The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2

"Great in-depth documentary on the development of MGS2"

The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 is just a ‘Making of’ DVD with an additional preview of the upcoming expansion Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. The DVD contains making of footage, interviews, trailers, character/mech models, area designs and much more.

The main reason why I bought this game was for the trailers that were shown at E3, ECTS, and the Tokyo Game Show. This was probably the most satisfying feature of this disc since I had never seen the trailers beforehand. There are three early trailers that were just for internal purposes, to show the VIPs setting, basic story, gameplay mechanics, and where the game was headed. It is especially interesting to note the differences between the early models of characters, guards, and some of the early animations, which seem a bit unreal. The rest of the trailers are the game show trailers there are seven of them, included in them is the trailer that was shown right around the release date of the game to reveal the existence of Raiden, which was the enormous surprise of the game. The trailers show some boss fights, the introduction of the Cypher surveillance craft, some weapons, the main setting of the game, and one of them even shows Snake with all of his weapons on mowing down a group of guards. The trailers convinced me of one thing, Kojima loves to screw with us.

The disc features designs and models for each character, mech, or room in the game. You can zoom in on certain areas, see what characters look like with different items equipped, such as Raiden with the Blue wig and the Orange glasses. The level models are completely interactive; you can cruise through the Aft Deck of the Tanker, find the correct route in the flooded part of the Shell2 Core, or go Hunting for all the girly posters that are scattered throughout the game. You can even check out some unused characters and mechs that were never brought into the game.

There is a compilation of every single cut-scene in the entire game so at any point you can pause the action and look around, take in the view from all angles. It is amazing how much detail there is in all the cut-scenes, you can pick out individual rivets on the George Washington Bridge completely opposite where the camera is. One thing that some people used this interesting feature for is to look for Vamp in the ending sequences, it turns out that it is just a cardboard cutout of him but still, he is there! The only drawback to this feature, and most disappointing thing about this disc, is that there is no sound in the cut-scenes, so you have to look at the sub-titles if you want to know what is being said.

The disc includes the entire script of the game although it is somewhat different in may areas due to last minute changes I guess. You can also view the story boards that Kojima came up with to plan out certain plot events such as the final encounter between Solidus and Raiden atop Federal Hall, unfortunately they are all in Japanese so you can’t read them unless of course you are…Japanese.

If you are interested in the programming for certain gameplay features such as the guard’s AI then you can view a small description of how the AI was programmed to make decisions and such.

Another menu in the game features the in-game music such as the main menu music, the music that plays in Deck B of the Tanker, or the variations of it that are played when the game is in Alert Mode or Evasion mode, or perhaps you want to listen to the battle music from the shootout with Olga. In all there are about thirty sounds clips that you can play.

Now, the only ‘gameplay’ feature in this disc are the five preview missions to the upcoming Substance. You can play 5 short missions as either Snake or Raiden. There is a Sneaking Mission, a Variety Mode mission, Weapons, Eliminate All, and of course you get some hack and slash action with the HF Blade. You are given a score for each mission based upon speed, map score, accuracy, stealth ness, and ammo conservation. The first place scores are attainable quite easily if you can find the right strategy for each one. Some will require just plain old luck and some will actually require a lot of skill or a combination of both. I played these missions to death before the release of Substance and I far surpassed all of the high scores on the missions many times. They were worth maybe $10 of the $20 that I paid.

All in all this is a great in-depth view of what goes into making one of the most hyped games ever. You can view just about everything related to development besides the tryouts for the voice acting parts. For any fan of MGS2 or anybody interested in video game development this is a worthy purchase.

Document Features
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-Game Script
-Storyboard
-Polygon demos
-Sound clips
-Making of footage
-Game show trailers
-Character models
-Mech models
-sketches by Yoji Shinkawa
-Level models
-Staff bios
-Game plan
-Chronicle of development from the release of MGS to the release of MGS2
-MGS related items

I believe that is all of them. Now here are the scores…

Graphics-10/10
-The graphics were the same as in SOL, the character models and level models were very detailed.

Sound-6/10
-The major disappointment for me was that there was no sound in the Polygon Demos.

Story-10/10
-Game script from SOL, I love it!

Features-9/10
-The features contain just about all the information that you could possibly want to know about the making of MGS2. The nine is because the storyboards were in Japanese, so you can’t read them.

Replay Value-6/10
-VR Missions are the only things that will keep the disc in your PS2.

Overall-7/10
-Great for anybody interested in MGS2, any fan of the Metal Gear series, or anybody interested in video game development.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/03, Updated 08/22/03