Now here's a game that's been on my mind for a long time. Back when I was familiarizing myself with the Metal Gear series by watching my favorite Youtube personalities play its individual entries in release-date order, it was Metal Gear Solid 2: Solid Snake to which I was most strongly drawn. There were two reasons it held such allure: First was that I was fascinated to learn of its existence; until then, I had no idea that a "true" Metal Gear sequel had been released on the obscure MSX platform (looking at it from an American perspective) and that its mode of evolution was so far removed from what Snake's Revenge imagined. It seemed to come from a whole other universe.
Otherwise, it was one of the most amazing-looking 8-bit games I'd ever seen! I didn't need to watch more than ten minutes of action to recognize that I was looking at one of the most ambitious 8-bit creations in history. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was showing itself to be visually astonishing, super-innovative, and technically advanced in a way that bordered on surreal. "How is this game running on the MSX?" I wondered.
And that soundtrack, man! Metal Gear 2's wonderfully evocative music was simply unforgettable!
In the end, Metal Gear 2 had managed to make a deep, lasting impression on me. I knew that it would be a big part of my future.
Ever since then, I've been looking forward to playing it for myself. I intended to do so at a much earlier date, actually, but I held off because I'd recently started this blog and thought that it would be a better idea to wait until after I'd chronicled my history with the original Metal Gear--an event that would likely serve as both a great setup and a fitting lead-in to my first personal experience with Metal Gear 2.
And here we are, finally. The moment has come. It's time for me to move beyond being a mere observer. It's time for me to gear up, head out into the wild, and fully immerse myself in the highly alluring world of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
This is going to be a lengthy piece, I expect, so brace yourself for an avalanche of text. Though, I'm certain that the upcoming experience will justify as much.
So let's move into action take a long look at Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
Metal Gear 2's intro sets the tone like no other. Moments after the splash screen fades, the game hits you with an epic opening-credits sequence that displays the creators' names and some fancy accompanying visuals (machines, weapons, schematics and other cool, well-animated depictions). This slickly crafted sequence is coupled with one of the most awesome 8-bit intro themes ever composed; it's a dynamic piece that builds and flows like any of those opening-credits themes you'd hear in a 1980s big-budget action movie. And these sights and sounds work together to engross you; they both absorb you whole and fill you with hype.
It becomes immediately obvious that Kojima and his crew wanted to give the impression that their game was a grand production. They desired to make you to feel as though you were about to take the lead in a gripping Hollywood blockbuster. And this intro certainly works to that effect. (All of this makes total sense in retrospect. I mean, we know that Hideo Kojima always wanted to be a filmmaker. And, well, here was one of the earliest signs.)
And if you wait past the title screen and a subsequent rendering of the splash screen, a second intro plays! This one provides the game's backdrop: It's the late 1990s. The Cold War is over and the threat of nuclear war is now a thing of the past. However, peace has not been embraced by all. An atmosphere of tension begins to build in the Middle East: Zanzibar Land--a small nation that borders on the USSR, China and the Middle East--forms a military junta and begins invading its neighbors. It also attacks nuclear weapons disposal sites all over the world and seizes their weapons. These actions result in Zanzibar Land becoming the world's only nuclear power.
At the same time, oil resources are quickly growing scarce and the world faces an energy crisis. It's then that Czech biologist Dr. Kio Marv engineers a micro-organism called "Oilix," a microbe that can synthesize high-grade petroleum. But while on the way to an American scientific conference, Marv is kidnapped by agents of Zanzibar Lab, whose leaders hope to exploit his work. With its nuclear weapons and the secrets of Oilix, Zanzibar Land plans to achieve global military domination. One tiny microbe is about to change the world forever.
So there you see the start of another trend: the Metal Gear series creating a rich lore by cleverly mixing together real and fictional events. And that reworked history is what provides the games context and an intriguing backdrop.
So our setting is Zanzibar Land, an African region wherein the enemy has set up its base of operations. The occupied territory is broken up into several sections, all of which we'll be continuously traveling between. And as we navigate about, we'll be viewing the game's distinctly rendered environments from a top-down perspective.
At our control is the legendary super soldier Solid Snake, who earned such status after completing Operation Intrude N313, wherein he successfully infiltrated Outer Heaven and destroyed both Big Boss and the group's ultimate weapon--Metal Gear. Snake traverses the game's environments by moving from screen to screen; on any such screen, he's able to travel along two axes, where permitted. The game's two action inputs (which are mapped to buttons or keys, depending upon whether you're using a joystick or a keyboard) allow him to interact with environments and engage enemies in unique ways: Pressing Button/Key I executes a punch. Pressing Button/Key II fires or activates whichever weapon or device is currently residing in the HUD's "Weapon" slot. And pressing both buttons simultaneously enters Snake into crawling mode--a newly implemented mechanic; you can press either action button thereafter to make him stand.
There are two inventory screens--one for weapons and another for equipment. They can be accessed by pressing the F2 and F3 keys, respectively. Those set to the weapons slot can be utilized by pressing Button/Key II, as mentioned, while those set to the equipment slot have an automatic effect. It's basically the same inventory system we remember from the original Metal Gear, though with some minor improvements, which I'll discuss when it's relevant.
At the start, you have only one item in your inventory: cigarettes, which can be set to the equipment slot. In the original Metal Gear, cigarettes had one very specific use (smoking them extended the timer during the escape sequence--"slowed down time," in allegorical terms), but here, in Metal Gear 2, they have a few different functions. More on those later.
