Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

by Konami

Product Features

• Start off with Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty -- Solid has gotten Word that the U.S. Marines Corps is building a new Metal Gear and he sets off to stop Metal Gear Ray from destroying a city
• If you survive the danger and madness of MGS2, you'll face the new VR missions -- test your skills at stealth infiltration, close-quarters combat and weapons use with over 150 wild all-new virtual missions
• There's also an exciting new set of missions called Snake Tales where you'll play as Snake himself
• Incredible secret modes and characters you can unlock to keep the action coming!

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008JPTK
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 7.2 x 1 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: March 25, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,381 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is the PS2 espionage action game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty with new playable characters, new VR missions, and a few twists. There are over 350 new and moderately interesting VR missions that sort of fill in the gaps in the original game's story. There are also five separate "Snake Stories" that act as new missions. These take place apart from the main story, making them feel less like an expansion to the sprawling events in Sons of Liberty and more like an unconnected romp designed to pad the original game. Unfortunately, the "Snake Stories" lack the thrill, tension, and exposition that made Sons of Liberty so special.

The "substance" is nothing more or less than a collection of disconnected additions to the core game Sons of Liberty, which remains unchanged from its original release: you play as Solid Snake in stealthy espionage/assault missions, infiltrating the lairs of bad guys to take down nuclear-powered bipedal creations called Metal Gears. Snake has all kinds of tricks up his sleeves: high tech weapons, the ability to sneak around undetected--he can even flip over the side of a railing to hide (a "Grip Meter" counts down, increasing the tension and making you pray the enemy walks away). Both a boon and a detriment to the game is its reliance on cinematic scenes to further the convoluted plot. They're well-rendered and professionally done, but you'll seemingly find yourself spending more time watching the game than playing it.

Substance is worthwhile for anyone who doesn't already own Sons of Liberty. That goes double for Xbox and Windows gamers, because the game looks much better on those platforms than it did on PS2. For those who've already played the original, this reissue just doesn't add enough, pardon me, substance, to merit purchasing it again. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• New modes and missions
• Graphics improvements on Xbox and Windows

Cons:

• New content too sparse for players who already have the original game.

Product Description

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance brings the fans Metal Gear Solid 2 redux - with more action, better graphics and an all-new set of missions!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great game, if you don't already own it., March 30, 2003

By 

"charliekkkk" (Boise, Idaho, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (DVD-ROM)

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a great game. Although not everyone liked the plot, the stealth gameplay is still the most fun on the market. The game was released over a year ago on PS2, but last winter, this souped-up game came to Xbox. Now it is back on PS2, and finally PC.

The main game, Sons of Liberty, is a great game. People have critized the plot, but I found it enjoyable. The variety of gameplay is great, though. You go undercover as a terrorist, defuse bombs, destroy security cameras, take pictures of Metal Gear Ray (a powerful nuclear weapon), and fight hard bosses. All of Snake's stealth tactics are present, even the new first-person view. In case you haven't heard, there is a new character (Raiden). However, he can perform all the same moves that Solid Snake could. The main game really emphasizes stealth, but if yuo are caught, it is not game over. Instead, you have a hard firefight ahead of you. It is fairly long, about 15 hours.

What is good about this game is all the extra content. There are over 300 VR missions. They are similar to the main game, but take place in a computer-generated combat zone. They have a good variety, and are fairly challenging. There are also over 150 alternative missions. The difference is that these take place in locations from the game (Big Shell or Tanker). Once again, these are challenging, varied, and cool. There are also 5 new Snake Tales. These include Solid Snake, and take place in levels from the game. However, all theese extra modes are difficult. There is no difficulty select for them.

Overall, this is a great game. If you do not own it, buy it. If you own another version of Metal Gear solid 2: Substance (PS2 of Xbox), this is not worth buying again. If you own the original on PS2, you should buy this for the extra content. As for which system? Depends on if you like a controller over a keyboard and mouse.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metal gear solid for PC, July 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (DVD-ROM)

First off this is one of the best games for teh xbox and ps2 and now its on the PC!!! despite what ever you have heard for other sources and from other reviews they are mostly wrong. this game does play well on a non super computer
you dont need all the best graphics cards and such to run it.
i have an old dell with 256 ram and a geForce 2 ultra and it runs good enough for me and on the tanker level (the first level) i crancked up the graphics all the way and it runned like "buttuh"(butter) smooth as silk. and another thing people complain about is the "bad controls" tthey are NOT that bad sure a controler would be nice but i am not made of money so i stuck with the defult settings and itt works slick!!! one thing though press "enter" then press "down" to save and press "esc" to quit DONT HOLD ESC!!! or the game starts getting wierd. if you wanna use rations hold "a" select rations then press "x" (all with default controls)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars MGS2 Problems resolved - It works, September 27, 2005

By 

R. Stevens "Fedora Technologies" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (DVD-ROM)

I had such a difficult time with this before, but found 2 second fixes and like the others say, it works great now. There's some things that they didn't post that I found ton o' people including me had issues with, so I'm posting it.

I'm getting the same errors as well. Error code: 5005 Doing an extensive google search revealed that there was something wrong with install shield Ver. 7. However, the steps I did are posted below, none of them worked so I will tell you what worked for me.

I copied the entire DVD to my HDD, and installed it from there instead. It worked fine.

Anyway, then I had to edit the DVD rom drive cause running the game, it was looking for the DVD on the wrong place, obviously. So I edited the key in

HKEY Current user / software/ konami/ metal gear solid 2 substance and edited where it said SrcDrv to the drive letter of my DVD rom which was E:\

and it ran great!!

If that doesn't work, it may be your install shield. Visit http://consumer.installshield.com/ and find the links there to update your install shield. It has great links to update the engine, driver, and so forth - its designed for consumers who are having problems with Install shield products. Its pretty lengthy, but hopefully one of the above would work for you.

And then install patch 02, even if you have nvidia. I set all the settings on high, except for model detail and everything ran and looked gorgeous. I was suprised because model detail, you would think that was characters and stuff. I was like great, this is gonna be crappy. But it wasn't. With that setting on low, everything else on high, it ran beautifully on my Geforce FX 5600 Ultra! I mean, it looked incredible. I highly recommend you get this game and do the steps if you run into trouble. I feel sorry for the folks who bought the game earlier cause the patch didn't do squat for them. So if you were debating whether or not you should buy it, yes, it totally works and any work arounds you will need to do is very small. (It just took me a couple hours to figure it out that's why I'm sharing my info)

HTH

Rye