13 Days Until MGS4!

Today's Random Metal Gear Fact:

The NES version of Metal Gear was extremely successful in America, and Snake's Revenge was Konami's follow-up, released in 1990 in the U.S. under the Ultra Games banner. However, it was not developed by series creator Hideo Kojima. While Snake's Revenge is considered the bastard child of the series by many fans, I have to admit I liked it when it came out. Hell, I thought Snake's Revenge was the real sequel to Metal Gear until I bought Metal Gear Solid and read the synopsis of past games in the manual--that was the first time I ever heard of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Snake's Revenge isn't necessarily a bad game, but it contains a lot of questionable design choices. From the very beginning, the game really gets off on the wrong foot. The starting area is a jungle patrolled by guards flying around in weird helicopter-buggy contraptions. These assholes are positioned so that they will immediately spot you the second you leave the first screen in the game, setting off an alert and flooding the area with troops. Brilliant way to start off a stealth game, dumbasses.

When that alert goes off, the next problem with Snake's Revenge rears its ugly head--it's fricking hard. Even the wussiest guards have one huge advantage over Snake: they can shoot diagonally, while Snake can only shoot up, down, left, or right. In other words, every enemy in the game can hit you far more easily than you can hit them. And this is before the designers throw grenade-tossing soldiers who can (and WILL) hit you with pinpoint accuracy from over walls into the mix. On top of that, the game contains countless hazards that simply kill Snake instantly--swaying bridges, magical shipping pallets floating over bottomless pits (seriously), and collapsing floors in every other goddamn room, to name just a few.

OK, so it's hard. But is that really enough to garner the level of derision this game receives? Surely not. That would take something really moronic, right? Something terribly executed and completely out of place in a stealth game...

Yeah, that should just about do it.

For some unfathomable reason, the designers of Snake's Revenge thought it would be a good idea to cram horribly shitty side-scrolling action sequences into their game. Not only are these parts completely out of place, they control terribly. Most of the time Snake moves like he's underwater--and when he actually is underwater, he moves like a wounded slug crawling up a steep grade against a strong headwind. On top of all that, the stealth mechanics completely break down in these scenes. If you happen to walk from one screen to the next while a guard on the new screen is looking in your direction, it's an instant alert--and there is NO WAY to tell where they'll be looking before moving forward. Since the guards move much faster than Snake and have shots that travel faster and farther than his across the screen, beating these sequences basically boils down to having enough rations to survive running away from the onslaught of trained killers that inevitably ends up on your tail. Fun!

Despite all this, Hideo Kojima himself has said that he likes Snake's Revenge, and that he considers it a game in the spirit of the series. In fact, in a way Snake's Revenge is responsible for the Metal Gear series becoming what it is today. While Snake's Revenge was in production at Konami, Kojima actually ended up sitting next to its lead designer on a train one morning. The designer told him what he was working on, and asked Kojima to please make a game about the "real" Snake. That was what inspired Kojima to make Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake... and eventually, Metal Gear Solid! (http://tinyurl.com/6xolpo)

As bad as some parts of Snake's Revenge are, I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few cool moments. There's a sequence where Snake has to infiltrate a ship and blow it up from the inside, which ends with a mad dash for an escape helicopter as the whole place begins exploding. There's a fairly cool part on a train, as well. And at least you actually get to see Metal Gear in the freaking game, which puts it ahead of the NES version of Metal Gear in at least one respect. It's really the combination of the game's jacked-up difficulty and those retarded side-scrolling parts that makes Snake's Revenge hard to go back to.

BONUS VIDEO: A very funny look at the various shortcomings of Snake's Revenge.

http://www.revver.com/video/906691/snakes-revenge-nes-review/

TWO WEEKS Unitil MGS4!

Today's Random Metal Gear Fact:

It's been said that nicotine is a harder addiction to break than heroin. Solid Snake and Big Boss might agree, as almost every game in the series has included some variation of everyone's favorite cause of lung cancer. Take a deep, long drag on these facts:

