Board 8 > Just started playing through Metal Gear Solid for the first time.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Must not be on the right floor, then. You have to take the elevator from the tank hangar. When you get to the ladder, Campbell will helpfully instruct you on how to climb ladders

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

I have to get to an elevator from the tank hangar?

Well okay, that wasn't surprising given the Colonel's instructions, but I wasn't able to find one. I guess I have to find an elevator and press some buttons to make it show up?

It's in the north, next to the huge sealed off doors. The buttons are to the right of it

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

Next to the main door leading inside the facility which Snake deduces isn't a viable way to enter the facility in an early cutscene? I'd hope.

Also, the first time I entered it, the area right in front of the main door of Shadow Moses on the outside was reminiscent of a similar area right in front of Hyrule Castle door in A Link to the Past.

No, that's the south end. It's north

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

Pretty sure the Darpa chief is on Floor B1 of the Tank Hangar. You take the elevator down and I'm pretty sure the game makes it pretty obvious where the vent is on floor B1.

DeathChicken posted...

No, that's the south end. It's north

Yeah you're right. I had the area in mind correct, but for some reason I kept thinking that the large door on the north part of the bottom floor of the tank hangar is the same as the main door leading inside. However, I understand that it's not.

Will simply try to look for the elevator there. I wish I could boot up the game now but my brother is using the PS3 at the moment.

colliding posted...

Pretty sure the Darpa chief is on Floor B1 of the Tank Hangar. You take the elevator down and I'm pretty sure the game makes it pretty obvious where the vent is on floor B1.

I'll probably find out what all this is about after entering the elevator.

I found the elevator and to floor B1, where the DARPA chief was sitting. The area leading up to his room was somewhat reminiscent of the Blackbird in Chrono Trigger.

We then came across MGS's "infamous" cutscenes, but...I'm generally someone who doesn't mind long cutscenes in video games at all, and Snake's conversation with the DARPA Chief definitely revealed a lot of interesting and hair-raising info (really, mass producing Metal Gears?), followed by his own death later revealed to be at the hands of Psycho Mantis. Some woman (name's Meryl Silverburgh, right?) listened in on everything, opened the chief's cell, and accused Snake of killing him! And then...

..."you're shaking. You're acting like a rookie. *points gun at woman*"

But we don't have much time for talk because it's time for a firefight! It wasn't hard at all aside from the one time where I was readying my gun and the enemies responded by throwing grenades. Whoops. And then the lady ran into the elevator and Snake had a hallucination because of Psycho Mantis. Yeah, this game's major villains definitely make their presence known! Here's hoping that Mantis has some disturbing backstory (he does IIRC, but my memory may be foggy).

I went to floor B2 and got C4 and grenades (plus a refill on every other weapon aside from stun grenades), followed by a revisit to the tank hangar to use Chief Donald Anderson's keycard to unlock new rooms and obtain Snake's cardboard box. On a side note, it's going to be pretty silly not being able to use a keycard and thermal vision at the same time, but I get the feeling that that won't be as much of an issue as it could be.

Looks like I'll have to use C4 to bomb walls and reveal a secret passage. A passage which, if I remember correctly, will lead to the first boss battle.

I found Revolver Ocelot and, after two failed attempts, managed to defeat him without using a ration (since I didn't have one). Fun boss battle, although a bit basic I guess (the gist of the fight was pretty much chasing Ocelot and shooting him when he slowed down in order to make his own shots, reload, or what have you. I did frequently change direction during the battle, plus Snake still has to avoid Ocelot's own shots, which is not the easiest thing in the world).

Afterwards, I stumbled into a really long cutscene. But..., I actually enjoyed every minute of it! I feel that this game's story is getting more and more interesting as it progresses (and it was already quite intriguing to begin with), while still not very difficult to understand at all. Maybe I should expect no less from Metal Gear Solid, but...I'm definitely having fun with this game, and it's not hard at all for me to understand how much of a revolution this must've been back in the day as far as blurring the line between cinema and video games. But regardless of influence or importance, I'm just having a really good time with MGS1, period.

