PART I – PART II – PART III – PART IV – PART V – PART VI – PART VII

{NOTE: Clips are best watched in Full Screen mode.}

(This is the introduction/index page — Click here to start reading Part I already!)

The gaming world was more than happy to stand beneath Hideo Kojima and look up to him, soaking themselves in his strange ideas while they were still new and fresh. They gave Metal Gear Solid 2 perfect scores, calling it masterful – but after the golden shower stopped, they were left wondering what they had really experienced… and ended up dripping with resentment. If only they had known the genius of it all.

Introduction

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty received perfect scores and critical acclaim when it was released in 2001, selling millions of copies and single-handedly raising the bar for big action titles — back in a time before ridiculous advertising budgets and piss-poor online game journalism resulted in the sad little circus of propaganda we have today. It was a genuine smash hit.

But just a few years later, the critics hated it. It went from being called a masterpiece to masturbatory. In some cases, the same people who’d initially given it perfect scores were now mocking it openly, as if it had somehow changed for the worse. It hadn’t, of course, but this didn’t stop them from changing their minds. Calling it convoluted, pretentious, and full of “metababble”, they joined the fans in demanding answers, customer satisfaction, and justice from series creator Hideo Kojima. Few pieces of entertainment have generated as much confusion and controversy in modern history, actually.

The purpose of this article is to look deeply and carefully at what could very well be the most fascinating experiment ever sold on store shelves. Join me as I break it down piece by piece, and ultimately answer the question of what it was all for.