@devil240z: Usually 8am GMT on tuesday, so almost 22 hours from right now.

I never really shot at him other than when I was right behind him in a hold-up position. To find out where he was, I would go prone and have my camo index at it's max, take out my Directional Mic and start spinning 360 degrees to see if I could hear him - if I couldn't I'd know he's not in this area and move onto another, and repeat.

After finding his direction, I would then go into the map viewer, and see what sniping point is related to that position, and then find a way to get to the back of it. Doing this slowly, using crawling or slow walking behind large objects like big boulders/cliffs. The end will hear you and face your direction if you're anywhere near him, if you're not using the D-Pad to walk.

Get behind him, hold him up - make him shake 3 times to get his moss camo - using this to get 100% camo index on the ground most of the time. If he runs, you can shout him in the back, but don't fire too many times, just the once. Try to face away from the Stun Grenade he throws as the blinding effect won't last as long. Then use your Thermal Goggles to follow his footprints to his next location, remembering to use your D-Mic every so often to see if he's close by - as he'll start talking more and saying 'This is THE END', etc.

Rinse and repeat. Or you can just find out where he is and blap him a few times with the SVD and all that if you don't want to be too sneaky sneaky.

I wasn't sure if it was monday or tuesday.

@charlie_victor_bravo: That's pretty cool.

Just waiting for the tree frogs.

Only three hours left, can't wait to see how Drew will be able to beat The End. For my fight, I'm gonna refrain from using the directional mic to make it a little more challenging. Also apparently the parrots from MGS2 and Snaker Eater are the same breed and Kojima joked that Emma's parrot is the grandson of The End's parrot. Looking forward to catching it!

Metal Gear?! Tonight? What a lovely surprise!

Just throwing my two cents into this thread; I think Drew is playing as well as any of us did/would on our first run through, given a steadfast unwillingness to look at a walkthrough.

He may be a bit more skittish than most, I think playing these games in such quick succession has left drew relying on his understanding of guard behavior/consequence in previous games- Specifically the healthy fear he developed for the unpredictable/oldschool guards of MGS- but otherwise he's fine.

Comparisons to DSP are unwarranted (Performance in graniny gorky notwithstanding.) and yall should try and enjoy the ride. Relish this rare creature; this babe in the woods, Cherish the fear in his eyes as he faces the fear, enjoy the many Ends he will enjoy thanks to the End, Subsist on the sorrow he'll feel when he can't figure out the sorrow. Godsakes, boys, this pantywaist doesn't know what he's doing, and neither did you. Try to garner some healthy schadenfreude.

Though, to be fair, I think Drew might be getting a little too stressed by this game. in a perfect world, Dan would have him play through Snake Vs Monkey next ep, and get a feel for the movement whilst enjoying some silly. Release some tension, and some Apes.

They don't have it. It's not in the HD Collection.

Anyone else getting a 404 when trying to watch episode 6?

@xanadu: Yep! I tried twice and now the link is gone :(

Yep! They've also now removed the link from the home page (and it isn't showing up in the video feeds), so either they're working on it right now or the auto-uploader is broken.

I stayed up for an extra two hours just because I was excited for the next episode, so I'll be super bummed if it doesn't get ironed out within the next half hour :/

Well I don't know if it was just luck but I cleared my cache and the page started working.

Just luck timing; looks like they fixed it

This happens literally every time they post a new episode, you just have to watch it in the embedded video on the homepage. The individual page for the video doesn't go up for several minutes but you can watch it embedded the second it comes up.

Tomorrow's episode is 3 hours earlier, Jason says it may or may not have taken Drew six hours to beat The End.

Edit: False alarm. It didn't take six hours. I am both saddened and relieved.

@teddie: I think he's just appealing to the eastern time zones who have to wait until 3am to watch new episodes if they plan on staying up.

@teddie: That sounds crazy in theory but I would never watch that whole thing without skipping through a bunch of it. Let's face it, a video that long would not be about a grand learning experience with constant progress. It would be Drew trying something twelve times with little commentary, than switching it up a little and trying that 8 times, etc.

Looks like Drew'll beat him next time. Although he'll probably do it lethally which means he won't get the mosin nagant. Maybe by a stroke of luck he'll be able to get the moss camo, but that it's ever useful again in the latter part of the game.

@dudeglove: Good chance he'll find the SVD and just do it in a true sniper rifle vs sniper rifle duel.

Uh, I never complain about how bad let's players play games really but......really, Drew?

You attach a new suppressor then you unload the entire thing on a guy in random places like 50 feet away from you who didn't even see you before then? Jesus man

I cannot fucking wait until they play 4

Lets bear in mind Drew's all doing this in front of an audience so it might not be the truest way he plays games.

Interested to see how long this takes Drew. I seem to recall my first encounter on the PS2 taking about an hour. Just replayed it on PS3 a few months back and it didn't take nearly that long. Maybe 10-15 mins. Just sneak up on him and machine gun him in the back, then chase him as he runs, shooting him the whole time. Only really annoying thing is when he starts to heal! That was bullshit.

maybe im playing too much BF 3/4 the past few years but cant you spot The End from the glint of his scope too?