Otherwise, Snake is carrying his transceiver, using which he can communicate with his contacts. You can put it to use by pressing F4, which opens up the transceiver subscreen; here you can adjust its frequency counter, whose range stretches from 00-99. After setting the counter to a proper channel, you have to push up or down to send the signal. The contact in question will then respond to the call. Some contacts are always on standby while others only respond under certain conditions. In any instance where a contact is calling Snake--the indication for which is a continuous ringing sound and a flashing "Call" sign in the HUD's upper-right corner--pressing F4 will automatically receive his or her transmission.
F5 brings up the Data screen, on which you can either save your mission data onto the disk or obtain a (super-long) password. From here you can also load data and input passwords.
Pressing F1 pauses the game.
As it was in the original Metal Gear, the name of the game is stealth. Your objective is to sneak around the game's environments and avoid being detected. You do this by quietly, cleverly moving about the individual rooms and using their objects and structures as cover. The biggest difference is that Solid Snake features a sophisticated anti-personnel sensor--basically an advanced radar and map system. It's able to track all of the activity that's occurring on both the current and surrounding screens, the sensor covering nine screens in total. Its output is displayed in map form in the HUD's upper-right portion. White dots represent enemy soldiers and security cameras while the red dot represents Snake. The map allows us to observe and study the enemies' movements from adjacent screens and strategically choose our point of entry and the most convenient path. Though, you have to take into account that some enemies patrol several screens, so it's never safe to assume that the space in which you're currently parked isn't part of a patrol route; at any time, a soldier who appeared to be bound to an adjacent screen might suddenly betray that expectation and wander onto yours and spot you immediately.
Mainly, you want to stay out of the enemy soldiers' sight lines. In the original, they suffered from tunnel version and could only see straight ahead; but here, in the technologically advanced sequel, their field of vision is a cone whose slant height naturally expands, so it's no longer a guarantee that you'll be safe when you employ the tactic of positioning yourself slightly beyond an axis while a soldier is facing in your direction. No--the dead-zone range changes depending upon the distance separating you. Though, as long as (a) a soldier is not facing you or (b) his head isn't turned in your direction, he won't be able to spot you, even if you're standing right beside him; in these moments, you can safely maneuver about or sneak up on him from behind.
If you wind up getting detected by a soldier, a camera or a sensor, you'll trigger an alert phase, wherein the enemy will jam your radar and begin swarming you, the alerted soldiers pouring in from every direction. An alert phase will continue until (a) you defeat a set number of soldiers or (b) put more than a screen's-worth of distance between Snake and his pursuers and thereafter escape from view; you'll then enter an evasion mode, whence a counter will appear and begin to tick down. If during this period you're unable to find sufficient cover, and a backup unit spots you, you'll reset the alert phase and have to repeat one of the two aforementioned processes. The counter, however, will resume from where it was before you reset the alert phase.
If you want to achieve the best results, you'll have to move about meticulously and pay close attention to what's going on around you--gauge the environment, observe the enemy routes, and think about how everything connects. Running in gung-ho, as if you're playing a Commando-style top-down shooter, will only result in continuous alert phases and a particularly unpleasant experience. And you can't simply trust your knowledge of the original Metal Gear: This game features a whole new variety of traps and puzzles, many of which force you to think outside the box. So prepare to put your brain to work. Though, if ever you're stumped by a particularly arcane puzzle, you can try communicating with your contacts, one of whom may provide hints or generally point you in the right direction.
Over the course of your mission, you'll encounter numerous bosses, all of which engage you in unique ways. Some of these battles require that you rely on a specific weapon or tactic while others invite the use of ingenuity--of a creative combination of your tools and skills. Every time you defeat a boss, your health meter lengthens and your item/ammo capacity increases.
Metal Gear 2 is way more forgiving than its predecessor in terms of the number of checkpoints. You're provided one any time you trigger one of its many loading screens. What's nice is that the process of dying and continuing doesn't entail the erasure of any progress you've made since triggering the last loading screen; you get to retain all of the items you collected before you were killed. The bad news is that the game also records the amount of ammo and rations you've expended; so when you're in a tense situation, you can't make the mistake of employing liberal use of your items with the expectation that your supply-totals will simply revert back to an earlier state if you die. Really, that part of it just sucks.
And now that we know the basics, we can get started with the mission.
As the game opens, we see Snake climbing up the side of a cliff and arriving at the edge of the enemy base. Before the action commences, Snake and his commander, Colonel Roy Campbell, communicate via transceiver and engage in a mission briefing, wherein they go over the details of Operation Intrude F014. Our mission is to infiltrate Zanzibar Land and rescue the kidnapped Kio Marv. We're told that Marv has a transmitter implanted into one of his molars, and its signal is strong enough to where it'll show up as a red dot on our radar when we're in proximity. We can reach Campbell on frequency 140.85 if we require further instruction or some hints (though, you won't find many of them to be particularly informative, especially if you're already familiar with the Metal Gear series' fundamental systems).
But there is someone who can provide us more in the way of useful information: Campbell informs us that we can reach McDonell Miller, a survival master, on frequency 140.38. Miller is an "idea man" who can provide us advice if ever we can't find a way forward or if we're dealing with a puzzle to which there appears to be no logical solution.
