Metal Gear Solid No Longer PS2 Exclusive

[Bond]

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/360/360368p1.html

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is not, strictly speaking, a new game. It is, however, the biggest basket of Easter eggs we've ever seen. An expanded version of Metal Gear Solid 2, it includes new missions featuring Solid Snake, hundreds of VR missions both challenging and bizarre, as well as other bonus modes to be named later. It's as if the game's creators decided MGS2 wasn't a big enough toybox already, stuffing it full of even more ways to have fun with Tactical Espionage Action. Hell, it even has Solid Snake skateboarding. You know you want some of that.

Variations on the basic Tanker and Plant episodes in Substance include the ability to play through the game with a number of optional characters and player skins. Solid Snake is available in both missions, wearing his "Iroquois Plisken" guise or a sharp tuxedo (with no bandanna -- his mullet swings free). In turn, Raiden can play through the Tanker episode, and it looks like the Ninja's sword is available at any time. If that's not enough, the Ninja herself is playable in both the game and the multitude of VR missions.

VR training includes a massive array of puzzles and challenges, just like the original MGS Integral. On top of the usual shooting and stealth challenges, there are now a few fencing missions to boot, requiring nimble passes with the Ninja's sword. Substance also recycles some classic gag missions, like a Godzilla parody with lumbering 50-foot-tall Gurlukovich mercenaries. The cute part, however, is the inclusion of little Godzilla spine-spinkes down the back of an exterior guard's brown forest fatigues.

And then there's the skateboarding game. Solid Snake is a playable character in Konami's upcoming Evolution Skateboarding, but Substance includes a mini-game that seems to obviate the need to buy that game at all. Snake skates about the quarterpipe-strewn surfaces of the Big Shell, as we wonder "Why?", and then "Why not?" It's pretty funny to imagine the game's designers pondering the very same questions.

The details on the "Snaketales" portion of the game remain unclear. Konami promises "all-new adventures in which players assume the role of Solid Snake," but no more details than that are available. There are plenty of holes to fill in Snake's story, however -- his adventures prior to the incident on the Discovery, his half of the bomb-disarming portion of the Tanker episodes -- and we look forward to seeing him come back in an original setting.

Indeed, we simply look forward to his return, or his arrival if the Xbox and PC versions of Substance will be your first exposure to Metal Gear Solid 2. The Xbox version is taking the lead, with a confirmed release in November 2002, while the PS2 and PC versions have no official release dates as yet. Look forward to further screens and updates in short order, as well as a conversation with Hideo Kojima on who came up with the skateboarding thing.

Don't worry, we'll remember to ask him a few other questions, too.

Well, it's great that a Metal Gear game is finally coming to the Xbox. Although Konami has still yet to comment on MGS: SOL for the Xbox.

[gekko]

My god. What's with all these games coming out AGAIN with just some modifications? Seem to be seeing a lot of them at this E3.

the game looks good for those who don't have it already. I doubt anyone other than hardcore MGS fans will buy it the second time. I'd much rather see them spending their time giving me a new MGS.

[fingersman]

Originally posted by gekko
My god. What's with all these games coming out AGAIN with just some modifications? Seem to be seeing a lot of them at this E3.

the game looks good for those who don't have it already. I doubt anyone other than hardcore MGS fans will buy it the second time. I'd much rather see them spending their time giving me a new MGS.

Gotta agree with Gekko...if I want to play a skateboard game....I'd buy one ...although seeing Snake skaetboard would be kinda funny.

I think they should have put a prologue to what's going to happen in the next installment of Metal Gear...which puts Snake in a mission where he finds out where these hundread year old dead bad guys are . Now that would great.