163-495: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is a 2001 action-adventure stealth video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 . Originally released on November 13, it is the fourth Metal Gear game produced by Hideo Kojima , the seventh overall game in the series and is a sequel to Metal Gear Solid (1998). An expanded edition, titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance ,
326-572: A 16:9 aspect ratio, providing a clearer and wider view of the player's surroundings compared to the original 480i resolution and 4:3 ratio of the PlayStation 2 version, while the PS Vita version runs at qHD resolution. Cutscenes can now be viewed in fullscreen or letterboxed format, while online achievements/trophies have been added as well. Most of the additional content from Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance has also been ported in this version, such as
489-446: A battalion of cloned super-soldiers , robots and paranormal creatures . The AI uses a planner to generate context-sensitive behaviors, the first time in a mainstream game. This technology is still used as a reference for many studios. The Replicas are capable of utilizing the game environment to their advantage, such as overturning tables and shelves to create cover, opening doors, crashing through windows, or even noticing (and alerting
652-619: A fantasy " setting. Tutankham , debuted by Konami in January 1982, was an action-adventure released for arcades . It combined maze, shoot 'em up, puzzle-solving and adventure elements, with a 1983 review by Computer and Video Games magazine calling it "the first game that effectively combined the elements of an adventure game with frenetic shoot 'em up gameplay." It inspired the similar Time Bandit (1983). Action Quest , released in May 1982, blended puzzle elements of adventure games into
815-446: A joystick -controlled, arcade-style action game, which surprised reviewers at the time. While noting some similarities to Adventure , IGN argues that The Legend of Zelda (1986) by Nintendo "helped to establish a new subgenre of action-adventure", becoming a success due to how it combined elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid, including exploration, adventure-style inventory puzzles , an action component,
978-566: A monetary system , and simplified RPG-style level building without the experience points . The Legend of Zelda series was the most prolific action-adventure game franchise through to the 2000s. Roe R. Adams also cited the arcade-style side-scrolling fantasy games Castlevania (1986), Trojan (1986) and Wizards & Warriors (1987) as early examples of action-adventure games. Games like Brain Breaker (1985), Xanadu (1985), Metroid (1986) and Vampire Killer (1986) combined
1141-759: A subgenre of open world action-adventure video games in the third-person perspective . They are characterized by their likeness to the Grand Theft Auto series in either gameplay or overall design. In these types of open world games, players may find and use a variety of vehicles and weapons while roaming freely in an open world setting. Metroidvania is a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania ; such games are sometimes referred to as "search action", and are generally based on two-dimensional platformers. They emphasize both exploration and puzzle-solving with traditional platform gameplay. Survival horror games emphasize "inventory management" and making sure
1304-443: A "critique" of "the very networks of biopolitical and informational control that comprise the postmodern military, and posthumanity generally", and noting that it "purposefully manufactures frustration and negative affect" to "highlight the typically unexamined codes, conventions, and hidden pleasures of the military game genre". Steven Poole commented in a 2012 Edge column, "the story of MGS2 , with its mythic wit and sweep,
1467-672: A GAN on a thousand human-created levels for Doom ; following training, the neural net prototype was able to design new playable levels on its own. Similarly, researchers at the University of California prototyped a GAN to generate levels for Super Mario . In 2020 Nvidia displayed a GAN-created clone of Pac-Man ; the GAN learned how to recreate the game by watching 50,000 (mostly bot-generated) playthroughs. Non-player characters are entities within video games that are not controlled by players, but instead are managed by AI systems. NPCs contribute to
1630-410: A Japanese Godzilla film. Kojima states that when he "heard about the hardware for the PlayStation 2 ", he "wanted to try something new. Up to that point, all cutscenes had focused more on details like facial expressions, but I wanted to pay more attention to the surroundings, to see how much I could change them in real time ." The game was in development for four years and over 100 people worked on
1793-406: A Russian mercenary force that patrols the facility. The Dead Cell team members are Vamp , a seemingly immortal man exhibiting vampire-like attributes; Fatman , a rotund man with exceptional knowledge of bombs; and Fortune , a woman whose uncontrollable psychic ability prevents any bodily harm from befalling her. The leader of Sons of Liberty claims to be Solid Snake , previously declared dead after
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#17328595229621956-512: A certain time limit, while trying to stop Liquid Snake and his group. However, about six months into the project, the political situation in the Middle East became a concern, and they decided that they could not make a game with such a plot. The tanker in the released game is based on this original plot. MGS2 was also intended to reference the novel City of Glass , notably in the naming of its characters. Raiden's support team originally featured
2119-462: A certain way. For example, if the AI is given a command to check its health throughout a game then further commands can be set so that it reacts a specific way at a certain percentage of health. If the health is below a certain threshold then the AI can be set to run away from the player and avoid it until another function is triggered. Another example could be if the AI notices it is out of bullets, it will find
2282-545: A choice of what to say. The NPC gives a scripted response to the player, and the game offers the player several new ways to respond. Due to the action-adventure subgenre's broad and inclusive nature, it causes some players to have difficulty finishing a particular game. Companies have devised ways to give the player help, such as offering clues or allowing the player to skip puzzles to compensate for this lack of ability. Brett Weiss cites Atari 's Superman (1979) as an action-adventure game, with Retro Gamer crediting it as
2445-474: A combination of complex story elements, which are often displayed for players using audio and video. The story is heavily reliant upon the player character's movement, which triggers story events and thus affects the flow of the game. Popular examples of action-adventure games include The Legend of Zelda , God of War , and Tomb Raider series. There is a good deal of controversy over what actually constitutes an action-adventure game. One definition of
2608-448: A complex text parser and no free-moving character. While they share general gameplay dynamics, action-adventures vary widely in the design of their viewpoints, including bird's eye , side-scrolling, first-person, third-person , over-the-shoulder, or even a 3/4 isometric view . Many action-adventure games simulate a conversation through a conversation tree . When the player encounters a non-player character , they are allowed to select
2771-465: A computer whiz-kid; Sergei Gurlukovich , Ocelot's former commanding officer and Olga's father; President James Johnson , held hostage by the Sons of Liberty; and DIA operative Richard Ames . Liquid Snake returns, seemingly by possessing the body of Ocelot through a transplanted hand. The game also features cameos by Mei Ling , the communications expert who aided Snake in the first game, and Johnny Sasaki ,
2934-406: A concept later introduced to the action role-playing game genre by Secret of Mana (1993). Games like Madden Football , Earl Weaver Baseball and Tony La Russa Baseball all based their AI in an attempt to duplicate on the computer the coaching or managerial style of the selected celebrity. Madden, Weaver and La Russa all did extensive work with these game development teams to maximize
3097-549: A cover object and hide behind it until it has reloaded. Actions like these make the AI seem more human. However, there is still a need for improvement in this area. Another side-effect of combat AI occurs when two AI-controlled characters encounter each other; first popularized in the id Software game Doom , so-called 'monster infighting' can break out in certain situations. Specifically, AI agents that are programmed to respond to hostile attacks will sometimes attack each other if their cohort's attacks land too close to them. In
3260-601: A different field commander named Colonel Daniel Quinn; Maxine "Max" Work, an Asian woman who saves game data and quotes Shakespeare ; and William "Doc" Wilson, the creator of GW. All take their names from key characters in the book, and all three would have turned out to be AIs . None of these characters survived to the final edition, their roles being absorbed by other characters, namely the "Colonel Campbell" simulation, Rose, and Emma Emmerich. Peter Stillman, however, takes his name from another City of Glass character. A character named Chinaman, originally planned to be included as
