Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X

Matthew Preston | December 23, 2001
The two games that I bought my PS2 for are both released and I can't be happier. I also can't be more at a loss of a normal schedule either. Saying things like "Just one more hour" or "Only until the next save point" are killing me!

So last night I finally finished everything there is to do in MGS2. I beat the game on all 5 difficulty levels and got all of the dog tags for the enemies. You can hold up the enemies at gun point in the game and obtain their dog tags. The names on the tags are from contest winners that enterted the contest about a year back. The names are different for each character based on the difficulty level. I and about a dozen or so people I know entered the contest, but I didn't see anyone I recognized. Several of the tags were also designers of the game, so it cut back on actual winners.

I have never had such a feeling of accomplishment from destroying a video game! I got several special items and a few secrets, not to mention a code to enter in a special website that gave me a great deal of extras about the game and some free downloadable software. All of this of course is only to the select few that can do what I did. I even did all of this without the use of my game shark!

I was going to now move on to Final Fantasy X, but I still craved more Metal Gear. So I sat down for about 10 straight hours and explored the game pixel by pixel. I came across secrets and extras that even major magazines and websites haven't reported on yet. I had thought that the game was spectacular before doing all this, and now it has reached the status of God-Like. Listen to me, get this game. There is none better in history and I can't imagine that any game in the near future could even come close to achieving its greatness. Strong words from a person that has spent most of his life playing video games.... and damn proud of it too.

I finally got around to playing Final Fantasy X (no pun intended). I wasn't too impressed with the graphics at first, but I liked the aspect of full speech. One of the great advantages of speech is that there is never arguments over how a name is pronounced... :-) I was about 4 or 5 FMV's (full motion video) into the game when I realized that I hadn't come to an FMV yet. When it started, my jaw hit the floor and I knew I was destined to the couch for days to come. Holy hell, I love being a gamer.

Scott Hardie | December 23, 2001
What's all this about not having a normal schedule? Isn't that one of the reasons why you wanted to move to Vegas in the first place? :-)

Looking forward to getting both of those games myself in the spring, though I doubt I'll play MGS2 as extensively as you did.

Matthew Preston | December 23, 2001
About the schedule, what I mean is that sometimes I am awake during the day, sometimes at night. Sometimes I sleep for 3 hours, sometimes 12. Sometimes I am awake for 30 hours, sometimes 5. My body is a wreck.... but I never said I wasn't happy! :-)

Scott Hardie | December 24, 2001
I know that's what you meant, and I still don't understand why you act like that is unusual. :-)