Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

[Julius]

Been getting through MGS3 at a steady pace, beat The End last night, guessing I'm around the halfway point? What a funny sentence 

Definitely still gathering my thoughts on a lot of things I want to discuss, but needed to comment on booting up my game today, loving the opening as always, and then immediately following that up with climbing up the ladder in the Krasnogorje Tunnel, with a vocal-only version of Snake Eater? Was nearly tearing up, what a powerful moment in so many ways 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Julius

[drahkon]

34 minutes ago, Julius said:

The End

One of my absolute favourite boss fights ever.

There are also two funny ways to kill him

[Hero-of-Time]

41 minutes ago, drahkon said:

One of my absolute favourite boss fights ever.

Yup. Totally agree.

42 minutes ago, drahkon said:

There are also two funny ways to kill him

 

Spoiler

Changing the PS2 clock is one of the cleverest and funniest ways to get out of a boss fight. Absolute genius.

 

[drahkon]

12 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

 

  Spoiler (Reveal hidden contents)

Changing the PS2 clock is one of the cleverest and funniest ways to get out of a boss fight. Absolute genius.

 

Spoiler

But that's time travel and we all know that IT'S NOT ALLOWED AND THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME

I actually preferred killing The End with a sniper after a cutscene way before the actual fight. I've always wondered how the wheelchair manages to fly through the sky and crash down on you, though

 

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

  The End Spoiler (Hide contents)

But that's time travel and we all know that IT'S NOT ALLOWED AND THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME

I actually preferred killing The End with a sniper after a cutscene way before the actual fight. I've always wondered how the wheelchair manages to fly through the sky and crash down on you, though

 

The Back to the Future way is actually how I first defeated him. I bought the official guide with the game on release day (needed it to find all of those hidden frogs) and as soon as I seen that was an option I had to do it.  

[Julius]

Just finished watching the credits on MGS3. Loved Way to Fall as the end credits song, what a great and fitting piece of music:

Got so much to say, but I'm going to take a little time to digest it a bit more. If you want the short version, though, it's: Holy crap. I loved this game. 

But some quick, muddled thoughts while it's all fresh...

Loved the ending. Loved the post-credits tease. Most of the boss fights were great. Favourite scene is undoubtedly when you hear the song climbing the ladder at the end of the Krasnogorje Tunnel, such a powerful way to let the player breathe after quite a condensed rush through some bosses, and I found it really cathartic - it felt like a great blend of good storytelling/cinema and gameplay, and you get that at several times throughout the game. Love the story, and I found that Eva and Ocelot were so damn likeable as characters throughout. One of my favourite chase sequences in a video game. The tracks on the soundtrack are superb, and not for the first time, I've got to praise the original music of this series: it's ridiculously powerful stuff. 

Gameplay mechanics like "camouflage" and "cure", with how they're utilised in this game, should be in so many more games today than they are. The camera is so much better than in the previous games, though it's not without its flaws; most noticeably, there were a couple of times where I clicked in R3 and (correct me if I'm wrong here) the game reverted back to the fixed camera pre-Subsistence and found that it should've been the default camera (such as during the chase sequence) for that scene, because it loses so much without it. Experienced a bit of a frame rate dip when I used certain weapons, like the M37, which was a bit of a shame, and definitely some other noticeable technical things I noticed, but in the whole I'd say Bluepoint knocked it out of the park with this remaster. 

So yeah, I love this game. Easily my favourite Metal Gear game so far, and a massive step up from Sons of Liberty - that's not me speaking ill of that game, but this game just felt like the last third of that game, the part that I enjoyed the most, the entire way through. Had a massive smile on my face throughout most of the game. 

I think this might be one of my favourite video games. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Julius

[Dcubed]

On 5/1/2020 at 11:42 AM, drahkon said:

One of my absolute favourite boss fights ever.

There are also two funny ways to kill him

That's not even counting the even funnier way of killing him...

 

Spoiler

Using the sniper rifle on him the very first time you encounter him, before he gets taken away behind the gate.

 

[drahkon]

12 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

That's not even counting the even funnier way of killing him...

...

