Merry Gear Solid 2 builds upon the story of its predecessor, so it would be best to play Merry Gear Solid to get a feel for what happened. It's short, so you won't have to spend much time getting up to speed. Alternatively, you can read the Past Ops section of the main menu to get a feel for what happened in the previous games without playing them. However, Merry Gear is a fictional game in the series that hasn't been made yet, although it may at a future date. The gist of the previous games is that Santa is dead and the government has pinned the loss of holiday cheer on the economy rather than the botched assassination of Santa.

The conspiracy-laden plot of Merry Gear Solid 2 is expansive. By that, we mean that there is a lot of dialog. If you have played any Metal Gear Solid game since the first, you will understand the amount of dialog in Merry Gear Solid 2. It's ridiculous, and not just because it is so long. It's also ridiculous because of how convoluted, pun-filled, and obvious it is. It's a spot-on representation of the Metal Gear Solid's ocean of words, and rambles on and on forever. If that's your thing, you should stick through the long codec scenes. If it's not, skip them liberally.

The audio and visuals of Merry Gear Solid 2 are excellent, with a beautiful retro art style throughout the entire game. There could be a few more animations, and smoother existing animations, but the game still reaches the 16-bit style it aimed to hit. Our only real complaint about the visuals is that the environments are quite boring, with little color or interesting objects to break them up. The audio is stellar, with the sound effects being spot on and the music being an entertaining mix of Metal Gear and Christmas music. Perhaps the best part of the audio is the voice acting. You will swear that the developer got David Hayter to voice Cold Snake, because it sounds just like him. Otacon is a little different, but still very recognizable.

The gameplay of Merry Gear Solid 2 is very similar to the second Metal Gear game. It is top-down, has enemies that patrol and have different states (sleeping, unconscious, etc), a radar to show you where enemies are and what they can see, and so on. However, Merry Gear Solid 2 also adds some things from other games. One of the most notable is the ability to knock on walls, which was first introduced in Metal Gear Solid. The only 2D Metal Gear game that knocking on walls was in was Metal Gear: Ghost Babel on the Game Boy Color. It's awesome being able to lure guards around, and this is actually one of the most important features of the game, especially if you are aiming to get a Boss ranking.

The boss fights in Merry Gear Solid 2 are fantastic. Some are just completely ridiculous, such as the fight against the Ghost of Christmas Past, and have roundabout solutions that feel like they should belong in a Metal Gear game. There aren't many bosses, but they are extremely memorable, and they alone could convince you to give this game a try, even if you don't really like the top-down sneaking. If you have any difficulty during these fights, you can contact Otacon on the codec for information on how to do the fight.

While it certainly feels like a Metal Gear game, some essential features and reactions that were left out really break that illusion. For example, if you knock a guard unconscious and his friend wanders over to see him, nothing will happen. He won't wake the unconscious guard up, he won't call for an alert, nothing at all. Alerts instantly kill you as well, rather than bring in some tough soldiers. This is a concession to make the game easier, I suppose, as you can't kill anybody except the bosses (the enemies are just kids). Still, it's an irritation. You can also exploit the alert to get around annoying areas, as you retain your inventory when you trigger it. You can simply grab an item you need, trigger the alert, and be back to the door you needed to be at!

It is no secret that the Metal Gear games require a bit of backtracking in order to be completed. Merry Gear Solid 2 takes this to an extreme, as you backtrack several times to go further in the game, and you backtrack a long way. It's extremely irritating, and if you can get past it, you'll be able to finish the game easy. It's not like Metal Gear Solid 2, where some of the environments have changed or the game was sort of non-linear. Merry Gear Solid 2 is completely linear, and requires you to backtrack an extremely long way several times through environments that never changed.

Finally, there's the issue of the interface. While the game is fairly standard in its interface, a few things may be misleading. First, the health meter is also your O2 meter, and is only used in boss fights and with a certain item. Everywhere else you die if someone sees you, so health is useless. Second, you can't skip ahead one line in the codec calls. You only have two choices there: sit through very long codec cutscenes listening to the voices, or skip the whole thing. The codec scenes are very well made and hilarious and worth listening to initially, but sometimes you just want to get on with the game without have to completely miss what is going on.

All in all, Merry Gear Solid 2 is a great game no matter the time of year. It has great art, some very clever gameplay, excellent audio, and a decidedly cheerful slant to its parody. It's plagued by a few small issues, but they should not stop anyone from playing the game. You can get Merry Gear Solid 2 off of the developer's website.

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