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Games Entertainment

Behind the scenes: Metal Gear Solid 2 129

Posted by chrisd from the seems-like-an-exhaustingly-fun-job dept.
Kevin Lomax writes "GameSpot has posted another one of its Final Hours stories, this time detailing the development story behind Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PlayStation 2. They did one on Black & White earlier this year and this one looks just as good with lots of interesting quotes from the developers in Japan about how they built the game."
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Behind the scenes: Metal Gear Solid 2 More

Behind the scenes: Metal Gear Solid 2

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  • Software Development (Score:3, Funny)

    by 1alpha7 ( 192745 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @10:15PM (#2602474) Homepage

    "You see this callus on my finger?" Kojima asks. "Well, that's from me using so many highlighters to go through all the bugs. I use up at least two highlighter pens a day."

    Now that's thorough software development.

    1Alpha7

  • Todd McFarlane of Spawn [spawn.com] fame is doing the second series too. Check 'em out here [spawn.com]. Pretty wicked detailing, as per usual.
  • Just a little one here [spawn.com]. He loves Shrek. :)

  • When you first sit down to play Metal Gear Solid 2, you assume the role of Snake for the opening sequence. But soon the tables turn--Snake disappears and you take control of Raiden. It's a twist that even the most die-hard Metal Gear fans surely won't be expecting.

    Oh, right. Except its all over the Internet. Like movie trailers that give it all away.

    1Alpha7


    • You know what the funny part is?

      Kojima did his best to hide Raiden until the release of the game. I watched all the trailers as soon as they came out (I was there at the E3 this year when he presented the new trailer at the Sony conference) and he never revealed anything that might suggest that you wouldn't control Solid Snake for the best part of the game. They even used Snake's model for some scenes that used Raiden's model in the final game.

      I managed to stay safe, intentionally avoiding any spoilers or reviews of the game when it came out until I got my copy and played it myself.

      Turns out, I shouldn't have bothered to avoid the spoilers. Even while Kojima kept Raiden as a secret for almost two years, the *manual* gives him away right at page two or three (along with several other spoilers). Thankfully I didn't read the manual for the first time until I was well along the game, and after realizing it had plenty of spoilage material I just tucked it away until I had finished the game.

      So, we didn't even need the Internet this time to give it all away. While Kojima was busy hiding all the important stuff in the trailers, some people at the packaging department of Konami of America decided to print everything in the manual. Thanks for the spoilers, Konami!
      • It went even farther than that: McFarlane Toys was commissioned to create MGS2 action figures, and three figures (Raiden, Ocelot, and Fortune I think) were "secret" until the game's release. McFarlane's website hasn't been updated yet, so you can still see the "obfuscated" toys. [spawn.com]

        I've been looking forward to MGS2 for over a year, but I don't read gaming sites, and I purposely avoid potential spoilers, so I was indeed surprised when Raiden entered the scene. It's almost as if Snake were just there in the first level for publicity. :-)

        As mentioned in my earlier post, the lack of closure at the end of MGS2 leads us to suspect that there will be a third game in which Liquid/Ocelot is finally disposed of. Hopefully Snake will return to prominence for MGS3.

        • I have to agree with The_Messenger. Luckily for me, all the gaming sites I visited told me *NOT* to read the manual as it contained spoilers. I was very much surprised by Raiden's appearance when he took off his mask in the game.


          In fact, I was actually wondering when I would go back to controlling Snake until I ran into "Pliskin".


          I guess reading the right gaming sites does have it's benefits :)

    • Konami did an amazing job of keeping this little turd suprise secret. They went so far as to release later shots of the game with Snake which actually had Raiden in it. I only WISH it was well-known before hand so people can see this game is bag of ass, story-wise.
    • When you first sit down to play Metal Gear Solid 2, you assume the role of Snake for the opening sequence. But soon the tables turn--Snake disappears and you take control of Raiden. It's a twist that even the most die-hard Metal Gear fans surely won't be expecting.
      Oh, right. Except its all over the Internet. Like movie trailers that give it all away.