On 5/1/2020 at 1:42 PM, drahkon said:

  The End Spoiler (Reveal hidden contents)

But that's time travel and we all know that IT'S NOT ALLOWED AND THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME

I actually preferred killing The End with a sniper after a cutscene way before the actual fight. I've always wondered how the wheelchair manages to fly through the sky and crash down on you, though

 

 

[Dcubed]

13 minutes ago, drahkon said:

...

 

Doh!

[Hero-of-Time]

 

17 hours ago, Julius said:

I think this might be one of my favourite video games. 

It really is a masterpiece of a game.

What did you think of Volgin as the main antagonist? There are very few villains that come to mind where I REALLY wanted to get revenge for what they had done. When he tortures Naked Snake, which causes him to lose his eye, I was absolutely fuming. I remember taking great satisfaction when it came to finishing him off. 

The Boss is one of the best written characters in a video game, IMO. She's such a tragic character who done anything and everything for her county. The way she sacrificed her own life and took the fall for what happened was heartbreaking to watch. Every time I play through the game I still shed tears at the end when Eva is telling Snake about The Boss. When he goes to her grave and then salutes....such an emotional scene.

I think Naked Snake is also a great character and find him far more interesting than Solid. The events that happen at the end of the game give great insight as to why he turns out the way he does. The government and country he chose to protect completely screwed him over and stabbed him in the back. I love how he doesn't shake the hand at the end during one of the final cutscenes.

Ocelot is fantastic in this game. Sure, in the original MGS many people fell in love with his style and he became a fan favourite. For me, it wasn't until this game where I truly appreciated him. His youthful, cocky attitude constantly getting him into trouble and his double crossing ways made him great to watch. Also, you cant mention him without his famous gesture.

My favourite bit of music in the game is probably the main theme.

I love it when you blow the bridge up and the Shagohod storms back up after you think you've have sank it. This theme kicks in before the battle, Snake and Eva exchange a few final words and then you charge into battle. The 5 minute mark when the tune slows done and it turns into a rendition of the MGS2 theme is fantastic. I always preferred how this version of the song ends over the MGS2 version. Brilliant stuff.

Hell of a game.

I can't wait for you to play MGS4. People give the game a lot of grief but I love it. It's pure fan service and now that you've played the other mainline games you'll certainly appreciate a lot of what happens within the game. Some of the cutscenes that occur are just pure hype. Over the top? Indeed. Fan-freaking-tastic? Absolutely! It's Metal Gear going full on anime.

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Hero-of-Time

[drahkon]

18 hours ago, Julius said:

Loved Way to Fall as the end credits song, what a great and fitting piece of music:

Indeed. It's also one of the very few pieces I can play on guitar, so that's a bonus

18 hours ago, Julius said:

it felt like a great blend of good storytelling/cinema and gameplay, and you get that at several times throughout the game.

That's Kojima for ya'. Some people may not like his stories/games but no one can deny that he is an absolute master of his craft. The way he manages to blend movies (and movie tropes) with video games is just masterful. Death Stranding proves that pretty much throughout the entire experience.
He's one of the very few people in the industry to really push the medium forward. I hope he sticks around for a long time doing what he does

18 hours ago, Julius said:

The tracks on the soundtrack are superb, and not for the first time, I've got to praise the original music of this series: it's ridiculously powerful stuff. 

That's Kojima for ya'. He always finds bands/artists/tracks that fit the theme and atmosphere. Low Roar being featured in Death Stranding is one of the more recent examples. The moments while songs of that band are playing brought me to tears more than once.

18 hours ago, Julius said:

Gameplay mechanics like "camouflage" and "cure", with how they're utilised in this game, should be in so many more games today than they are.

That's Kojima for ya'. The survival aspect in MGS3 is spot on. Many games fail at this but here it's executed perfectly. Kojima definitely knows how to create game play that actually makes sense within the games he makes. Death Stranding is one of the more recent examples.

 

This post was written, directed, edited, translated and sung by Hideo Kojima.

35 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I can't wait for you to play MGS4. People give the game a lot of grief but I love it. It's pure fan service and now that you've played the other mainline games you'll certainly appreciate a lot of what happens within the game. Some of the cutscenes that occur are just pure hype. Over the top? Indeed. Fan-freaking-tastic? Absolutely! It's Metal Gear going full on anime.

Ohhhh MGS4. That one moment...that one song...that one memory...my eyes are watering up.
Edit: Just to be safe, I deleted the spoiler @Julius Go play and finish MGS4 now. I wanna talk about it.