• In the original Metal Gear (both the MSX and NES versions), equipping the cigarettes during the final escape sequence will slow the countdown timer considerably.
• Metal Gear 2 was the first game that let Snake use cigarette smoke as a way of seeing infrared laser beams, something featured in all of the later games in the series. MG2 was also the first game where having the cigarettes equipped causes Snake to slowly take damage.
• Snake won't fly the hang-glider off the roof of the Zanzibar building in MG2 until he's smoked a cigarette to calm his nerves.
• Snake is such an addict that he resorts to swallowing a pack of cigarettes to bring them along with him in MGS1. That's pretty damn hardcore.
• Snake may have been trying to kick the habit during MGS2--he passes his cigarettes to Raiden when they first meet (apparently Raiden used to smoke, but managed to quit).
• Big Boss (AKA Naked Snake) is too manly for cigarettes. He smokes cigars.
• The cigar in MGS3 has a few uses of its own. Since it burns bigger and slower than a cigarette, it can be used as a weak light source in dark places. It's also an effective critter repellent--Big Boss can use it to burn off any leeches that get too friendly, and its smoke will keep The Pain's hornets from swarming around Big Boss's head while he's puffing away on it.
• The only cigarettes available in MGS3 are the distinctly Bond-ian sleeping-gas cigarettes found in the basement of Graniny Gorki lab. These emit a cloud of knockout gas that sends any nearby enemy into instant dreamland. I know a guy who even managed to beat The Boss using these...
• In the American version of Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, Nintendo apparently required Konami to replace Snake's cigarettes with something called a "fogger." Blasphemy!
• The only Metal Gear games that don't contain some kind of tobacco are Snake's Revenge, Portable Ops, and the American version of Ghost Babel.

15 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:
There are all kinds of interesting things Snake can do during the fight with Volgin in the Shagohod hangar near the end of MGS3. Here's a few:

• Put on the Raikov mask and the officer's outfit. Volgin will hesitate for moment and become confused by Snake's disguise.
  
• When Volgin is standing under the bridge above the middle of the area, shoot the water pipes on the bridge's underside. If he gets hit by water while he's charged with electricity...
• If you have any Russian Glowcap mushrooms in your inventory, throw them on the ground. Volgin's electrical bolts will be drawn directly to them until they vanish.
• Volgin's electrical field only protects him from the front and the sides. If you need to get in a quick hit on him, use the Single-Action Army and ricochet bullets off the wall behind him!
• Volgin's electrical field isn't perfect. If you pile on enough hits in short amount of time, you'll break through it and leave him stunned. Try the M63!
  
• If you toss food to Ocelot standing up on the bridge above, he'll throw down SAA bullets or Life Medicine.

16 Days to MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Solid Snake was born at an unknown point in 1972 (along with his two brothers). Given that, we can easily calculate how old he is during each installment of the series:

• Metal Gear (1995): 22-23 years old


• Metal Gear 2 (1999): Probably 27, since MG2 is in late December


• Metal Gear Solid (2005): 32-33 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 2 - Tanker Chapter (2007): 34-35 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 2 - Plant Chapter (2009): 36-37 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 4 (2014): 41-42 years old

As you may know, Snake is a clone of his "father," Big Boss. As he and his brothers, Liquid and Solidus, get closer to the age Big Boss was at when his cells were used to clone them, they begin aging at an accelerated rate. Big Boss was in his early forties when the Les Enfant Terribles project was conducted, so this explains why Snake appears to have aged so much in the five-year period between MGS2 and MGS4.

This accelerated aging phenomena is theorized to actually happen in real-world clones such as Dolly the sheep, though there seems to be some contention over it within the scientific community. Check the link below for more info:

http://tinyurl.com/6djzez

17 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Almost every single Metal Gear game thus far has included the infamous cardboard box trick. The only exception is Snake's Revenge (which doesn't really count anyway, as Kojima had nothing to do with it). Here are some lesser-known facts about everyone's favorite shipping container / espionage equipment:

• In the NES version of Metal Gear, Snake could shoot from inside the cardboard box.


• In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, guards will often become suspicious if they notice the box and start peppering it with bullets. If Snake sits there and takes it, they'll be convinced the box is harmless and return to their patrols.


• While Snake is disguised as Major Raikov in MGS3, he can move around under the box in front of guards. When they pick the box up and find what looks like their commanding officer crouched down in there, they just kind of stand there awkwardly, not sure how to react to this strange new development in their lives.


• Several of the boxes in MGS2 feature product-placement. Box 4 has the logo for McFarlane toys (which made the official MGS1 & 2 action figure lines), and Box 5 has the logo from Kojima's Zone of the Enders series.


• If Snake hides under the cardboard box on the deck of the tanker in the opening chapter of MGS2 for a while, it will become wet and will then fall apart if shot by an enemy.


• Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (AKA Metal Gear Solid for Gameboy Color in the U.S.) features an insanely annoying puzzle involving various colors of cardboard boxes and an automated conveyor belt cargo sorting system. Seriously, fuck that puzzle.
  
