Episode 03 - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

In this episode, Tanner, Carter, and Jerad revisit Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty on the PlayStation 2, sharing their memories of first playing it, the moments that stuck with them, and how the game shaped their love of the franchise!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome back everybody to the Retro Gamers Podcast. Today we're gonna be talking about Jared slash Carter's pick, Metal Gear Solid 2 on the PS2. Well boys, I I didn't think that this game would take two weeks, but you know, shit happens, and this was a longer game.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Yeah, it took two weeks, but really it was more of we had stuff going on much so much as the game taking forever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Well, Carter, the one thing that you recently got was a brand new laptop. How's that been so far?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Oh, it's awesome. It's it's a Lenovo Legion 5. The awesome thing is it reminds me of it's gonna sound weird, but when I first got my Vita back in 2011, that's when I first got a screen that was like OLED, right? And I was like, oh my god, this is the craziest, greatest looking thing I've ever seen. Which now Vita doesn't look as incredible as, you know, a phone screen. But this display on this laptop, it's got like this 2560 by 1600, so 1600p, I guess. I don't know the exact letters for it. But that OLED display is so good. It makes everything look so much better. And I mean it's got like this core, I it's just so powerful of a laptop. I was telling my wife, I was like, listen, if I get this laptop, I'm not gonna care about, you know, if a PS6 drops or a new Xbox drops. I will be fine. Like, have you been able to play anything on it to test it out? Oh yeah, yeah. I I went ahead and benchmarked it the first weekend because I'm a nerd. So it's like, hey, what are you doing with your new gaming laptop? Oh, I'm just running a bunch of benchmarks. But uh no, I played uh God of War, I fired it up on it to see what it would look like so I could set everything to you know absolute max settings and it was still running like 70, 80 frames per second. I've been playing Metaphor on it and a game like that where it's kind of like got that anime-ish style to it on an OLED monitor looks so freaking good, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Oh yeah. Is it like kind of like Persona vibe, like that sort of like stylized anime sort of art style?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Oh yeah, yeah. If you've not played Metaphor, it is a lot like it's got the same style. I mean, it's Atlas, it's an Atlas game, but I mean you it a lot of it's the same. Like you'll have a mission that you gotta do, and then you'll have so many days until you gotta go on to the next mission, and in between you gotta like do like bonds, social links sort of um complete side quests and stuff. So I mean that's if you are a game once yeah, if you want to play a persona-like game, if you like it, it could have called it Persona 6, but you know, with the setting, that wouldn't make sense because that's more of a high school thing. But it's basically like if it was like Persona Medieval or something, fantasy persona, then this would be the game.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

I think there's Atlas is to my Natsumi is to Tanner's Nintendo First Party 2015 and before.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I was about to say the same thing. I'm like, Atlas is just a Carter company. It's like anything they put out, Carter's probably gonna love it.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Carter will play the shit out of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

I do like me some Atlas. That's not a lot. But yeah, that's what I've been playing on my laptop. I played a little Call of Duty on it to see how that ran, and of course it ran fine. I mean, everything runs fine on it, and then it should. If it didn't, I'd be pissed.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah, Carter. You as a PC gamer, are you scared of the rising prices of like hardware?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Uh yeah. I'm so scared that I told my wife that I was gonna lose 50 pounds before I lot bought a new machine. Machine, that makes me a PC IT worker, by the way. So calling it a machine.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh real fast, like the only computer class I ever took, I took of course I majored in biology in my first four years and then went on to physical therapy. I took one computer programming class, like uh intro to basically if you took this class, you were like in the intro to computer science program for a bachelor's. The guy called it a machine throughout. He refused. I don't know if he ever said the word computer, which is like I guess layman's term for a fucking computer, but he was machine throughout. So go ahead, machine Carter.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

The reason why I told her I was gonna lose 50 pounds first, but then with the rising hardware prices, I told her I said, listen, if I wait until I actually lose the weight, this thing's gonna probably cost three thousand dollars or more. It you'll never know because AI, those data centers are literally taking all the RAM, all the SSDs. I think uh Linus Tech Tips, they did this whole series on it, or not really a series, but I was listening to their podcast, The WAN Show, and he literally said uh like Western Digital for 20 hard drives they produce. This is obviously not exactly how it is, but this is kind of just an example. One of those is for a consumer machine, like one of ours or a consumer computer, and 19 is for like other things. 16 of those would be for AI bullshit or 17, and then two of them would be for like businesses, and then one of them would be for consumers. So that's why. Yeah, yeah. And it's not like this isn't stuff that's like, okay, well, they can just start mass producing a lot more. It's like, no, that's not how it works. There's only a finite amount of this stuff that they can use.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So wild, man. We live in a different time for short, which we always have, like it's always Carter's big on the prediction of like streaming the next level of gaming, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, I think that's coming. And I think that for to be clear, I don't like it. I would rather not do that. But I just don't think it's I think it's inevitable. But and every time there's a new generation or new something, I mean, we just keep getting closer and closer. And then if you have Game Pass or something like that, and you try it out, it even on so like you said, Southern West Virginia internet, it's smooth. So I mean, it's viable now, and it's I mean, there's no like degrade, just a little bit of a little bit of a lag. But I mean, there's no real degrade in quality. So I mean, it's coming.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Carter's just a realist, I think. I think because we were talking before we even recorded this about uh Nintendo, and where I'm known as the Nintendo guy. Carter, I would say for the past decade or more has always been like Nintendo's greedy, they are ridiculous with their prices, they're not consumer friendly at all. And I was just like, no, because I have that fanboy like mentality. I'm like, no, no, no, they're not, they're not as bad as Xbox or PlayStation. What was that bullshit that just happened with that Pokemon game?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Pokopia. Um, which one was it? Picopia, Picopia, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

It's it's like that that uh Pokemon game. It's trying to be like an Animal Crossing or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, it's Animal Crossing Minecraft-ish, like you're a ditto, I think, like, or you're uh something.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

You're a ditto that looks like a human, and you're in this little town full of like Pokemon and there's no battle.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

They won't fight anybody for anything.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

You're living in a little town with Pokemon, but there was something that they did with their pricing.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I think they were originally $69.99 from the release. And they sold so well. Nintendo announced, at least with Amazon, like, hey, let's bump that shit up to $79.99. Ridiculous. I could be wrong. It could have been $59.99 up to $69.99. It's one of the one of the two. But they're like, let's bump that shit up, man. Like, this is this shit selling good. This was good. It I think it's the first like super successful spin-off. And well, part of that's probably it's it's it was a good idea. Like, you know me, I love some Animal Crossings, I love some like life fun simulator, and I love Pokemon, so it was probably good. But at the same time, Switch 2 owners are biting at the bit to get any game that's decent. So like they're willing to buy into this bullshit because you've gave us uh an upgraded Mario Kart that might not be as good as Mario Kart 8, and you've given us some Donkey Kong bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And well, I mean, if you look at the other Pokemon bullshit that's going on, is they have a perfectly good Game Boy Advance online, right? Like there's nothing wrong with it, it works fine. We've all used it.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Instead of launching Leaf Green and Fire Red on that, which they can do, obviously, they said, you know what, let's uh let's just release them as their own copy for 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I'm I'm calling them for that, Carter. Like, I know like that is some bullshit. You bought it. I bought both of them, and I've only played about 20 hours of Fire Red.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah. And look, by the way, I I mean, and I caught all this a long time ago because I when I had a Wii U, I noticed I couldn't afford shit for it. And it had been out for a few years before I got one, and I was like, I went to the use section and I was like, damn, $40 ain't even gonna buy me stuff that came out years ago. What the hell's going on? And that's just Nintendo price, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Welcome to the right.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

But at the same time, like the Pokemon release, like I can't be like Nintendo, I'll tell you they're anti-consumer all day, but at the same time, like I if I was Nintendo, I would be like, Yeah, let me just print myself like you know $50 million real quick. Like, of course you're gonna do that. Of course, absolutely they're really smart, and I'm not like hating on them for doing what they're doing, but me personally, I'm just like, yeah, I'm not buying into that. But when they do totally understand.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, when they do shit like that, it's printing free money. It's free money right into Nintendo. You know that it's gonna buy into it. Your consumer base is now in the age that should have some extra cash around. Like you're printing free money.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