Anyway, defeating Ocelot seemed to increase Snake's maximum health (not 100% sure about this) and double his max ammo for each weapon. I also later picked up the Fa-Mas, which is quite a step up from anything else in Snake's arsenal! I stupidly attempted some aggressive play as a result (again, what was I thinking? This is supposed to be a stealth game!) for a short while. My objective is currently to locate Hal Emmerich (Otacon, right?), who is supposed to be...in some building to the north? Don't exactly remember. Maybe the game will inform me when I start my next session.

Also, since I'm playing this off of the PlayStation Network, I obviously don't have the CD case to look up Meryl's Codec Number - however, I've heard that it's somewhere in the game itself in the PSN version. Still quite curious about this.

It's actually somewhere in the manual for the PSN version, as I recall

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

I looked there and couldn't find it.

A certain IGN article suggests that it's "in an in-game help menu". I'll look in the manual one more time.

I defeated Vulcan Raven and infiltrated the nuclear warhead storage facility. I now have Snake's rocket launcher and gas mask and am trying to find a way to get to Hal Emmerich.

And boss #3 is defeated. Gray Fox was easy and I never died during the fight at all, but I still had fun. Although I couldn't help but think "Final Fantasy" when he said something along the lines of "I have come from another world to duel you".

Afterwards, Naomi Hunter revealed the disturbing story of what happened to Gray Fox after his supposed death in some earlier game in the series (Metal Gear 2? Just to ask, a good number of characters from this game made their first appearance there, no?). Then Otacon gave me just what I wanted: more info on Metal Gear REX.

Despite the long cutscenes, this game pretty much has a 10/10 on story locked - I'm hard pressed to think of a flaw otherwise. Unfortunately, my parents were trying to talk to me while I was watching that cutscene, so I may have missed some important info. From what I remember, the gist of it is that Metal Gear REX was created by Otacon to serve as defense against nuclear missiles, but then was turned into the exact opposite by President Baker. Yikes! Still very intriguing though. And then Otacon revealed his family's involvement in nuclear weapons manufacture. Everyone in this game seems to have some disturbing (but very well told all the same) backstory.

Now that I have a level 4 keycard, it seems that I'll have to backtrack to find new areas. I always enjoy Metroidvania elements like this, though, and MGS has been no different.

MGS2 is more linear from what I've heard though, although I'm looking forward to its gameplay improvements quite a lot.

I think Snake, Fox, Boss, Campbell and Miller were in MG2. Not sure who else.

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XIII_rocks, the cream of XIII fanboyism.

Also how did you find out the frequency

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XIII_rocks, the cream of XIII fanboyism.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Just be grateful you have MGS4 to wrap things up regarding MGS2. That game's only major issue with its ambition was its lack of follow-up; some things were left dangling for seven years. >___>

Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying the game so much. There are a few games out there where the long cutscenes really don't detract at all, and instead allow the genuinely good writing to go somewhere instead of just kiting you along to your next shootout or what-have-you. Xenogears is another of them, although in that game's case, favorite of mine or not I'll admit it's more like... you're slogging through a lot of the gameplay portions awaiting those cutscenes.

In MGS, you're really enjoying both.

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K | H | A | Q | Q | A | H | K
"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

Yeah, MGS is IMO just as much about the gameplay as it is about the story, if not both. At the very least, I'm having a lot of fun both playing the game and watching its cutscenes.

And while the cutscenes may be rather long, I'd much sooner say that I'm waiting to see what sort of major exposition is around the corner than not. That last cutscene pretty much continued along two plot threads that had already been introduced earlier (the ones relating to Gray Fox and Metal Gear REX...also I know why the only person who's providing Snake with info on Gray Fox is Dr. Naomi Hunter), and then introduced Otacon's disturbing backstory at the same time.

Long story short: MGS definitely keeps its plot focused. I can think of a perfect example of a game that muddies an (IMO) otherwise good story by having pretty much no focus (along with at least one or two other major issues).

Also, all of the major exposition cutscenes have happened after clearing a major objective - the last two both taking place after boss battles, to boot. This is something I point out to as a major strong point of the storylines in Zelda games - that story progression is almost always a reward for clearing a major objective (often finishing a dungeon), and it's nice to see that MGS is at least somewhat comparable even if its plot is more expository and the game is obviously more story-heavy.