What interests me most about these transceiver exchanges are the character depictions, which show us how Snake and company were originally envisioned. It's clear that the character designers hadn't yet settled on a look for Snake, who isn't the well-coiffed, stubbly charmer we know from future Metal Gear games. This version of Snake is said to be closely modeled after Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson's character in Lethal Weapon), but, really, he looks more to me like a perpetually spooked Frank Stallone. I mean, look at him: His eyes continue to dart back and forth, from corner to corner, and he's constantly looking upward as if to keep track of the same two ghosts that have been following him since he touched ground. Something definitely went wrong during pixel-art-translation process.
To be fair, though, Roy Campbell does very closely resemble his inspiration: Rambo's Colonel Trautman, who was played by Richard Crenna.
It's evident from the start that Solid Snake is one of the most visually impressive 8-bit games ever made. Environment are richly detailed. Every object has solid shape and form and is instantly distinguishable. Textures are bursting with highlighting and shading effects that inform us of the rooms' lighting conditions and create a wonderful sense of depth; and the little cracks and blemishes that pepper them provide such an important touch of character, each helping to craft an image of a world that has been lived in. The game features amazing color-depth and a great many palette schemes; every area is distinctly hued. The HUD and subscreen elements are slickly rendered. There are so many neat little graphical effects and interesting adornments (vents, fuse boxes and other pleasing visuals, many of which I'll be discussing). Characters are well-drawn and rife with animation. And there's just this real feeling that you're playing a game that's both graphically and technically transcendent. "This can't be possible on 8-bit hardware," you'll think.
Also worthy of high praise is the game's soundtrack, which is packed with brilliantly composed, strongly evocative tunes. Each piece is able to establish a tenor and add a layer of perceptual texture, its enveloping presence working to tell an environment's story and guide your emotions. Whenever you enter a new area, its tune will inform of how you should feel, be it sad, cautious, jumpy or any other from a large range of tapped emotions. Sometimes you'll feel compelled to just stop and listen to the music--let its vibe soak in--even if doing so might not feel like the smartest decision. That's the power of Solid Snake's soundtrack.
Sound design, overall, is excellent. The MIDI instrumentation is high in quality--the music's resonance full and reverberant--and sounds in general have real punch to them. Every action and event has an accompanying sound sample: weapons fire, elevators whir, machines grind, and different surfaces emit unique sounds as Snake walks on them. And, of course, enemy soldiers react with that classic blaring surprise sound ("!") whenever they spot Snake, their piercing exclamations instantly sparking panic. Though, what makes Solid Snake so innovative in this regard is not how it couples actions and sounds but how it turns sound, itself, into a gameplay mechanic. I'll expand on this in a bit.
This initial sequence is all about infiltration. We have to sneak our way into the enemy's southern base, the Zanzibar building, which lies before us. We do this by creeping along series of fences and taking cover behind generators and other machinery. Really, though, this opening area is designed to teach the player how to use Snake's new crawling ability. That is, the only way to advance is to locate sections of fence whose bases have been torn up and crawl through the resulting openings.
Entering the base via the front door is impossible, since we don't possess the necessary card key, so instead we'll have to take Campbell's advice and find an alternate entry point. We find such access on the entrance's right side, which houses an open air duct into which we can crawl. First, though, we want to enter the truck on the bottom-right and acquire the handgun. When we begin slithering our way through the ducts, we fall under the influence of a newly introduced music track whose eerie tone generates an air of unease; working to heighten this feeling of anxiety is the tune's pounding bass--a literal heartbeat. It's all very foreboding. But don't let the music's ominous vibe induce you into rushing out of here: If you explore to the left side of the mazelike duct system, you can pick up an early ammo pack.
Once we're inside, we're contacted by Holly White, a journalist who entered Zanzibar Land a month before. She claims to know about how things work around here and offers to assist us in any way she can. She'll provide tips for navigating the enemy territory whenever we contact her at frequency 140.15.
At the moment, our goal is to sneak our way around and up to the floor's central platform and access the elevator room. As we proceed along this path, the game introduces us to some of its advanced stealth elements. We learn, for instance, that walking on grated surfaces produces a "dinking" sound that will be heard by all soldiers currently onscreen; their reaction will be to immediately pause and grow concerned, their state of alarm being conveyed via a "bwooping" sound and the literal question marks that have since formed over their heads. Moments later, the curious soldiers will wander over to the location from which the sound emanated; if you're still hanging this location when they arrive, you'll be spotted, and an alert phase will be triggered. We'll also discover, probably by accident, that punching a wall elicits the same response, the resulting "thunking" sound likewise drawing the soldiers' attention.
Though, we can actually use such mechanics to our advantage: If ever there are too many soldiers onscreen, or if one or two soldiers are inconveniently clogging up a pathway, we can use the emitting of sound to decoy them over to a specific part of the room. When they converge in the location in question, we can easily sneak by them and freely traverse upon the room's now-unguarded spaces. Or we can lure them into a trap--lead them into a mine or take out the group of them with a weapon that can strike multiple targets.
Additionally, we find that we can crawl beneath any number of objects (trucks, tanks, metal covering, and such) and hide from patrolling soldiers.
It's hard not to react with awe and delight as you observe Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake--as you attempt to define the feeling of enormity that envelops you. "There's something next-level about all of this," you'll think to yourself as you excitedly experiment with all these ingenious mechanics, all of which contributed to the evolution of the stealth genre and influenced how developers think about level and sound design.
Solid Snake is filled with the sorts of clever, inventive mechanics that logically advance the genre, yes, yet the brilliant implementation of such represents just a single manifestation of Kojima and crew's ambitious spirit.