I don't know if y'all have heard about this. This was another thing. This is in more of the Sony realm. Have you heard about where Sony are now dipping their toes into something called dynamic pricing? No, that's a new term to me. This is this is 100% real. Uh my cousin Presley told me about this, and I thought he was making this shit up, or it was some sort of AI rumor you would see on some sort of social media post, but no, it's 100% fucking real. What it is is for those of you who buy games digitally, if you buy games a lot, some of the new game prices will be $70. For those of you who don't buy a lot of games digitally, I checked on there. I don't really buy games digitally at all. I usually get a disc if I can help it. Yeah. One of the new games for me was uh $57.99.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

So it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah. So they're trying to get you to, you know, like, oh, this is cheaper. I'm gonna go ahead and buy it. Once you start buying games digitally, then they're gonna up the price up to 70.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

That's some bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

But yeah, I I've been reading about it. It is 100% real, and they're like testing the waters to see like how people Well that's I don't think that's just gonna be a Sony thing either.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Like, I think all of them are trying their best to get away from physical copies of games because then it's like, hey, you want to play the game? You have to buy it at the Sony PSN or you know, Microsoft store or Nintendo store. You have to buy it here and you have to pay what we put it as. That's it. And then they can price it at whatever they want to, and it's just hey, play it, don't play it, it don't matter.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

That's what's so scary about the all the like like the all digital, like where we're heading. Like back in the day, if I had a game and you wanted to play it, you know, you'd be like, hey, here you can borrow it free. Like you can just take my disc and and play it. But I remember back in 2013, that was why the Xbox One did so shit. Was whenever they were like trying to like make it to where you couldn't share games. It it was just like it your Xbox account would imprint that version of the game, disc or not, to be like, no, this is your version, you cannot share it to anybody.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, Sony troll them because they did a whole E3 commercial afterwards. It said, here's how you share a game on Sony, and this guy walks up, had a disc, goes, Here you go, and he went, Thanks. And then it did like the JOM PlayStation. Like that was its whole thing. But yeah, they got they caught flak for that, and that's I mean, they're kind of ahead of the greed there. Like they see where it's going, but they try to go ahead and go there. It's like, well, you gotta still work us over a little bit, then we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

God, I miss E3s, man. Did you all ever watch those whenever they were a thing?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Oh my god, yes. I loved watching an E3. Like I used to be like, I would set my night up just to watch E3. Like, it was so great.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Because nowadays I feel like video game companies are too buddy buddy. Like they're it's like, you know, they're too friendly with each other. It's like they're all like it's like they all share one big monopoly and they're all holding hands together. It's like that right there, what you were saying about Sony like dissing Xbox, I don't think that would happen today.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Well, Microsoft's launching their games on Sony, and then Sony was launching their stuff on PC, but I think they're they think they're starting to back off on that. They're wanting to sell more PS5, so they they literally put out a thing that they're gonna stop releasing all their first party titles on PC. Oh, they said that they're stopping that? Yeah, like they're not gonna stop all of it, but they're gonna definitely pull the reins back on it because I mean, like me, I wanted to play God of War and God of War Ragnarok, which I still haven't bought Ragnarok yet, but I mean I was like, hell, that's on Steam. I'm just gonna do it that way. And all the new Sunny stuff, I'm like, I'll just wait for it to come out on Steam. But now they're like, hey, we're not doing that. So now I'm like, hmm, well, I guess if they release something awesome, I'm just gonna be it in pickle. You don't think Carter there'll ever be a day that you get a PlayStation 5? There will be a day. Um not a five, maybe a six. Um, skip a generator. Especially if it's a handheld.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Oh shit. If they copy the Nintendo model, like the hybrid handheld console, Carter is fucking in.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Ah, getting that tattoo on my skin.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

A one. He's in lines fucking fighting people for like a ticket to get one.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

I mean, it's the PS Vita 2 trailer right now, and Carter fucking just losing it.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, the P PS.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

And didn't Carter open this like whole segment with the Vita? I think so. I did. I talked about how much my laptop reminded me of the Vita because of how good the screen looks.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

That's how much you miss the Vita, Carter. You buy a new laptop, you see a Vita in a laptop.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah. That's a Vita. At the same time, yeah, I love the Vita because it was like new. This thing feels so like fresh. I really we talk about all these companies going digital and all this bullshit that's happening, but one company that's been really freaking good is Steam. I don't know if you you guys don't really dabble down it, but Steam is phenomenal with their pricing and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Since I got my gaming laptop, well, in the early days, for those of you who don't know, um, we would pick PC games from time to time. One of them was Arcanum, but that was a game, unfortunately, I didn't get to play because I had an absolute piece of shit laptop that wouldn't even run a game from the 90s. That's how shit it was. So once I got this laptop, I'm like, you know what, next season maybe we can start opening it up to more, you know, the PC games. But that was one thing, like that whole world to me is completely foreign because I've always been a console guy for my entire life. Like I never was a PC gamer. The thought of me sitting at a desk with a mouse and keyboard and playing games that way was never appealing. I'm more of just a lay on the couch, lay on the bed, you know, kick back and play. I like the comfortability of it, I like the convenience of it. You just turn on the system, you play. You don't need to fuck like you were describing with all these computer parts and how you know pricey it can get. That kind of shit just did not appeal to me ever. But once I got on Steam and I was looking at these deals, I'm like, oh my god. Like you could dump a hundred dollars on probably 30 games easily.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Oh, easy, yeah. And you can uh another thing is I didn't know you were using your Steam account as much, but if you are, like there's been plenty of times where I've been just hanging out on the weekend or something and I pull up Steam. And there's been games that I used that I played on Vita that I got ported or that I've played on you know on PS3 and stuff that have been like two or three bucks. And you can buy them for your friends. Like I could buy it and send it to you, and then you just download it and play it. Like it's bought and paid for, it would be in your library.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Wait a minute. I think I think Jared already did that for me with Age of Empires when we did when we did that episode. I'm pretty sure he bought it for me.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

You're fucking with it. Yeah, so so I mean, there's sales on there all the time, and I don't know if you guys are ever into like playing on Steven stuff, but if you were, then I definitely wouldn't hesitate to buy you some stuff that I'm like, ah, you like this. Cardi, I'd never take your money, but I'll gladly take Jared's. Well, if I'm buying you a game tanner, it's like two or three bucks. That's like buying you a drink. I can do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Age of Empires 2 just came out on PlayStation 5, probably within the past six months. I got pumped whenever I seen it. I'm like, oh shit, is this is like cross-platform? I prefer playing games on the PlayStation. It's like fucking $50. I'm like, why?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Like free on Game Pass. I think I'm if it's cross-platform.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

I just don't know. If it is, uh I'm playing on PC, boys.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Like that, because I've well, no, I think the console has the advantage, man.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I think the console one's for console because the way it works with the controller. I played it and it's it's okay, but it's uh you have to get used to it because it's like you know how we click and drag with the mouse?

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

You have to use the controller and like hold down X or A.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

I'll buy USB wireless mouse in my living room to play Aegis anytime you boys want to.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Just look it up. It is cross-platform on the PlayStation 5.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Dang, do you remember the last we did an episode on that, right? In the old retro camera days.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

One of my favorite episodes of all time.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

We had a blast. People loved the game. I think we gained more followers because of that game than we lost because for it to be a 2000, 2001, 1999, somewhere in their range PC game, like that still had like I'm assuming that was probably the best Age of Empires because of the following it still has today.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

If they're still releasing it on modern day systems, that has to tell you something.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

That tells you something. We always called it Ages. We were wrong, like within my like local community. Carter, you weren't big on like did you play you didn't play Ages until like the later days, right? Like when we did in the late 2000s.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, it was the late 2000s. We always called it ages, like ages two, ages three.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I remember when I when it first came out, like me and DJ Shorter had it, and we'd always like ages, ages. Like, man, and we'd just watch each other and and like compare to the differences of how we'd start like a civilization against the CPU. We didn't play online until it was like two late 2000s, when Carter started getting into it, probably.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