Edited May 2, 2020 by drahkon

[Julius]

On 02/05/2020 at 5:58 PM, Hero-of-Time said:

What did you think of Volgin as the main antagonist? There are very few villains that come to mind where I REALLY wanted to get revenge for what they had done. When he tortures Naked Snake, which causes him to lose his eye, I was absolutely fuming. I remember taking great satisfaction when it came to finishing him off. 

The Boss is one of the best written characters in a video game, IMO. She's such a tragic character who done anything and everything for her county. The way she sacrificed her own life and took the fall for what happened was heartbreaking to watch. Every time I play through the game I still shed tears at the end when Eva is telling Snake about The Boss. When he goes to her grave and then salutes....such an emotional scene.

I think Naked Snake is also a great character and find him far more interesting than Solid. The events that happen at the end of the game give great insight as to why he turns out the way he does. The government and country he chose to protect completely screwed him over and stabbed him in the back. I love how he doesn't shake the hand at the end during one of the final cutscenes.

Ocelot is fantastic in this game. Sure, in the original MGS many people fell in love with his style and he became a fan favourite. For me, it wasn't until this game where I truly appreciated him. His youthful, cocky attitude constantly getting him into trouble and his double crossing ways made him great to watch. Also, you cant mention him without his famous gesture.

My favourite bit of music in the game is probably the main theme.

I love it when you blow the bridge up and the Shagohod storms back up after you think you've have sank it. This theme kicks in before the battle, Snake and Eva exchange a few final words and then you charge into battle. The 5 minute mark when the tune slows done and it turns into a rendition of the MGS2 theme is fantastic. I always preferred how this version of the song ends over the MGS2 version. Brilliant stuff.

Hell of a game.

Loved Volgin as the main antagonist, a rare occasion in video games where I felt like the actions he took - against Naked Snake, or against just about anyone else, really - lived up to the cruelty described by others, and surpassed it on many occasions. Honestly, until the torture sequence started and they pulled the knife out, I completely forgot that we're inevitably going to lose an eye at some point, and thought that that scene subverted expectations in a way which still made you mad at Volgin perfectly. 

Something I really liked about this game, compared with many modern day alternatives, is how Volgin's bisexuality and Raikov's homosexuality were almost completely glossed over, never questioned, and seemingly accepted by everyone in the game, as far as I can remember. It would've been so easy to have guards talking about it mockingly elsewhere in the game, or for Naked Snake to taunt either one of them after finding that out, but no-one bats an eye to any of it, and I loved that. Maybe it's just because of how it's almost always handled way too aggressively in modern media whenever an LGBTQ+ character is introduced for the first time, often overtly, and I feel like the game would be met with a lot of controversy unfortunately if released today ("the only LGBTQ+ characters in the game are villains!"), so it was a welcome change of pace seeing how that was handled. I'd like to think that Kojima wouldn't change a thing if that game was released today. 

Yep, loved The Boss. Finding out that she's effectively going to fade into oblivion after all of this, and knowing that she's not mentioned or seen at all in the future (at least in the previous two games) really drives that point home retroactively, and I loved that. I think heartbreaking is definitely the best way to describe her part in this story, and I loved that ending too.

Totally agree on Naked > Solid, got a much more meaningful arc than Solid did in either of the first two games. Despite clearly being just as lost at times, it's clear by the end of this game that he has conviction in what he chooses to do next. I saw his journey taking out Cobra as quite literal considering the codenames of its members: washing away his pain, overcoming his fears (and his inevitable end), learning to conceal his fury, overcoming sorrow, and, finally, killing his joy. He really is quite literally naked as a character at the start of this game, all of his flaws and qualities on show, and by the end all that remains is an empty shell to perpetuate war. 

Yep, I loved Ocelot too, much more than in any of the previous games, where I actually thought that he was quite the nuisance. Bond girl charm and femme fatale aside, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth to Eva, too. 

The Main Theme is killer in this game, I absolutely loved when I heard it kicking in when against the Shagohod as you mentioned. Besides that, I really loved Snake Eater, Way to Fall, and Battle in the Base, which evoked some classic spy music, and did a great job at ratcheting up the tension.

