The
mastermind behind the Metal Gear series, Hideo Kojima is at it
again. This time around, the action will mostly be taken in
the ship near New York. This ship is
carrying the Rex destroyer, Metal Gear Ray (presumably created
by Fox Hounds), the new Metal Gear to end all the other Metal
Gears the black market has produced from the leak of
information about the Rex from Shadow Moses. While we don’t
know any of the information whether Ray was transporting from
or to New York, a group of special operatives invade the ship
and kills everyone who was on board. However, one lone figure
stands in between the operatives and their goal of kidnapping
Metal Gear Ray: Solid Snake. According to Kojima, the
operatives are not the only ones who are after Ray. The “others”
include Revolver Ocelot, complete with his new right hand, and
the third “Snake” brothers, besides Liquid (now what, is
he going to be named Gas?). There is also a new mysterious
female character who apparently attacks Snake. GP does not
know who, and why she is on board, yet. Details will unfold
when Kojima releases more details.
Gameplay-wise, Metal Gear
Solid 2: Sons of Liberty will not be completely different from
its predecessors but expect many tweaks in style of gameplay.
Now Snake can perform more complex actions. Such as opening a
locker to protect himself from the flying bullets, or hide
bodies so the enemies won’t detect the presence of our spy (Tenchu
2 replica). There is also the FPS shooting mode. By entering
this, you can attempt to take out the enemies with a headshot,
or shooting the enemies in the leg if they happen to have a
bulletproof shield, saving the limited ammos through out the
game. There are some tweaks to the AI (artificial
intelligence) system. Now the soldiers have a Thermal Goggles
(no more stealth camouflage?) and learned to cooperate with
other soldiers, making the situation harder for Snake. They
also learned to submit in the fight, dropping their weapons
rather then participating in the fight that they have no
chance of victory at all. According to Kojima, 30% of PS2’s
emotional engine was spent on AI system. Now that’s
something to be impressed at and you can tell them by noticing
that most of the backgrounds in MGS 2 are fully reactive. You
can shoot down the bottles in the bar, or shoot the gas tanks
to let out the gas to blind the enemies. You can even hide in
a locker or hide a dead enemy that you’ve just killed…or
do both! Hideo Kojima has taken a new step on the graphical
implement on the gaming.
EGM recently spoke with Kojima
himself and were told that the game can be completed without
actual killing non-boss enemies, using a tranquilizer. When
shot in the neck or head, the enemy falls asleep instantly.
When shot in the heart, the target dies instantly. When shot
on any other areas, they fall asleep in couple of seconds.
This was Kojima's way of showing that violence is not the only
answer in response to all the bashing the video game industry
has received these last few years. According to some sources,
MGS 2 will carry on some weapons from the predecessor. This
includes FA-MAS and SOCOM pistol. There are also new weapons.
What I can tell from now, it looks like AK-47 has been chose
as the new enemy weapon. And be glad fans, the cardboard boxes
are returning. Got to love that item!
The game first opened
its existence to the annual E3 event held in Los Angeles where
companies have an opportunity to showcase their upcoming and
current projects. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty blew
away the crowd with amazing graphics that were thought to be
FMV's when they were actual screenshots of the game, played by
Hideo Kojima himself. With PS2, MGS2 can go to all new
graphical levels. One indication is the close details acted
out by Snake. One example is when he is standing next to a bag
of flour and once it gets shot by a guard, the flour covers
Snake and he begins to sneeze. The details in the graphics
also and of course have improved, for example, you can see
Snake’s hair and clothes getting wet in the rain, or the
details on the lightening and the real-time dynamic shadows.
No confirmed release date on this title but it is expected to
be release sometime around 2001. Expect more on it in the
coming months. |