We talked about DUR DUI Cart the last episode or the before last, but there's two things I can say that has in common with ages. I've never had a bad time playing DUI Cart, and I have never had a bad time playing Age of Empires 2.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Danner, do you remember the last time? Well, like one of my favorite online modes, if we're gonna do like two to three to four to five people, I like the regicide, I think is what it's called.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Is that the name with the king? Like you're gonna be able to get the city.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

You start with a castle, even if you're starting in the dark ages, and your king, when your king dies, it's over. It's not about like wiping somebody completely. We had a fucking blast when we did that for the episode.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

I never played Ages Growing Up. That was my first time ever playing it. I we played one game, and I'm pretty sure that game lasted about two hours, three hours, and that was the game we referenced on the pod. I still to this day remember every fucking aspect of that two to three hour movie. Everything, every aspect king. One of my funniest moments of that was I remember I was hitting Jared hard from his uh like in his little city. Jeff was hitting Jared hard like everyone.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

We were both everybody, everybody come fuck me.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Jared is fucked. But if you look in the back of his fucking city, it's like his king and his little secret service escorting him to a boat.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I escaped. You all caught me with my pants down. Like I went to go fuck Jeff up. Carter comes and fucks me up. That's in the circus, baby. Yeah, so I'm getting fucked by three people I'm playing against. It's a it's a 1v1v1v1. There's four people. I had like once I realized all three people were in my town attacking me, I was like, I'm fucked. These guys, these assholes.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Well, what had happened was I sent the fucking circus to yours. Like I was a Persian, so I had war elephants, and it took forever to I sent all of them to you, and I'm just like raising hell, tearing down a castle. Next thing I know, Tanner is just in my kingdom while it marches right up to my king's castle and just takes me right out.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I do he caught you like you were attacking me, so Tanner attacked you, but I'm getting attacked by all three of you all. So I like I and I guess you're more focused on fucking me. So I take my king out and put him on like a little ship, and I was like, man, and I sent like five villagers and like 10 of the best military I had just with my king on one ship, and I'm like, you all will start the new colony once this is over and just hit us out to sea. Like you all were just like I you were wiping me off the map, but uh secretly like I got a backup plan.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I know Tanner doesn't have a navy, right? Like Tanner didn't have a navy at all. I don't think his civilization could.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

We weren't on a great Navy map, if I remember right. There were rivers, and like I had a decent Navy, so I took the Navy back out to to protect my president slash king. But like after you were fucked and like you logged off, like you were destroyed, Jeff was logged off and destroyed. I finally bring my guys back, and we secretly hid in the what was left of your town, Carter, while Tanner searching the map for us.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I would have never thought to look there.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah, no, that's that was my plan. Was I was like, Tanner will never fucking come to Carter's land that's like uh obsolete now. Like, we'll get the resources left. We're like hidden within Carter's destroyed buildings. That is a blast. Needless to say, that's a fucking blast, man.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, so uh we'll go ahead and get to our review scores for Age of Empires 2.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Uh 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Anytime I want to play that again, I'm in.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

100%. I'm down. Well, yeah, it was in the two weeks, not much has happened, like in terms of news. Like we had a huge fucking news week and it was pretty dry. I think the only thing I may want to mention real quick is uh, Jared, we got a new harvest moon coming out. Are you excited?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, I made room on my harvest moon wall in the game room.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

It's called Echoes of Teradia. I don't I don't know how you say that last word, Echoes of Teradia.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

I'm ready for you, boys.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

You probably know more than me about it. It's gonna be bad.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

That's how I see it. Uh I hate to be the woe is me, Eeyore from fucking Pooh, but like you you fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ten years in a row, shame on me. I'm not fucking falling for it, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Like the graph the graphics look like they're trying to be like Breath of the Wild, which is it's okay. That's a cool little art style if you want to go for that.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I think it's good. Yeah, look like I'm I'm happy with the direction it's going. I hope it does well. But since that whole market, Marvelous Natsumi split. Harvest Moon sucked. Harvest Moon has sucked since Wii Days. And it even parade days.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Even then it was rough.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

The Wii Days were failing. Like Wii Animal Parade had potential, but the frame rate and stuff and the way the map was lined out, you were so spread out from everything, and it would just bog the fuck down if you had like three animals on your farm.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

What about that story of seasons, though? Isn't that like the actual one?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So that story of seasons, Marvelous, who used to like really, I don't want to use the wrong term.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

I don't know, like I feel They were the masterminds behind Harvest Moon. I see it. Like they were the developers. Natsumi was the publisher.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Okay. That's that's probably the best way to explain. I feel incorrect when I say produce. I don't know what what turn like what that means.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Natsumi like gave them the Marvelous the funds to make the good Harvest Moons. Then once they split, Natsumi's just like, oh shit, our the the talent is gone, so we're gonna keep the name alive but pump out trash because we don't know how to make a harvest moon.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

That's a that's about right because Harvest Moon was top of the line. The SNAS version in late SNES days, 97-ish, and then N64 in 99, 2000, PS1 2000, 2001, PS2 was a little dip, and then like GameCube fucking amazing. We amazing, and then since then, trash. Which we've talked.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

I mean, we could do a whole beat this subject to the fucking we've talked about that forever.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

We've got the wrong subject. If we run out of games, let's just do why the fuck Harvest Moon failed and how easy they could be to bring this. Tanner said this before, so I don't mean to take your take your words, but like fucking look at Eric Barone, do what Stardew did, and and you've got the resources to do it five times better and make a fucking great farming simulator game, but you're too stupid.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

You're too hard. For instance, with this new Harvest Moon, I've read a little bit of it. It's like in this one, you team up with the wolves, and it's like you're trying too fucking hard. This is not a goddamn like a Zelda game or something. You know what I'm saying? Like, stop. This is a farming game. Look at your roots. Like, look at your old mission statement that you would say at the beginning of every single fucking game. Do you remember their little tag? Seriously. Serious. What happened to that? Where did that go?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Serious fun.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

It ain't serious fun anymore. It's serious shit. It's serious garbage. Like they just what happened? I feel like you've said that before. Serious shit. It is. I mean, I I mean they they need to rebrand. It's serious shit.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

What's the uh what's the Zelda game that was like has a version of GameCube and Wii that was like 2006, 2007? This is what this is. Like, there's wolves and like you gotta team up with the king or queen wolf to make your farm work. I'm just uh uh I mean uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

I'm already I'm not buying it. Fuck you, Natsumi.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I don't I don't care if you recycle the same fucking storyline from the beginning. Grandpa died, he left you his farm. Like I mean, did you yeah, you you got me sold. Grandpa died, Papa Cook died. I'm in, baby. He left me his farm.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

You got a farm in a new town, that's all you need. Interesting characters. Let me marry one of them.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

You you can add the bullshit as it goes. Just I'll take the same starting line. You don't have to fucking make me a magical mammal uh communicator that I gotta talk to wolves to have this farm grow turnips. I don't need that bullshit. I agree. Not the place.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

That's so wild. They're trying too hard. They want like that like anime uh fan base, but it's just like, God, man, just look at your roots. Look at the games that actually sold well and like what made them good. Like, I don't know. We we've talked about this subject so much. I'm sure the audience is bored of it. If we ever have a side quest. I'm bored of it. I'm just kidding. Me and Jared will do a full fucking three-hour Harvest Moon episode one day.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

We publish this episode. We need uh if you actually want Metal Gear Solid 2, advance 35 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah, this is like I'm like, oh, I'm so excited to talk about Metal Gear Solid 2. Hell we're 37 minutes in and we still ain't even bitching the game.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

All right, boys. Let's let's go ahead. Let's uh I don't want to keep the Metal Gear fans waiting any longer. Let's get into it. I'll start us off very, very, very briefly with my little history on Metal Gear. I don't really have any. I never played a Metal Gear growing up. Uh the only exposure I ever had to it was through Jared, obviously. He I remember brief little glimpses of him playing two and three, and also that Metal Gear Online game on the PS2. I remember seeing that and being fucking mind-blown. But for me personally, if I had a personal like history with Metal Gear, it was through Carter's favorite series, Super Smash Bros. What was crazy was whenever Snake got revealed, it was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl in uh 2007. Now, what's like so crazy about Snake's inclusion is he was the first third-party character to ever be in a Smash Brothers game, which now you know they have almost every single video game character under the sun.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