 

 

By the way, seriously, if someone made an army of scientists in one of these games the game would be over before it even begun. I found it hilarious just how good they were at picking up on you not being one of them. 

Quote

I can't wait for you to play MGS4. People give the game a lot of grief but I love it. It's pure fan service and now that you've played the other mainline games you'll certainly appreciate a lot of what happens within the game. Some of the cutscenes that occur are just pure hype. Over the top? Indeed. Fan-freaking-tastic? Absolutely! It's Metal Gear going full on anime.

 

On 02/05/2020 at 6:30 PM, drahkon said:

Just to be safe, I deleted the spoiler @Julius Go play and finish MGS4 now. I wanna talk about it.

Oh man, you guys are making me really excited to crack on with MGS4  I've already started watching some of the trailers for it, but I definitely feel the need to switch things up for a change of pace after MGS3 (if anything, just because I don't want to be comparing the two too harshly, and just to let Snake Eater breathe a little more in my head), so I'm going to try to tackle a shorter game or two before diving into MGS4 I think  and this coming weekend with the bank holiday this Friday is a three-day weekend, so that might be a good time to start... 

Also, I realise that I didn't actually get to share my thoughts on the first game that much in this thread, but I do get into it during my April update in the Gaming Diary thread, if anyone's interested in knowing how much I enjoyed that! 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Julius

[Julius]

It's been over four years since my last post in this thread, and over two years since my last MGS experience...meaning it's time to round off this HD Collection with Peace Walker. Think Konami have finally got to me with the Snake Eater remake trailers. 

I started it today by pumping in a few hours (I've just finished off Chapter 1, for anyone curious, as well as all of the Extra Ops available up to this point) and am having a freaking blast with this game. 

Firstly -- holy hot damn does this game be stylin' with its cutscenes!

I love this graphic novel take on the cutscenes and just how dynamic they feel - and surprisingly just how involved when they started to introduce QTEs and light gameplay! - it felt genuinely fresh compared to previous entries I've played. Makes complete sense given the game originally released on PSP, but damn, a few distorted and pixelated moments in some cutscenes aside? I think the cutscenes look great. 

And, speaking of cutscenes -- I'm really feeling the story for now, too. The "call to action" being a potential cropping up of The Boss (which I doubt is actually the case, but still!) makes perfect sense as something of a sequel to Snake Eater to pull Big Boss in, and I'm really intrigued by Huey turning up, and of course about the true nature of the involvement of Paz and The Professor. It's just ticking all the right boxes for me here so far. That opening tutorial on the beach had me laughing to myself a whole lot, too. 

Gameplay-wise, it feels like a very stripped back half step away from Snake Eater - a side step more than a step up or down - and obviously a lot of that is down to it originally releasing on PSP. Because it's so stripped back it's reminding me more of some of the emptiness you'd get in the first MGS and, with that in mind, other than when mechs/tanks/etc. show up (at which point the game further reminds me of that final Metal Gear fight in the first MGS which was chaotic and perhaps a bit archaic as a result, by modern standards), my general style of play has been defined by going non-lethal and rushing through missions while being sure to explore as much as I reasonably can. I've really been enjoying playing through the game this way, and considering that I've actually played Ground Zeroes (adding to my curiosity around Paz and Chico, no doubt) before and had more than just a couple of hours sunk into MGS V waaaaaaaaay back before I started over with this series with the first MGS, it also feels like a stripped down version of those games at the same time, too -- which has been nice, because I remember being completely overwhelmed when I played those games and now I know what I'm doing and have some experience with the franchise, I'm really enjoying mission prep. 

What I'm enjoying but finding a bit more mixed is all the Mother Base stuff. Love the Fulton, love the idea of recruitment (stumbled upon Kojima after completely forgetting a registration number, which gave me a good chuckle), love the idea of building out Mother Base...just not such a huge fan of the execution, I guess? Not that it's bad, but for example, mech/tank/whatever fights aside where I've needed to call on heavier artillery, I've been getting by just fine with my tranquilliser pistol and starting assault rifle, meaning a lot of the weapon development so far is pretty lost on me. I'm early on, so of course this next thought might even out as I get deeper into the game, but for a good while there it felt like we were opening up a new department at Mother Base every 5-10 minutes and I wasn't a huge fan of needing to reshuffle that frequently to try to make sure recruits were placed where they were best suited and going to be most beneficial. The Fulton is excellent - I LOVE just kidnapping enemies and saving POWs - and probably the main thing tying all of this Mother Base stuff together for me which makes me okay with it all. We'll see how it develops (heh), I guess. 