Another is the team's determination to permeate their game with outside-the-box ideas--the type that effectively change how we interact with games. We're met with one on this very floor, on the center platform: It contains a radar room wherein we can snag an item--a guaranteed item drop--by taking out the two soldiers stationed there. But there's a problem: Since the soldiers are positioned in the room's empty middle portion, there's no angle from which we can stealthily approach them. "If I want to engage them, I'll have no choice but to trigger an alert," you'll think. However, if you fight the urge to charge in recklessly and instead simply wait a few seconds, something interesting will happen: Zanzibar's anthem will begin to play, and the soldiers, as per their steadfast adherence to nationalism, will continue to stand at attention no matter how much circumstances change. Right then, you can take advantage of the situation and drop them while they're resigned to defenselessness.
Moments such as these have a profound impact on how we perceive Solid Snake. They play a huge role in helping it to form its lasting personality.
If our aim is to control the noise-level, we can't make the mistake or running about with guns blazing. The sound of gunfire prompts onscreen soldiers to trigger an alert phase (unless there's only one soldier present and the fired bullet connects with him). Until we get a hold of a suppressor, we'll have to rely on our fists. Any of the standard soldier types can be taken out with three punches, though they'll trigger an alert if you get too close or if they see the attack coming. It's much more efficient to attack from a distance with a gun, if circumstances dictate that it's safe to do so. However, there's a benefit to taking enemies out with punches; if you drop a soldier in this manner, there's a chance that he'll drop one of two items: an ammo pack or a ration. Either is an invaluable pickup.
So we've made it to the elevator room, from which we can travel between the base's six other floors. Though, the enemy's elevator system is a strange one: There are two elevators, but these respective lifts can only travel to certain floors. The one on the right travels between floors 1-4, while the one on the left--which is not accessible here, on Floor 1--travels to Floor 2 and the two basements. Meaningfully progressing through the base will sometimes entail having to continuously alternate between the two elevators--a process that can grow both tedious and confusing. It might take you a while to memorize the correct combinations.
In contrast, the process of operating elevators is pretty cool: In order to access an elevator, you have to punch the button panel to its right. However, the elevator doors won't slide open immediately; no--they won't open until the elevator has ascended or descended to the current floor, and you can tell how close it is--track its progress--by observing the LED-based indicator seen directly above he doors. This is interesting because it conveys to us that the elevators are constant motion--that they're not statically positioned objects that exist only for Snake's use; the enemy soldiers are constantly accessing and interacting with them, too, it would seem.
Now, this is all an illusion, of course--the elevators' transitioning and the indication of such wholly scripted--but one that proves to be very meaningful: It creates the sense that this place is alive and rife with activity. Solid Snake's is a functioning world, we come to feel, and this invites us to imagine how the base's inhabitants occupants go about their jobs--how their operation is run. And that, to me, is a very important world-building element.
So once we enter the elevator cab, we'll want to punch the "up" button a single time and ascend to Floor 2, where we'll be picking up a few items. It's essential that we find card 1, which opens certain locked doors; we can't advance without it. Key cards won't work unless they're set to the equipment slot. Otherwise, we can grab the Binoculars, which allow us to sneak a peek at what's happening on adjacent screens (though, we can't move while it's equipped), and a ration, using which we can replenish our entire health meter. While exploring here, we'll have to traverse carefully, since the surfaces are comprised mostly of grating. A whole lot of crawling may be in order.
I have to mention that two key changes have been made to how rations function: Most desirably is that a ration will be expended automatically if it's currently set to the equipment slot when your meter is depleted, so you won't have to panic when your health gets low. You know--get flustered and start hyperactively poking at the keyboard in a desperate bid to find the F3 key (which is bound to happen if you play in the dark). If you possess other rations of that type, one of them will immediately take the place of the expended ration in the equipment slot.
And that's the other change. Rations now come in three different types: A1, B1 and C1, with each package containing a different mix of food items. This expansionary measure hasn't been taken for the purpose of making a cosmetic change--for padding out the Equipment Select screen; rather, there's a particular reason why each ration contains unique food items. We'll get into that later.
I should also note that you can no longer cheat the system and continue to collect rations and ammo by simply leaving a room and immediately reentering. The programmers ("sadly," some might say) were on the ball and made sure to clean up the coding and thus remove what was a popular exploit in the original Metal Gear. Though, such items do respawn after a loading screen has been prompted, so you can still recollect them, though you'll have to do some work--usually a prolonged sequence wherein you have to retreat to the elevator, ride it up and down a floor, and then retrace your steps to get back where you were. This can be both tedious and time-consuming and probably not worth the effort. It's better to keep moving.
Specifically, head up to Floor 3, the base's laboratory. This is where Marv is being held. First we head north, to the computing area, where we locate the gas mask. While in search of it, we'll have to work around the enemies' motion-sensing technologies. First are the proximity sensors that regularly emit detection waves in all directions; we can safely pass by them only during the interval, when their activity has ceased. Then there are the returning trip lasers, which, as they did previously, alternate between walls and barriers in certain patterns. Under normal circumstances, these lasers are invisible; though, if you equip the cigarettes, Snake will puff them and release smoky emissions that function to reveal the lasers' locations. Thereafter, navigation becomes of matter of observing patterns and timing movements.
