10 Times Video Games Didn't Care What You Think

2. Metal Gear Solid 2 Didn’t Let You Play As Solid Snake

The original Metal Gear Solid let you play at Solid Snake and fans were stoked. Solid Snake is a legend, he’s cool under pressure, tough as nails, and an almost indisputably legendary protagonist across the board.

Raiden is not an indisputably legendary protagonist across the board. He has his fans, sure, but he’s not Snake, and fans tucking into the second game were about to be livid.

Despite cementing Snake as one of the best protagonists to date, game creator Hideo Kojima decided to pull a switcheroo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The massively popular E3 trailer that debuted in 2000 had fans totally amped for more Snake-led shenanigans, especially since the almost ten minute reveal focussed only on Snake infiltrating a ship. Turns out, this is just the intro of the game and you’d be playing the rest of it as Raiden, a controversial figure in Metal Gear for being, well, kind of lame. At the time Kojima said they cast Raiden as the protagonist in order to appeal to women and because the plot called for a talker which Snake is not.

The Raiden hate has massively died down now that the full series is out, but when it looked like he might be taking over for a minute there, gamers were not happy.

Not that Kojima cared, of course, he said himself ‘In a sequel you have to meet people’s expectations, but you also sort of have to go against them and deceive them I think. This is my Metal Gear, and I can destroy it if I want to.’”

So if that doesn’t fit this list, I don’t know what does.