Appreciate the heads-up from @Hero-of-Time on the last page about this game being more Monster Hunter-esque, definitely see it in the boss fights - especially when there's a timer running down while you try to grab internal parts of the mech, like when you're slicing up your hunt in MH? - and it's given me realistic expectations going in of what to expect, which so far has been pretty manageable. I think my biggest problem actually was having no idea that the Supplies Marker was a thing (to call in extra ammo and rations) because despite being all the way at the end of Chapter 1 when I finally realised I needed it after Huey mentioned it (in fairness, Kaz did during an earlier fight too, but I was too busy flexing on the enemy with my eye patch to notice), the game hadn't really pointed out to me the how and when and why of using it? So it was an interesting challenge, to put it lightly, to run around like a headless chicken in this arena during this first major boss fight while this gargantuan speedy mech was racing around and shooting up the place with bullets and electricity to put a bunch of them down and then read the menu description for how to trigger them. Yes, I finally went down in this game because I had no idea how the Supplies Marker worked 

Also, even with the MH awareness going in, I was still shocked and surprised to see Monster Hunter straight up called out by name in the controller layout section of the settings! 

Anyways, to bring it back around: again, I'm just having a grand old time back with an MGS game. Couldn't quite tell you why I put Peace Walker off for so long, but right now I find that I'm starving for a game like it, and it's filling me up with that MGS goodness real good 

Edited June 12 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Are you going to give the online a go? I'm curious to know whether or not it still has people playing it after all these years.

[Julius]

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Are you going to give the online a go? I'm curious to know whether or not it still has people playing it after all these years.

I might try to take it for a spin but when I looked it up yesterday after unlocking it, some posts from last year seemed to suggest that it wasn't particularly active at that time, and I can't imagine that it's got any better now. 

Kind of giving me Factions vibes from what I've read, a lot of the same names popping up around the same time of day...but obviously on steroids, because this is on PS3 and the franchise had been left to rot for a minute there 

Edited June 12 by Julius

[Julius]

Cracks me up every single time Big Boss uses the Fulton on someone with little to no warning in cutscenes  

Got the Sneaking Suit, put it to good use already (obviously pairs well with my preferred non-lethal style of play outside of boss battles), love that loadouts seem to save to the different outfits. 

Finished Chapter 2 and beat Chrysalis last night, took a little while when trying to figure out when I could and couldn't attack, where I could hide, trying to balance all of that with firing off RPG shells to test this and then needing to call in for supplies...it took a while, but we got there on the first attempt! 

Also: unexpected Carpenters. Really unexpected Carpenters. As someone whose dad grew up on them and used to play them a lot in the car growing up -- safe to say I appreciated the very much unexpected Carpenters 

I'm focusing on the main missions for now, I think the story is a bit too interesting for me to willingly meander in and out of the Extra Ops, so I'll do those when I see fit or if it's called for I think. We've started work on ZEKE, recruited a bunch more guys (some on the beach in the shortest test of skill maybe ever?), working on the homing missile launcher in R&D...it's going pretty great! 

[Julius]

Damn, Chapter 3 was suuuuuuuper heavy on the MGS(1) callbacks, I think all we were missing was some ketchup. 

Loved it

[Julius]

Chapter 4 was a bit more of a mixed bag gameplay wise I found, turning into a bit of a shooting gallery, for lack of a better term. Very jarring to be told to infiltrate an area in some of the mission briefings and then almost inevitably find myself in a shootout, so I needed to restart two of the missions just to have the right gear equipped  the second Peace Walker fight I thought was great, but took a couple of attempts -- didn't really know how to manage it the first time around and so had the wrong equipment, got it down to one bar of health before running out of ammo on the second round, before finally taking it out on my third attempt, but this all took a while considering just how long the boss fight is. 

This all being said, the sudden fight with the Hind and troops backed by...

...or the second Peace Walker fight backed by...

...or the flashback moments with, and present day hints of, The Boss backed by a piano instrumental of Snake Eater, especially when pulling out the memory boards...