      Actually, I knew about it until I read your comment. Thanks.

  • A little spoilage with my thoughts on MGS2 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DragonPup ( 302885 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @10:32PM (#2602526)
    Honestly, the story of MGS2 seemed to...well, fall a little loose as the game wrapped up. It went from really nice in the majority of the game but became to a tad too philiosophical for it's own good near the end.

    Also it seemed that some of the neater things(the sword, the partner mode) were SERIOUSLY underused and both were so cool!

    Oh, and I disagree with the thought in the article that Raiden was 'overly feminane looking', nancy might be a better for him :-)

    All in all, I still enjoyed it greatly. Great game, maybe we'll even see a sequel. One can hope

    -Henry
    • It went from really nice in the majority of the game but became to a tad too philiosophical for it's own good near the end.

      Welcome to anime. Sure it's not all like that, but there's a vast array of anime which gets preachy near its terminus, or even sooner.

      Oh, and I disagree with the thought in the article that Raiden was 'overly feminane looking', nancy might be a better for him :-)

      Anime is full of guys who are gay, or look like they are. Bubblegum crisis has both.

  • Cool game, but... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by dimator ( 71399 )
    This game has gotten universally near-perfect reviews. But is it really THAT much different from the original? To me, it's a remake with a longer story and better graphics. Isn't this the kind of thing that gets ID a bunch of flack with each iteration they put out?

    I'm playing it now, and it is fun... but it is the same fun that Quake3 was, after playing Quake1 or 2.
    • Well, what were you expecting? Game sequels are tradionally the same style and fun of gameplay but with refinements, improvements, and new features. If you want a new experience, play something else.

    • From what I've seen, ID gets some hassle for putting the emphasis on the tech behind a game, not the actual game content. Q1 wasn't really like Q2. Q2 made an attempt at a storyline and actually had a feel to it. Q3 was basically just a multiplayer game. The single player game was practice with bots. I played through MGS2, and it does kind of feel like the original, but since the original was also a masterpiece IMO and they added nifty perks and enhanced graphics, I was satisfied.

      So if it's not broken, don't fix it!
  • Slightly offtopic, but does anyone have the E3 2000 trailer of mgs2 with the crowd noise in it?
  • Would anyone else kill to be making games for a living?


    • Making games is the most difficult career i can think of.

      When you make regular software, it may have a bug but its not such a big deal, when you make a game there can be NO bugs at all.

      And you better love serious calculus and math because you'll be writing some very complex algorithms.

      Oh and last but not least be prepared to spend at least 2 years, sometimes up to 3 or 4 designing and writing one game.

      IT sounds nice, but writing games takes alot of work, for a long time.

      Imagine getting 4 hours sleep a day for 3 years of of coding, you'll be a total wreck when its over.
    • "Would anyone else kill to be making games for a living?"
      You say that, but then you're surprised that there are so few worthwhile entry-level positions in the game industry!

      I think that's easy to say when MGS2 is the first thing on your mind. But seriously, would you commit murder to be one of the guys Ion Storm hired to clean up Daikatana so they could ship it? I mean, that's definitely considered making games for a living, but would you really kill for that job?

    • That used to be the case, but I'm afraid it's above my head. My poor self can't afford a four year degree right now and my maths education doesn't beyond "Intro to Calculus" so I'll probably settle for some much crappier programming position (if I can find one)

      I'm the kind of guy who never uses a weekend for anything but studying (a nerd) and I don't plan to "settle down" .. ever. So my lifestyle fits the game programming regiment, I just don't have the damn creds.

  • Sounds like a Microsoft idea... (Score:2, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Kojima once had what he thought was a great concept: designing a product where the player would be forced to buy a new copy of the game every time the player character died. "As I said, I have some very impractical ideas," he admits with a grin. Imagine if everytime Windows crashed, Bill Gates got a dollar, he'd be a billio- err.... Hey, he does!