But that was that is true.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

There is a fucking running this is not a coincidence. Every single fucking DLC fighter for like six, like a string of six fighters was Carter characters. Carter character, Carter character, Carter characters. Like they tried to do it.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

They brought in Snake, they brought in uh Dragonwear persona, the Joker.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yep, Joker, the Dragon. I think there's four different Dragon Quest protagonists you can play as. They added a Goemon fucking me costume like shortly after that. Like they tried their absolute best to get Carter to buy this.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

But um I missed Smash. It's the game itself. It's the game of self. I can't fix that. It's a game.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

I don't know when, but it's gotta happen at one point in time. It's too big of a serious person to touch it.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Now watch me play Smash and then just go on the episode back, guys. I was wrong. I never really played Smash that much. I'm just fucking flying out the tournaments where he's like.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

But uh I yeah, I remember what looking at this thing called a uh Smash Dojo. It was an old website back in 2007. I was this nine-year-old kid, super excited for this new Smash Brothers game. And once they uh showed Snake's reveals trailer, I had no fucking clue who he was. I was like, who's this G.I. Joe looking ass? Like, he looked so out of place compared to all these Nintendo characters. He was this like, you know, realistic man who looked like a spy. I was just like, this is so odd. You would think the first third party party character would be like Sonic or Pac-Man or one of those, like, but no, Snake. So I looked into that a little bit, and uh Hideo Kojima was close friends with the Smash Bros. creators, Master Hero Sakurai. Uh-huh. And he wanted him to add Snake back in Melee in 2001, whenever this game came out. And Sakurai, Sakurai was just like, damn, we are almost done with development with this game. I would love to, but this thing's about to come out, we don't have time. Maybe in a future entry. So when Brawl was coming around, he hit him up again, being like, Hey, can you put Snake in this? And he's like, Alright, we'll do it. So that was how like they they added Snake in.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

But anyway, you boys are the one who have the meat of the history. So whoever wants to take off, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Yeah, I was gonna say, for me, uh, the very first time I ever touched Metal Gear Solid was on one of those PlayStation Underground discs that used to come with the play. They had a bunch of demos. That's how I used to do other things.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

I love those.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Yeah, so you could play like so much of every like there was like 10, 20 games on them, and you could just play like I don't know, the first 15, 20, 30 minutes, depending on the game. And I remember for we had Metal Gear Solid on ours, and me and my brother first got it. And this is, I mean, this is back in 1995, 1996, so I'm like, you know, five, six years old, seven, something like that. Five to seven. We're we play it, and we come, you know, out of the water, and we walk through, and then all of a sudden, like, there's there's a guy, and he would just completely kill us over and over. And we were like, this game fucking sucks. Like, we can't like we hated it. Well, then my brother comes home from school one day, and he's just like, So I talked to my friend, and you're supposed to sneak past everyone and not get caught. And I was like, Oh. So I watched him play it, and we kept getting to Dark Machie. Anyway, that's Metal Gear Solid 1. I fell in love with the series from that one. So I I beat the demo probably 50 times, and then we got the main game, and I probably beat it god 30, 40 times itself.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

So you was probably eight or nine years old playing the original Metal Gear.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, beating the absolute hell out of it. Love that game.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

That is like eight, eight, nine years old, that's young, man. That's like because Metal Gear is not a cupcake franchise by any means.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Like, that's impressive to me that an eight-year-old is beating that game. Well, it was, I mean, there's a lot of games now, Tanner. I try to go back and play on the Nintendo Super Nintendo, and I'm like, how the hell did I beat this game? Like, the games are so conditioned out over the like, oh well, go this way, touch this. Oh, you need to do this. And back then it was just like, figure this shit out, bud. Go.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

So you started with Metal Gear 1. So how did Jared learn about Metal Gear? Was it through you or did he learn it on his own?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

No. Um, everyone at school was playing Metal Gear Solid 2. So I my family was a little bit poorer, right? Like, I didn't get a PS2 for a while after they first came out. Yeah. But everyone at school was playing Metal Gear Solid 2, and I was so fucking jealous all the time because everyone was like, oh yeah, Metal Gear Solid 2 is the greatest game. Jared coming to school talking about Metal Gear Solid 2.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

And I'm like, Carter remembers that, which is wild as fuck to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Oh, you know how it is. Uh when you're a kid and you're like, oh, all my friends get this cool PS2, mom, but I guess I don't because you know that and and I get it now. I mean, we just couldn't afford it, no big deal. Everyone was playing their PS2, everyone's playing Metal Gear Solid 2. I can't play it. Well, we finally, finally get a PS2, and the first thing I do, and I'll never forget this, I forget what game that my mom got my brother, because technically it was his PS2, which really pissed me off. But uh anyway, I go over to uh a pawn shop called Judes Jewelers across the road.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I brought a $20 bill with me. He happened to have Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PS2. What? Judes? Yep, it was $19. So I had a dollar left. So I ended up buying that game, um, coming home, and then that Saturday, I I mean I played it a little bit, but that Saturday I played it all fucking day because I didn't have a memory card. I couldn't save the game. Yes. So I played it forever because I'm like, I can't save it. I just kept playing and playing and playing and playing. Uh my brother was gone, thank God, or he had kicked me out of his room because that's where it was. I got all the way to naked ridden running around. And then I get a fucking. Damn, you're right there at the end. Yeah, and I get a codec call that says, Ryden, turn the game off now. And I was like, holy shit, I've been playing this so long. The PS2 knows. It's telling me to turn it off. I'm overheating saying I'm about to destroy it. So I turned the PS2 off. You're full of shit. You actually turned it off? Carter's not the only one. No, I swear. I thought for sure I my PS2 was broke because I was like, this because it's a brand new PS2. Yes, it knows more than me. It probably knows a way to tell me, like, hey, the game's about to break. You need to turn this off. You've been playing for nine hours straight. So I turn it off. Finally, and then later I get a memory card because I beg my mom, I'm like, I lost all my progress. So she gets me a memory card probably that Monday, and then I can finally catch up and beat it, and I get to that part again, and I'm like, Well, what the fuck? He's doing the same thing. I've only been I just turned I turned I turned it back on. Then I get to school. It might have been Sunday she got for me because when I went back to school, everyone was like, Oh yeah, the colonel just does that, and everyone was like laughing at me because uh I turned my game off, like, yeah, that's just kind of part of the game card are you dumbass.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Oh my god, that is hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So, Jared, you said you did the same shit.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

So let me back up. I get this game as a rental. I've never played Metal Gear before. I've never played Metal Gear Solid 1 before. I don't know what made me choose this. Like I've told Tanner in the past, a lot of times back then it was box art. The box art isn't like great to explain what it is. I don't maybe I had heard that this is a good game. It's probably 01, 02-ish. PS2 is very new to me. I'm with my dad for a weekend at my. Probably. I probably told you about it. Probably. Um I do remember in the earlier days, I would get Metal Gear Solid confused with a game that you like rode a motorcycle and like punched people like left and right, like a motorcycle racing game. Metal Slug.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Metal Slug was like a uh like a shoot like a side-scrolly like shooter type game. So it's not that. No, no, no, no. You're thinking of twisted metal.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

No, not twisted metal. I know what I knew what twisted metal was, trust me. I had one and two. There was a game that was like a like purely a metal, uh, like a motorcycle racer game that like you would punch people if they passed you and beat their ass. But anyway, for some reason that I would like in my younger days, 10, 11, 12, I was confused with that and that. Anyway, so I rent this Metal Gear Solid 2 game. It is fucking amazing. But as most dumbasses in their 9, 10, 11 stage, we don't watch a lot of cutscenes. We want to play the game. You used to piss me off with this shit. So I mean, I'm constantly I rent this game and I'm pressing, I'm pounding fucking X, or maybe O in the case of Metal Gear, which is reversed, by the way. Confirm is zero or O and X.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah, like X is canceled like it should be.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