Just beautiful. Peak Metal Gear. Despite the pared down gameplay in Peace Walker, the ideas, themes, hype, and emotion of the series shines through brilliantly. 

Struggling to see how the game could possibly go beyond a 5th chapter based on where the 4th ended, but I'm having an absolute blast 

Also, Naked/Big Boss >>>>> Solid, don't @ me

[Hero-of-Time]

20 minutes ago, Julius said:

Also, Naked/Big Boss >>>>> Solid, don't @ me

I've always thought this. His character arc is far more interesting that Solid's.

[Julius]

So...turns out I jumped the gun and didn't watch the final cutscene of Chapter 4 to round it off last night  but what a beautiful chapter and game-ending (kinda) cutscene  this game felt like a pretty great example of less is more -- knowing it was originally built for PSP had my expectations in check but the cutscenes, music, and emotion that I touched on before combined with the simple but effective level design which feels like a reasonable crossover between MGS and MGS3 made for a great time. 

Anyways, I thought there'd be a fifth chapter because it felt like things hadn't been properly rounded off...and hey, at the end of the credits, turns out there is! Between Huey getting on my ass about ZEKE Dev and Zadornov going missing after replaying a couple of missions but nothing else triggering, I did something I wasn't really a fan of -- and had to look up if there was any weirdness to unlocking the missions in Chapter 5. 

And, oh boy, is there. 

S-ranked Chrysalis to get the railgun drop and then S-ranked Pupa to get the final head part I needed to complete ZEKE; reshuffled staff to get Intel Team to Lv 40, I think my Mother Base is at Rank 3 also; replaying some missions or just doing the Prisoner-freeing Extra Ops to build towards the next Zadornov escapade. 

So...I get it. This was originally a portable game, the idea of a bit of a grind for the final chapter makes sense with that in mind, but for the HD home platform remaster on PS3, I do feel like they could've done a little more to push you in the right direction during the main game and clue you in a bit more on what you need to have done, because things like needing to complete X number of missions with Intel at Level 40 to finish building a second plant at Mother Base are just a little too nebulous that I struggle to see how you'd get there with out either (a) doing EVERYTHING the game has to offer and praying that auto-assign lands enough staff in Intel to get to Level 40, or (b) look it up online; and, again, I think the former was kind of understandable for the original PSP release, but maybe not so much for the HD Collection. 

I think it's just a bit of a disconnect when they blast out 'To be continued in Chapter 5' at the end of the game's credits, like "You've been doing these SUPER SPECIFIC THINGS WE NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS ENTIRE TIME to unlock this fifth, secret - but clearly not-so-secret because we told you about it at the end of the credits - final chapter, RIGHT???" without you having any reason to have done some of those super specific things. For instance, I had all the necessary staff -- I just didn't know I was supposed to be putting them into Intel to power level it to Level 40 because the game gives you an Auto-Assign option. So strange! 

It's probably the biggest blemish on the game for me so far. I had thought briefly about giving it a pass and looking up the final cutscene/s online in case it got detrimental to my experience, but I've enjoyed the game enough to give it a fair shake at seeing it through and unlocking whatever this ending is myself 

Edited June 18 by Julius

[Julius]

Polished off the rest of this last night. 

So, yeah, the grind got way more stupid than it already was. Played Extra Ops 10 and 11 and nauseam after finishing off a couple more of the prisoner extraction missions, kept them going and Zadornov kept escaping, that was fun. Especially loved Snake wondering if he had an escape fetish  anyways, got to the point where I was waiting on the last Zadornov escape mission to turn up, and it just...didn't.

Go back and check everything I'd read up on...I've got Intel close to Lv 50 now so we've completed 13+ missions with them at Lv 40 for sure, I've got ZEKE fully built (including railgun) and not out on a mission, and it looks like I've got two plants. Mother Base rank is at 5 by now, way above the 2 I'd been quoted. I continue on with Extra Ops 10 for another 15 minutes. Nothing. 