    • It's being done (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Animats ( 122034 )
      There's some toy on the market this Xmas that requires an ongoing supply of "powerup cards". I don't expect it to be a success, but if it had been Pokemon-based last year...

  • Cool (Score:1)

    by Sk3lt ( 464645 )
    Gamespot have always brought out pretty cool features but there reviews now suck and there site is really slow loading, not like in the early months of 2000 where they had a fast loading site with minimal graphics.

    Anyway I loved the B&W feature so I will check out this one :) Thanks.
    • You have to question the integrity of a review site that will post an "unbiased" review along with a banner ad for that game and a "quick-buy" link directly in the review.

      When is the last time you saw a big money game get trashed by a big name review site? I bet you have to think pretty hard. So can we conclude that no bad games have been out for a long time then? Didn't think so.

      I think the best sites for honest reviews are the smaller non-commercial sites. They call a spade a spade.
      • 30 million bucks = big money game.
        4.6 / 10 = trashed.
        gamespot = big name review site.

        I didn't have to think hard at all. Daikatana.
        • To my mind 4.6 isn't 'trashed', 4.6 means 'just below average'. But then I read a decent magazine that gives average games 5 out of 10, not 7 out of 10.
        • Actually daikatana is the perfect example of how big review sites are NOT honest. They hyped that game up as the greatest thing since sliced bread for months leading up to release and it was only AFTER the fansites tore it to shreds that the big boys jumped on the bandwagon.
  • Hollywoodworthy, if there was ever such a word. The script is negligble (like most Hollywood scripts, come to think of it), but the graphics and "camerawork" are impecable. If you play action games in the least, you owe it to yourself to try it.

    XBox pushing the envelop, GameCube's standing by with classic fun, PS2's exemplary sophomore year: it's going to be a great Christmas to be a gamer.

  • MGS:2 is a work of art... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EvlPenguin ( 168738 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @11:36PM (#2602681) Homepage
    ...too bad that doesn't make a fun game. I swear I spent more time with my hands off the controller, watching a cutscene of some sort, than actually _playing_ the damn game. It's all beautifully done, but there's just too much inactivity for what is supposed to be an action game.

    The action that it does have is superb, and the storyline is definitly the best in the series. But overall, it just wasn't as satisfying and FUN as the original MGS (for PS1). I don't really have any incentive or urge to play it over again.

    Maybe I was just expecting too much, but I must say that I'm dissapointed. If I had to give it a rating, it would be 8.5/10. Oh well. Back to Grand Theft Auto III.
    • It's funny -- I didn't play the original MGS very much, but after finishing MGS2, I started a new MGS game. Wow, it sure gives you a good perspective on how much the industry has advanced. Not that MGS isn't a good game... but the gaming systems are practically identical, so playing the two back-to-back really lets you compare the PSX's and PS2's respective capabilities. The sense of "depth" afforded by the PS2's lighting engine is probably the biggest factor, after the sharpness of the polygons, of course.

      You guys may have seen this before, but I'll link to an old interview with head MGS2 weenie himself, Koji-boy. [ign.com] His comments are fun to read after immersing myself in the game for the past week.

      And as long as we're tossing out links, here are a few relevant Penny Arcades. :-)

      And All Through The Hizouse [penny-arcade.com]
      Again, For The First Time [penny-arcade.com]
      (And don't forget to pay for those belly laughs [penny-arcade.com], now!)
    • "and the storyline is definitly the best in the series"

      My god, how can you possible say that? The Metal Gear games have always had silly cliche stories, but MGS2 takes it to insane heights. If the MGS2 story was in anything other than a videogame Kojima would be laughed off the planet.
    • Buy a Dreamcast and import Headhunter instead. It's considerably more enjoyable than MGS2 is.
    • You're looking at this the wrong way. The first time you play the game you watch all the story parts, it's not 100% a game, it's an interactive story. Then you play again and skip all the story parts, this is where it starts to be a game. You have to develop your sense of execution and stealth to be able to get all the dog tags on the 5 difficulty level, unlocking cool stuff when you do so. Stopping after beating the game once on normal or easy(or worse, very easy) is like stopping playing diablo 2 after killing diablo in normal mode, a waste of a good game.