So reverse. So yeah, the Japanese way, but like anyway, I'm playing this game. I don't know what the fuck to do. I'm with my dad on a weekend in 2002-ish. We're up at my grandma and grandpa's house. I've rented this game for two days, I've got it. My uncles are in like drinking beer with my dad and visiting, which is a regular weekend thing. And like my youngest uncle who's still still alive today, John. I remember my dad being like, ask John. Like he know, like, and John was like, Oh, Metal Gear, that's like a popular series. Like he knew what it was, but I don't know if he had ever played Metal Gear Solid 1. But anyway, he's watching me and they're trying to tell me what to do. Well, I'm fucking speeding through anytime fucking Audicon called. I don't listen to what he's saying, so I don't know what the fuck to do. So I'm long like I'm playing this game for six, eight hours on a Friday night. It's getting late into the night, and I finally I make it to the first boss fight, is what I'd caught with Olga Gerlukovich.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Yeah, eight hours later.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Eight hours later, just had to climb like three sets of stairs. But I'm just I I'm just out there lost. But like, so that was my first experience with the game, but I couldn't get over how fucking cool it was to be like stealth. I'd never played a game like that. This was before Splinter Cell, which I really think took advantage of the like stealth bullshit. Like, and I had never even heard or played Metal Gear Solid 1. But I could not like the thrill of the stealth, exactly. Yeah, yeah, hiding in a locker, or like uh a guy fucking sees me and I punch him, I punch his lights out, and then I go fucking hide like that. Was exciting as shit. Or I hang off the side of the boat and a fucking guard team is looking for my ass right beside me. My heart's pounding as like an 11-year-old. Uh my grip strength sucks, and I'm about to fucking fall off the edge. I'm oh shit, leave, leave, leave so I can climb up. Like that that's what made Metal Gear to me.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

It was it's uh I've beaten Metal Gear 1 whenever you all picked it for the podcast. And I think at the time I was like 22 or whenever we played that, yeah, I never played a game like it before. Because typically growing up, if if I knew a game had stealth elements in it, I would avoid it like the plague. The c that concept to me never appealed to me at all because I was more headstrong. I wanted to go in and just you know fuck shit up. Like I think the only exposure I ever had was like through Elder Scrolls games where you could potentially a little bit of stealth, you could be a thief, you could be an archer and sneak around. That kind of stuff I was exposed to, but nothing to the extent of Metal Gear Solid.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

You realize my like slow ass, like that's the way I like to play Elder Scrolls. Like, I'm a scaredy cat. I don't want to face anything head on. Back to Metal Gear 2, like Carter was talking about earlier. My first experience is basically me renting this for a weekend, and I couldn't do shit because I sucked at video games, and like my 35-year-old uncle's trying to help me. Uh, probably 30-year-old uncle. Sorry. I dated him some 30-year-old uncle's trying to help me.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

He was the young uncle back then.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

He was. John was the young one. Oh, the uncle from our fantasy league.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

The old uncle.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

The old uncle who's old, retired coal miner now. Um watch out for him, Tanner. But uh, so so he's the one my dad was like, John, John, help him with this, like the day I rented it. So I end up renting it again. I don't want to quite say a year later, but probably six to seven months later. And I'm staying the night with a well-known DJ shorter, and I'm at his house, and we're playing it, we're kind of taking turns. We make it to Fat Man and we beat Fat Man, and that was it. And then not too long later, I buy the game and I take it back to my dad's. And meanwhile, throughout all this, this is probably a year-ish of like timeline-wise. So I must have rented it right when it came out and I buy it approximately a year later. I'm still memory card poor. I have a memory card. I really do like I've got a memory card, and here's the bullshit with it. There were two memory cards at one point that I could have bought from Sears and Beckley Mall. One of them is the Sony memory card. It's your classic PlayStation 2 memory card. Oh, eight cards. I know it may not. Carter knows what I'm gonna say here. Eight megabytes. It is the classic. You put it in, you save your game, it works. Lo and behold, the salesman tries to sell us. I rem I'll never forget, right around the time I got Metal Gear Solid 2, like bought the memory card that is 16 megabytes, but it has a disc that every time you fucking uh put your memory card in, you have to put the disc in. And you gotta open up the disc, and then you have to close the disc and then the memory card's in, and then it can save sometimes. Well, sometimes does not work very well. And what sold us on it was like, so here's your thought like you get the regular memory card, eight megabytes, you get this super memory card, 16 megabytes. The price is the same, if I'm not mistaken, $29.99 or maybe $39.99, both of them. Anyway, anyway, so my dad buys me the double the memory memory card. More the more the better. And that bullshit does not work. If I remember right, it like you had to try and try and try and try to save bullshit. And the only games it really worked on were the blue disc PS2 games, which that's a totally different subject. Some of them, if you flip them over, are blue on the back.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

They hold way less memory, the blue ones.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Well, those usually worked with saving to the bullshit memory card. And if they're the classic PlayStation whitish gray, I don't know how you describe the back. It's not black PS1 pack, but it's got a color to it that will not save. So it it took me a year to get an actual memory card on a Christmas to save these games. So I'm in the same fucking boat as Carter. I'm playing Metal Gear a year after I had it. I'm at my dad's house, slash my grandma's house, and I'm getting to the point where it's fucking bogging down and it's riding, quit the game, like you played too long. And my dad is so like I my my dad's passed away when I was really young, but he is so like he's pumped. He's a very, I don't want to say well educated. He's not he don't have a college degree, but like he knows games and like technology. I'll never forget him being like pumped is how I would describe it to me today. And he's like hit me on the shoulder as I'm like this 11, 12 year old playing. He's like, Jared, the PS2 fuck like he didn't say fucking, but he's like, the PS2 knows that you've played so long, like the the system like needs a break. He's like, This is wild.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Like he was so me and your dad were on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

The only difference is fucking 12-year-old cook. I don't stop. I don't give in to ri like uh Colonel Campbell telling me to turn the system off. I keep playing until I beat it, which was just a couple hours after. But I'll never my dad was excited that the like in his mind the system was like signaling the game, like you need to break, you need to take a break, man.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

I love that because it's kind of an extension of this is a little off topic for Metal Gear, but I'll we'll quickly back get back into it. There's an old Christmas video of 1996 when Jared got his N64, and in the background, like it's it's mainly showing like our family opening gifts, but Jared is in the background playing Mario 64 for the first time, and his dad and my dad are having a conversation. I wasn't born yet, but my dad is video game elite. Literate and you can tell, and he has no idea what the fuck he's even looking at. And you can hear your dad explaining. He's like, Well, Frankie, this is 64 bits. We was on 16 bits. Like he knew that lingo, and like the dad was a smart guy.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

He was like a big time supervisor for a company called Owens Corning, which did a lot of windows and insulation. I think there's still a corporation today, but he like worked himself up. He just died too young, man. Dad was a good old guy. He was a gamer, man. He was I'll never forget like me telling my mom, like, my dad, my dad likes video games, and mom being like, not a lot of men, like they were divorced, not a lot of men past like 15 play video games, Jared. And I remember like going back to my dad, and I'm like, Dad, mom's full of shrap. I'm like, because she was she was in college at the time, and I I'll never forget her quote to me was uh, if I had to take all 10 boys, 10 boys age 18 to 20 in my college class, she said, I bet two of them play games. I'm like, mom, you're you're way off. I bet eight or nine out of ten play video games.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Like 100%.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, I'll never forget telling my dad that, and he was just laughing.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

He's like, Yeah, your dad was ahead of his time, from what it sounds like. He knew his shit.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

He was a grand turismo guy.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Nice. That's a good one. Good pick. But yeah, like, because that that whole concept, I know we've been talking about that one particular moment. Even when I played it, it's so creepy and so weird. And like, that is classic Hideo Kojima 101. Because whenever I played through Metal Gear Solid 1, they they do that shit all the time. Hideo Kojima loves to break the fourth wall. Like with the whole fucking Psychomantis fight where it's like, put the controller on the ground, I'll show you what I can do.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

And it starts to vibrate and move the controller on the ground and like Oh, yeah, and he reads your memory card and he'll tell you like if you have certain saves on there, what you like to play. Yeah. Um and he'll also uh Campbell, when he calls you and you don't know Meryl's uh like codec number, he'll say, look at the basket of the CD case. And on the back of the actual CD case has her like 141.15. That was wild. That man in that way was a fucking genius. I think so, man. Here's something I found out before while I was playing this one. Okay? So you know at the end of the game, obviously you fight a solid snake, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