• The following conversation happens in MGS2 if you call "Plisken" (Snake working incognito) immediately after seeing "someone" sneaking around in a cardboard box:

Raiden: "Pliskin, I saw someone wearing a cardboard box just now...?"
Plisken: "A box? I don't know anything about that. You sure you weren't imagining things?"
Raiden: "Of course I'm sure. Do you think it's one of the members of Dead Cell? I don't want to fight someone like that..."
Plisken: "Why not?"
Raiden: "Because it looked so dumb. Anyone who's willing to be seen like that must be completely insane. I mean, he's a psycho; there's no question about it!"
Plisken: "Um, yeah..."

Snake's tone is hilarious on that last line. He sounds like a kid who just had his sand castle kicked over.

18 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

The picture of Solid Snake on the cover of Metal Gear 1 (published in 1987 for the MSX computer and in 1988 for the NES) is totally freaking ripped-off of a shot of Michael Biehn from one of Kyle Reese's flashbacks in the original Terminator.

Oh, that wacky Kojima. On a side note, what the hell is that weird tuning fork thing strapped to Snake's left shoulder in that picture?

Metal Gear Series Primer: Prologue (1920-1962)

The overall plot of the Metal Gear series is really composed of two major, intertwining threads. One is the story of a succession of truly exceptional soldiers, each of them somehow linked to the others. The other is the story of a group seeking to influence the world from the shadows. The story of Metal Gear as it has come to be can be seen as the inevitable clash between a group that seeks to impose control, and a series of individuals who all struggle against this control in their own ways.

The stories recounted below are, for the most part, never directly depicted in any games in the series. They are a compilation of various events referred to by characters or seen in flashbacks. Everything you're about to read is series canon; all I've done is present it in chronological order to make it a bit easier to grasp for those not familiar with the series' many twists and turns.

The Founding and Fragmentation of The Philosophers

Shortly after the close of World War I, around 1920, the "true holders of power" in the United States, the recently-formed Soviet Union, and the Republic of China came together and forged a shadowy alliance. The result was an organization known as The Philosophers. The twelve founding members formed the controlling body of the group, the so-called "Wisemen's Committee." Using their vast influence, The Philosophers sought to steer the course of various world events from behind the scenes. Each of the three "founding" countries had a separate branch, but the three branches worked together to their mutual benefit.

The Philosophers' original goal was allegedly to unite the world--under their own control, of course. As the original members of the Wisemen's Committee began to die off, however, the group's objectives gradually began to shift. By the end of the 1930s, all of the founding members of The Philosophers were dead, and the three branches of the group were starting to become more divided. The rise of the Axis powers and the advent of the second World War forced the branches to come together again, but also set the stage for the schism that would permanently break them apart.

At the beginning of World War II, The Philosophers assembled a vast amount of money in a secret fund--one-hundred billion dollars, which was split up into innumerable pieces and expertly hidden away in banks throughout the world. Known as the Philosophers' Legacy, this money was used to finance various secret activities throughout the war (rocket technology research, the Manhattan Project, etc). The three branches had originally promised to split the remaining money equally between them at the end of the war--but when the opportunity presented itself, the chief financial officer of the Russian branch was somehow able to redirect all of the remaining funds into new locations, and thus effectively steal the entire Legacy.

Needless to say, this theft was all it took to turn the American, Chinese, and Russian branches of The Philosophers against each other. With the end of World War II and the fragmentation of The Philosophers, the intangible battle lines of the Cold War had been drawn. (See my article on The Philosophers for a more detailed account of the group's origins: http://mgsaga.blogspot.com/2008/04/philosophers.html)

The Rise of The Boss

Born in the early 1920s, the woman who would eventually become known through the world by her honorary title "The Boss" was the daughter of one of the original twelve members of The Philosophers Wisemen's Committee. As the original Wisemen controlling the group died off and began to be replaced, her father became more and more concerned with the direction in which the group was headed. Eventually, he disclosed the true nature of the organization to his daughter--warning her that The Philosophers, rather than striving for unity, now sought to profit from conflict. They had "become war itself." When the rest of The Philosophers learned that he had revealed their secrets, The Boss's father was unceremoniously disposed of.

As she grew from adolescence to womanhood, The Boss must have demonstrated the truly exceptional combat skills for which she would later become famous. Someone certainly noticed her talents--in 1942, she assembled a disparate group of exceptionally talented fighters from various Allied countries under her leadership. Calling themselves the Cobra Unit, this group undertook only the most dangerous and covert operations throughout the war. Their activities were so secret that every member of the group was required to have a microbomb implanted in their body, triggered to detonate at the moment of their death--they were forbidden from leaving behind even a corpse as evidence. The Cobra Unit and The Boss became the stuff of battlefield legend, so much so that they were regarded as a major factor in the Allied victory in World War II.

