I was thinking this morning about some of the best games I've played over my long, video-gaming existance. I'm typing this post (hopefully more posts like it will follow) to talk about how awesome these games were and why.

My most recent nominee for favorite game is Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which I played in November of last year. I started the game soon after beating MGS: The Twin Snakes, and after playing through the prologue and the opening sections of the mission, I decided to stop playing for the day. A few weeks later I picked up the game again on one of my days off. Twelve hours later I was still playing the game, stopping only for lunch and dinner. I was so engrossed in MGS2 that I couldn't put it down until I had finished the whole thing.

And why not? First was the game-play, which for the MGS series is what I would describe as a combination of action and puzzle. I say puzzle because it takes a certain amount of thought to sneak past guards without getting shot in the face. I died at least 20 times during the prologue alone, but I didn't mind because this set up never caused the game to become frustrating. It actually added to the excitement.

MGS2 has a story which is rarely rivaled for its epic scope and interweaving plot threads. It's actually ironic of that the story is so epic, while the gameplay takes place in a relatively small area, the Big Shell Facility. It's a small place, but each section is so well constructed with just the right amount of enemies and rooms that it seems much larger than it actually is. Compare this to games like The Legend of Zelda or Shadow of the Colossus where there are big spaces but much less to do in them. MGS2 actually increases the amount of space one has through an assortment of smaller rooms, making the game seem bigger than a wide open space does. I wasn't playing the game from event to event; I was playing MGS2 room to room