After obtaining the gas mask, we retreat back to the elevator room and head south, to the lab's chemical area. In the second room down, there's a soldier who will run over to the lower-left corner and switch off the lights if he becomes aware of our presence; the room will then be plunged into darkness, and we won't be able to see its objects and surfaces. And now we've been introduced to another cool mechanic: light-switch, which will occasionally come into play. We can save ourselves the trouble of having the switch the lights back on by (a) stealthily eliminating the masked soldier or (b) hiding from him by crawling beneath the computer table. His wearing a mask, by the way, is a foreshadowing event.
That is, the room to the right is filled with deadly gas, whose damaging effect will begin to drain our freshly appearing C02 meter, which appears in the HUD's lower-right corner whenever a room is awash with a certain element; if the C02 meter fully depletes, then our health meter will begin to drain. The point is that we don't have time to stand around and carefully consider our next move. Fortunately, our new gas mask provides us a measure of protection; it doesn't offer us immunity from the poison gas, no, but it does double the length of our C02 meter and affords us more time. Still, we can't advance too hastily, because the room located two screens over has one of those on-rails cameras, which can cause all kinds of trouble for us if it catches us while we're entering. We'd be wise to stop and observe its movement from the room below.
I have to tell you, man: I love those glovebox-style inserts that can be seen protruding into the adjacent containment area (which we'll enter later on). It's one my favorite little details--in Solid Snake and all of 8-bit gaming. Like so many others, it helps to create the sense that actual activity takes place here--that Solid Snake's isn't one of those sterile metallic complexes to which we're often confined in action games. It's amazing how one tiny visual can shape how you think about a game's world.
Finally we locate Dr. Marv, who seems strangely amused by our presence. In a matter of moments, we learn that he's a fake--a decoy who lured us here with a cheap transmitter, which was apparently enough to fool FOXHOUND's "outdated" detection technology. With a quick transformation, he reveals himself to be an enemy agent--Black Ninja, a former member of NASA's extraterrestrial environment special forces unit. He's here to challenge us to a fight. Welcome to the first boss battle.
Black Ninja can't be attacked from up close. If we move anywhere near him, he'll immediately teleport to another area of the room. So we have to shoot him from a distance and do so with a measure of accuracy, which proves difficult because all the while he'll be throwing ninja stars at us--three at a time, in succession; dodging them requires that we remain in constant motion, so the window for moving into position and lining up a shot is very small. Mainly, we have to shoot him when he first reappears or during the intervals between his star-tossing, neither of which is guaranteed to produce results, since he doesn't stop moving either. Our best bet is to memorize his teleportation pattern--observe how our movements influence it--manipulate him over to where we want him to be, and lead shots so that they connect with him just as he appears.
Otherwise, if you have a full complement of rations, you might be able to survive a shootout. It comes down to how you like to play it.
His defeat prompts a long dialogue exchange, which would become standard for the series. As he lie there on the ground, the gravely injured Black Ninja utters "...Snake..." When Snake inquires about how he came to know his name, Black Ninja reveals himself to be Kyle Schneider, a former resistance member who assisted Snake during his infiltration of Outer Heaven. Snake assumed that he'd been killed by Big Boss' agents. "You've still got a lot to learn," says Schneider, who informs Snake that it wasn't the enemy who tried to kill him but rather America. After Snake destroyed Metal Gear, NATO launched a massive bombing campaign against Outer Heaven, and the organization was determined to indiscriminately kill enemy and resistance fighter alike; its officers didn't care about any of the victims, most of whom were refugees and war orphans. People died like animals trapped in cages. NATO simply didn't want to deal with them, so they'd all have to be eliminated. Snake is shocked to hear this.
Schneider then speaks of a mysterious figure-referred to only as "he"--who was able to rescue some of the fallen FOXHOUNDers; "he" forgave them for their actions and provided them a new a home and a new family.
Though Schneider regards Snake as the enemy, he feels that he owes his old friend a debt (it's what "he" would want, Schneider says), so he imparts some advice. He speaks of a man who wears a green beret and patrols the first floor; if Snake locates this man and quietly trails him, he'll be led to where Dr. Marv is being held. Schneider then explodes dramatically, relieving us of his presence. He leaves behind card 2, using which we can access the first floor's northern area.
But before we move on to our next objective, we want to head back to the computer area and use our new key card to open a security door and procure the mine detector; when equipped, it displays the locations of detected land mines on our radar. Thereafter our first inclination will be to backtrack to the elevator room and take the direct route down to Floor 1, but the better option is to should submit to curiosity and instead throw ourselves into the nearby garbage shoot (labeled "Dust"), which leads down into the sewer area. The drop lands us in a disposal room, wherein a compressor will try to push us into the grinder on the left; we'll have to act quickly to reach the room's south exit and escape through it.
Once we're out into the sewer system, itself, we'll want to navigate our way over to the left via the walkways, all of which overlook watery tunnels. We can swim through them at some other time.
The music here is appropriately sad and depressing; its air of hopelessness tells us that we shouldn't stick around this place for too long. And we don't; we only came this way to gain entry to the sewer's elevator room, which provides quick access to Basement 1--a storage area wherein we can pick up some new items. At this moment in time, we can only open a few of its doors. Accessible rooms hold plastic explosives, which we can plant and detonate remotely by hitting Button I, and a submachine gun, which sprays bullets over a wide area. You can avoid detection in these parts by crawling into wall crevices, some of which hide items.
Finally, we want to head up to Floor 2 and pick up a suppressor, which is located in a room on the area's left side.
And now it's time to locate that man with the green beret. We'll find him in the northern portion of Floor 1, guarding its rear entry point. We don't want to engage him; rather, our plan is to keep our distance--hide behind or beneath the tanks--and wait for him to exit north, out into the jungle area.