This was not the only major event in The Boss's life during the war, however. At some point in 1943, she became pregnant. One of the other members of the Cobra Unit, a Russian man known as The Sorrow, was the father. Despite her condition, The Boss continued to lead her unit during the massive invasion of Normandy that took place in June, 1944. The Cobras had been given a secret mission of infiltrating enemy territory to destroy V-1 rocket installations, in order to clear the way for the Allied advance. In the course of that mission, The Boss was shot in combat and immediately went into labor, delivering her child right there on the battlefield, with bullets whizzing overhead. She and her newborn son both survived, but The Boss would never have the chance to be a mother--shortly after the delivery, her child was snatched away by an unknown agent of The Philosophers. Though they would meet again many years later, The Boss never learned what became of her son.

In 1947, as the iron curtain dividing East from West fell, the Cobra Unit was disbanded; its members returned to their native countries. Now a living legend on both sides of the globe, The Boss was nevertheless left alone--both her comrades and her son had been taken from her. Perhaps that was why, in 1954, she took a promising young soldier named John (aka Jack) as her new apprentice.

The Prodigal "Son"

Little is known about Jack's life before he became a disciple of The Boss, but he must have been about 25 at the time. No doubt he showed considerable talent if a legend like The Boss considered him a worthy apprentice. But it was more than that: on March 1st, 1954, Jack was one of the American soldiers stationed on Bikini Atoll to oversee the nuclear tests that took place there. He was exposed to heavy amounts of radiation and rendered sterile. The Boss, who had been exposed to atomic tests in Nevada some years earler, later stated that this shared trauma was part of what drew her to Jack.

In the five years they spent together as master and apprentice, Jack and The Boss undertook many top-secret missions and co-developed CQC, a new fighting style specifically tailored for military operations. Jack proved himself to be the most promising student The Boss had ever trained, and for a time the two were as devoted to one another as a mother and son.

Then, in June, 1959, The Boss suddenly left Jack without a word of explanation. Hurt and confused by this sudden abandonment, Jack did his best to carry on alone, continuing to prove his abilities in various missions undertaken for the U.S. Army. One of his few friends over the next several years was a comrade-in-arms who went by the codename "Python." A veteran of many battles, Python was a consummate soldier--tough as nails, and unflinching in the face of danger. However, Python was gravely injured during a secret mission in Vietnam. Jack believed he was dead, but they would meet again many years later under very diffferent circumstances.

After Python's alleged death, Jack spent some time in the elite Green Berets unit of the Army. It was during this period that he met Major Zero. Zero was a former director of the British intelligence agency MI-5, and an acquaintance of The Boss. He was so impressed with Jack that he asked him to join the new unit he was assembling. This unit, called FOX, was unlike any other in existance at the time. It was conceived as a group specializing in single-man infiltration missions, emphasizing silence and stealth above all else. Tired of the internal power struggles typical of the regular military, Jack accepted Major Zero's offer without hesitation. It was a decision that would greatly impact his life in the not-too-distant future.

Making the World Whole

The Boss did not leave her star apprentice's side on a whim when she vanished in 1959. She had been recruited by the U.S. government to take part in a mission unlike any other she had ever experienced. Since the successful launch of Sputnik in 1957, America had lagged behind Russia in the space race, and now they were determined to pull ahead--but to do so, they needed to study the effects of space travel on an actual human. NASA had not yet developed the technology to completely block out cosmic rays, so whoever was sent up would be exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. The Boss was selected because she had already been irradiated once.

In 1960, a year before Yuri Gagarin's world-reknowned space flight, The Boss became the first human being to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Given the illicit nature of the experiment, she knew that she would never be recognized as such by history. The sight of the planet beneath her deeply moved The Boss--seeing the world from above, without borders or boundaries, made her reflect on the foolishness of the Cold War; the division betwen East and West. Upon her safe return, she silently vowed to "make the world whole again."

The Boss began to work closely with the American branch of The Philosophers. Presumably, she reasoned that the only way to "unify" the world was to bring it back under the control of a single group--which meant that the American Philosophers needed to eliminate their now-rival Russian and Chinese counterparts. In 1962, The Philosophers sent The Boss to a remote region of the Soviet Union called Tselinoyarsk on a mission to eliminate an enemy agent. When she finally met her target, she was horrified to discover that it was The Sorrow--her former comrade, lover, and the father of her long-lost child. They had both been assigned to kill the other. Only one of them could live. Finally, after much urging from The Sorrow, The Boss pulled the trigger and carried out her mission. "The spirit of the warrior will always be with you," were his dying words to her.

