Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (PC)

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is a rerelease of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. While the console version is often considered one of the best games ever made, the PC version is notoriously flawed, which the article will focus on.

Why This Port Sucks

 * 1) The install size was colossal for the time, at a whopping 7GB when other PC games at the time weighed 800MB to 2GB at most, even the PS2 version was lower.
 * 2) It barely works on many PCs (mostly running later version of Windows) without heavily patching it with fan-made patches.
 * 3) The game was designed for the PS2's DualShock 2 controller, and some portions of the game require very sensitive actions, making playing with a keyboard very difficult.
 * 4) It also had graphics and audio issues on most systems (particularly many modern PCs), including flickering textures and disappearing shadows.
 * 5) Mapping the keyboard controls to a controller was a nightmare, as it required 2 more buttons than the default PC controller had.
 * 6) Like the Xbox version, The skateboarding minigame is not included in this version.
 * 7) The function to save without using the Codec was not carried over from Integral.
 * 8) The ESC key doesn't pause the game like any normal game would. Instead, it exits the game entirely.
 * 9) It has problems running on modern OS without the aforementioned patches or the GOG version.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The GOG version adds support for modern systems and graphics cards and has better support for V's fix.
 * 2) With V's fix applied, the game it fixes many of the bugs and adds enhancements including widescreen, better anti-aliasing, better effects, better controller support etc.