It is hard to describe the level of hype that surrounded Metal Gear Solid 2. The buzz was at a palpable fever pitch. People were hungry, ravenous, to play it. It was the sequel to a PS1 classic, the first Metal Gear Solid, but there was something more to it. It was much more than just an anticipated follow-up to a brilliant game.

It seemed to herald the arrival of next-gen gaming - as next-gen was defined in 2001. But what made MGS2 seem larger than itself was the sense that this game would mark a turning point for video games in general. A before-and-after moment. A launch that would tip the medium into Hollywood-land and give gamers bragging rights, once and for all, against the cultural critics who derided our beloved hobby, thinking movies were the superior artform.

Related: Is Abandoned Hideo Kojima's Silent Hill

The PS2 hype was major too and Sony was working its marketing magic, touting its ‘emotion engine’ and there was much talk about polygons and how many of them there were in a game. I remember being blown away at reading how just a single image of a PS2 game contained more polygons than entire PS1 games. But the PS2 had a dearth of decent launch titles and took a little while before it got going.

Via jeffreylwilson.net

As GTA 3 arrived on PS2 in October 2001 and would go on to refashion console games towards the freedom and possibility of open worlds, so, a month later, did MGS2 arrive and bring a heretofore unprecedented level of cinematic storytelling and ambition. In some ways its mixture of ingenuity, fourth-wall-breaking design, and big-budget originality has never been bested.

Hideo Kojima was not a household name back then. His fame would rise after this game, perhaps his greatest magnum opus. And he pulled a fast one on us. Metal Gear fans were expecting Solid Snake as their protagonist and playable character. But after the ridiculously good tanker level, which was widely shared around since it was included as a demo with Zone of the Enders, there was a surprise in store. A surprise so shocking that many players revolted.

Instead of the beloved Solid Snake, players were introduced to Raiden as their main playable character. He was flashy, blonde, androgynous, and some fans reacted badly to the switcheroo. But this change in perspective was exactly the kind of derring-do that made Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty so visceral. From the expansive and numerous cutscenes, the liberal borrowing of movie language (wide shots, crash zooms, close-ups), to the absolute bananas endgame, MGS2 took games to places that seem in retrospect more, not less, wild today, even though we have two decades that now separate us from its launch.

Metal Gear Solid 2 Screenshot Of Snake and Raiden With Guns

How to summarise the game’s story? It certainly didn’t lack for plot. MGS2 had players sneaking around Big Shell, a large offshore facility overtaken by a group of terrorists, some of whom appear to have supernatural powers. You were Raiden, a FOXHOUND operative, tasked with taking the terrorists down while a couple of fishy Navy SEAL members lend you a hand. That was the set-up, but boy did things get complicated. Kojima went heavy on the details, on the exposition, on the twists, on the emotional and intellectual profundity. It could be a touch heavy-handed. Just a touch.

Players used a ‘codec’ - a radio system - in which you could contact and speak to various people. Hundreds of lines of dialogue were scripted into the codec and possibly no one has yet listened or read them all. There seemed to be one recorded for every possible situation you could find yourself in. One of our editors recalls that the Colonel expressed his disgust when you called him while stood underneath a guard's stream of wee.

The gameplay was something else, offering a level of detail, depth, and freedom of expression that was truly astonishing. The watermelons split apart with sundering veracity. The glass cracked, when shot, then smashed into thousands of tiny pieces. Ice cubes melted. You could hide in a cardboard box and transport yourself around Big Shell. You could hide corpses in lockers. You could kiss posters. You could look into the surprised eyes of soldiers - I can see their eyeballs, still, flashing wide - as you held them up, and shook them down, for their dog tags. Sometimes, they even pissed themselves.

Metal Gear Solid 2 knocked out guard
Metal Gear Solid 2 knocked out guard

All of it was game-changing. Kojima had designed a game with such precise controls, so many granular details, impressive animations, and given players such variety, that it created a new community. A subculture who explored the game’s many secrets and subtleties. A dizzying amount was buried in this game, while the stealth options provided for enormous creativity, providing content for gaming magazine DVDs.

It was also one of the first 3D games that gave an actual sense of three dimensions, as players crawled, ran, and crouched. In first-person view the fidelity of the environment was astounding. You were inhabiting a real space, a real floor, a real corridor. GTA 3 opened up a city, but MGS2 opened up a room. A room that now seemed a reflection of the real world.

Kojima sensed this. Of course he did. In the latter parts of the game, he played with us, toying with our perceptions in ways only a video game can. He broke the fourth wall, and forced players to bend to his authorial vision. Even now, few games have dared to replicate what Kojima did: characters telling you to stop playing, the game’s UI changing its nature as Kojima told a story about the slippery nature of reality. The gameplay reflected the story’s themes, as it twisted and bent, and even the genre seemed to shift from stealth shooter to beat-’em-up. Kojima let it be known that you were not the only one playing a game. He was playing you.

MGS2 is considered one of the first, and perhaps one of the best, examples of a postmodern video game. It has been studied and analysed for its philosophical themes. It predicted the popularity of memes, the wide-spreading of information that couldn’t be easily verified, the seeming breakdown of a shared consensus. It broached a plethora of complex issues when many other games, if they even try, would stick to only a few. Topics such as incest, child exploitation, conspiracy theories, AI, social engineering, political misinformation, the nature of truth. The nature of truth. This was no ordinary video game. It was a manifesto. A document that invited players to explore these themes through its story and gameplay.

As Metal Gear Solid 2 celebrates its 20th anniversary, it remains a landmark in video game history, leaving a legacy without rival, and few imitators.

Next: I Can't Get Enough Of Fishing In Skyrim Anniversary Edition