It's not clear if The Philosophers knew The Boss would be forced to face her old friend on that mission--it may have been their way of testing how loyal she truly was. If that was the case, it was a test she passed with flying colors. At that point, The American Philosophers began to work with The Boss to formulate a plan that would let them reclaim the stolen Legacy from the Russian branch. Together, they began laying the groundwork for what would surely be The Boss's most important mission ever...

But that's another story.


OK, that was pretty fricking long. Ironically, I think it will take a lot less time to recount the stories of the actual games than it did to cover all of the background plot. Check back for a recap of MGS3 later this week!

Metal Gear Series Primer: Introduction

Holy shit. Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out in less than a month!

I'm slightly disappointed with how much I've been able to cover on this site so far--I've been really busy with work and other things recently, which has limited my time for writing. I've beaten MGS3 and Portable Ops and am now halfway through Metal Gear 1, but I haven't even come close to writing everything I want to about any of them. It looks like I'll be updating for a good, long while even after MGS4 is released.

Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out on June 12. In the time I have between now and then, I'm going to shift my focus here a bit. For the rest of the month, most of my updates are going to be devoted to helping anyone who isn't as familiar with the overall story of the series get caught up for MGS4. Since MGS4 is the culmination of the entire series, a good understanding of the previous games is almost guaranteed to make playing it more enjoyable. I'll simplify things a bit to make it easy for a casual fan or newcomer to the series to digest, but I'll also give you everything you should need to know to appreciate MGS4 to the fullest.

On that note, check back soon for an entry about the Metal Gear saga's opening chapters!

Weapon Profile: Mosin-Nagant 1891/30

The Russian-made Mosin-Nagant 1891/30 sniper rifle is featured in Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Metal Gear Solid 4. Lauded by experts as one of the greatest sniper rifles produced in the first half of the 20th century, the Nagant has been the weapon of choice for a number of masterful snipers, both real and fictional.

In MGS3, the Mosin-Nagant is used by The End, a member of the Cobra Unit who is said to be "the father of modern sniping." The End is a master of both sniping and camouflage, and engages in an epic sniper duel with Big Boss in a thickly-forested area of Tselinoyarsk called Sokrovenno. If he's defeated by depleting his stamina (using the M22 pistol or other non-lethal weapons), he'll leave behind his rifle for Big Boss to use. Here's what Sigint has to say about it:

Sigint: "The M1891/30 Mosin-Nagant is a real beauty of a bolt-action sniper rifle. It's been in use since World War II. Mosin-Nagants are created by selecting the best-made weapons out of the regular M1891/30 rifle production line for their high precision and upgrading them to sniper rifles. They add on an optical sight, make the trigger pull lighter, bend the charging handle underneath--that kind of stuff. The Mosin-Nagant has been known far and wide since the war for its superior capabilities. They were so highly valued that a lot of German snipers on the eastern front preferred to use captured Mosin-Nagants instead of their own rifles. It looks like The End took the one he'd been using since the war and modified it to fire tranquilizer rounds. It's also been fitted with a folding stock and a pistol grip."

Big Boss: "Maybe for parachute jumps?"

Sigint: "Well, I dunno why he did it, but that's the tool of a legendary sniper. It's got to be a fine piece of work."


In reality, the M28 Finnish variant of the Mosin-Nagant was used by a soldier named Simo Häyhä in the Winter War between Russia and Finland (1939-1940). Considered by some to be the greatest sniper in history, Häyhä racked up an unprecedented 542 confirmed kills in only 100 days, earning him the nickname "White Death" from his adversaries. Like The End, he used camouflage expertly and operated alone in the field (sniping is usually conducted by two-person teams). Unbelievably, his rifle lacked even a telescopic scope--Häyhä preferred to aim using just the iron sights!

In all of its Metal Gear series appearances thus far, the Mosin-Nagant 1891/30 has served as a long-range nonlethal weapon, making it especially useful when attempting a "no kills" play-through. Like the M22 tranquilizer pistol, shots fired from the Nagant will put enemies to sleep for a set amount of time rather than killing them, and will deplete a boss's stamina gauge instead of their life gauge. The only downside to using it is that it has no suppressor, allowing any remaining enemies nearby to hear shots fired from it.

For Further Reading:

The links below contain more interesting information about the Mosin-Nagant 1891/30, as well as several real snipers who used it to great effect.

http://www.snipercentral.com/mosin.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosin-Nagant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Hayha

http://www.soviet-awards.com/digest/pavlichenko/pavlichenko1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grigoryevich_Zaitsev