Turns out, the Mother Base Data page has more data available rather than just the Mother Base rank I could -- I found this out by accidentally clicking X, because it's one of the few pages in the game which doesn't give you an idea of what buttons might do things on the page, and so I assumed that was it. Nope! Every separate section of Mother Base is at Rank 0 -- and as it turns out, I need to get Support Rank to 2. So how the hell do I manage that? Turns out you need to get to Mother Base to Level 6, which then unlocks the ability to level up separate sections, and the way to do this? More missions. Do some more and finally see numbers climb because some people seem to think that the only way to build out Mother Base is with a certain amount of GMP in your pocket, which I'd been spending on R&D like a madman. Anyways, replay a bunch of missions, get an actual second plant (the one you start with doesn't count) with Mother Base at Level 5 and Support Rank to 2, and then, FINALLY, we get Zadornov going MIA again. 

Said it before, but the way to do this and the lack of direction is simply silly. 

Now the big question -- was it worth it? I'm not totally sure...but I sure as hell did enjoy that "true" ending. Let's talk about it. All of it. 

Spoiler

Alright, so it seemed obvious Paz was the mole considering her connection to Zadornov, but also the way that she's the ONLY character mentioned by name by Miller during Z's multiple escape attempts (namely when she cooks for the staff which serves as a distraction for Z to escape). What wasn't obvious was that she'd strip down to fight us from ZEKE (though I did expect a ZEKE fight). 

Bit of a letdown that the final fade to white and "To be continued in the next mission..." wasn't changed to "To be continued in the final mission", though, I'll be honest!

Final fight was good fun. Beat it first try, probably in part because ZEKE hadn't been touched beyond a paint job, and the music seemed to come out of left field but also fit like a glove? 

Anyways, that done and Paz dealt with, Miller fesses up to knowing she was a triple agent all along...and he's the one who convinced us we needed a deterrent of our own? Anyone else feeling like Big Boss is a little too trusting of his friend, who might be steering him the wrong way with this MSF Project in his mourning of The Boss? So strange. He'll be one to keep an eye on, for sure. 

Anyways, then we get the rest of the cutscenes, where it feels like a definite step up in quality. Timeline appears again, this time mentioning the Outer Heaven Uprising in 1995. Loved how this wrapped up as Mother Base looks how I remember it from my short time with V all those years ago. 

That final change in colour during the speech over the title card at the end of the credits was epic as all hell, too! 

And that's that for Peace Walker. Not perfect, seemed a bit restricted in some ways by wanting to find an excuse for repetition at some point, and it's a shame it decides that point is the penultimate stage of the game. At the same time? Stellar soundtrack, engaging story, and pulled that MGS heartstring I've had growing since playing the first game back in 2020 for the first time just perfectly. 

Now that my time with the HD Collection is done, and with only Ground Zeroes and V to go in terms of the "main" games, I wanted to share my ranking of the games I've played so far. 

1. Snake Eater - no question. Best story, one of the best soundtracks, pretty huge shakeup in terms of mechanics pulled off with complete aplomb, I love the Bond-esque vibe and approach to it all. Snake Eater is up there as one of the best vocal songs in gaming, period. 
2. Metal Gear Solid - it is absolutely insane what Konami had cooking in their kitchen in the late 90s. It's not the easiest game to go back to, but good lord, is it still worth checking out today just to see the ideas they were working on -- showcases more originality and ideas than most modern releases. 
3. Sons of Liberty - insanely ahead of its time in themes, and I'm going to argue that it's got the best individual soundtrack of the bunch. This game gets nutty - and feels like the absolute best balance of how meta Kojima likes to get with the player, while also still being a great game. Still looks freaking spectacular for a game from 2001 too, by the way. No lie, this is probably the MGS which randomly drifts into my mind the most. 
4. Peace Walker - I'm kind of shocked to say this, but yeah, I think this is my #4? I love the short, episodic snippets of gameplay. Love the style of cutscenes and their interactivity. Loved the base-building aspect of Mother Base, stupid grind for the true ending aside. A more than worthy epilogue to Snake Eater. 
5. Guns of the Patriots - Kojima and MGS at its most unhinged and fan service-y, and probably the one with the most hype moments. Hype alone doesn't make a great game, mind, and though I don't mind the number of or length of cutscenes in this game, I don't think it's quite as strong and, perhaps most importantly, not as focused as the games I'd rank above it. 

Very excited for when I get around to Ground Zeroes and V now -- especially the latter, very curious to see how I feel about what I hear is a middling story when Peace Walker has shown I love the episodic approach. 

Until next time, MGS 

Edited June 20 by Julius