And then they're the AI, because you find out S3 doesn't stand for Solid Snake Simulation, it's selection for social sanity, blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit. Anyway, very incredible in-depth AI magnificent, which I know we'll get into. But at the end, did you see the screenshot where I sent send you a code that you go to a website and enter? I do. Um that code, if you go to that website and enter it, so at the end, when you're fighting, he says, we'll consider this simulation complete. We'll have all the data we need. So another thing that Hideo did was whenever you go to this uh website and enter that thing, you are doing what they just said to do, the AI. You are submitting your game data so they can record the exercise as complete.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

So that is another like 2001. That was a thing you could do.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah, so if you go to that website and you upload your data, that is the same thing as thousands of players are completing the mission, it's right, and then that is them recording that data. Does that make sense? So that is the same thing as him breaking the fourth wall again.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

God, man. That that is the thing about Hideo Kojima games, and it's something that I had to learn going into this because I whenever I played Metal Gear Solid 1, I approached it as 11-year-old Jared. I'm like, what is this? These cutscenes, they go on for fucking what feels like 30 to 40 minutes at a time, and and I'm I'm sitting there, but you have to be in the right mindset, and you have to be like, this is half story, half game. It's not you're not just playing a fucking game. You need to go into this completely like invested in what you're gonna be doing. Because like I would say there's only about four to five hours of true gameplay in this game in total. Like, I mean, I think it's probably bad.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah, that's how most Metal Gear games are.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Does Metal Gear 4 still hold the record for longest cutscene, which is like 78 hours?

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Yeah, that's minutes. I mean, that's a full feature film of a cutscene.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

That game has nine hours of cutscenes. Nine fucking hours.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

This game has, I think it said uh four and a half, something like that, four and a half hours of cutscenes.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah. And Metal Gear Solid 4 has escaped the PS3 now. It's getting re-released, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

For the legacy collection. But coming into this, like I was a little bit more, you know, accustomed to Metal Gear. I knew it what to expect. I I got better at that like gameplay style. And initially, I was just like, oh my god, this is like such a fucking improvement. Because my number one issue with the original Metal Gear was, well, for one, was not having that first person perspective. That one fucking change changed the whole game for me. Where you could like look down your gun, see what's coming up, and like, you know, shoot a guard from across the room and and tranquilize them. I'm like, this is some fun fucking shit. This is what I want out of a Metal Gear.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Metal Gear Solid 1 did not age near as well because of that.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

Yeah, which is I know that's what Twin Snakes they added that that feature, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

So I would love to go back and play that version and like truly like see what that was all about.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

I've never played it either.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Now, the one thing about this game that is extremely controversial, and Jared, he probably never even you know thought to even think about this because where Metal Gear 2 was his first game. But Solid Snake is the franchise. He is iconic, he's probably the top five most iconic video game characters of all time. Love the guy, he's you know incredible a video game character. But this game, for I would even I didn't know you played as riding for basically 95% of the game. I thought there was a riding section and then you went back to Solid Snake, but it never happened. I'm like, what the fu like when do you go back to Snake?

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Yeah, I was I remember even as a kid, I was highly disappointed that you were riding the whole time. And I always thought, and it never happened, but every time like Snake would be like, Yeah, I was fighting Olga back when around the time you were taking about that mad bomber, like stuff like that. And I always thought that they would release like a solid snake version where you got to play through the big shell as him, because he did a bunch of stuff, like it just never happened.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah, David Hayter.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Yeah, like I would that not be awesome though to play through the big shell because he was like all the stuff, like he had to go do the same stuff. He had to take out the C4 bombs. Uh him and Akon found out stuff about the big shell being Arsenal gear, like at a certain point. Um, he was talking about how he had a fight with uh Olga.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

He fought with everybody thought I was dead. Right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Yeah. At the end of that, they think they think that Solid Snake is dead, but then uh the name's Pliskin. I laughed my ass off when I heard that.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Well, Hideo Kajima was a massive fan of Snake Pliskan in the Escape from New York. That's he he doesn't lie about it. He said that's who I based Solid Snake on.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

He looked at Kurt Russell in that movie, he looks just like Snake.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Carter, do you remember us? Like, didn't we rent uh the second?

SPEAKER_00 51:09

There's two versions of that, right? There's the New York Escape from LA, too. And there's that the one the most iconic one is the one with the basketball.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

I think that's LA. I think the second one is really just kind of fucking hilarious. Like it's so bad, it's hilarious. Like, yeah, these guys are gonna kill you unless you can shoot a half court shot in five seconds, Snake.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

And then he just slings that ball across the court with one arm and then it goes in. Yeah. And he just stands there like, and everyone just kind of screws and leaves.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

We won't kill you now. What the f but a great, great idea. Like Snake as a character in the video game is I mean, if I had to rate protagonists and you gave me a list of like top guys, he's a top five protagonist, in my opinion. Solid Snake. I know it gets iffy with big boss and all that bullshit. I still to this day have trouble following like the timeline of Metal Gear games. Hideo is such like he's a fucking like what do they call it? Like a crazy genius, uh fucking a mad genius, mad, mad scientist type, as far as games go. It's hard to follow for like a simpleton like me.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Well, it's one of those where you're completely lost through the series for the most part. Then when you get to the end, it's all like, oh, so literally everything makes sense now, which is wild.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

Well, like, even with that, like so Metal Gear 2 is the first time I'm playing. And when I would listen to Autticon and Snake talk, I felt like I was fucking behind for years. Like he's like, Yeah, no Meryl this time, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

And I'm like, who the fuck's Merrill?

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Yeah, Merle, a fucking Pokemon. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot to this, and even if you play it, like if you play, if you try to play it in order, like chronologically, there's still a lot left out there that like they they have it in such a way, like I think it's just a good storyline. Like the characters know shit that's going on, and you just have to observe and put it together like a puzzle as you're going on.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

I think it it just rewards the fans who pay attention. Like if if you're if you're playing the games and like they don't they don't treat you like an idiot. They're just like, you know, you know the story, you know the characters. You gotta pay attention, and you gotta actually you know put in a little bit of effort.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

There's no like a narrator who sits there and says, Okay, so hear me recap exactly what happened, and they explain step by step.

SPEAKER_02 53:46

Which they they do have that, and I did go through it at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 2. There's a thing where you could read like a recap, and I did that just to, you know, to make sure I remembered the game and everything. Because whenever I first played Metal Gear Solid 1, initially I didn't really even like Snake at first. I was just like, this is just like a boring, like spy stereotype that like Austin Powers is parroting. But as it goes on, you see more of his hum humanity, and like I think I think the character of Merrill was what made me love Solid Snake at the end of the day. Because like she kind of brings that side out of him, that more human, relatable side, and you you see more of like his depth and complexity and stuff. And I'm like, I love this fucking guy. Like he's like, he's a lot to him.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

So can we uh man, this is a long podcast, uh, and I'm I'm here for it. But yeah, like can we go into it a little bit? Like, let me say a couple things, and then I want to hear your all's like Carter and Tanner are definitely the more gamer than me, and I want to hear them explain it.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Not on a podcast, Jared.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Yeah, go ahead. Let me say this real fast. This was the first game that ever introduced like stealth mechanics to me, and I had a blast for years not even getting past the tanker, but like playing with hiding and like doing shit to enemies and knocking on walls and stuff and having their like face, yeah. Knocking on uh female parts on posters and lockers to set off alarms, yeah. 12, 11, 12, 13-year-old me love that shit. But like I could play the tanker for hours. Like it was like come home from school, I don't even care about the story because I fast forwarded past the fucking call that you need to listen to. And I'm just here to punch enemies, knock out enemies, throw them overboard, knock them out, see what I can do stealth-wise. Because that was the first stealth game I'd ever played. And like I said, I I think I mentioned before, like eventually you get uh what's the Xbox Splinter Cell?

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Yeah, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.

