literally one of the things ever i don't know how i managed to avoid playing it for so long

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a scarily prophetic game about modern society. It follows two stories: the incident at a tanker with the returning Solid Snake, and the incident at Big Shell with the new character Raiden. While Snake not being a playable character for a majority of the game was controversial within the Metal Gear Solid community, I think using Raiden was the perfect way to develop the game's themes. It tackles questions about identity, legacy, AI, and even misinformation. If you know anything about Metal Gear Solid or Hideo Kojima, you know how meta and fourth-wall-breaking this gets. The topic of online information and AI is eerily similar to the issues occurring in modern society. Mind you, this game was created in 2001--over twenty years ago. It's really haunting to see a Metal Gear Solid plot come to life. With the rise of generative and "companion" AI, MGS2 becomes more relevant than ever. MGS2 is a perfect sequel to the already phenomenal MGS1; it reuses some of the themes and moments from the previous game, but also develops it further. Returning characters like Solid Snake and Otacon are subtly shown to have grown since the past few years. Snake is much more humble and optimistic, and Otacon is more confident and laidback. Otacon's side-story with E.E. really blew my mind. MGS2 is a game that is said to have changed people's views on life. With the deep monologues, rich story, and complex themes, I can't say that I disagree.

I love Metal Gear Solid 2, which is why I find this port to be completely disappointing.

The game is full of issues and missing visual effects compared to the original PlayStation 2 versión.

Just to cite a few examples, there are missing rain effects in many parts of the game, missing postprocessing in many cutscenes, broken Stealth camouflage effect, missing particle FX and broken geometry in many cutscenes at the sides of the screen.

I do not recommend buying the game in this state. Konami should be ashamed of themselves for releasing the game in such a dreadful state.

By the way, I am playing with v2.01 update, and if this versión still has all the issues I mentioned, I don't even want to know how bad it must have been on release day.

I think that you would probably have a better experience with an emulator.