3423-432: A difficult task. NPCs must be able to handle both scripted interactions and unscripted scenarios where players may behave in unexpected ways. Designing NPCs capable of adapting to such variability requires complex AI models that can account for numerous possible interactions, which can be resource-intensive and time-consuming for developers. Gamers always ask if the AI cheats (presumably so they can complain if they lose) In
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#17328595229623586-433: A distinct subfield of AI. In particular, the ability to legitimately solve some AI problems in games by cheating creates an important distinction. For example, inferring the position of an unseen object from past observations can be a difficult problem when AI is applied to robotics, but in a computer game a NPC can simply look up the position in the game's scene graph . Such cheating can lead to unrealistic behavior and so
3749-557: A flying piece of fruit or hit in weak spots. Players can walk slowly, allowing them to sneak over noisy flooring without making a sound, or hang off walkways to slip past below guards' feet. The corner-press move from Metal Gear Solid , which allowed players a sneak peek around the next bend is expanded to allow players to fire from cover . Other abilities included leaping over and hanging off of railings, opening and hiding in storage lockers, and sneaking up behind enemies to hold them at gunpoint for items and ammunition. Players can shoot out
3912-517: A game with a mix of elements from an action game and an adventure game , especially crucial elements like puzzles inspired by older adventure games. Action-adventures require many of the same physical skills as action games, but may also offer a storyline, numerous characters, an inventory system, dialogue, and other features of adventure games. They are typically faster-paced than pure adventure games, because they include both physical and conceptual challenges. Action-adventure games normally include
4075-482: A more immersive experience, as NPCs are now able to "learn" from player behavior, which provides a greater sense of realism within the game. Despite all of these advancements in NPC AI, there are still significant challenges that developers face in designing NPCs. They need to balance realism, functionally, and players expectations. The key challenge is to make sure that NPCs enhance the players experience, rather than disturb
4238-520: A number of terrifying questions about the overload of data in the Information Age , and how technology has led to an increasingly shaky definition" of "reality", and has drawn comparisons to deep fakes , machine learning , and information warfare . The creator Hideo Kojima 's original design document for the game was completed in January 1999. The Japanese document was published by Konami in 2002, and translated into English in 2006. It mentioned that
4401-556: A pathway yielding the next obstacle for the player. In complex video games, these trees may have more branches, provided that the player can come up with several strategies to surpass the obstacle. Academic AI may play a role within game AI, outside the traditional concern of controlling NPC behavior. Georgios N. Yannakakis highlighted four potential application areas: Rather than procedural generation, some researchers have used generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create new content. In 2018 researchers at Cornwall University trained
4564-440: A predetermined and limited set of responses to a predetermined and limited set of inputs. Many industries and corporate voices argue that game AI has come a long way in the sense that it has revolutionized the way humans interact with all forms of technology, although many expert researchers are skeptical of such claims, and particularly of the notion that such technologies fit the definition of "intelligence" standardly used in
4727-574: A realization of an artificial person corresponding to an NPC in the manner of the Turing test or an artificial general intelligence . The term game AI is used to refer to a broad set of algorithms that also include techniques from control theory , robotics , computer graphics and computer science in general, and so video game AI may often not constitute "true AI" in that such techniques do not necessarily facilitate computer learning or other standard criteria, only constituting "automated computation" or
4890-521: A reasonable way for all the NPCs to evade a thrown grenade; rather than allow the NPCs to attempt to bumble out of the way and risk appearing stupid, the developers instead scripted the NPCs to crouch down and cover in place in that situation. Many contemporary video games fall under the category of action, first-person shooter , or adventure. In most of these types of games, there is some level of combat that takes place. The AI's ability to be efficient in combat
5053-417: A reference to Snake Plissken from the film Escape from New York ) and Peter Stillman, help Raiden disable explosives planted by Fatman. A timed bomb goes off, killing Stillman. Raiden kills Fatman and encounters a mysterious cyborg ninja. Raiden and Pliskin arrange to transport hostages via helicopter, but are confronted by Dead Cell's leader identifying as Solid Snake, flying a Harrier . Raiden shoots down
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Misplaced Pages Continue
5216-705: A side-scrolling platformer format with adventure exploration, creating the Metroidvania platform-adventure subgenre. Similarly, games like 005 (1981), Castle Wolfenstein and Metal Gear (1987) combined action-adventure exploration with stealth mechanics, laying the foundations for the stealth game subgenre, which would later be popularized in 1998 with the releases of Metal Gear Solid , Tenchu: Stealth Assassins , and Thief: The Dark Project . The cinematic platformer Prince of Persia (1989) featured action-adventure elements, inspiring games such as Another World (1991) and Flashback (1992). Alone in
5379-400: A single avatar as the protagonist . This type of game is often quite similar to role-playing video games . They are distinct from graphic adventures , which sometimes have free-moving central characters, but also a wider variety of commands and fewer or no action game elements and are distinct too from text adventures , characterized by many different commands introduced by the user via
5542-451: A single deliberate death, through use of tranquilizer guns, stun grenades , and melee attacks. Sons of Liberty takes place within an alternate history of events, in which the Cold War ended during the late 1990s. The game's story focuses on two narratives that occur around and near New York City – the first in 2007, two years after the events of Metal Gear Solid ; and
5705-429: A storyline, involving little to no action . If there is action, it is generally confined to isolated instances. Classical action games, on the other hand, have gameplay based on real-time interactions that challenges the player's reflexes and eye-hand coordination . Action-adventure games combine these genres by engaging both eye-hand coordination and problem-solving skills. An action adventure game can be defined as
5868-453: A strike team upon seeing the player, then attempt to flank him and cut off his escape while avoiding the player's attacks. Often strike teams will carry body armor and riot shields , making them a greater threat. Even if the player escapes to a hiding place, a team will sweep in to check the area. The game has a collective enemy AI, where enemy guards work together in squads, can communicate with one another, and react more realistically towards
6031-469: A terrorist attack, later revealed to be Solidus Snake , a third clone of the "Les Enfants Terribles" project. Assisting the Sons of Liberty are Olga Gurlukovich , commander of the Russian mercenaries, and Revolver Ocelot , a disenfranchised Russian nationalist and former FOXHOUND agent, Solid Snake's old nemesis, and henchman of Solidus Snake. Other characters include Emma Emmerich , Otacon's stepsister and
6194-472: A titular documentary produced by French television production house FunTV, which was filmed at KCE Japan West's Japanese studio. The DVD was included as an apology to European consumers for the several months delay that had occurred since the original November release in North America and Japan, which saw numerous European gaming magazines detail the various twists in the game. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance ,
6357-461: A veteran soldier like Snake would have felt unnatural after three mainline titles. Raiden was also deliberately designed to appeal to female players after the team overheard a pair of female debuggers remark that the more middle-aged protagonist of the original Metal Gear Solid was not appealing to them. Raiden's presence in the game was kept a secret before release, with preview trailers showing Snake in situations and battles that occurred to Raiden in
6520-612: A villain, was later on omitted and his abilities incorporated in Vamp, namely the ability to walk on water and walls. Chinaman would have movements modeled after Jet Li and have a body tattoo of a dragon that would come alive as soon as he dove into the water. Significant changes to the game's ending were made late in development following the September 11 attacks in New York, where the finale occurs. A sequence depicting Arsenal Gear's displacement of
