Metal Gear Scanlon: V: The Finale - Part 02

@fetterdave @kasaioni He figured it out in the very first episode, like I assume most people did. He didn't KNOW until the end though, of course. He brought it and a couple other plot points up another time pretty early in the series as well, so I think he was relatively sure rather early on.

God, I miss this series already. It's been a hell of a ride. Thank you Solid Scanlon, Colonel Dan, and Revolver Jason. o7

o7 team. Hell of a ride.

Salute to Drew Scanlon and anyone who can actually play through the cluster f***s that are the Metal Gear Solid games.

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Dan, Jason, Solid Scanlon, fellow viewers... You're all diamonds.

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Thank you for the ride guys.

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this.

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Things are a little bittersweet for me on multiple levels. While I understand your decision to stick to the numbered series, it'd be fascinating and rewarding to see Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 show up in some form someday, even on an Old Game Show or something. There's a lot of classic Kojima gravitas in there that can't be overlooked. But that's just me. As it stands this has been an excellent gamut of content.

It's been really awesome seeing this entire series from beginning to end. A number of great things in my life occurred during this period, and since I began playing the franchise, and I cherish the whole shebang a lot. You guys did great on capturing what makes Metal Gear special.

Thanks to the developers, artists, professionals and families which made the world of Metal Gear what it is today. And Konami, despite everything, for taking a chance in 1987.

I actually teared up a little..goodnight sweet princes, Metal Gear Scanlon will be forever missed

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@fetterdave: no he guessed it the first episode.

@arbayer2: Jeff looked at both the NES and MSX versions of MG1 on a couple of UPFs last year at some point. So I think MG2:SS is the only canonical game in the series that doesn't have any video content on this site. Which is a shame because it's such a great game; basically proto-MGS1.

Real sad to see this go. This was hands down my favorite ongoing feature on the site. The Metal Gear Scanlon shirt was the first piece of Giantbomb merchandise I ever got. It was a great ride.

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So having only played MGS1 "in era", I was inspired by Metal Gear Scanlon to play the rest of them (as well as replay MGS1):

Here's how my personal ranking ended up (from best to worst):

MGS1 - Being the only game I played when it was fresh, there's certainly some nostalgia at play here. However, I think it's the best because being a pretty self-contained thing at the time and not yet attached to a crazy mythology that would develop, allows it to be a more complete experience. I mean yeah the whole clones reveal was nuts, but up until that point Liquid was just a good ambiguously evil 80s action movie villain and the ending is appropriately "happy". It also has a fantastic style to it that I feel gives up ground to simply excessive bombast in the subsequent games. Other than that, it also still plays surprisingly well; the more mechanical nature of it's AI and systems (very clearly defined vision cones, enemies quick to stand down, etc) made stealth more about puzzle solving than tedium.

MGS3 - On some days, I might place this at the top of the list. A great pastiche of Bond movies along with overwrought anime drama. Plays better than MGS2, but they made stealth a little too hard and Rambo'ing too easy. So playing it like a pure action game is the path of least resistance that I gravitated toward, but it didn't feel as rewarding.

MGS4 - Impressive in the lengths it goes to tie up all the insanity introduced by the previous games. I believe they had to dial this one to 11 to meet expectations, but even acknowledging that, at a certain point the ridiculous and cheese just gets to be too much. I think the awkward romance subplots in particular were tough to swallow. It plays really great though.

MGS5 - Place on list should be obvious. A good moment-to-moment open world shooter (though I don't think it's as great playing as Dan does), but the story, even in the context of this series, is just nonsense and there's not a enough of the cinematic presentation I expect from a MGS game.

MGS2 - I really didn't like MGS2. I think part of that may be because I played the games in order, and perhaps I wasn't acclimated to the increasing ridiculousness of the series yet. I also thought the gameplay was the weakest with all the backtracking between the different platforms. And let's not forget about all that very natural Raiden and Rose dialog...

loved the series so much. o7

Sad to admit but it took me longer than it should have to realize o7 was a salute, anyways GOOD WORK DREW onwards to Danjo Kadrewie!

What a great series! Loved it!

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I'm ready Boss!

Mission 46 wasn't that bad for me. Sure I died a few times, but I was still figuring out where to attack from. But my upgraded CGM rockets did the job nicely. I never considered it unfair. It was fun tho.

Man, that twist in mission 46.. MGS 5 is so good I mean there's a reason why Big Boss wasn't missing an arm at the end of MGS4. .

Why does Drew never say anything about the Venom not being Big Boss reveal before Dan just starts straight up saying it during the final mission? Did he even work it out for himself?

@tekzero: The problem with that is that Big Boss was burned alive at the end of MG2 any ways, and MGS4 tells us his body was rebuilt from parts of Liquid's and Solidus's body. So they could have just given him Liquid or Solidus's left arm if Venom Snake was in fact the real Big Boss.

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So couldn't we say that "Venom" Snake is a coma chameleon?

Well fuck. What now?

The spreading of culture is not imperialism. Imperialism requires you to be trying to take over another country and using military force. Cultural imperialism is a leftist ridiculous fantasy. Our culture exists (just like Japanese culture exists) and people either copy it or they don't (like many Americans are copying Japanese culture currently).

So had someone told Drew the ending here? I mean he didn't seem surprised...he also seemed to remember that he called it during the first episode...to bad. It would have been hilarious if he didn't remember but then realized he called it in the first episode half way through.

Also wow I never knew the whole modern hogwash philosophy that facts don't exist that there is no truth scientific or otherwise comes from Neitsche. Another reason he was a total idiot.

@kasaioni: Huh, that's crazy. I'd expect the NES version to be covered, but not necessarily the MSX version. I'll have to look into that, thanks!

@arbayer2: Well these were only short gameplay segments on UPF for 30 minutes or something. But yeah, Jeff did the NES version one Friday, and the MSX version the next. Although the MSX version he played was some emulated version of the game, and it acted a bit wonky compared to the version found in both MGS3: Subsistence and the HD collection.

This might help you out. http://www.giantbomb.com/metal-gear/3030-6712/videos/

guys what is o7

I'm a little sad that both of them are a little down on V, although I completely understand every criticism. Metal Gear Solid V really is my favorite.

Thank you Drew and Dan for all the laughs. You showed me the complete story of Metal Gear, and it will never leave my mind.

@kasaioni: Ah, found them. Jeff did do a fairly lengthy stroll through each, yes. It doesn't replace my imagination of Drew and Dan remarking at how "Metal Gear" the opening cinematics of MG2 might be -- or Dan seeing the old '90s FOXHOUND logo and being freaked out, but the extent covered is pretty fair at showing the general scope of the games and I'm happy with that to be certain. Thanks for linking them!

While an amazing feature name I think that's the biggest pipe dream I could ever dream of.

Imagine living Austin's life. Imagine living a life where Drew professes his love for you. I want that life.

Thanks for an amazing series, Drew, Dan and Jason! One of the best on the site for sure.

Sad to see it end.

@turul: its a head and a saluting arm o7

nice saving private ryan reference drew

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Congratulations, Drew, that was an amazing run. Thanks for a fantastic series.

Its a salute. the 7 is an arm.

You misspelled 'Snatcher'.

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That's an unfortunate way to end MGSV. Terrible mission of Quiet's tank battle royal and then you replay the slowest mission in the entire game for barely any new content that, well, surprised no one. Eh probably apropos for how the development of that game went and Kojima's exit.

I didn't do the Quiet stuff because I didn't know anything about the game when I played it and the only Metal Gear boss I ever beat non-lethally was The Boss. This was interesting to see.

I used D-Horse the entire game.