  • Mullet, ho! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pengunea ( 170972 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @11:59PM (#2602727)
    Can I get the specs on Solid Snake's mullet? I'm thinking of tricking out mine and want to see what's out on the market. I've already overclocked it a bit. It's halfway down my back.

    Too much Space Ghost has rotted my brain!

  • MGS2 is impressive, but not a great game (Score:3, Informative)

    by dangermouse ( 2242 ) on Friday November 23, 2001 @12:05AM (#2602739) Homepage
    I bought a copy yesterday, and have been playing for most of the day today... Visually, the game is stunning, despite the occasional flicker. The storyline is even moderately interesting, which in the realm of video games means it's a "deep" and "involving" "plot". The dialogue still bites, but it's head and shoulders above the original MGS.

    Speaking of the original MGS, this is the same game with an upgraded shiny factor. I bought it pretty much because of that, so I'm not disappointed... but if you're looking for any major changes, forget about it. This game also features about the same frustration level... sometimes a room is difficult because the controls are so overloaded, or the camera angle bites, or your timing has to be absolutely perfect.

    All things considered, though, I'm having a fairly good time with it. Not nearly as much fun as with GTA3, though, and I'm beginning to wonder what else there is to look forward to on the PS2.

    • The dialogue still bites, but it's head and shoulders above the original MGS.
      Am I the only one who really missed the original Japanese soundtrack, as heard in the demo?

      <rant>When I watch foreign films I watch the subtitled versions, because American voice actors (whom I loathe with a passion so dark that it was recently featured in Vibe) have this annoying habit of destroying the directors' original visions. This phenomenon is most easily seen in Japanese animation. American voice actors seem to think that "animation" == "cartoons for kids" and squawk accordingly. Ugh. Dubs rank even more highly on my list of animé pet peeves than "newbie latecomer DBZ-dumbass wannabes" like Malda^H^H^H^H^Hsome people we know.</rant>

      Dubbed movies are a blasphemous joke, and dubbed games are as well. It's times like this that I seriously consider learning Japanese so that I can play imports.

      • It can't just be the dubbing. The constant stating (and repetition) of the completely obvious ("Raiden, I see an elevator. You should be able to move between floors..."), the infinite capacity of Our Hero to be stunned by anything said by another character ("..."), and the cheesy who-gives-a-damn interaction between Our Hero and the Love Interest ("Jack, why are you going out with me?") have to be equally lame in the original Japanese.

        On the one hand, I don't play a video game for its "story" or its "character development"... I've never seen a single game where that was particularly well done. On the other, I do wish that game developers would figure it out, as the attempts are almost painful sometimes.

        • That turned out more caustic than I'd intended. Maybe I'm more disappointed in MGS2 than I'd realized. %-)
        • I found Raiden to be highly amusing. Go back and listen to the dialogue... Raiden is hilarious. His style is something like this:
          Character: "Raiden, it's being controlled by the Patriots."

