RedFox742

@shindig: Dude, this game taught me how to cook eggs properly. Thanks, Naomi! Sorry about your complete character assassination!

Hm, I think I know what went wrong for you in the Suicide Gekko (no, it's always spelled Gekko) sequence. Were you charging the railgun to Level 3 before firing? If you charge it all the way up, it's an insta-kill no matter where you hit.

The way you wrote about trying to grab Vamp, it sounded like you barely used CQC in this playthough, which is a shame because it's an astoundingly deep system that lets you do all sorts of fun stuff (the rear naked chokeout is my favorite). Unfortunately, it's only really any use in Acts 1 and 2, and even then, there's just no particular reason to use it except for fun. (Peace Walker does better with making CQC useful, but unfortunately dramatically decreases the options available.) It's sort of in the MGS spirit of giving you a dozen ways to deal with a situation and letting you pick whichever you like, though.

Did you forget that Fortune also had a huge rail gun?

The flashback audio from this section is actually taken from Twin Snakes, as are Naomi and Mei Ling's conspicuously missing accents. So it's not really disavowed. I've heard it joked that MGS1 is what happened, and Twin Snakes is how a drunken Otacon relayed it later. And then there's "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses," which is... also a thing.

Also a shame you didn't call Otacon. There are some pretty funny reminiscences.

Enjoy Act 5... get your popcorn ready. No spoilers, but it's ALL about to go down!

I know that the trailing mission of Act 3 is largely despised, but I've always found it fairly enjoyable, for, as @mento said, the "admittedly hilarious ways" in which it can go wrong (or right). There's no defending the overall lack of gameplay in Act 3, but the trailing part is fun for me. I like the atmosphere.

Personally, I actually really dislike the gameplay of Act 4, at least the stealth parts. Mento, a useful heads-up that the game is poor at telling you: if you hide inside something, the Scarabs won't notice you even if they scan you. That act has fantastic setting and set pieces, but the stealth is pretty crummy. Act 1 and 2 have by far the best stealth gameplay; they're the only ones that actually let you use all the game's mechanics!

Thanks to @kasaioni for pointing out the stun knife. Mento picks up on so many things in this insanely complicated plot, especially for a first-time player, that it's really jarring when he totally misses one or two! Still, I'm incredibly impressed by his/your ability to consistently make references back to previous scenes and games that I would expect from a 10-year-vet (heh). :-)

I guess the checkpointing is only something that bugs you if you constantly restart the game and never save unless prompted. I didn't expect auto-saves when I played it... none of the other games have them either, just checkpoints, because otherwise there's no reason to go get all the save conversations. The game probably would have benefited from auto-saves, but I've never felt their absence like you do.

I've never seen it bug anyone like this, frankly. It certainly doesn't bug Dan and Drew. But I think that, like expecting the game to tutorialize, people have come to expect things that all games do nowadays, but didn't necessarily do even back in 2008. And I understand how losing an hour of gameplay could piss you off... but hey, an extra hour with this game is not always a bad thing; the gameplay is fun, and there's precious little of it to start with. :-)

I agree that the B&Bs are awful and frustratingly misogynistic for the series that also produced probably the greatest female character in gaming to date in The Boss. But I actually think I like this incarnation of Raiden the best. He's just too clueless, whiny, and unsympathetic in MGS2, and Flynn mis-emotes half of his lines, so he also sounds vaguely mentally handicapped. And by Revengeance, he's just a 10-year-old's shallow power fantasy and silly "badass," which Flynn's voice also doesn't suit at all. But in this one, it feels like a logical extension of a guy who has been through a hell we've seen (MGS2) and a couple we didn't (child-soldier past, and rescuing Sunny, which was what Rising was originally supposed to be, hence, y'know, "Rising"). He has a historical arch-nemesis in Vamp, he's strong but still vulnerable, and he has lost pretty much everything he knew and loved, so he has a reason for his angst... I just find him the most believable here, as silly as that seems given, you know, tap-dancing ninja.

YMMV, as is definitely the case with this game as a whole. Given that you're smart enough to actually remember stuff from past games and thus follow the loony overall plot (most people are very lost by this point), I very much wonder how you'll feel about the rest of this game. It's infamously love-hate. Keep writing!

(P.S.: The nanomachine-suppressing syringe is awesome for your Psyche!)

