The smash PS2 hit Metal Gear Solid 2 finally arrives on the PC with some nice extras.  Metal Gear Solid 2:Substance is sort of a director’s cut of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a game that is widely considered to be one of the best games on the PS2.  Substance contains a full version of the original Sons of Liberty, and plenty of extra goodies as well, like hundreds of VR missions and side quests.  Substance builds on an already great game, but the port from the consoles to the PC is a bit rocky. However, PC owners who didn’t get a chance to play the Sons of Liberty or the Substance games on either the XBox or the PS2 should check this one out.  Just make sure your PC meets the hefty requirements first.

For those living under a rock for the last few years, Metal Gear Solid 2 is the sequel to the best-selling PlayStation game, Metal Gear Solid.  The first game offered a fresh and original approach to the stealth genre, providing gamers with a chance to use their minds and strategize their infiltrations rather than just run into a situation with guns flailing about.  The result was a smash hit.  Prior to its release, the hype for Metal Gear Solid’s sequel, Sons of Liberty, reached critical mass. In fact, hundreds of thousands of gamers rushed out to buy the lackluster Zone of the Enders simply because it came with a playable demo of Sons of Liberty.  Once the game was released several months later, the critical praise was high and people flocked to it like birds.  MGS 2: Sons of Liberty offered amazing graphics, great AI and stealth gameplay, and an engaging storyline.  However, something didn’t sit right with many gamers, a character by the name of Raiden.  This character didn’t have the same edginess and coolness as Snake, and more often than not came of as whiny and irritating.  Plus, his relationship with his girlfriend (who serves as a member of Raiden’s team on the mission) was contrived and annoying.  If all this wasn’t bad enough, you were forced to play as Raiden for most of the game.  This ticked off a lot of gamers, who were expecting to play as Snake for more than just a small portion of the game.  Fortunately, Konami fixed this complaint in this version, sort of.  One of Substance’s new additions is Snake Tales, a side story that allows you to play as Solid Snake on the Big Shell, the part of the game previously reserved for Raiden.  Also, the game offers up a plethora of VR missions and lots of unlockable extras like new costumes and such.

The first on my list of complaints for the PC version of the game were the steep requirements.  Since the game is a near-direct port of the XBox version, Substance requires (not suggests, but requires) a DVD drive.  This is understandable, since the game is about seven and a half Gigs and would require an ungodly amount of normal CDs to store.  Unfortunately, this makes the game’s installation requirements huge, almost four Gigs (yikes!) for the minimum installation and 7.47 Gigs for the maximum install.  The second problem was the requirement of an Nvidia video card.  I would once again attribute this to the game being a near-direct port from the XBox (since the XBox runs on a modified Nvidia video card), but it looks like laziness to me that Konami wouldn’t take measures to verify its compatibility with other cards.  At the moment, ATi is developing a patch that would make the game work with a Raedon 8500 or higher, but that patch isn’t available as of this writing. 

Substance’s interface is unnecessarily tough to manage.  Configuring controls is a pain, since its quite difficult to unmap the default controls. These default controls make it nearly impossible to play the game, but unless you have the patience to go through the confusing process of remapping them, you’re going to be stuck with them.  I figured I’d be better off using a gamepad, but as it turns out, the game has some weird bug that makes the game run very poorly in Windows 98 if you use a gamepad, another problem which will be mended upon the release of a patch (also yet to be released as of this writing).

Substance’s graphics are quite nice, representing some of the best the PS2 has to offer.  While it may not be as pretty as Splinter Cell, Substance has some nice lighting effects, realistic animations and character models, and very good textures.  So, while not the best graphics on the PC, Substance looks pretty darn good.

The sound is very good in this game.  The music is done by film composer Harry Gregson-Williams, known for his previous work on The Rock, Spy Game, and the upcoming Shrek 2.  The sweeping score provides a great atmosphere for the game, as it sounds softly and stealthy when you’re sneaking around and fast and jarring when you get discovered by the enemy.  The voice acting is also superbly done, and David Hayter’s low, gruff voice is perfect for Snake wizened demeanor.

Underneath the very rough translation is a great game waiting to get out.  The controls are tough and the requirements are very steep, but the gameplay is great, the graphics and sound are very nice and the extras shoot the replay value through the roof.  If you haven’t had a chance to experience either Sons of Liberty or Substance, and you meet the game’s hefty requirements (and don’t mind the tricky interface and nasty controls) you should definitely give Substance a look.

Gameplay: 8.5
The game’s take on the action/stealth genre is great, and the AI is really good.  Unfortunately, the poor controls render the game nearly unplayable unless you’ve got the patience to wade through the rough interface and change the controls around to your liking.

Graphics: 8.9
While it doesn’t have the best graphics on the PC, Substance still looks pretty good.  The game has nice lighting effects, realistic animations and pretty good details.

Sound: 9.5
Gregson-Williams’ score provides a great atmosphere for the on-screen action, changing whenever the mood dictates.  The voices are also very well done.

Difficulty: Medium                                                                                                                              

Concept: 8.2
The story many seem a little convoluted, but it certainly is very interesting if you can get into it.  However, the PC port wasn’t handled the best way it could’ve been, leading to a fair amount of bugs and steep requirements, hurting the concept score.

Multiplayer: N/A  

While Substance is a single-player game, you can compare your scores online with other gamers after completing the game.

Overall: 8.5
Were it not for the rocky translation and major bugs, I would’ve rated MGS: Substance a whole point higher.  Unfortunately, these problems couldn’t be overlooked and cost the game some footing.  However, MGS: Substance is still a great game, and since it provides PC gamers with their first (and only) shot at Sons of Liberty, should be picked up by any action fan whose PC is up to the game’s hefty requirements.