Speaking of boss battles...I kinda like how all three of the bosses I've fought so far didn't die when defeated - and I know all three of them (Revolver Ocelot, Vulcan Raven, and Gray Fox) play a major role in the rest of the game's storyline. Plus there's the whole thing about Ocelot getting his hand cut off by Gray Fox. I KNOW WHAT THAT LEADS TO...

XIII_rocks posted...

Also how did you find out the frequency

It was in the in-game manual.

Also it probably helps that the game's level design is rather expansive and isn't all that linear.

One more thing on the story: I really like the "historical" context and real-world footage the game uses in some cutscenes! Guess I'm going to be missing those in the sequels, huh.

XIII_rocks posted...

the cutscenes are dumb, etc.

Just for the record, gotta say those cutscenes are superb, Ryuhei Kitamura is my man. It's all been discussed of course, but I just like to chime in.

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One Piece: Pirates with style!
-= Metal Gear Solid: Tactical Espionage Action =-

I'm with XIII on this one for sure, but I can understand how there'd be fans of the style. Just not my cup of tea at all.

Speaking of boss battles...I kinda like how all three of the bosses I've fought so far didn't die when defeated - and I know all three of them (Revolver Ocelot, Vulcan Raven, and Gray Fox) play a major role in the rest of the game's storyline. Plus there's the whole thing about Ocelot getting his hand cut off by Gray Fox. I KNOW WHAT THAT LEADS TO...

lolol, yes indeed.

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"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

LIQUID OCELOT

I'm definitely going to get back to playing sooner rather than later.

I was also somewhat considering delving into another stealth series sometime soon (likely Assassin's Creed), but there are a LOT of other series I'd rather get to first (e.g. the rest of MGS, FF, Metroid, Zelda, CT, MMX, Portal/Half-Life, heck even the likes of Okami and Xenogears are included there).

even the likes of [...] Xenogears

There is never a reason to say it in such manner. Take pride, brave soldier, for Xenogears is exceptional.

:DDD

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"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

Oh yeah, forgot RE in there.

God, no. I played Xenogears recently, and the sheer number of random encounters crammed into awful dungeons made me never want to do it again

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

Okay, every game I'm interested in playing next (with a one game per series rule), ordered from most wanted to least wanted:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Final Fantasy VII
Super Metroid
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

(most everything afterwards is tough)

Resident Evil 4
Xenogears
Zone of the Enders
Chrono Trigger
Mega Man X
Assassin's Creed
Portal 2
Okami

And...it's kinda funny to think that the next Metal Gear will be a spin-off action game starring a freaking cyborg ninja.

Okay, I progressed forward. I wonder if there's anymore to Metal Gear REX...

First I managed to catch Meryl while she was using the bathroom...although it was actually more like the other way around. Long story short: Snake and Meryl ended up chatting about some deep messages involving how war doesn't create any heroes, and Meryl revealed her silly, sorry excuse for being a soldier. This was also the first time in the game Snake's personality seemed to come into play, and he pretty much confirmed himself as a lone wolf.

Next up, a final confrontation with the freaky Psycho Mantis. Not much needs to be said about this guy that hasn't been said - he's here to toy around with both Snake's and the player's mind, and to provide some memorable fourth-wall breaking dialogue. And I was definitely right about him having a disturbing backstory! Was not disappointed at all by him. His "posthumous" acts of kindness were a good finishing touch.

After navigating through the wolves' territory with quite some difficulty, I happened upon a cutscene where Meryl got horribly injured by Sniper Wolf, with Snake vowing to save her. I ended up looking EVERYWHERE for a sniper rifle after that and I don't have one still. I called the colonel and Otacon afterwards and...apparently it's in the armory below the tank hangar. Great, that place is absolutely crawling with guards.

Will continue tomorrow.

...actually, there's one room in the armory I didn't search - the room with laser traps that look really difficult to avoid. Guess I'm going to have to either navigate past the traps, or trigger the traps and hurry to safety. Obviously the former is preferrable, but the latter will be done if I fail to avoid the traps.