6683-436: A wide variety of quite disparate fields inside a game. The most obvious is in the control of any NPCs in the game, although "scripting" ( decision tree ) is currently the most common means of control. These handwritten decision trees often result in "artificial stupidity" such as repetitive behavior, loss of immersion, or abnormal behavior in situations the developers did not plan for. Pathfinding , another common use for AI,
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Misplaced Pages Continue
6846-403: Is Ubisoft's 2017 tactical shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands . Developers used a pathfinding algorithm trained with a data set of real maps to create road networks that would weave through handcrafted villages within the game world. This is an intelligent use of PCG as the AI would have a large amount of real world data to work with and roads are straightforward to create. However,
7009-553: Is a Patriot double-agent forced to aid Raiden in exchange for her child's safety. After the Colonel begins acting erratically, Raiden discovers he is a construct of GW, damaged by the virus. Rose tells Raiden she had been ordered by the Patriots to become his lover and spy on him, and that she is pregnant with his child. Raiden finds Snake, who had helped Olga capture Raiden, so they could gain entry to Arsenal. Fortune battles Snake, while Raiden
7172-448: Is a foundational example. Players are tasked with descending through the increasingly difficult levels of a dungeon to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. The dungeon levels are algorithmically generated at the start of each game. The save file is deleted every time the player dies. The algorithmic dungeon generation creates unique gameplay that would not otherwise be there as the goal of retrieving
7335-415: Is a sub-field of Game AI focusing on giving NPCs the capability to navigate in a dynamic environment, finding a path to a target while avoiding collisions with other entities (other NPC, players...) or collaborating with them (group navigation). Navigation in dynamic strategy games with large numbers of units, such as Age of Empires (1997) or Civilization V (2010), often performs poorly; units often get in
7498-425: Is a well-known fact that many AIs 'cheat' (or, at least, 'fudge') in order to be able to keep up with human players". For example, if the agents want to know if the player is nearby they can either be given complex, human-like sensors (seeing, hearing, etc.), or they can cheat by simply asking the game engine for the player's position. Common variations include giving AIs higher speeds in racing games to catch up to
7661-729: Is an action game that includes situational problem-solving. Adventure gamers may also be purists, rejecting any game that makes use of physical challenges or time pressure. Regardless, the action-adventure label is prominent in articles over the internet and media. The term "action-adventure" is usually substituted for a particular subgenre due to its wide scope. Although action-adventure games are diverse and difficult to classify, there are some distinct subgenres. Many games with gameplay similar to those in The Legend of Zelda series are called Zelda clones or Zelda -like games. Popular subgenres include: A Grand Theft Auto clone belongs to
7824-507: Is applied to the grid. Instead of just a rigid grid, some games use irregular polygons and assemble a navigation mesh out of the areas of the map that NPCs can walk to. As a third method, it is sometimes convenient for developers to manually select "waypoints" that NPCs should use to navigate; the cost is that such waypoints can create unnatural-looking movement. In addition, waypoints tend to perform worse than navigation meshes in complex environments. Beyond static pathfinding, navigation
7987-483: Is forced into battle with AI-controlled Metal Gear RAYs. The virus causes the RAYs to malfunction, and Olga sacrifices herself to save Raiden from Solidus. Snake and Raiden are captured, and taken to the top of Arsenal by Solidus, Fortune, and Ocelot. Ocelot reveals himself to be a Patriot agent and that the entire affair was orchestrated by the Patriots to artificially replicate a soldier (Raiden) on par with Solid Snake, titled
8150-408: Is important in these genres. A common goal today is to make the AI more human or at least appear so. One of the more positive and efficient features found in modern-day video game AI is the ability to hunt. AI originally reacted in a very black and white manner. If the player were in a specific area then the AI would react in either a complete offensive manner or be entirely defensive. In recent years,
8313-779: Is invalidated, but nobody is right. Rose: Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth." Colonel: And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Metal Gear Solid 2 is often considered the first example of a postmodern video game, and has often been cited as a primary example of artistic expression in video games . The storyline explored many social, philosophical and cyberpunk themes in significant detail, including meme theory, social engineering , sociology , artificial intelligence , information control, fifth-generation warfare , conspiracy theories , political and military maneuvering, evolution , existentialism , censorship ,
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#17328595229628476-487: Is not about intelligence , and shares few of the objectives of the academic field of AI. Whereas "real AI" addresses fields of machine learning, decision making based on arbitrary data input, and even the ultimate goal of strong AI that can reason, "game AI" often consists of a half-dozen rules of thumb, or heuristics , that are just enough to give a good gameplay experience. Historically, academic game-AI projects have been relatively separate from commercial products because
8639-454: Is not always desirable. But its possibility serves to distinguish game AI and leads to new problems to solve, such as when and how to cheat. The major limitation to strong AI is the inherent depth of thinking and the extreme complexity of the decision-making process. This means that although it would be then theoretically possible to make "smart" AI the problem would take considerable processing power. Game AI/heuristic algorithms are used in
8802-423: Is not true intelligence, but an advertising buzzword used to describe computer programs that use simple sorting and matching algorithms to create the illusion of intelligent behavior while bestowing software with a misleading aura of scientific or technological complexity and advancement. Since game AI for NPCs is centered on appearance of intelligence and good gameplay within environment restrictions, its approach
8965-484: Is still in a different league from the vast majority of videogame yarns. ... [H]owever, the fact that MGS2 still seems so avant-garde today might well prompt a worry: does it represent the pinnacle of a now-vanished era, the age of the experimental mainstream? This was, after all, a big-budget commercial boxed product that gleefully took risks and subverted genre conventions at every turn. Modern blockbuster games play it painfully safe by comparison." Gamasutra notes that
9128-420: Is very different from that of traditional AI. Game playing was an area of research in AI from its inception. One of the first examples of AI is the computerized game of Nim made in 1951 and published in 1952. Despite being advanced technology in the year it was made, 20 years before Pong , the game took the form of a relatively small box and was able to regularly win games even against highly skilled players of
9291-411: Is widely seen in real-time strategy games. Pathfinding is the method for determining how to get a NPC from one point on a map to another, taking into consideration the terrain, obstacles and possibly " fog of war ". Commercial videogames often use fast and simple "grid-based pathfinding", wherein the terrain is mapped onto a rigid grid of uniform squares and a pathfinding algorithm such as A* or IDA*
9454-560: The Uncharted franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Ark: Survival Evolved . Artificial intelligence (video games) In video games , artificial intelligence (AI) is used to generate responsive, adaptive or intelligent behaviors primarily in non-playable characters (NPCs) similar to human-like intelligence . Artificial intelligence has been an integral part of video games since their inception in 1948, first seen in
9617-509: The 2016 United States presidential election . Further comparisons have been drawn to concepts that became mainstream during the 2010s, such as fake news , echo chambers , and alternative facts . According to Cameron Kunzelman of Vice , Metal Gear Solid 2 is still politically relevant in 2017. In March 2018, GamesRadar drew comparisons to recent political events including the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal and
9780-545: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology described Sons of Liberty as "perhaps the most vivid example of a game that uses tension between different levels of player agency to fuel a multi-faceted ideological argument", noting Solidus Snake's suggestion of the United States being a " totalitarian regime of thought control " and pointing to the "very meta concept " of "how the designer’s imposed plan or path for
