Metal Gear Solid 2: The Novel: Sons of Liberty [Paperback]

Hideo Kojima's Sons of Liberty is a beautiful and endearing story about finding your true identity and purpose in life and either following your life's chosen destiny or being brave enough to make your own.

...at least that's what one of the four people in the world who actually understands that game has told me.

For most of us, Sons of Liberty is either a highlight or the downfall in the series. The unanticipated introduction of Raiden gained some less than glowing comments from fans but didn't seem to affect the reviews of it from the media which were generally positive. Either way, it's so convoluted and wrapped up in eccentricities that instead of asking `Who is this Raiden kid and when do we get Snake back?' we should have been trying to figure out who the hell was going to explain this massive pile of intricacy to us.

This is where Raymond Benson's novelization of Sons of Liberty becomes handy.

(Uh, I'm going to warn for spoilers just for the hell of it but seriously...the game is 8 years old.)

Benson's adaptation, just as the game does, picks up about two years after the infamous events of Shadow Moses. Solid Snake, Otacon, and (loosely) Mei Ling have formed the NGO Philanthropy, an undecidedly respected organization focused on the elimination of the Metal Gear units that have been popping up like daisies due to the blueprints being mass produced and sold to anyone with enough money to buy them.

Information Otacon receives from an interestingly initialed informant called E.E. leads to Solid Snake hitching a ride Ethan Hunt style off the George Washington Bridge onto an oil tanker apparently carrying a Metal Gear unit in its holds. In theory, the mission is simple: Get a few pictures of said Metal Gear unit that proves it exists and was developed by the U.S. Marines...then get the hell off the ship. In true MGS fashion though, it doesn't take things very long to get complicated and faster than you can say "Shalashaska", a bevy of Russian mercenaries overrun the ship. It's around this time the mentioned ally of Revolver Ocelot's from The Shadow Moses incident, Sergei Gurlukovich, shows up as their commander. This probably should have been the boys' first clue that something was off. But it isn't until Snake tranqs a pregnant Russian woman and has his picture taken by an Army cypher that they finally realize that things aren't going to go down quite the way they were hoping they would.

Enter Revolver Ocelot who's been recently equipped with Liquid Snake's arm to replace the one stylishly hacked off by Gray Fox two years before. But what makes this a Kojima signature is the fact that in the presence of Snake, the limb activates, forcing Ocelot's personality to be suppressed and taken over by Liquid's. After serving a quick dish of betrayal to Gurlukovich, Ocelot--or maybe Liquid--hijacks RAY (the Marines' codenamed Metal Gear unit) and cuts himself out an escape route off the ship. Needless to say, the ship sinks and with Snake and the Marines still on board.

The second half picks up with an operative secretly infiltrating the Big Shell, a decontamination facility built to deal with cleaning up the mess the sinking of that oil tanker caused two years before. The operative is Raiden, a naïve, VR trained rookie who comes complete with androgenic features, perfect white hair, and a nagging girlfriend. Like most situations associated with the (secret) inclusion of FOXHOUND, a terrorist plot has broken out, this time during a routine tour of the facility to check its progress. The touring group have been taken as hostages and that's bad. Amongst the hostages is the President of the United States. As it turns out, that's really bad and gives weight to their insane demands: 30 billion (that's with a `b') dollars in cash.

As exciting as the premise is, the story from here is a slow burn with dense information distribution. Yes, it's riddled with plot twists and you kill a mad bomber who rollerblades and takes his wine through a straw and it's all very amusing...but things don't really kick into high gear until after Emma Emmerich (or E.E.) is offed.

The book follows the path and events of the game down to the annoying amount of pigeons plaguing Raiden at the Big Shell. Every codec conversation that doesn't explain how to climb a ladder or swim with a 110-pound weight on your back for gameplay sake is included. A few times during the book, I would say a line of dialog aloud before flipping to the next page to read it. This linear adaptation doesn't mean Benson forgets to have a little fun, though.