Also, when Psycho Mantis told Snake and Meryl the path to where Metal Gear REX is being stored, he remarked about "glaciers in the way", which couldn't help but make me think about some environment-related gameplay mechanics in the sequels, such as how weather apparently factors into MGS2's gameplay (not sure how that works), and the camouflage systems of MGS3 and MGS4.

To be fair, MGS1 is already making headway here with stuff like guards following footprints in the snow...

I have heard stuff about MGS4 being only half gameplay. Will have to see about that.

But if MGS4's cutscenes are able to consistently deliver compelling info in the same way that MGS1 does, I don't think I'll mind one bit.

Also I already know about MGS4's final boss battle thanks to The Autarch of Flame's Top 15 Final Bosses video series. Kinda weird to think the first boss in MGS1 is MGS4's final boss (as well as the main antagonist of MGS2/3/4).

It's slightly more complicated than that. In 3, he's more of a henchman to the Big Bad. In 2 and 4...well, you'll see

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

In 2 and 4 he's Liquid Ocelot, as I already established I know earlier in this thread.

I guess there's more to him. Obviously there's more! It's MGS, after all!

mgs1 is the best in the series. So take your time.

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brawl 3524 9730 2525 - LALA

Yeah, but the complicated part is who is actually piloting who in that scenario

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable

Metal Gear Rex is piloting

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One Piece: Pirates with style!
-= Metal Gear Solid: Tactical Espionage Action =-

I've heard Leonhart draw parallels between Snake's relationship with Meryl in MGS1 and Squall's relationship with Rinoa in FFVIII, and I understand how if the gist of the situation is "protagonist with lone wolf personality becomes more caring via romance".

It's to the point where FFVIII is now the FF I'm most interested in playing now (and 2nd in my "next playthrough consideration list" after MGS2), as I'd like to draw comparisons. However, from what I've heard, Squall's personality has greater presence in FFVIII than Snake's does in MGS1, and for many that isn't a good thing. Oh well.

"Snake, you have the genes of a soldier, not a savior."
"I don't care what genes I have."

From: DeathChicken | #076

God, no. I played Xenogears recently, and the sheer number of random encounters crammed into awful dungeons made me never want to do it again

Still my favorite game. *plugs ears*

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K | H | A | Q | Q | A | H | K
"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

I wish I were you OP. I wish I can just erase my entire knowledge of the MGS series and start from scrath and experience the magic from scratch.

On a side note: I still think MGS1 is the best in the series. One cannot forget his first time playing MGS1 14 years ago.
I cried all the way throughout MGS4's act 4.

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Rock n' Roll and Glam Metal... It never died

LinkMarioSamus posted...

XIII_rocks posted...

Also how did you find out the frequency

It was in the in-game manual.

Also it probably helps that the game's level design is rather expansive and isn't all that linear.

One more thing on the story: I really like the "historical" context and real-world footage the game uses in some cutscenes! Guess I'm going to be missing those in the sequels, huh.

What do you mean, "missing"? Historical context is there throughout the series, I'm not sure about real-world footage, but that's not as important.

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Blitzball fan? Try Captain Tsubasa II (in English) for NES!
Game reviews/articles by me: http://betweenlifeandgames.com

Okay, every game I'm interested in playing next (with a one game per series rule), ordered from most wanted to least wanted:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Final Fantasy VII
Super Metroid
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

(most everything afterwards is tough)

Resident Evil 4
Xenogears
Zone of the Enders
Chrono Trigger
Mega Man X
Assassin's Creed
Portal 2
Okami

Tell me you were born yesterday. *kidding

Finish the entire MGS series first, then have a blast playing through arguably the best game ever made and than the 3rd best side scrolling game and then one of the most overrated yet still fantastic game.

As for RE4, I just cannot see how you've missed this game unless you were hiding under some sort of rock.
CT, MMX and Okami are all fantastic games in their own right. CT is a lil overrated mind you (with its bad SNES era writing, can't blame them).
Portal 2, I haven't played through enough to give it a good judgement. Portal 1 however was fantastic.