What follows is a prolonged sequence wherein we have to stealthily trail him as he travels through the jungle--taking a rather circuitous path that retraces previously traversed screens--en route to an unknown location. Though, he doesn't travel nonchalantly; no--ours is a suspicious target who stops at every intersection and suddenly turns to look in the opposite direction. Knowing this, we have to make sure to avoid trailing him along whichever axis he's currently traveling--avoid tailgating and instead hide around corners, out of his sight line. But we also have to be sure not to lag too far behind, because we only have a small window of time to exit the screen after he does; he won't appear on the next screen if we take longer than, say, five seconds, and consequently we'll have to head back into the base and reinitiate the sequence.
Later on in the sequence, he'll begin charging forward along paths; at this point, trailing him becomes a matter of combining swift and timely movements. The music here is silently intense, and its precipitous manner of pounding the lines' end notes works to keep you feeling anxious and jumpy. It's neat how the soldier's movements are synced to the music--how he always turns to face the opposite direction right as an end note hits.
The sequence terminates when we arrive at the building to the north. Once we're there, we can safely take the soldier out. Strangely, there's nothing inside the building, though soon we begin to hear a series of rhythmic banging noises. They obviously represent some sort of code, but we're given no indication as to how we can decipher their meaning and act upon it. Unfortunately, none of our contacts are able to help us, so we're on our own. Quite simply, we can't advance until we solve the puzzle.
While we attempt to put the pieces together, we can also mull over the message that's being communicated to us via the building's newly introduced tune--a melancholic piece that works to evoke an unexplained sadness. I think it's meant to express how lonely and empty life can become for an independent special-ops soldier, especially when he or she knows no path forward. It's truly one of the best 8-bit tunes I've ever heard--another hit in a string of them. I can't compliment Solid Snake's composer, Masahiro Ikariko, enough for how he's able to use music to connect with us emotionally and draw us further into the game's world.
Somehow, we're supposed to infer that we're hearing a "tap code" that translates to "14082," which is of course a frequency we can input into our transceiver (to be honest, I simply went through the numbers in sequence, starting at "00," until I stumbled onto the correct one). We find that the code was being banged out by Dr. Pettrovich Madnar, who we rescued in Metal Gear. He's being held in the adjacent room (which we can confirm by peeking into it with the binoculars), though we can't bomb our way through, since the walls are highly fortified. So for now, we can only contact him via transceiver.
Madnar informs us that he knows of Dr. Marv; they met during their younger days, when they were both students at Prague Academy. They didn't speak each other's language, but they considered themselves to be scientific comrades. Both he and Marv were captured while they were visiting America. Marv, he tells us, has been moved to the Tower Building, which rests a few kilometers north. Pettrovich is being kept alive for one specific reason: The enemy is building a new Metal Gear (the one we fought in the original was a mere prototype)--an advanced model that will soon enter mass-production phase. It was this Metal Gear that attacked the nuclear disposal sites.
Zanzibar Land is now the sole owner of nukes, and it has its sighes set on Oilix, a "miracle energy source." Snake correctly guesses that Big Boss is the one masterminding all of this. He plans to use Metal Gear and Oilix as the means for ruling the world! We can stop him from getting his hands on the latter by saving Dr. Marv, but we have to hurry because Marv has a weak heart and might not be able to withstand their information-extracting torture techniques. Both he and Marv are carrying micro-transmitters in their bodies; they were implanted by a female agent from STB (Czech State Security). If we can locate her, she might be willing to help us find Marv. Madnar then mumbles something about being old and being afraid for his daughter, Ellen, who hasn't yet married, but then he quickly drops it and changes the subject (she has feelings for Snake, it appears, and Madnar was trying to hint at such). In closing, he speaks of his zoologist friend, Johan Jacobsen (the third Belushi brother, apparently), who can tell us everything we need to know about animals; his frequency is 140.40.
Since currently we can't bomb through the walls, which are constructed of Chobham armor plate, we'll have to come back for Madnar at a later time.
So now we have to head over to the jungle's east side. Once there, we can move in one of two directions. If we proceed north, to the desert area, we'll receive a communication from our "number one fan," who informs us that we're in a minefield. Equipping our mine detector confirms as much; they can be seen pretty much clogging up all of the available passageways. Their ubiquity and troubling positioning suggest that we're not ready to traverse these parts, but in reality we can thanks to a new feature that allows us to pick up mines and place them in our inventory by crawling over them; we can then use them as our own! I don't know if it mentions as much in the manual, or if you have to figure this out for yourself. Having already watched people play through both this and future Metal Gear games, I had foreknowledge of this feature.
Up ahead, we find some units patrolling the desert. We notice that there's something strange about the surface texture in these rooms; somehow they look different from the rest. Holly contacts us with information that the ground here is formed from "singing sand," which was imported from Okinowa, Japan (it's like in Shadowgate, where every object has a history behind it; what great world-building!); it'll emit a squeaking sound if we walk on it. So if we want to avoid bringing any unwanted attention onto ourselves, we'll have to crawl through these spaces--beneath the trucks if necessary. Two such trucks, by the way, hold items: ammo packs and a rations.
