I haven't played any of the MGS series, but both ZOE and ZOE2 have an adequate amount of cutscenes.
The ZOE series is a sci-fi, space robot combat based game, where you've got machines called Orbital Frames. Orbital Frames are gigantic robot sort of machines that are piloted by a 'frame runner.' Enders are people that were born on Mars (primarily), and is basically like a discriminative way of referring to such people by the Earthlings.
A good idea might be to check out the ZOE intro (and
not the ZOE2 intro in fear of spoilage -- but if you must, you can check that out too!).
The Wikipedia articles aren't too great for getting a good introduction to the game, so the intro to ZOE might be worth it. You can find an inexpensive, affordable copy of ZOE for PS2 through Amazon (I got mine for $10 through Amazon
).
Amazon (ZOE ~$7.45):
http://www.amazon.com/Zone-of-Enders/dp/B000059Z8IAmazon (ZOE2 ~$21.99):
http://www.amazon.com/Konami-Zone-Enders-2nd-Runner/dp/B00007LV7ZZone of the Enders Intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK1YBmFTa-8Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner Intro (Possible Spoilers if new to game):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCmVHuHCG_oWikipedia Article for ZOE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_the_EndersWikipedia Article for ZOE2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_the_Enders:_The_2nd_Runner