@lead_dispencer: You can, that's a major tip the game gives.

Is there a place to get all the MGScanlon gifs? If not, I'm starting a thread. We need all those.

Keeping the first post updated with gifs would be a-ok.

Cool. Gimme gifs, people

Glad (and not surprised given his playstyle) that Drew found the "holding down the MG trigger yelling" thing because that was one of the coolest touches in the game.

Quick question for veterans of mgs3:

How much easier is easy compared to normal?

I started playing MGS3 and I chose Easy since I just wanted to fully explore the area and do every codec call that Drew is skipping. Since I never played MGS 1, 2, or 3 before, I was also afraid that I'd run into the same issues and I just didn't want to deal with the frustration Drew's having on Normal..

The thing is, it's been really stupidly easy. I'm always completely full on all items, never had to use a life-med, never running out of ammo (99% of my shooting is using the tranq gun), never once got close to dying (except for stupidly running off a cliff once or twice).

Sure I learned a lot of how to NOT do things from watching drew fumble around, but I'm having such a trivial experience that I'm curious really how different Normal is versus Easy. Or is it just playing the game "right" (i.e. stealthily) what's really making the difference?

@eternalshades: It really isn't that different from normal from what I remember. Some spots might have an additional guard or two. You have less ammo, but way more than you need considering how much is dropped from guards. I would say bump it up to hard.

I just started a hard game going for a no-kill run. It posts more of a challenge, but I still have plenty of ammo and equipment. I have not found that you take more damage either. If nothing else, the more aggressive enemies and the ammo restrictions makes you have to adapt to the situation more.

@eternalshades: It's a little easier, but honestly, a lot of that just sounds like you're playing it well. MGS3(as well as the other games in the series) are complete cakewalks on Normal if you're halfway decent at it. Drew's still...struggling with certain aspects. Don't get me wrong, I love MGScanlon and am not complaining, it's just the fact of the matter.

@eternalshades

Some difficulty differences I found online.

As the difficulty increases:

- Better overall A.I, enemies will be able to hear and see you from further away.

- The harder the difficulty, the less stuff you'll be able to carry around, i.e less bullets, grenades..etc

- More guards in pretty much every area

- It'll take more bullets to kill guards and tranquilizer bullets will take more time to knock them down, unless you shot 'em in the head.

- Bosses will be harder to beat, i.e it'll take more bullets to stamina kill 'em on the harder difficulties, more ocelot unit soldiers..etc

- Less overall health

- IIRC you'll even lose stamina faster compared to the easier difficulties.

- Of course certain ranks are only achievable on the harder difficulties, i.e you can only get Foxhound when using Extreme difficulty.

If I was you I'd definitely play on Normal. I guess on Easy the alarms reset between areas? And less guards and their lesser ability to see. And the bosses being easier sounds like less fun to be had figuring them out. Just sounds too easy.

Overall on difficulty, I'd say for me patience is just huge. If you're willing to play with more patience than we've seen in the videos the game will be a lot easier. When I play 3 I set up in prone and observe the surroundings a lot and try to pick guys off one by one. In the end it isn't challenging in that I am low on health all the time or getting caught or in intense firefights. It's just a more mental challenging about observing an area and the enemies and executing your plan. Same with most stealth games in that way.

So I just came across this, Dara O'Briain knows Drew's pain:

@artisanbreads: Yeah, I saw that list too, but it's pretty vague in terms of the how strong/subtle these effects are.

I don't *think* alarms reset between area on easy, but I can't say for sure since when I have gotten caught I usually keep putting reinforcements to sleep until the alarm completely clears before moving on (which honestly seems to take a lot less time and effort than going guns blazing like drew :) ).

I don't think I'm going to restart at this point since i'm already pretty far in already, a bit further than Drew currently is (just past the mountain top, just about to head into Grozynj Grad?)... But in retrospect I do think I should have started on Normal.

@quarters: @deinile: Thanks for the info!

@viciousreiven: drew needs to see this, I assume he has already?

@dudeglove: I lost my shit when he ended The End, and yes, first thing I thought of was this comment. You really nailed it.

Jesus christ this episode was amazing. He became super stealthy competent super spy during The End fight. Then after, it changed him into super sneaky spy. Then he intentionally alerted everyone with that machine gun. I don't understand this man but it was amazing

I'll hand him one thing, he showed me something that I've never seen before in MGS3.

That fight was amazing. This episode might be my favourite of the whole series so far!

This episode was amazing and this boss fight is world renowned for a reason! man that was great stuff sir drew scanlon. It finally pushed me over the edge to replay mgs3. My god that was awesome. Dan described it perfectly as putting on a clinic in terms of sniping and stealth gameplay, and then drew goes all in and bum rushes the dude was awesome! And to finish off this delicious entree, solid scanlon add the final touch hahaha.

science praise this country and praise this website!

Anytime Dan has mentioned a damn crab, I think of this video immediately

@eternalshades: Try playing on Normal without using the tranq gun at all. And try sneaking by guys without taking them out. That's what's making it difficult for Drew.