9943-611: The Statue of Liberty and crashing through half of Manhattan was removed, as was a short coda to appear after the credits, a breaking newscast showing the Statue of Liberty's new resting place, Ellis Island . Other deleted scenes included Solidus shredding the New York Stock Exchange flag with his sword during the crash of Arsenal Gear and the fall of this flag over his body after his death, and American flags that were supposed to be on all
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#173285952296210106-628: The arcade appeared in 1974: the Taito game Speed Race ( racing video game ) and the Atari games Qwak (duck hunting light gun shooter ) and Pursuit ( fighter aircraft dogfighting simulator ). Two text-based computer games, Star Trek (1971) and Hunt the Wumpus (1973), also had enemies. Enemy movement was based on stored patterns. The incorporation of microprocessors would allow more computation and random elements overlaid into movement patterns. It
10269-403: The cognitive sciences . Industry voices make the argument that AI has become more versatile in the way we use all technological devices for more than their intended purpose because the AI allows the technology to operate in multiple ways, allegedly developing their own personalities and carrying out complex instructions of the user. People in the field of AI have argued that video game AI
10432-507: The " pursuit of the ideal ", as the player's internal conflict of ideals are one of the main driving forces of the plot. The game is considered to be ahead of its time for dealing with themes and concepts that later became culturally relevant in the 2010s. The game has been described as "profound", particularly the final dialogue scene between Raiden and the AI posing as the Colonel and Rose. In 2011, Dugan Patrick of Gamasutra drew comparisons to social media and social gaming , and found that
10595-813: The "first to utilize multiple screens as playing area". Mark J.P. Wolf credits Adventure (1980) for the Atari VCS as the earliest-known action-adventure game. The game involves exploring a 2D environment, finding and using items which each have prescribed abilities, and fighting dragons in real-time like in an action game . Muse Software 's Castle Wolfenstein (1981) was another early action-adventure game, merging exploration, combat, stealth, and maze game elements, drawing inspiration from arcade shoot 'em ups and maze games (such as maze-shooter Berzerk ) and war films (such as The Guns of Navarone ). According to Wizardry developer Roe R. Adams, early action-adventure games "were basically arcade games done in
10758-399: The AI from point A to point B, usually in the most direct way possible. State machines permit transitioning between different behaviors. The Monte Carlo tree search method provides a more engaging game experience by creating additional obstacles for the player to overcome. The MCTS consists of a tree diagram in which the AI essentially plays tic-tac-toe . Depending on the outcome, it selects
10921-491: The AI would likely miss nuances and subtleties if it was tasked with creating a village where people live. As AI has become more advanced, developer goals are shifting to create massive repositories of levels from data sets. In 2023, researchers from New York University and the University of the Witwatersrand trained a large language model to generate levels in the style of the 1981 puzzle game Sokoban . They found that
11084-529: The Big Shell and involve characters from the main story in new roles such as Fatman, Emma, Vamp and Solidus Snake, while one mission set in the Tanker features Meryl Silverburgh . These missions, which are unrelated to the main campaign and are non-canonical, have no voice-acted cutscenes - instead, the story is told through text-only interludes. Exclusive to the PlayStation 2 version is a skateboarding minigame in which
11247-434: The Big Shell has been erected to clear up the oil spill . During a tour by US President James Johnson, the Sons of Liberty raid the facility, take Johnson hostage, and threaten to destroy it. FOXHOUND's Raiden is ordered by the Colonel to rescue the hostages and disarm the terrorists. The surviving members of a responding Navy SEAL team, Iroquois Pliskin (who the player can see is obviously Solid Snake, this assumed name being
11410-501: The DVD case (with Snake on one side and Raiden on the other), a video DVD known as the Premium Disc , which features a collection of Metal Gear Solid -related commercials and trailers, a metallic Solid Snake figurine, and an 80-page booklet titled Metal Gear Chronicle featuring artwork and commentary about the series. The European version, which was initially scheduled for February 22, 2002,
11573-486: The Dark (1992) used 3D graphics , which would later be popularized by Resident Evil (1996) and Tomb Raider (1996). Resident Evil in particular created the survival horror subgenre, inspiring titles such as Silent Hill (1999) and Fatal Frame (2001). Action-adventure games have gone on to become more popular than the pure adventure games and pure platform games that inspired them. Recent examples include
11736-499: The HD Edition release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from 2011. On Nintendo Switch, the game runs in 720p30 in handheld mode, and 1080p30 in TV mode. On other platforms, the game runs in 1080p60. The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 is an interactive documentary developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami , originally released on September 26, 2002. The game covers
11899-501: The Harrier, but "Solid Snake" escapes with the stolen Metal Gear RAY. Pliskin reveals he is the real Solid Snake and, along with Otacon, helps locate Johnson. Johnson reveals to Raiden the United States' democratic process is a sham staged by an organization called "the Patriots", who secretly rule the country. Furthermore, the Big Shell is a facade to hide Arsenal Gear, a submersible mobile fortress that houses an AI called "GW". He explains
12062-619: The Missions and Snake Tales modes, although the Skateboarding minigame that was present in the PlayStation 2 version of Substance is absent. The PS3 and Vita versions have a "transfarring" option that allows players to transfer save data between both versions through a Wi-Fi connection or a cloud network . The Vita version has touchscreen and touchpad support for certain gameplay functions such as switching between items and weapons or zooming into cutscenes. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
12225-505: The Plant chapter (an option that is only available after clearing the game once in the American version). The Japanese version has a few other additional features over the American version, including two extra game modes unlocked after completing the main game: Boss Survival, in which the player replays through the boss battles from the main game as either Snake or Raiden, and Casting Theater, in which
12388-633: The PlayStation 2 version of the game a 35 out of 40. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - HD Edition was released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011 and for the PlayStation Vita in 2012. This version is included in the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection but is also available as a digital download on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade . The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions feature an increased 720p resolution and
12551-452: The S3 Plan. Ocelot kills Fortune before being possessed again by Liquid Snake. Liquid explains that Ocelot's severed right arm was replaced with his own, and plans to hunt down the Patriots using his host's knowledge and the stolen RAY. Snake pursues Liquid, as Arsenal loses control. Arsenal crashes into Manhattan. Raiden is contacted by an AI impersonating the Colonel and Rose. It states that GW
12714-531: The Windows port was outsourced to Success . Substance contains several supplemental game modes in addition to the main story mode from the original Sons of Liberty releases. The main game contains all the changes and additions that were made in the Japanese and European versions of the original release (e.g., Boss Survival, Casting Theater, European Extreme), along with further additional changes. Players can now start
12877-521: The Wiseman's Committee . However, the members have allegedly been dead for 100 years. Colonel: [I]n the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Rose: Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander. Colonel: All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. Rose: It will only slow down social progress, reduce
13040-519: The academic approaches tended to be simple and non-scalable. Commercial game AI has developed its own set of tools, which have been sufficient to give good performance in many cases. Game developers' increasing awareness of academic AI and a growing interest in computer games by the academic community is causing the definition of what counts as AI in a game to become less idiosyncratic . Nevertheless, significant differences between different application domains of AI mean that game AI can still be viewed as
13203-455: The accuracy of the games. Later sports titles allowed users to "tune" variables in the AI to produce a player-defined managerial or coaching strategy. The emergence of new game genres in the 1990s prompted the use of formal AI tools like finite state machines . Real-time strategy games taxed the AI with many objects, incomplete information, pathfinding problems, real-time decisions and economic planning, among other things. The first games of