This is where you might run into trouble with the crawling mechanic, whose implementation is a bit spotty. Some issues are sure to arise. For one, it's easy to become stuck in place while crawling. Openings are usually placed along very specific axes, and they're never quite as wide as they appear to be; this leads to instances where you try to crawl through a tile-and-a-half-wide opening and wind up getting stuck in place because only a very specific portion of the opening is negotiable and you were a few pixels off. This is never a good thing when soldiers are moving toward your position and you're in a rush to find cover. Also, Snake is programmed to enter into a crouch whenever he bumps into an object; this cancels out his crawl and likewise results in him getting stuck in place. In order to reenter crawling mode from a crouch, you have to move away from the object and do so at a sufficient distance, lest you'll continue to remain in a crouch. I guess they didn't have enough time to iron out the kinks.
If we continue moving north, we'll encounter the Hind D--an attack-and-transport helicopter. Though, we're ill-equipped to deal with it at this time (a lesson we'll learn the hard way if we attempt to attack it with our current weapons). So we have to retreat back to the jungle's eastern portion and head right--to the swamp. At first, the swamp will appear to be unnavigable; if we walk upon it, we'll begin to quickly sink to its bottom. Sink all the way and you die. The only way to stop sinking is to retreat back onto solid ground.
The child soldier who wanders around this screen swears to us that he saw a truck drive over the swamp, but we're not sure what to make of his words. It just doesn't appear as though there's an obvious way to cross this swamp.
Though, if we experiment a bit--attempt to walk across the swamp's surface from different locations--we'll find that there are actually shallow pathways sewn into it. There are a number of these pathways, and they intersect at certain points; though, only one specific route will carry us all the way through to the next area, and we have to find it by essentially feeling our way around--by sloooooowly, carefully treading forward until we start to sink, at which point we must quickly retreat to solid ground and look elsewhere for a spot in which the pathway veers. And we have to do this over the course of four whole screens. This is one of those "mischievous" segments that Kojima and crew are known for producing. They meant for this process to be frustrating and tedious. For whatever reason, they enjoy messing with players in this fashion. Bunch'a rascals.
When we arrive at the swamp's northeast portion, we find another building. Two rooms in, we're met by a soldier who calls himself "the Running Man" (and it becomes more apparent that Kojima had a great fondness for 80s-era American action films).
The Running Man boasts that he's the world's fastest mercenary. No one can keep up with him. He demonstrates this for us by quickly (or "somewhat speedily," in actual viewing) cycling around the four separate screens that comprise his chamber. The implication is that we're going to have to somehow chase him down if we hope to inflict damage. And to complicate matters, he releases a nerve gas, which limits the amount of time we have to do so. It doesn't help that he's more than twice as fast as us and relies on a tactic of pure evasion; he's always aware of which screen we're on and makes sure to never enter it. So if we're unable to catch up to him, how can we shoot him?
The answer is that we can't. Rather, what we're expected to do is observe his movement pattern and plant some of our newly collected mines along the paths he chooses to travel. Thereafter, we have to tactically influence his movement so that he runs over them and gets caught in the explosions. While doing so, we have to be careful not to run into the mines, which won't be visible to us if we don't have the mine detector equipped. Not that we should, of course; no--we'd be foolish not to keep the gas mask on at all times.
Eight hits will do him in.
Following a short dialogue exchange, in which he chokes on the irony of a snake beating a cheetah by using its speed as a weapon against it, the Running Man explodes and leaves behind card 3. We can use it to access the building's eastern room, where we find some child soldiers; they inform us that there used to be stinger missiles in this building, but just a few days before, they were moved to the west side of the Zanzibar building's first floor, where they'd be loaded onto tanks.
So we have to head all the way back to the southern base and use card 3 to enter is western wing, the factory area, and proceed south while hiding from an on-rails camera and two guards. In the lower-left room, we'll find the stinger missiles. We can then proceed back to the desert and use our new anti-aircraft weapon to deal with the Hind D. Before we leave, though, we should travel over to Floor 1's now-accessible northern portion and grab the red card, which is compatible with key cards 1-3; it replaces all three of them in the equipment screen, which generally removes some of the clutter. Later on, we can return here and obtain other such cards from the adjacent rooms.
Still, while this condensing of card keys is a desirable feature, it isn't a cure for the game's pause-and-swap issue, which has been carried over from the original Metal Gear. That is, opening locked doors--specifically those whose security level is unknown to you--remains a matter of continuously accessing the equipment screen and swapping in available cards until you just happen to select the one that allows entry. The more cards you possess, the more tedious this process becomes. Also, it's never a good thing to find yourself parked near a doorway for ten or more seconds, trying desperately to find the correct passkey, when you're in an alert phase and bullets are flying your way and enemies are breathing down your neck. Condensing the number of cards removes some of the inconvenience but doesn't get to the root of the issue; a better solution would have been to program it so that locked doors open automatically if the game detects that the corresponding card key is in your equipment screen.
To their credit, they got this right in the future Metal Gear Solid games.
And now it's time to take on the Hind D.
The biggest complication is that we can't actually see or directly attack the Hind D once it lifts off; it flies so far overhead that all we can do is observe its looming shadow. Otherwise, we can track its flight path on our radar, doing which tells us that the Hind D likes to circle the four-screen battlefield in a clockwise motion. Staying out of sight is vital; if ever the two of us are on the same screen and we get caught out in the open, the Hind D will begin to spray us with machine-gun fire and inflict severe damage. While planning our attack, we'll want to maintain cover by either continuing to travel along the adjacent screens--preferably trail the Hind D instead of getting out ahead of it--or stay hidden beneath the protective metal shelters, which are scattered about.
