“Clang Clang Clang went the trolley, Clang Clang Clang went the Kojima line…” Doesn’t really work, now does it? It would also be weird if Ralph Blane knew about a Japanese game developer not born for another 19-years, who wouldn’t become famous for a further 60-years. Nonetheless, the man writes like he ordered exposition by the ton, but there was a Spinal Tap-like issue, and he got everything in a factor of ten. I’m on record as enjoying Metal Gear Solid V, the latest and last game in the series. No, we don’t talk about Survive.

Sure, the gameplay of V is the best bit, and it repeats like Roseanne in the modern-day. However, I do love fighting children in Africa or bombing a metal nuclear dinosaur in Afghanistan. Ok, some of that could be misquoted later on, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The series has a much longer history than that, however, as the first game in the series, Metal Gear, released 1987. The name is based on the in-game bipedal tanks with nuclear warheads set in the Cold War. The later series is known for its overly long cutscenes, offbeat humor, and political themes with hints of philosophy and dystopia. Though it is also known for a tone that flails about as much as a politician that is asked a straight question.

How do you explain the constant world threat of a bipedal nuclear weapon? Meanwhile, your useless ponce of a protagonist is naked and being tortured, but the tone is fine because his cyborg penis is covered by a straw? Hideo — I’m going to take a few minutes in my very serious game about a governmental conspiracy and nuclear threats, to tell you my hamburger recipe — Kojima doesn’t understand the word tone. Just look at Death Stranding; 20-minutes in your estranged mum (the president) dies, you have to go and burn her corpse, and the rest of the game is Last of the Summer Wine simulator.

I do love to complain about the wavering tone, I’ll moan about Quiet being silent breasts, and let’s not talk about some of the other nonsense. However, I still think the series is one of the few things in gaming that happen to be great. It’s always been and always will be (to many) the vision of one man, a mad man but a sole imagination nonetheless. Yes, dialogue falls to the floor with as much ceremony as a wet bag of barf falling out of a skyscraper onto a pensioner’s head, but it has never been treated as Oedipus of Rex.

However, in the opinion of someone who is just right: Kojima’s best work released in 2001. It was about terrorism in New York, the president was killed, you fought a vampire, and did I mention the bipedal dinosaur? Metal Gear Solid 2 is simply Die Hard, and I’m not talking about the weak useless ones where John is taking out helicopters with cop cars, I mean Die Hard. You know, the best Christmas movie, Die Hard. Though instead of Nakatomi Tower, you are on a ship in the Hudson or an oil rig in the Atlantic. The Germans are replaced with Russians, this Ocelot that no one has heard of, and some bloke called George Washington.

Really, if you haven’t played it, you must. I’d like it if Konami would pull their finger out and release Metal Gear Solid 3 on PC (though it never was) as well. Then I could tell you to go and play 3, 1, then 2, so you’re playing them in order. Ignore V, and only watch 4 if you want to understand the story completely, but it is a bad game. Yet, easily the best balance of gameplay and narrative is what I’m reviewing now, MGS 2: Substance. Shall I actually talk about it instead of the series as a whole and showering it in praise, I think I shall.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance on PC is an awful port. There are no two ways about it, it is dreadful for the modern-day, and it only released on GOG the other week. “Most of the popular PC controllers are supported (with the exception of PS4 one); However, trigger buttons are not possible to bind for XBOX 360 and XBOX One controllers,” as the notes on GOG will tell you, which is a lie. Ok, it is true by default, but only by default. It is also a bad port fixed simply by a mod that installs itself. How important can the mod be? I’ve been playing fully with the PS4 controller, with R2 and L2 working, at a full 1080P in a 16×9 ratio easily.

The only thing I can’t say I like about the mod is the lack of custom button mapping, which personally is a minor gripe. However, some others might find the 2001 PS2-era controls of pressing Square to fire a bit annoying. Given the camera is stuck to passing seagulls and random bits of furniture, moving Snake around might seem strange, to say the very least. Nonetheless, that is the game being a product of its time, which I’ve seen some say shouldn’t be the case. These folks are forgetting that GOG doesn’t remake games, they just make them work on modern systems.

Though it is a Hideo Kojima game, so it might be incongruous in several places, but that’s because the mad fool has several systems built into those mechanics. Then there are the ice cubes, those dang ice cubes that melt but melt perfectly. If you don’t know: In a bar on the ship, there is a bucket of ice cubes, and if you shoot it they fly all over the place, but if they are grouped together they melt slower than they do apart. That has nothing to do with the rest of the game, it is just the detail that a true auteur goes to and why Kojima is praised so highly.

As I’ve said, it is a game of Die Hard as you crawl through corridors and the bowels of the ship and oil rig, yet it is done beautifully. That’s ignoring that Substance is the expansion that added new game modes, such as the 300 VR (not actual VR) missions. Sadly with the PC port, you don’t get to play one of the greatest skating games, as the PS2 version of Substance did have a skateboarding level on the oil rig. The VR missions are everything between a brilliant mission of hiding from Kaiju to the awful sniper defense of Meryl. It is the best of Hideo Kojima in all the right ways.

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Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

$9.50

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Kojima's madcap but perfect story.
• The ice cubes melt slower when close together.
• Snake's first VR Kaiju mission is perfect.

Cons

• Awful port of a great game.