13366-409: The actions of NPCs. AI is often used in mechanisms which are not immediately visible to the user, such as data mining and procedural-content generation . One of the most infamous examples of this NPC technology and gradual difficulty levels can be found in the game Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987). In general, game AI does not, as might be thought and sometimes is depicted to be the case, mean
13529-454: The added quirk of different personalities for each enemy. Karate Champ (1984) later introduced AI patterns to fighting games . First Queen (1988) was a tactical action RPG which featured characters that can be controlled by the computer's AI in following the leader. The role-playing video game Dragon Quest IV (1990) introduced a "Tactics" system, where the user can adjust the AI routines of non-player characters during battle,
13692-555: The algorithms into making content for them. PCG offers numerous advantages from both a developmental and player experience standpoint. Game studios are able to spend less money on artists and save time on production. Players are given a fresh, highly replayable experience as the game generates new content each time they play. PCG allows game content to adapt in real time to the player's actions. Generative algorithms (a rudimentary form of AI) have been used for level creation for decades. The iconic 1980 dungeon crawler computer game Rogue
13855-401: The amulet is the same each time. Opinions on total level generation as seen in games like Rogue can vary. Some developers can be skeptical of the quality of generated content and desire to create a world with a more "human" feel so they will use PCG more sparingly. Consequently, they will only use PCG to generate specific components of an otherwise handcrafted level. A notable example of this
14018-512: The antagonists and allies change throughout the game, as the protagonists discover a world-shaking conspiracy constructed by a powerful organization known as the Patriots. Metal Gear Solid 2 received acclaim for its gameplay, graphics, and attention to detail. However, critics were initially divided on the protagonist and the philosophical nature and execution of the game's storyline, which explores many themes, such as memetics , social engineering , artificial intelligence , virtual reality , and
14181-460: The case of Doom , published gameplay manuals even suggest taking advantage of monster infighting in order to survive certain levels and difficulty settings. Procedural content generation (PCG) is an AI technique to autonomously create ingame content through algorithms with minimal input from designers. PCG is typically used to dynamically generate game features such as levels, NPC dialogue, and sounds. Developers input specific parameters to guide
14344-526: The computer was almost as good as humans in using them, which caused players to think that the computer was cheating. Developers say that most game AIs are honest but they dislike players erroneously complaining about "cheating" AI. In addition, humans use tactics against computers that they would not against other people. In the 1996 game Creatures , the user "hatches" small furry animals and teaches them how to behave. These "Norns" can talk, feed themselves, and protect themselves against vicious creatures. It
14507-496: The context of artificial intelligence in video games, cheating refers to the programmer giving agents actions and access to information that would be unavailable to the player in the same situation. Believing that the Atari 8-bit could not compete against a human player, Chris Crawford did not fix a bug in Eastern Front (1941) that benefited the computer-controlled Russian side. Computer Gaming World in 1994 reported that "It
14670-400: The cover artwork used for the American (and later European) version. A questionnaire was also added in the Japanese version, in which players are asked about their experience with the original Metal Gear Solid and action games in general; the answers to the questionnaire determines the difficulty level of the game and whether the player starts the game on the Tanker chapter or skips directly to
14833-440: The current mood of the environment. The algorithm is able to assess the current mood of the game state through "mood tagging". Research indicates that that there is a significant positive statistical correlation regarding player rated game engagement and the dynamically generated musical compositions when they accurately match their current emotions. Game AI often amounts to pathfinding and finite state machines. Pathfinding gets
14996-451: The deaths of Olga's child and Rose. After Raiden defeats Solidus, Snake appears after tracking Liquid's RAY. Snake and Otacon plan to rescue Olga's child, and locate the Patriots, whose details were hidden in the GW virus disc. Raiden is reunited with the real Rose. In the epilogue, having decoded the disc, Otacon and Snake find it contains data on all twelve members of the Patriots' highest council,
15159-416: The defeat of Garry Kasparov by IBM 's Deep Blue computer in 1997. The first video games developed in the 1960s and early 1970s, like Spacewar! , Pong , and Gotcha (1973), were games implemented on discrete logic and strictly based on the competition of two players, without AI. Games that featured a single player mode with enemies started appearing in the 1970s. The first notable ones for
15322-429: The development of Metal Gear Solid 2 in great detail, containing internal material developed during the production of Sons of Liberty . Action-adventure game An action-adventure game is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, classical adventure games have situational problems for the player to explore and solve to complete
15485-401: The development of "survival instinct". In-game computers can recognize different objects in an environment and determine whether it is beneficial or detrimental to its survival. Like a user, the AI can look for cover in a firefight before taking actions that would leave it otherwise vulnerable, such as reloading a weapon or throwing a grenade. There can be set markers that tell it when to react in
15648-433: The difficulty level is set to its highest) use combat tactics and behaviors such as healing wounded allies, giving orders, out-flanking the player and using weapons with pinpoint accuracy. The 2010 real-time strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty gives the player control of one of three factions in a 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 battle arena. The player must defeat their opponents by destroying all their units and bases. This
15811-513: The effect is not obvious to the player. While cheating refers only to privileges given specifically to the AI—it does not include the inhuman swiftness and precision natural to a computer—a player might call the computer's inherent advantages "cheating" if they result in the agent acting unlike a human player. Sid Meier stated that he omitted multiplayer alliances in Civilization because he found that
15974-438: The enemy's radio, so they are unable to communicate with others on their team. The environment also has a more significant impact on the stealth gameplay, taking into account factors such as weather, smell, atmosphere, and temperature. In Metal Gear Solid 2 , the enemy guards are given more advanced AI "to prevent an imbalance of power," and unlike the original Metal Gear Solid , work in squads. They call on their radios for
16137-675: The expanded edition of the game, was released on the original Xbox and Windows in addition to the PlayStation 2. The Xbox version was initially released in North America as a timed exclusive for the console on November 5, 2002. This was followed by the PlayStation 2 version, released in Japan on December 19 of the same year. Substance was eventually released on PlayStation 2 and Windows in North America and on all three platforms in Europe in March 2003. The console versions were developed internally by KCE Japan, whereas
16300-448: The facility; Peter Stillman , an NYPD bomb-disposal expert; Otacon , a computer security specialist and friend of Solid Snake ; and a cyborg ninja imitating Gray Fox 's persona, first calling itself Deepthroat, then changing its name to Mr. X. The antagonists are the Sons of Liberty, a group of terrorists who seize control of the Big Shell environmental cleanup facility, including anti-terrorist training unit gone rogue Dead Cell, and
16463-539: The field, NPCs in modern video games can now react to player actions with increased sophistication, such as adjusting their tactics in combat or changing their dialogue based on past interactions. By using deep learning algorithms these systems emulate human-like decisions-making, thus making NPCs feel more like real people rather than static game elements. Another advancements in NPC AI is the use of natural language processing , which allows NPCs to engage in more realistic conversations with players. Before this NPC dialogue
16626-459: The flagpoles in New York were removed from the title. The Japanese spelling of the name "Raiden" was changed from katakana (ライデン) to kanji (雷電) due to the former form of the name resembling " Bin Laden " in Japanese. Kojima's choice of composer for Metal Gear Solid 2 was highly publicized in the run-up to the game's release. The original intention was to have film composer Hans Zimmer but his rate