          Raiden: "The Patriots?"
          Character: "Yes. They have a new system called Arsenal Gear."
          Raiden: "Arsenal Gear?"
          Character: "You can find the President in Shell 1 Core."
          Raiden: "Shell 1 Core?"
          ... and so on ...
          It's so predictable after a while... and Raiden is such a twerp. He's the Robin to Snake's Batman. Don't you love how for the first half of the Big Shell stage he radios back to the commander after every single event?
          Raiden: "Yeah, I'm in. Now I'm going up the elevator. Now I'm going down some stairs. Hey, there's a solider! Now I'm going through a door. Ouch, wedgie..."
          That sort of bothered me, actually, until the end of the game -- it was almost as if, because of all the introductory gameplay instruction, that the Big Shell should be played first, but it makes sense once you board Arsenal Gear and all that crazy shit starts happening ("Raiden, turn off the console! And Rose is cheating on you!"), and you realize that they're trying to convey the message of a "simulation of a simulation."
  • http://www.consumptionjunction.com/feat/cc/detail. asp?ID=6906
  • I find this quote from the article interesting:

    "One way to solve a production problem is to bring on more people," matter-of-factly states Matsuhana. A core team of 35 to 40 employees had been working on the game since 1999, but during the final months of development the team would balloon to 70 members, most of whom were brought over from other development teams at Konami."

    They actually hit a deadline by adding more developers onto a project? I don't know much about game programming, but in business systems development that would be a miracle to say the least. I wonder what is different between game programming and system development?
    • It might be more to do with culture. Japanese work culture vs American work culture. There tends to be much less "egos" and "I want to do it THIS way" involved. So if you just add more people they'll just do extra work instead of going, "I think we need to change this important part of the game."
    • They actually hit a deadline by adding more developers onto a project? I don't know much about game programming, but in business systems development that would be a miracle to say the least.

      At a company like KCEJ, it seems many programming tasks are handled in a very bureaucratic, top-down way. A significant amount of designers and planners manage and schedule tasks. Since whoever is added to a team will have little knowledge of how the project works, it's more important to hire motivated programmers than skillful ones -- the article mentioned about half were college students. They don't communicate much; they just keep at it until they complete their well-defined tasks, therefore Brooks's Law [tuxedo.org] doesn't really apply. Brutal, though. I suspect most Americans would tend to flake out under such circumstances.

    • "One way to solve a production problem is to bring on more people," matter-of-factly states Matsuhana. A core team of 35 to 40 employees had been working on the game since 1999, but during the final months of development the team would balloon to 70 members, most of whom were brought over from other development teams at Konami."
      They actually hit a deadline by adding more developers onto a project?

      I'm afraid it doesn't say they added more developers, it says they added more people to the team at large. While they do say "development teams" this doesn't mean "developer teams", it just means teams in charge of developing a game - That could well include artists, sound people, storyboarders, et cetera.

    • In game programming, you have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher percentage of algorithm-related problems (mathematical efficiency, adequate precision to make this texture map properly on this wireframe, etc), whereas in the business app world, most late-breaking problems are behavioral or logic problems that the end user/customer/project manager doesn't like. The two types of problems are drastically different to fix.

      Algorithms for sound, video, timing, or object/model/sprite placement are often very isolated (this algo is only used in this scene to time the action between hero A's sword and monster B's head), and can be worked on without a thorough understanding of the rest of the program. Fresh blood can be brought in solely to fix the functions that sync 'facial' movement with voice. It's a LOT harder to do that sort of staffing-swap when it comes to a business app which doesn't have the (customer's) "right" behaviour when you shift-click-drag over a certain box of text while in print-preview mode only. :) Those sorts of behavioral problems are difficult to solve if you aren't entrenched in the design process of the business application.

      It basically comes down to the classic left-brain, right-brain divide. :)
  • I was so disapointed by MGS2. The gameplay is much improved, thank god. But the story is rediculous. I'll put it in a form most slashdotters can understand:

    John Woo + Tom Clancy + lots of crack = Metal Gear Solid 2
  • You know, nearly every time Slashdot runs a video game story, I see a spate of posts complaining about the plot of this game or that. Usually "plot" is in quotes, signifying the player's deep dissatisfaction with the story, or the plot is mentioned only to vilify its mindlessness, simplicty, predictability, or staleness.