If we hope to destroy the Hind D, we'll have to effectively utilize our anti-aircraft stinger missiles. When we equip them, a target reticule will appear on our radar. As we shift it about, we learn that the reticule can be moved along the currently occupied grid tile and the three that are adjacent to it. What we have to do is (a) memorize the Hind D's movements, (b) calcuably position the reticule, and (c) wait for the Hind D to overlap with the circle at its center, at which point we can fire off a shot with reliable accuracy. If the shot connects, the screen will flash red, and we'll hear a piercing noise. And after we strike the Hind D four times, it'll explode; its metallic remains will then fall to the ground, confirming as much.
Be aware that you only have five stinger missiles and a small margin of error. If you continue to miscalculate and wind up depleting your stock, you'll have to travel all the way back to the factory to pick up some more missiles.
With the Hind D out of our way, we can now gain access to the tower building. Not surprisingly, we can't enter the building through its front door, since it's locked and heavily guarded. We can't get in through the crevice on the left, since the air duct beyond merely loops around; all we find here is a ration. When we travel to the right, Campbell calls us and suggests that we locate a cardboard box and disguise ourselves as part of the cargo that's currently being transported into the building via a conveyor; he also informs us that he's changing his frequency to 140.66--to avoid having his signal traced (in the Japanese version and the PS3/Xbox English ports, which are included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Solid Snake HD Edition, he doesn't mention the new frequency address and instead tells you to find it in the game's manual).
Conveniently, there's a cardboard box waiting for us in a nearby truck. If we equip it while standing near the conveyor, we'll be automatically transported into the building. We're dropped off in a storage room.
When we advance one screen north, Holly contacts us and tells us that she's in trouble. The enemy has discovered her identity and has imprisoned her, though she's not sure where, since the enemy made sure to blindfold her after capturing her. But she does know that she's somewhere in the tower building. All she can do is tell us what she hears--tell us what we should listen for: To the left, there's an elevator; to the right, there's a noise that sounds like a pump; and in the rooms in front and behind her, there's water flowing. Now that we're able to put together a picture in our head, we can make an effort to rescue her. This is just one of a few things we have to do while we're in this tower.
There are three elevators on this first floor: One to the north and two others that are placed within the spiraling passageway that comprises the floor's southwest portion. A trio of speedy soldiers patrols this area; if we want to avoid alerting them to our presence, we have to tread carefully, because the floors here are covered with grating; our best bet is to hide within one of the many conveniently placed wall crevices and wait for them to pass (really, it's nice of Big Boss to design complexes for people who like to stealthily infiltrate them).
While we're free to travel about--ride the elevators and see where they go--we won't make actual progress until we tackle objectives in the intended order. The direct path starts with the spiral's first elevator; we take it down to Basement 1--the familiar sewer system, which we're now accessing from its northern point. From here, we want to curl around to the north and find an empty room whose surrounding structures emit sounds that are a match for the aural descriptors given to us by Holly. We can use plastic explosives (if your stock is low, you can find some of these in one of the preceding rooms) to bomb through the wall on the right. That's where Holly is being held (again--you can confirm this by peeking in with the binoculars).
Snake lays a little of that ol' sweet talk on her, but she pretty much no-sells it (though, the romantic-sounding music does suggest that there's a mutual attraction between them). She gets right to the point and informs us that Marv is OK, though she doesn't know of his exact location. He's under armed guard, she says, though he was able to smuggle out a clue as to his whereabouts via a carrier pigeon. After Holly failed to catch it, it flew up one of the tower's elevator shafts. So now it's our responsibility to head up to the roof and find it. Holly suspects that the enemy has rigged her transceiver, so she lets us know that she's changing her frequency to 140.76. Before exiting, she provides us a copy of card 4.
If we so desire, we can stick around the sewer and do some exploring. The ladders placed at the walkway's edges allow us to access the watery tunnels; we can walk or swim through them depending upon the water's level. Swimming uses up oxygen, since we choose to fully submerge while doing so, but it allows us to move three-times our normal speed. Though, we have to be sure not to spend too much time in the water, lest we'll catch a cold; this condition proves troublesome because it causes Snake to occasionally sneeze, doing which can potentially alert soldiers to your presence. If we wind up catching a cold, we're going to have to live with it for a while, since we don't yet possess the means to treat it. Also, as we navigate the tunnels, we have to avoid making contact with the floating mines, whose explosive blasts wipe away about a fourth of our health.
While traveling these tunnels, we can grab ourselves a ration and interact with some child soldiers. Most importantly, we can squeeze into a narrow gap in the sewer's south portion and access the southern-base elevator; from there, we can re-explore the southern base and stock up on items.
Ultimately, we want to head back to the tower's first floor and ride its northern elevator up to Floor 10.
Floor 10 features a series of corridors, though they're divided by solid-looking walls. A roaming child soldier tells us that there are indeed passages that connect these corridors, but they're "buried." The implication is that sections of these walls are destructible. We can test a section's integrity by throwing punches into it; if our strike produces a high-pitched "thunk," then we can bomb through the section in question with our plastic explosives. We have to make sure that none of the children get caught in the explosions; killing any of them will result in a loss of our health.
One of the other child soldiers speaks of "green pineapples," which hints at what we need to obtain here. In the area's southmost corridor, we find a room that holds grenades, which will be of great use to us in the near future. Tossed grenades travel about a half a screen in length and land squarely on the helpfully placed reticule that's projected forward when grenades are equipped.
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