16789-456: The future. The musical score of a video game is an important expression of the emotional tone of a scene to the player. Sound effects such as the noise of a weapon hitting an enemy help indicate the effect of the player's actions. Generating these in real time creates an engaging experience for the player because the game is more responsive to their input. An example is the 2013 adventure game Proteus where an algorithm dynamically adapts
16952-506: The game Nim . AI in video games is a distinct subfield and differs from academic AI. It serves to improve the game-player experience rather than machine learning or decision making. During the golden age of arcade video games the idea of AI opponents was largely popularized in the form of graduated difficulty levels, distinct movement patterns, and in-game events dependent on the player's input. Modern games often implement existing techniques such as pathfinding and decision trees to guide
17115-474: The game deals with issues concerning the Information Age, and has compared the game's themes to the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes , Friedrich Nietzsche , and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . The existential themes of the game align with the political philosophy and theses of Isaiah Berlin and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , focusing on the struggle between freedom and equality , and Berlin's concept of
17278-402: The game predicted elements of Facebook , such as allowing "people to intentionally censor their own experience within the self-curated walls of Facebook". In 2016, Alex Wiltshire of Glixel found the game to be "strangely prescient of not only its own time but also today", noting how it dodged " truth at every turn" and comparing it to post-truth politics , Facebook's curated News Feed , and
17441-475: The game was originally going to be called Metal Gear Solid III to symbolize Manhattan 's three tallest skyscrapers. The document outlines new game mechanics and features, such as bodies that need to be hidden, enemies being able to detect shadows, lights in an area that can be destroyed to affect enemy vision, realistic enemy AI that relies on squad tactics rather than working individually, and multi-level environments that add an element of "vertical tension" to
17604-542: The game. For Metal Gear Solid 2 , the established protagonist of Solid Snake was only made playable for the prologue portion of the game. A new protagonist named Raiden would substitute him as the player character for the main portion. The decision to introduce a new protagonist came from the idea of portraying Solid Snake from another character's perspective, but also to get around the dilemma of having to write gameplay tutorials directed at Snake, as Kojima felt that having to explain mission procedures and weapon handling to
17767-502: The game. In 1951, using the Ferranti Mark 1 machine of the University of Manchester , Christopher Strachey wrote a checkers program and Dietrich Prinz wrote one for chess . These were among the first computer programs ever written. Arthur Samuel 's checkers program, developed in the middle 1950s and early 1960s, eventually achieved sufficient skill to challenge a respectable amateur. Work on checkers and chess would culminate in
17930-406: The gameplay still follows a number of adventure game genre tropes (gathering items , exploration of and interaction with one's environment, often including an overworld connecting areas of importance, and puzzle-solving). While the controls are arcade-style (character movement, few action commands) there is an ultimate goal beyond a high score. In most action-adventure games, the player controls
18093-519: The gameplay. Overly realistic NPCs that behave unpredictably can frustrate players by hindering progression or breaking immersion. Conversely, NPCs that are too predictable or simplistic may fail to engage players, reducing the overall effectiveness of the game's narrative and mechanics. Another factor that needs to be accounted for is the computation cost of implementing advanced AI for NPCs. The use of these Advanced AI techniques requires large amount of processing power, which can limit its usage. Balancing
18256-504: The genre had notorious problems. Herzog Zwei (1989), for example, had almost broken pathfinding and very basic three-state state machines for unit control, and Dune II (1992) attacked the players' base in a beeline and used numerous cheats. Later games in the genre exhibited more sophisticated AI. Later games have used bottom-up AI methods, such as the emergent behaviour and evaluation of player actions in games like Creatures or Black & White . Façade (interactive story)
18419-463: The idea of "hunting" has been introduced; in this 'hunting' state the AI will look for realistic markers, such as sounds made by the character or footprints they may have left behind. These developments ultimately allow for a more complex form of play. With this feature, the player can actually consider how to approach or avoid an enemy. This is a feature that is particularly prevalent in the stealth genre. Another development in recent game AI has been
18582-514: The immersion, storytelling, and the mechanics of a game. They often serve as companions, quest-givers, merchants and much more. Their realism has advanced significantly in the past few years, thanks to improvements in AI technologies. NPCs are essential in both narrative-driven as well as open-world games. They help convey the lore and context of the game, making them pivotal to world-building and narrative progression. For instance, an NPC can provide critical information, offer quests, or simply populate
18745-401: The individuals, so certain enemies flee when their leader dies. Attention is paid to the little details, with enemies notably throwing back grenades or team-members responding to being bothered. The underlying " behavior tree " technology has become very popular in the games industry since Halo 2 . The 2005 psychological horror first-person shooter F.E.A.R. has player characters engage
18908-439: The integration of deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques has enabled NPCs to adjust their behavior in response to player actions, creating a more interactive and personalized gameplay experience. One such development is the use of adaptive behavior models. These allow NPCs to analyze and learn from players decisions in real time. This behavior allows for a much more engaging experience. For example as said by experts in
19071-495: The internal struggle of freedom of thought . The game was a commercial success, selling seven million copies by 2004. It has since been considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time , as well as a leading example of artistic expression in video games . The game is often considered ahead of its time for dealing with themes and concepts such as post-truth politics , fake news , alternative facts , synthetic media , and echo chambers , that became culturally relevant in
19234-463: The investigations involving Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections . In 2018, Adrian Mróz published a paper in the academic journal Kultura i Historia [ pl ] , where the "idea of Selection for Societal Sanity" from the game is "applied into a philosophical framework based on select concepts from Bernard Stiegler 's writing and incorporating them with current events such as post-truth or fake news in order to explore
19397-486: The later release in the region, the protagonist switch was not kept a secret in the Japanese version in the weeks before its release. A preview event was held in Zepp Tokyo on the day of the game's North American release in which the character of Raiden was unveiled to the Japanese public. As a result, the Japanese packaging artwork depicts Raiden standing prominently next to Solid Snake, as opposed to only having Snake like on
19560-417: The leader of Dead Cell is his predecessor George Sears, a clone of Big Boss known as Solidus Snake , who plans to seize Arsenal and overthrow the Patriots. Ocelot then kills Johnson. Raiden rescues computer programmer Emma Emmerich, step-sister of Otacon, who plans to upload a virus into GW to disable Arsenal. Vamp stabs Emma, before being shot by Raiden. Emma uploads the virus, but dies from her injury as
19723-551: The left thumbstick switches between normal and first-person view, while the Y button serves as a lock-on for the player's aim). The Xbox version has support for 5.1 surround sound . The primary addition of Substance is the inclusion of an extra missions mode with 350 VR missions set in a computer-constructed environment and 150 "Alternative" missions set in areas from the main story. The player can choose to play these missions as Solid Snake or Raiden, with alternate versions of both characters (in different outfits) becoming available as
19886-442: The luckless soldier with chronic digestive problems. In 2007, Solid Snake infiltrates a tanker carrying a new Metal Gear model, RAY . The tanker is attacked by Russian mercenaries, led by Colonel Gurlukovich, his daughter Olga, and Ocelot. Ocelot betrays his allies and scuttles the ship. Upon seeing Snake, Ocelot is possessed by the will of Liquid Snake and escapes with RAY. Two years later, an environmental clean-up facility called