During the tanker mission, Snake snaps a photo of a locker model poster. It's hinted that he's doing it to see Otacon's reaction more than for his own personal use. This bit is an Easter egg in the game but in all honesty, I got a good chuckle at how it was included as an actual event in the book.

Benson also does a nice job at alluding to elements in MGS4. Near the end when Snake gives Raiden the sword that Olga left for him, Benson makes sure to put a great deal of emphasis on how quickly it affects his battle psyche and becomes essential to him which gives a nice nod to his complete badassery with it in Guns of the Patriots.

Also, remember when we all thought for about five or six years that Olga's child was a boy? At the end when Raiden and Snake are discussing the whereabouts of the child, it's originally referred to as a "he" though by the time the trailers with Sunny in them started to break, we realized it was actually a "she". Benson offsets this "mistake" with an exchange between them that suggests the child could be a girl as well. It's a very minor addition and I doubt anyone but me will appreciate it but it made me smile.

A few of the more particular fans may cringe at some of the minute details left out. Like that whole "Emma peeing her pants when she first meets Raiden" thing. In the game, it was probably only meant to further hammer home the similarities between Emma and her step-bro Otacon who infamously did the same thing when he saw Snake. The average fan will barely notice it's gone but I doubt they'll miss it. In fact, I think half the reason the Emma/Raiden moments came off as a bit more believable for me is probably because she didn't do that. In the game, after you've witnessed Emma piss herself, it's a little hard to believe that an hour later Raiden would flirt with her...even if he was only indulging her to keep her spirits up. But, I digress...

The book truly shines in giving better control of pacing the build. Like I said early, there's a tidal wave of information being given to you during the game and on top of that there are a few long speeches given by the people Raiden encounters during the course of it. The President gives one that reveals and elaborates on who the Patriots are and what they do and Emma gives one that explains their desire to censor information from the public that may overthrow them in the modern world of technology. None of these speeches hold a candle to the 20 minutes of psychobabble that is churned out by AI Campbell and AI Rose. You know, the one that takes place right before the final battle with Solidus but after that mother of all "WTF" moments is revealed by Ocelot. If you played the game a few times and got all of what was being said in those speeches, good for you. And if you remembered even half of their content after you turned the game off, your comprehension skills are a lot more efficient than mine. I've played and beaten this game dozens of times over the years, never skipping a single cutscene and I still learn something vital on each play through that helps me better understand it. Granted, it would probably help a bit if I were more familiar with the processes of the government and the organizations within it but the novelization does a great job of helping someone even with my limited knowledge get a better hold of everything. And that alone is totally worth picking it up.

Bottom line: Go get it even for the sake of adding another official piece of MGS merch to your collection (it's got the Kojima seal of approval, guys). If you think your understanding of SoL is already on the expert level, the novelization is a great companion to the game. In fact, if you play the soundtrack whist reading it, you can nearly have the full experience without ever turning on your PS2. But if you're like me, then you'll benefit indefinitely from reading it. It's not groundbreaking but it's not supposed to be. It gives you exactly what you need without making you begrudgingly participate in those fleeting moments of "gameplay" where you actually have to move the character to cue the next cutscene.

Overwhelmingly recommended.

Raymond Benson wrote another novel of the Metal Gear Solid series. Yet again, a great book that is described with beautiful sensory images that the reader can easily picture in mind with various characters. When I read this book, the author put the ALMOST EXACT same dialogue from the game to the novel. This is the sequel to the first Metal Gear Solid. A new character is also introduced. A "rookie" some people call him. When he is in the story, a new genre is involved with the story: Romance. Along with a few themes that can lead to love drama. A new weapon prototype includes a new weapons technology that was invented secretly by a group of terrorists. Overall, great book.

If you're not a video gamer you will still appreciate the amount of complexity of the plot of MGS 2 novel. And if you love the video game and want more from the franchise you won't be disappointed.

It's Spy Espionoge and Sci-fi at it's best.

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