The Game That Killed The Series for Me
I guess I was more willing to accept the poor gameplay mechanics in the original because pretty much all of the games on the original Playstation had terrible gameplay. It was a system not really capable of performing the tasks that game designers tried to squeeze out of it, and a lot of the developers at the time just couldn't seem to grasp the concept of 3D gameplay. But I was not willing to accept these horrible flaws on the far more capable PS2. I should not be playing a PS2 game thinking "every single N64 game controls better than this".
It was primarily the gameplay that made me put this game away forever, but the story and visuals certainly didn't help it. I don't remember what exactly happened in the story in that first hour and forty-five minutes, but I do remember thinking it was insultingly ridiculous. It made no sense, and I didn't care about any thing going on. I love a weird, and convoluted storyline as much as the next guy, but this just felt like a farce.
As for the visuals, yes the graphics were technically ahead of their time on the console, but the aesthetic just made me ill. Greenish gray on blueish gray on grayish gray, yuck! I couldn't stand to look at it.
I've never gone back to the game, and I don't think I ever will. I've also never touched MGS3 despite hearing plenty of praise for it, and while MGS4 looks far more interesting to me than 3 and 2, it's still not enough to make me go back to this series that I once got so much joy out of. Metal Gear Solid 2 was just such a soul crushing experience that I don't think I want to risk going through it ever again.