20049-524: The main story mode at the Tanker or Plant chapters without the need to answer a questionnaire first, and a new set of collectible dog tags have been added (exclusively on the PlayStation 2 version) based on names submitted from a second contest in addition to the original (2001) set. The visual effect for the thermal goggles was also changed in Substance , and the FHM -licensed posters that adorned several locations in
20212-434: The mid-to-late 2010s. Metal Gear Solid 2 carries the subtitle of "Tactical Espionage Action," and most of the game involves the protagonist sneaking around to avoid being seen by the enemies. Most fundamental is the broader range of skills offered to the player. The first-person aiming mode allows players to target specific points in the game, greatly expanding tactical options; guards can be blinded by steam, distracted by
20375-445: The model excelled at generating levels with specifically requested characteristics such as difficulty level or layout. However, current models such as the one used in the study require large datasets of levels to be effective. They concluded that, while promising, the high data cost of large language models currently outweighs the benefits for this application. Continued advancements in the field will likely lead to more mainstream use in
20538-496: The music based on the angle the player is viewing the ingame landscape from. Recent breakthroughs in AI have resulted in the creation of advanced tools that are capable of creating music and sound based on evolving factors with minimal developer input. One such example is the MetaComposure music generator. MetaComposure is an evolutionary algorithm designed to generate original music compositions during real time gameplay to match
20701-564: The nature of reality, the Information Age , virtual reality , child exploitation , LGBT themes , and the moral dilemma between security and personal liberty. Since its release, the game's themes have been studied and analyzed by numerous writers, journalists, and academics. MGS2 , along with its predecessor , has been featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum 's exhibition, The Art of Video Games , in 2012. In his paper How Videogames Express Ideas , Matthew Weise of
20864-557: The original Sons of Liberty version have been replaced with public domain images (these were also replaced in The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 ). The Xbox and Windows versions feature slight dialogue changes during specific control explanations in which the term "analog stick" was substituted with "thumbstick" (Microsoft's preferred term). The controls were also slightly altered for the Xbox version, due to its fewer shoulder buttons (clicking on
21027-439: The performance of AI-driven NPCs with the game's overall technical limitations is crucial for ensuring smooth gameplay. Experts mentioned how developers must allocate resources efficiently to avoid overburdening the game’s systems, particularly in large, open-world games where numerous NPCs must interact with the player simultaneously. Finally, creating NPCs that can respond dynamically to a wide range of player behaviors remains
21190-579: The player and in-game systems. Academics say the interactions between players and NPCs are often designed to be straightforward but contextually relevant, ensuring that the player receives necessary feedback or resources for gameplay continuity. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have significantly enhanced the complexity and realism of NPCs. Before these advancements, AI operated on pre-programmed behaviors, making them predictable and repeatable. With AI developing NPCs have become more adaptive and able to dynamically respond to players. Experts think
21353-416: The player can view certain cutscenes from the main game and replace the character models. The Japanese version was released on November 29, two weeks after the American version. As with the original Metal Gear Solid , Sons of Liberty was sold in a limited "Premium Package" edition in addition to the standard release, which was packaged in a black box containing the game itself with a reversible cover art on
21516-415: The player control Snake or Raiden in a pair of Big Shell-themed levels. The player has to complete a set of objectives before time runs out, which range from collecting dog tags scattered throughout the level to blowing up parts of Big Shell. The minigame uses the same engine from Evolution Skateboarding , which was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka . On release, Famitsu magazine scored
21679-489: The player has enough ammunition and recovery items to " survive " the horror setting. This is a thematic genre with diverse gameplay, so not all survival horror games share all the features. The Resident Evil franchise popularized this subgenre. Action-adventure games are faster-paced than pure adventure games, and include physical as well as conceptual challenges where the story is enacted rather than narrated. While motion-based, often reflexive, actions are required,
21842-475: The player maps to the tyrannical nature of the government ", where, "like the player, Jack has no agency other than what his puppet masters give him." In the book Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games , Tanner Higgin examined the game's "resistant and subversive counter-history of military engagement", describing its "convoluted narrative and unconventional gameplay logics" as
22005-416: The player or blindly throw grenades from behind their cover. The game features a laser sight mechanic, where a laser sight helps assist with manually aiming a gun. Boss battles and set-pieces remain a case of finding a strategy that bypasses the defenses of the enemy. However, in a major break from action game standards, it is also possible to clear the entire game, including boss fights, without causing
22168-463: The player or spawning them in advantageous positions in first-person shooters. The use of cheating in AI shows the limitations of the "intelligence" achievable artificially; generally speaking, in games where strategic creativity is important, humans could easily beat the AI after a minimum of trial and error if it were not for this advantage. Cheating is often implemented for performance reasons where in many cases it may be considered acceptable as long as
22331-444: The player progresses. These missions are divided into eight categories (although not all of them are available to every character): Sneaking, Weapon, First Person View (which simulates a first-person shooter ), Variety, Hold Up, Bomb Disposal, Elimination, and Photograph. The other new addition is "Snake Tales", which is a set of five story-based missions featuring Solid Snake as the player character. These missions are primarily set in
22494-461: The player. The game's enemy AI was considered one of the best in gaming for many years. The game expanded its predecessor's cover mechanic , with Solid Snake or Raiden able to take cover behind walls or objects and pop out to shoot at enemies, while the improved enemy AI allowed enemies to also take cover from the player character. The enemies will often take cover to call for backup, but during battle, they will take cover then pop out and shoot at
22657-525: The plot's thematic thrust of a machine-dominated society. Rika Muranaka again provided a vocal ending theme, a jazz track entitled "Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday", sung by Carla White . The game's music was released via four CDs: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Original Soundtrack , Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Soundtrack 2: The Other Side , Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Limited Sorter (Black Edition) and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Ultimate Sorter (White Edition) . The game's main theme
22820-400: The point where the player is unable to tell fact from fiction" (departing from the "very clear and understandable story" of its predecessor), that "every character lies to (betrays) someone once", blurring the line between "what is real, and what is fantasy", and "ironies aimed at the digital society and gaming culture ". The game's production budget was $ 10 million, similar to the budget of
22983-562: The project soon after. To bypass the language barrier and allow the score to be developed before the cutscenes were finalized, Gregson-Williams was sent short phrases or descriptions of the intended action. The resultant themes then shaped the action sequences in return. Gregson-Williams also arranged and re-orchestrated the original " Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" for use in the game's opening title sequence. Norihiko Hibino , who had worked on previous Konami games such as Metal Gear: Ghost Babel ,
23146-501: The published game, such as a battle against a Harrier on George Washington Bridge and an encounter with the new Cyborg Ninja inside the tanker. According to Kojima in the documentary Metal Gear Saga Vol. 1 , the original plot of the game revolved around nuclear weapon inspections in Iraq and Iran and had Solid Snake trying to stop the Metal Gear while it was located on an aircraft carrier, in
23309-442: The rate of evolution. [...] Colonel: The digital society furthers human flaws, and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths. [...] Rose: Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. Colonel: The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one