(P.P.S.: The line is "Most of them were lost through bleeding and excretion..." Bleeding, not breeding, ya goof. :p)

There's really no reason to call Rose. She'll just whine at you about all the things that affect your psyche. All the interesting chats are with Otacon. He really is worth repeated calls... again, especially during Act 4. :-) (And Act 1, but it's a bit late for that.)

You know, I've just never had any issues with the checkpointing in this game, or this series in general, so it surprises me that it irks you so much. For one, I don't reload the entire game after getting spotted (although it sounds like you've stopped doing that). In fact, if anything, I thought the checkpointing has been too forgiving at times, like in MGS2, where if you're spotted and in a firefight, you can run into a new area, die, and start in that new area with no alert. (Technically, this is true in MGS3, too, but MGS2 is the worst offender because there are so many small areas clustered together.)

Something useful we should have given you a while back below. I know you're not "gymnastic," but it's cool to see the fun stuff you can do. You should also really look up side-rolling; it's actually extremely useful. I didn't know about it until my second playthrough and it made stuff much easier.

Still loving this on days that there's no Scanlon. :-)

Oh yeah, one more thing, auto-aim. Auto-aim is really critical for making certain sections not kind of stupid.

@mento Glad you're doing this. :-) You're perceptive, and generally follow this insane story a lot better than most people do. Love the observations.

I do still think you rob yourself of a lot of the experience by insisting on no-alert, no-kill for your very first run-though. There really are a ton of parts of the game that only come to life once an alert goes off, or once you let yourself be a killer. So much weaponry, so many interesting action pieces... ! The game doesn't expect you to wuss out when you set off an alert; it expects you to kill a guy, run, hide, and come out when it's over! (But I suppose it's the polar opposite of Drew, who just sets off every alarm and plays it as a third-person shooter because he doesn't understand the stealth mechanics. So, it balances...)

There's a part in Act 2 where you simply may not be able to resist any more, or you may accidentally score some kills because there are guys in power armor who look like mechs. Just FYI.

P.S.: Have you figured out side-rolling yet? Or how to do a rear naked choke-out? Shooting from your back? There's a lot of really cool mechanics in this one.

P.P.S.: Calling Otacon a bunch has its rewards, especially during Act 4.

For MG and MG2, use a walkthrough. There's zero shame in it. MG is flat-out broken in a few parts (for instance, a vital Codec frequency is never actually given to you) and MG2, among other things, requires a tap-code chart that only appears in the manual. Also, keep a few saves with MG. It's unfortunately entirely possible to move the game into an un-winnable state if you kill a hostage or two. Both these games are all but unbeatable without using a walkthrough at least a couple of times.

It's good to play them for the Metal Gear lore, though, and I highly recommend it (especially before playing MGS1, as there is a scene in that game that will have much more impact if you play the MSX games... plus you'll notice all the cool ways in which MGS1 is kind of like a MG2 remake).

As for difficulties, play them all on Normal. MGS1 is the hardest game on Normal--you'll die quite a few times--but it's also fairly short, so you'll get through it, and Easy is cheating yourself a bit. MGS3 is probably better on Hard (you can cheap the game in full-Alert mode on Normal because Snake soaks up machine-gun damage like a sponge, without even getting knocked down) but is still good on Normal. Since you've played MGS4 before, you could also do Big Boss Hard for that one.

Always read the manuals before playing. If you don't know all the controls from the get-go, the experience is a lot crappier. (See: Metal Gear Scanlon.)

@mento By the way, you mentioned earlier that you hoped Ocelot wasn't The Boss' son because it wouldn't make sense that he grew up in Russia. Curiously, you didn't mention it again later when The Boss revealed that she had a snake-shaped scar from giving birth in the middle of a battle, exactly how EVA described Ocelot's birth. Of course, it does make sense when you learn that a.) Ocelot's father is The Sorrow, a Russian, and b.) Ocelot was kidnapped by the Philosophers as an infant.

I just thought it was odd that you didn't mention it. Did you pick up on it?

@mento said:

This is where I'm confused. I assume by "healing" you mean "stamina gain," since you were tranq-ing all the bosses But in my (not insignificant) experience, The Fear regains full stamina from eating a single item, not a "minimal amount," and he'll keep hunting food until he gets his stamina back. Which is why to stamina-kill him, you typically have to bait him with a bunch of rotten food, which he eats and then pukes up, taking more stamina with him (or use the cheap stun-grenade exploit).

So I'm a bit confused. Other folks: am I wrong? Does The Fear not regain full stamina when he eats?