Expect a drop of quality once you start your playthrough of Zone of the Enders especially compared to the other games you've mentioned here. Unless you're some sort of a crazy Gundam/Gears fan, the game is excessively average in just about everything. Whiny protagonist, pretty boring story, short, repetitive gameplay is how I'd sum up Z.O.E 1 not to mention an incomplete storyline. Z.O.E 2 is better but not by that much. It is one of the most overlooked yet overrated games I've ever played and I say this as a huge fan of Hideo Kojima's work.

There's a reason why I left Xenogears for last. This is because I just recently finished my 5th playthrough of it.
My first time playing Xenogears, I didn't have a single clue what was going on. Granted I was only a teenager then. It was only after my 2nd playthrough that I had a 70% grasp of the story. The beauty of Xenogears is that you learn something everytime you replay it. So here's how it stands. After playing through it for a fifth time and reading "Perfect Works", I can confidently say that I have about a 98% grasp on the story. And just so you know nothing else quite compares to it. For a while everything else (that is stories in Video Games) will seem insignificant compared to it... trust me.

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Rock n' Roll and Glam Metal... It never died

Excellent post.

:P

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"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

Yep... Xenogears is like that.

Surprisingly, though, the Xenosaga trilogy comes close enough (closer than I thought possible). But you have to play through the whole trilogy.

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Blitzball fan? Try Captain Tsubasa II (in English) for NES!
Game reviews/articles by me: http://betweenlifeandgames.com

Okay, now Final Fantasy VIII replaces Final Fantasy VII for reasons I detailed earlier in this thread.

Also, that was NOT meant to be the order of my next playthroughs! It was merely a list of the 12 games I'm most considering for my next playthrough, and only the top 4 matter at all.

I've beaten RE4 and CT once each, and Ocarina of Time and Super Metroid twice each. They are all there for replay purposes.

For discussion purposes, I'll post the order I had in mind for playing through each of the series represented by the games in the top 4 (again, not set in stone at all. The order could change midway through, I could just stop one series in the middle, etc.).

Metal Gear: MGS1 -> MGS2 -> MGS3 -> MGS4 -> Peace Walker -> Metal Gear -> Metal Gear 2 -> The Twin Snakes
Final Fantasy: FFVIII -> FFVII -> FFVI -> FFIX -> FFIV
Metroid: Super Metroid -> Prime Trilogy (1 -> 2 -> 3) -> Other M -> Fusion
Zelda: Ocarina of Time -> Twilight Princess -> The Wind Waker

I've played all of the Nintendo games at least once in the past if not twice (and have really good memories of all of them - although some more than others obviously), but I would very much like to replay them soon (however, MGS and FF both take priority for now). My gaming will not be just about pressing on to new games - that's a mistake I made once! I'd like to have a good balance between blind playthroughs and replays.

For what it's worth, I don't even have my Wii right now. I'll have it back by the end of this month. Until then, the above is pretty much a list of every game I'd like to replay anytime soon, although, as I stated, it can expect serious fluctuation.

Some other points:

-Peace Walker, the old Metal Gears, and The Twin Snakes are only here because of posters in this thread.
-The Final Fantasy list has fluctuated a lot recently. FFVII and FFVI were first there at times.
-The Metroid list originally had the Prime trilogy first, with Super Metroid being sandwiched between the two "soldier-ridden" Metroids.
-Skyward Sword, Majora's Mask, and A Link to the Past have all been on the Zelda list at times, but for now I'm not interested enough in them.

Okay, I got tortured to death and hadn't saved since before getting a sniper rifle. Oops.

I want to try and save Meryl since I can't stand to see her die. That, plus series canon.

Good luck.

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"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

I'll try resisting Ocelot's torture two more times before trying the ketchup trick. Does Meryl get killed if I escape from jail before all torture is done with?

I really don't remember, sorry.

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K | H | A | Q | Q | A | H | K
"we're about 50 years behind the rest of western society." -icon on B8

She only dies if you give up during it

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We are thought, and reality, and concept, and the unimaginable