starts firing immediately- which means triggered alert phases (ruining hold up missions), and burning through ammo quickly.

* {{Narm}}: Besides the fact that [[Narm/MetalGear there's an entire page of it]], Fatman and Fortune in particular stand out. The former is a mad bomber on rollerskates who sees his bombs as a timely form of art and keeps his fingers manicured on par with a woman's, not to mention [[EvilIsHammy his pure ham and cheese performance]]. Fortune on the other hand is followed by a lonely sax leitmotif, and literally brings an entire bucket's worth of angst and drama to just about every single scene she's in - something she's explicitly called out on in-universe.

** Snake's stern warnings about the dangers of "turning war into a video game" can seem even more chilling today than they did in 2001, both on the side of video games ("realistic" shooters like ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' becoming ridiculously popular in 2007 - the same year the Tanker chapter takes place in, even) and on the side of actual war (thanks to the advent of drone warfare).

--> "A virtual grunt of the digital age. That's just great."

** During The Patriots' conversation with Raiden before the FinalBoss, [[spoiler: A.I. Rose]] remarks that "Genes don't contain any record of human history." Six years later, ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed'' would disregard that statement for the sake of its FramingDevice.

* MagnificentBastard: This was the game that cemented Ocelot's status as one. By the end of ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', he was one of the most magnificent bastards ever created.

* UncertainAudience: Even Terry Wolfe, who describes himself as an apologist for the game, its themes, and the degree of interpretation and exegesis he feels it requires to be fully appreciated, has said that [[http://metagearsolid.org/2013/08/official-review-mgs2-a-complete-breakdown/ the game is too arrogant for its own good]], and that it was foolish and egotistical of Kojima to essentially engineer a big prank to work out his frustrations on fans.
-->''"The reality is that the original Metal Gear Solid‘s themes were so '''ahead of their time by gaming standards''' and so '''derivative by pop culture standards''' that they were destined to be pushed to the backburner by both groups. [...] The themes of [=MGS2=] are powerful and highly relevant, but they’re wasted. They may as well be in Latin and spoken in reverse. Dumb it down for the masses and work on attracting a cult following to disseminate your messages — don’t engineer the world’s greatest prank in order to prove that you’re smarter than everyone, you crazy man!"''

** The game's message about social media being exploited by politicians in bad faith to deliberately circulate misinformation on behalf of their agenda, which also doubled as contemporary commentary on the Japanese government's past efforts to censor or downplay the country's war crimes in WWII, took on an extremely ironic bent when [[https://www.pcgamer.com/news-outlets-falsely-link-hideo-kojima-to-shinzo-abe-assassination-after-racist-joke/ far-right French politician Damien Rieu and even official Greek news broadcasts]] falsely attributed the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (who was controversial during his tenure for his denial of WWII war crimes) to Hideo Kojima, claiming his name was "Samyueru Hydeo".