SPEAKER_01 55:56

Yeah, you get a little bit of that, but like Metal Gear was ahead of its time when it came to those mechanics. But secondly, after I mentioned that, is it not, and I know I've either said this in past podcasts or to you all personally, is it not fucking wild? The AI shit that Hideo Kojima predicted. I'm assuming so this game was released US01, so this is probably written 99 to 2000-ish, and like the fact that the game ends in like basically like yeah, everything you fucking know is ran by like a couple people, but it's basically all software analyzing everything everybody fucking does. It's all AI. Good fucking luck with the information I just unloaded on you. And it's like, is it not more fucking true today than ever? Again, think about that. 25, 26 years old, predicting AI bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Yeah, think about this. This game was actually, I mean, at the end of Metal Gear Solid 1, they already had the story written, right? Because he did the whole goodbye, Mr. President, yada yada. So they kind of had it already together. So this story was being developed, you know, 30, 35 years ago, uh, which blows my fucking mind. But yeah, the whole AI thing is crazy because I mean, even nowadays, you get on Facebook, you'll see a picture of two people standing together. You're like, they might not be standing together. Like, you can't trust anything anymore. And all of our data could easily be, you know, like that's downloaded, transferred. Like this is it could be happening right now. That's my AI.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

The ending of this game is like basically Snake tells Ryden at one point. I'll never forget this line, is like, and I'm definitely paraphrasing, but like, I don't know what the fuck's going on. All I know is I'm here and you're here right now, and we're in the middle of this right now. Like flashbone blind. And Snake tells Ryden something like that, and he's like, let's fucking finish this now. Because it, I mean, it's all falling apart, but it's so fucking true. Like political misinformation based on software that's like spitting out bullshit to the masses, like, damn.

SPEAKER_02 58:09

Okay, yeah, and that was trying to they're trying to fuck with Ryden's head too, because the the girl, like his girlfriend Rose, who contacts him all throughout the game, Ryden doesn't know what to think. He's like, Are you even fucking real? Was any of this real? Like, like, you know what I'm saying? It's like it completely mind fucks you at a certain point.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

She was a real person, but she was hired by the Patriots, which was AI, to watch him. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

In 2001, this sounds like insane bullshit. In 2026, it sounds like me logging into Twitter or TikTok or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Right? Well, even the ending, like like what I was talking about, when you enter that code on the website, it's like, hey, this is all bullshit, and you're going to complete what and do what the AI tells you to do. Then at the end, if you want to get your code name, you go to this website, punch in your data, and then it records your data with thousands of other people who have done the exact same thing that it's trying to tell you not to do in a roundabout way, but you have to do it because you know it's part of the game.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

It's so crazy, man. Because I think this game takes place later in the timeline. I think this is set in 2008 or 9. If you if you're going in chronological order from the numbered games, I think you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's three, five, one, two, four, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Uh three, five, yeah, yeah. Three is the first one.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

So does four kind of go more into that AI sort of shit? Because I know the first or the third game is more in the sixties and they don't really have that technology.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

In a way, but it more it does kind of wrap the story up in a way. But yeah, it definitely does go into the AI, and you get the main like. I'm not gonna spoil it for you because I'm sure we'll play it one day.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

But Metal Gear Solid 2 was basically a fucking warning to like, hey, in 20 some years, like this shit's gonna happen. AI, like, artificial intelligence is gonna get too good. Misinformation is gonna spread out the ass.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

And like I just that was their big thing. They were just like the information that you know has to be like selection for social sanity, the whole plan. Well, so we can filter information because you guys aren't responsible enough to do it yourselves. That shit's happening right now, in real life.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

It might be one of the most under misunderstood games there ever was, just based like then, but now it's so fucking good. Like, just the story, like the fact that that shit was said 25 years ago, and I know I'm harping on this for 20 minutes now, but like, damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Like it's heoked.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

It's amazing. Just amazing. Don't don't make a game where I like walk as like uh Daryl from uh the zombie game walking dead like for hours, and and I won't play that. I've never played that, but like you do anything else, dude. I believe in you. 25 year predictor there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

I don't know if you haven't played that Death Stranding series yet, but I've been thinking about it because a lot of people are like, yeah, at first you don't know what it is, then you start feeling like, oh, this is kind of like Metal Gear Solid. Then you get a few hours into it and you're like, yeah, this is Metal Gear Solid.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

So it looks I I've dabbled in the first game a little bit, and it is very Metal Gear Solid. It's very Hideo Kojima. Like he he just has his own style, and you know when you're playing a Hideo Kojima game for sure. So yeah, I mean this game was fucking it it's it's a crazy to me how well this game's aged in terms of just you know the gameplay, the audio, or not audio, the the the the graphics look insane for a basically a launch PS2 game. Like I'm like, damn, this looks it really fucking holds up. Like I couldn't get over that, like how well it looks because some of those early PS2 games look pretty fucking rough today. Not this one. This this looks like it was a later, like 2007 game, but it's 2001, which is inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

Yeah, that's why when they remaster it, all they gotta do, they can almost just sharpen the pixels and stuff. Like I mean, when you emulate this game, you can literally it it'll blow it up to like 1080p for you, and that's literally all they have to do when they remaster it is just use the same sprites and blow it up. It looks so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:01

I don't I just kept finding new stuff about the game because uh there's a lot of shit that this game doesn't really necessarily even tell you that you can do, but I would just discover it on my own. Like a lot of the stuff uh with the the guards, uh primarily like their bodies, like I didn't know you could loot them once you took them out. Like you could you could go there and get ammo and rations. Didn't know that. I had no idea you could stuff them into lockers. I had no clue how to do that until pretty late in the game. Like I had no clue because you know, like whenever you have your grip strength and you're like hanging on the side of a rail, it said level one. I'm like, what how do you get that up? I found out somehow I was like doing pull-ups. Yep and you you could raise your grip strength. I'm like, oh, that's fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

I didn't know that. Just wild, man. That this game was so far ahead. It was during its time and then way ahead of its time at the same time. It's really weird to explain that. And that's and that's another whole thing was like I noticed once once you start getting into the PS2 Plus era, like games were like, I mean, it gets crazy if you look at you know Nintendo, Super Nintendo, then you jump, make that leap to like the 64 era and PS1. Then another huge leap, I think, when you go to like the PS2, 64 era or GameCube and Xbox era. Then there's a pretty sizable leap because you hit up to HD, but it feels like it starts to really slow down though once you start getting like PS2, 3, 4, 5. It's like they're advancing. Obviously, games today are so much faster, and you can see graphics and stuff, but like it doesn't feel like as mind blowing as it used to. It's just like, oh yeah, that's definitely a lot sharper and faster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Oh, the resolution's up slightly.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool, but I mean PS2 games still hold up versus like like we talked about before, like when you get to that PS1 64, some of those look very blocky and hard to look at nowadays. But then the PS2, like where they kind of got it down, was just like a lot of those is still like, yeah, that I can still sit down and play that right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

Definitely. Well, we've been talking about this game for like an hour at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

And other stuff. We've been talking a lot, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Oh, yeah. This has been a a blast, but uh I'm ready to put a score on this game if you all are.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Oh yeah. And uh by rule, I must go first. So um obviously this is one of my favorite series ever. I bought a PS3 that was Metal Gear Solid 4 version because I love Metal Gear Solid. Um literally just a huge, massive Metal Gear Solid fan. Like the first one blew my mind, and then this one obviously took the top off and still does. It still blows my mind to this day, as we've discussed many times. Gameplay-wise is awesome. It's so weird because when you play the newer ones, they do add a few like CQC elements and stuff that weren't in this one. You kind of do know that there is more to them. But man, just this one's so iconic. But we do try to give it a 2026 rating. And that being said, I do think like this is a masterpiece. Like, I think we can all agree this is a masterpiece. Even if you just look at a masterpiece of storytelling, by far, probably one of the maybe top five ever. But as far as like the gameplay and playing through it, I mean, God, it's so crazy because I played through this game probably 12 times even in the past. It's like every two or three years I beat this game. I'm trying to be reasonable because I don't want to pump it up to like 9.5, 10, 10 out of 10. Because I feel like this could be like one of those 10 out of 10 Carter games because I love it so much. But I'm gonna go ahead and I'm I'm gonna give it a I'll give it a 9 out of 10. Um, I was gonna do 8.5, I was kind of on the fence, but I was like, I'll do nine out of ten, because I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Listen to your heart, Carter. Whatever you feel.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

And and and ratings are, you know, they're bullshit anyway, they're just for fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