    What I'd like to know -- and this is an honest question, not sarcasm -- if anyone out there has encountered a really good video game plot in their time, and if so, what their favorites are. So many video game stories seem to leave people wanting more -- what game plots comprise the standards to which others should be held?

    • Re:Video Game Plots (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BadmanX ( 30579 )
      In no particular order:

      Chrono Cross: The bad guy has a very good plan, makes it work for himself flawlessly, and almost gets away with it. I was stunned at how well the villain's actions were thought out.

      Ultima VII: The Guardian comes to Britannia and starts talking to people in their minds. He finds it very easy to convince some of them to do his bidding and construct a gate through which he can physically enter Britannia.

      Myth and Myth II: Despite the fact that the plot only advances during the between-mission briefings, these games managed to convince me that there was a stupendously large war between the forces of Light and Dark going on, and I was in charge.

      Grim Fandango: Yes, it's a horribly linear adventure game with some illogical puzzles. But the storyline was a superb blend of 40's gangster movies with the Mexican culture's concept of the Land of the Dead. I particularly liked how the gangsters killed people...after all, how do you kill a dead person?

      If I think of any more I'll add them.
    • The very old game of Star Control 2 ofcourse.
    • Final Fantasy VII has, for my money (if I wasn't broke), the best plot in videogaming. It completely sucked me in. When you first get out of Midgar and hear Cloud's story in Kalm. When the whole 'puppet' thing comes to light. And <I>that</I> bit that hits you like a sockful of sand . . .

      That game destroyed my life for a month, but it was videogaming magic.
    • You played the plot. Even the alien settings at the end fit pretty good. Brilliant game.
    • Yep, now that was a brilliant game.

      And Planescape Torment had a rather good plot aswell ;-)
    • And Fallout 1, I would suspect. I've never played the first game but the second one is based from the plot of the first, so I kind of know what it was about. The reason fallout 2 has such a great plot is because you are given the goal of the game (save your village), and you fill in the plot yourself.

  • The truck have started to move... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Friday November 23, 2001 @07:09AM (#2603358)
    Anyone remember the original Metal gear for Nintendo? That kicked ass for its time--it was one of the few original nintendo games and actually had a plot. And the bad translations from Japanese were somewhat amusing, too "The truck have started to move!". The really freaky thing is that there are people my age who have kids who play the sequels to games that I played as a kid. It's a good thing that emulators like MAME exist, otherwise future generations of gamers who ten years from now play "Metal Gear 30" or "Golgo 13 III" (I can only dream) would never truly understand where their games fit into the whole plotline. Without MAME, how many kids playing the current line of nintendo games would know that Donkey Kong was originally evil and that the only thing Mario was good for was jumping over barrels?
    • Anyone remember the original Metal gear for Nintendo?

      Yes, it's one of the best games of all time, period. It's too bad the "cigarettes" became "fogger" in the version for the game boy color (which IIRC is named metal gear solid or something) and so on. Still, I hear the GBC port is excellent.

      Metal Gear was one of the games that really ate up my time when I was a kid, along with the original Zelda (Zelda 2 sucked so bad I didn't even like it when I was young) and RC Pro-Am. Later on it was F-Zero, and I think the next game I really got hooked on was Doom. :)

  • Did anybody else find it strange that a child "growing up in Japan" played "cowboys and Indians?"
    • Not really.

      After all, we have DBZ, Gundam(wing), Sailor Moon and other Japanese anime's that are becoming a staple in the US households.

      The cross-culturism between the US and Japan is pretty amazing at times.
    • Did anybody else find it strange that a child "growing up in Japan" played "cowboys and Indians?"

      As the "new world", America was the last frontier anyone was interested in living in. The plotline of the indigenous and fairly advanced native americans (IE, injuns) and the weather-hardened hard-living frontiersmen and cattlemen (AKA, cowboys) is irresistable even to the young.

      Also, don't forget the strong :) western influence on Japan. Japan has been absorbing more and more US culture over the years. This is just a sign of earlier machinations.

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