23472-509: The rest of their comrades to) the player's flashlight. In addition, the AI is also capable of performing flanking maneuvers, using suppressing fire, throwing grenades to flush the player out of cover, and even playing dead. Most of these actions, in particular the flanking, is the result of emergent behavior. The survival horror series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (2007–) confronts the player with man-made experiments, military soldiers, and mercenaries known as Stalkers. The various encountered enemies (if
23635-454: The role of techne and filtration within social organizations and individual psyches ." He notes that, despite being released in an era of neoliberal dominance, the game's themes resonate with current affairs in the late 2010s, such as post-truth, the collapse of political correctness , cognitive dissonance , and "the problem of filtering within a society flooded by information". IGN said its " fourth-wall -obliterating final act posed
23798-439: The second in 2009. The game's plot is the fourth chapter of an overarching plot concerning the character of Solid Snake. The main protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2 is a young rookie agent named Raiden . He is supported by his commanding officer, the Colonel , and Rosemary , his girlfriend. Allies formed on the mission include Lt. Junior Grade Iroquois Pliskin, a Navy SEAL of mysterious background who provides his knowledge of
23961-437: The stealth gameplay. It also outlines themes, such as passing on memories, environmental issues, and particularly social themes regarding the " digitization of the military", digital simulations , the "digitization of operational planning", the "digitization of everyday life", and the "effects of digitization on personality". The document stated that the "aim of the story" involves "a series of betrayals and sudden reversals, to
24124-430: The term "action-adventure" may be '"An action/adventure game is a game that has enough action in it not to be called an adventure game, but not enough action to be called an action game." In some cases an action game with puzzles will be classified as an action-adventure game, but if these puzzles are quite simple they might be classified as an action game. Others see action games as a pure genre, while an action-adventure
24287-460: The virus is cut off prematurely. Otacon leaves to rescue the hostages while Raiden is captured by the ninja, revealed to be Olga, when Snake seemingly betrays him. Big Shell collapses as Arsenal departs. Raiden awakens on Arsenal before Solidus who reveals he had killed Raiden's parents and raised him as a child soldier during the Liberian civil war . Solidus leaves and Olga frees Raiden, explaining she
24450-450: The way of other units. Rather than improve the Game AI to properly solve a difficult problem in the virtual environment, it is often more cost-effective to just modify the scenario to be more tractable. If pathfinding gets bogged down over a specific obstacle, a developer may just end up moving or deleting the obstacle. In Half-Life (1998), the pathfinding algorithm sometimes failed to find
24613-462: The world to add a sense of realism to the game. Additionally, their role as quest-givers or merchants makes them integral to the gameplay loop, giving players access to resources, missions, or services that enable further progression. Additionally, NPCs can be designed to serve functional roles in games, such as a merchant or to provide a service to the player. These characters are central to facilitating game mechanics by acting as intermediaries between
24776-654: Was chosen by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for their Greatest Video Game Music compilation, and the theme is a key regular in the Video Games Live concert when the Metal Gear Solid segment is introduced. A segment of the song's main chorus is included in the closing sequence of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater . In contrast to the original Metal Gear Solid , Sons of Liberty was released in North America first, on November 13, 2001. Because of
24939-506: Was during the golden age of video arcade games that the idea of AI opponents was largely popularized, due to the success of Space Invaders (1978), which sported an increasing difficulty level, distinct movement patterns, and in-game events dependent on hash functions based on the player's input. Galaxian (1979) added more complex and varied enemy movements, including maneuvers by individual enemies who break out of formation. Pac-Man (1980) introduced AI patterns to maze games , with
25102-485: Was exceptionally high. Kojima decided upon Harry Gregson-Williams , another composer from Zimmer's studio, after watching The Replacement Killers with sound director Kazuki Muraoka. A mix CD containing 18 tracks of Gregson-Williams' work was sent to his office. Flattered by the research put into creating the CD (as some of the tracks were unreleased, and some songs he had worked on for certain films were undocumented), he joined
25265-634: Was limited to a fixed set of responses. It is said that NLP has improved the fluidity of NPC conversations, allowing them to respond more contextually to player inputs. This development has increased the depth and immersion of player-NPC interactions, as players can now engage in more complex dialogues that affect the storyline and gameplay outcomes. Additionally, deep learning models have allowed NPCs to become more capable of predicting players behaviors. Deep learning allows NPCs to process large amounts of data and adapt to player strategies, making interactions with them less predictable and more varied. This creates
25428-497: Was released in 2005 and used interactive multiple way dialogs and AI as the main aspect of game. Games have provided an environment for developing artificial intelligence with potential applications beyond gameplay. Examples include Watson , a Jeopardy! -playing computer; and the RoboCup tournament, where robots are trained to compete in soccer. Many experts complain that the "AI" in the term game AI overstates its worth, as game AI
25591-453: Was released in both digital and physical format on the PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox Series X|S , Nintendo Switch , and digitally on Steam in October 24, 2023. This version is also bundled as part of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1 . This edition includes Digital Screenplay Book and Digital Master Book. Although the title drops the 'HD Edition' suffix, this version is based on
25754-496: Was released on March 8, nearly four months after the other regions. The added features from the Japanese release were carried over to the European version, along with a new difficulty setting (European Extreme). The European version came packaged with a video DVD titled The Making of Metal Gear Solid 2 . As well as collating all of the game's promotional trailers and a GameSpot feature on the game's final days of development, it features
25917-485: Was released on October 24, 2023. The story revolves around the Big Shell, a massive offshore clean-up facility seized by a group of terrorists who call themselves the Sons of Liberty. They demand an enormous ransom in exchange for the life of the President of the United States and threaten to destroy the facility and create a cataclysmic environmental disaster if their demands are not met. The motives and identities of many of
26080-585: Was released the following year for Xbox and Windows in addition to the PlayStation 2. A remastered version of the game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - HD Edition , was later included in the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , and PlayStation Vita . The HD Edition of the game was included in the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 compilation for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Windows, and Xbox Series X/S , which
26243-456: Was responsible for the in-game music. He also worked on the majority of the game's cutscenes , re-orchestrating Gregson-Williams' "Main Theme" remix for use in several sequences. As with Metal Gear Solid , the cutscene music includes orchestral and choir pieces, while the in-game soundtrack is scored with ambient music . However, the score as a whole incorporates more electronic elements (particularly breakbeat ) than its predecessor, to reflect
26406-616: Was the first popular application of machine learning in an interactive simulation. Neural networks are used by the creatures to learn what to do. The game is regarded as a breakthrough in artificial life research, which aims to model the behavior of creatures interacting with their environment. In the 2001 first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved the player assumes the role of the Master Chief, battling various aliens on foot or in vehicles. Enemies use cover very wisely, and employ suppressing fire and grenades. The squad situation affects
26569-471: Was the only AI destroyed, and that the S3 Plan's real purpose is to control human thought to prevent society's regression in the digital era from trivial information drowning knowledge and truth in the belief that humanity is too immature to handle the flow of information responsibly, citing Raiden’s own lack of individuality and reliance on others for direction as an example when he protests the plan. They order Raiden to eliminate Solidus; refusal will result in
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