Yeah. So uh okay, I guess I'll go next. I was the Metal Gear newbie. Still, this is the second Metal Gear game I've beaten in the series. I beaten one, I beaten two. This was an improvement in a lot of ways. I think in some way, uh I know I was gushing about the game, and I still think this game is is timeless in terms of you know, the storytelling, the graphics, the gameplay is you know great for this era, and it's in the story and how well it's aged, and all that's great. I did have some complaints with it that I didn't really get to get into. I can get into now. One, I thought the environment was very samey. You know, you're spending pretty much 85% of the time on the big shell, which is Like this big oil rig that kind of got a little tiresome. Like you that's you're just basically staying there for the majority of the game, and there was a lot of backtracking where I would have to run back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. That got a little old after a while. Yeah. Uh I had a little bit of problems like with the pacing, and I think that's just more of a Kajima style. I think that Metal Gear Solid 1 was a little bit better paced in terms of the story. Like there would be a huge gameplay segment, then a huge story segment, and then back to a huge like gameplay segment. I feel like this game was a little bit more lopsided because that last like two to three hours was nothing but cutscenes. Like just nothing but cutscenes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

Yeah, probably that don't play four, son.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

Yeah, you don't want to play four at all. And you know what? I'm gonna go ahead and make mine an 8.5 before you give your score out, just because you gotta pay the riding tax. If you were snake the whole time, you'd have got a nine. But no, you maybe play his riding tax 3.5.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

His character got better as the game went on. Like he wasn't a complete, you know, one.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

No, he's okay, but it's not solid snake, but he's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

Did he get better when he got naked for you or what?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

I laughed my fucking ass off because whenever I was running around, he's sitting there, he's holding his dick pretty much the entire time. But you can do that goddamn uh somersault, like he's I laughed my ass off when I seen that. Yeah. But uh yeah, uh Ryden as a character, he I think he gets a little bit too much hate because I knew even going into this game that people thought he was like a whiny, inferior snake. And he is whiny at the start, but he does get better as it goes on, and he has some character development to him. So that didn't bother me that much. But other than that, you know, I'm excited to get into Metal Gear 3 because I hear that is basically the pinnacle of the franchise.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

That's yeah, that's another thing I was thinking of. I can't give this a nine, but I gotta play three later. Are you who are you considered there, Carter? Big boss? Uh yeah, you're naked snake, but that does become big boss.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

I'm I'm pumped to get to play that one because I, you know, I I liked one, I love two, and then I can only imagine what three is. But I did have some complaints with this game, and I'm not really a stealth guy, but even with that fact, I still really enjoyed this game. I'm gonna give it a 7.5. Um, I do think it had some little bit of issues here and there, but you know, I still think it's a fantastic game, and you should absolutely go back and play it. Jared, your turn.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

I think it's still fucking amazing to this day. To like get a better grasp on how it plays to this day, I let Dawson play through the tanker. He didn't want to finish the plant, but some of the problems he found were kind of like I'm like, okay, I'll give you that. He did not like the camera angles, like like you're kind of a fixated camera angle, third person, and you're not really following Snake, and it's fixated around certain corners, and for him as this modern gamer, that's a little tough to adjust to. There's a couple control issues too that I'd kind of forgotten about until I played through this time. Like you have to like if you're gonna freeze a guy, like draw a weapon against him, you kind of have to half press it, and if you full press it, it shoots, and that gets a confusing, like the pressure based on the button. Am I right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Yeah, I think it depends on the controller you're using too, because the PS2 controller I think was easier to do that, or it felt like it was, but I don't know. I didn't play it on PS2 either. But uh yeah, I get what we're saying that you can freeze, and if you push it too hard, you just shoot anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

Sorry, Jerry, but there was one more thing that pissed me off. I'm gonna add to your little list here. It was whenever you were in that disguise as riding, and someone just fucking gives you a shoulder bump and you lose the entire disguise. I thought that was stupid as hell. I'm like, why? Like that irritated me. But go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

I think that's more hideo like comedy. Like this is obviously like a lot of comedy based, like the little toy that you shoot that just and start shooting out babies, and like the posters, the like sexy Japanese women posters that you poke on certain parts, sets off alarm. Like, he's got a good sense of humor, and that's early, late 90s, early 2000s sense of humor where people were allowed to have fun with some things that probably couldn't be in games today. Like you lay down a basically a Playboy magazine to like deter the guards. Like, I don't know if you could do that today.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:27

I that's not too controversial, but still play Metal Gear Solid Delta, and if you can, it's still game.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

But those are the two biggest issues I had. Like, if I was a new gamer coming to Metal Gear Solid 2, one is the camera angle that's kind of fixated based on what level you're in with a certain angle, and it's it's kind of tough to like go up against the wall and like but back then it was great. I guess now gamers are too spoiled. The other is the like the aim and shoot mechanism is a little rough. There's a couple other issues, but anyway, you all were too hard on this game. I still, when I played through it and I watched Dawson play through it some, it's fucking great to this day. I and you know me, like I love AI now. I use the shit out of it, even if it's getting rid of my clean water that I drink from. Like, I like it blows my mind that I could ask it to draw a picture of me and it does it in 30 seconds, and it's pretty damn good. I'm a simpleton, but I give it a solid nine. Metal Gear 2 to this day is is a 9 out of 10 to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

Y'all are too damn hard on it. I gave it a nine and I was like, I'll give it the riding tax to make it 8.5. Well, uh, Tanner gave it 7.5, and he's the he's the young one, so I think yeah, that's what I was thinking for sure. Which is fine, Tanner. That's perfectly cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:49

I still think it's an amazing game. Like you should play Metal Gear 2. But I think it just gets better and better as it goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

Yeah. Damn good game, man. Damn good story. If you're up for a story game that you're willing to take the time and you're gonna you're not like ADD like me and not gonna click and follow the story. If you follow the story, it's so it's a fucking amazing man.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

Yeah, follow the story. You gotta watch the cutscene. If you're not watching the cutscenes, don't play Metal Gear Solid. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:17

No, no, the gameplay and the and the cutscenes go hand in hand. You have to be in invested in both for sure. So uh Jared, where's it? You're the math guy. Where do we come out on that? 7.5, 8.5, and 9.0.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:28

7.5, 8.5, 8.3-ish? Okay, 8.3. Love it. 8.33333 3.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2026. Good game.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:40

All right, time to move on. Time to move on. Uh remind the audience what we have left, and then we'll we'll see what we have. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

Let me pull up my little dinosaurs to sort these, sort out what we got left. So, what we have left, let me eliminate Metal Gear Solid 2. We now have Dino Crisis, God of War, Star Fox 64, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. And Elliot, uh, my son, has joined me because he needs me to unlock his iPad. I don't want you to cunt this because I think it's uh perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:10

Oh, okay, but maybe he can announce the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Yeah. Elliot, do you want the dinosaur game to win? There you go. Oh, so playing arc. Yeah, for I can't do drugs, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:26

Oh shit, we got Colonel in here. God. Used to scare that. Damn. Screw my nine, it's a fucking ten. I love that shit, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:42

Ten.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:44

AI fucking going nuts, breaking down as you're beating the game. Scared.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:49

I do think like the story of this one compared to all of them is probably a 10, but I need to play the other ones too. But right now, yeah, that's a damn good game. And if you take pictures of the Marine Combinant, by the way, uh, Oticon goes, Why are you sending me pictures of this guy? If you're a fan, get a poster. But uh anyway, we got Dino Crisis, God of War, Star Fox 64, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. And uh is it what Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team? I only got rescue team. Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and start the race and we'll find out what game we're playing. Can't go wrong. Can't go wrong. Here it goes. Elliot. Say Dino Crisis. Well, that's what won Dino Crisis. So we'll be uh We'll be playing some Dino Crisis boys. Jared, just think of Resident Evil with uh with Dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:37

Okay, yeah. I'll see you next weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

I think it's on uh I think you didn't you say it was on the PSN Tanner?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:45

Yeah, it's it's on the uh for the premium. Uh you can play it on there for for free.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:50

So on PS5?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:51

PS5.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

Okay. Yep. And I don't know, I don't know how it's gonna play nowadays. It's this there is no good option like there is with Resident Evil. There is only the clunky Capcom controls.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

The tank controls. Jared is gonna love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

Yeah, it's gonna be fantastic. But uh alright, we're gonna get eaten for a week, and uh we'll be back next week.