The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2

"Supplemental Information"

To be frank, I’ve never really had a supplemental title in my collection that went behind the scenes of a game and showed you just what it was capable of. When you look on the game shelf at your local store, you might find a title by the name of Document of Metal Gear Solid 2, which really isn’t a game, but a twenty-dollar tour of one of the most hyped up games in the new millennia. With supplemental material that covers the programming team, the actual step by step storyboards of the game and how it was to be mapped out, you’ll find that there is more information then you can shake a stick at. For those of you who love the technical side of games, you’ll really enjoy this additional title, but for those who are looking for another game, you’ll be sorely mistaken.

The overall premise of this title isn’t to give you a game that you can play that has anything to do with Metal Gear Solid 2. In fact, the only game that you’ll be able to play throughout the entire disc is a handful of VR missions that will allow you to play through an almost pre-release of the Substance title rather than the actual game. Other various features that you’ll find with the disc have to do with other portions of the game such as the visual display and what you can do with the camera as the game intended to do. What you’ll find is that reading is what you’ll do the most of as the disc itself has a ton of options and extras that allow you to experience what a game in progress really is.

With the additions aside, there isn’t a real reason to have this unless you’re either a collector of titles, or you really want to know what there is that goes into a blockbuster game. The sheer amount of information will keep you reading well into the night as the total time that it takes to read all of the storyboards and the overall idea into production takes at least three hours depending on how fast you read. You’ll be able to look through the various pauses in the game where the story is pulled into play, but you’ll find that there is no audio to accompany it, which means that you’re looking at texture maps rather than an actual movie.

When you get into the meat of the disc, there is plenty here that will satisfy you if you’re looking to find out what went into the game and the amount of code that was programmed in. There are several different aspects that this disc covers and one of the best portions of the game comes with being able to listen to the various musical entries that were in the original release of the game. One minor complaint with this is that the songs take nearly two minutes to load and play, so once you have it going on your television, you better be prepared to listen, otherwise you just wasted your time. With that in mind, you need to understand Japanese to really know what people are talking about, so if you’re not fluent in the language, any of the dialogue is going to be lost on your ears.

The actual VR missions is something that you might be able to sink your teeth into although they aren’t done in a way that makes it worth playing through more than once. As with the Play Station VR Missions game, you have five that you can complete that range in terms of goals. You’ll be able play through and sneak around, fight against the enemy and do yourself a world of good when you’re looking to raise your weapon accuracy. However, once you’ve played through the VR missions one or two times, you’ll find that the only taste left in your mouth is that of wanting more, which this disc simply does not deliver at any point.

Document is a good documentary that you might expect to find on something like Tech TV and even thrown into an actual DVD and sold on the shelf at your local video store. With partial VR missions, there are several different things that you can do with the cameras in different stages, but that is quickly put to rest once you’ve played with it a few times. The additional footage of the story plots and story boards are what will keep you busy as you shift through the screen, but be forewarned that this is something that takes time and patience as well as a love of the video game industry to really appreciate. If you’re into the story and you’re into the series, then this is a supplemental disc that is well worth the time and twenty-dollars to experience.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/03, Updated 03/19/03