Re: Raiden as Snake
Raiden was Snake in MGS 2 for all of about 5 minutes. But the whole point of 2 was that "Hey, you're not Snake, you don't get to be Snake this time, you're this other guy." And that exchange was just the start of about 8 hours of that theme being beaten into you.
Re: Naked vs Solid
Love them both, but Metal Gear 1 and 2 were just so painful to get through it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth for Solid. MGS1 didn't hold up to my expectations after 13 years when I recently replayed it and MGS2 was just a tease. He finally came around and mostly redeemed himself in 4 with that truly amazing experience, but that aftertaste of the beginning still lingered.
Compared to that, Naked has been a pleasure to play throughout the series where he starred as a MC. 3 is still my favorite game out of them all, just the perfect combination of gameplay, storytelling, dialogue and characterization. Plus that whole James Bond-ish theme it's got going. Peacewalker was a slight disappointment after all of that, but certainly not bad. Ground Zeroes, however, excepting the lack of David Hayter, was an amazing demo for what I expect to be a true masterpiece to cap off the series later this year. Naked's story isn't done yet, The Phantom Pain could still flop, but I see nothing that even hints at that and thus I have to give my favorite Snake title to Naked.
Re: Sounding like crazies to people who never played the game.
It sounds just as crazy to people who have played the games too much. The lack of information and amount of misunderstanding of a casual metal gear player is just painful sometimes.