The phrase "bait-and-switch" has never, ever, ever been looked upon fondly by anyone in the history of ever. Ever. Never (ever) in life has someone ordered Filet Mignon from a fancy restaurant and been pleasantly surprised when an order of chicken nuggets appeared instead. Never (ever) has anyone met a person from an online dating site and been delighted their date's horizontal dimensions were in fact larger than the ones suggested in their profile picture. This is a roundabout way of saying folks don't like being screwed with. They especially don't like being screwed with when it comes to iconic franchises and iconic characters. Metal Gear Solid is an iconic franchise, and you bet your bandanna that Solid Snake is an iconic character, so what in the name of Vulcan Raven was Hideo Kojima thinking when he swapped out Solid Snake for a silver-haired rookie named Raiden?! He was thinking about quite a lot actually, but Metal Gear Solid 2 took away Solid Snake, teased players with a lush tanker setting before switching over to a barren oil rig, telling a story where the point was essentially "look how awesome Metal Gear Solid was!", all-the-while having you fight Metal Gears 50 times less cool than the one you fought in the first game. It was very easy to find yourself disappointed. It wasn't that the game was bad - the gameplay was solid as ever, even adding in a first person mode that was simply divine, but the changes left a bitter taste in the mouth of players, to the point where it was hard to immerse yourself in what the game is trying to say. Kojima even realised this, to the point where several jokes regarding Raiden appeared in Metal Gear Solid 3. In hindsight Metal Gear Solid 2 is the most contemporary of the Metal Gear Solid games - its narrative questioning the source of media and information in a digital age. In a world where information comes from endless sources, how does anyone know what's true? The marketing and switch of Metal Gear Solid 2's main character served to inform the game's overall message - that despite all the press coverage, such a massive secret was hidden from the public. In 2014, folks constantly post memes and 'stats' on social media that are impossible to prove right or wrong that come from sources that are anything but reputable or fact checked, but if enough people believe it, it's accepted as such regardless, ultimately proving Metal Gear Solid 2's point nearly a decade later. But that doesn't make Raiden any less annoying, or Metal Gear Solid 2's bait-and-switch any less disappointing.
