Metal Gear Solid Noob Diaries #15: The Great Escape

Welcome to the Metal Gear Noob Diaries. This is the recounting of my experience through the MGS series from MGS2: Sons of Liberty all the way to MGSV: Ground Zeroes. I’ll be updating every so often with new thoughts on sections of the games and taking a look back at memorable and enjoyable moments. I’ve never played the series before, so for the fans out there it could be an amusing tale of one noob’s journey, while those as green as myself could well learn a little about the mad world of MGS. Enjoy!

OK, confession, I played this segment directly following the Eva/Snake cutscene. I’ve tried to keep my sessions to concentrated periods of time for the sake of writing these diaries, but I just didn’t want to stop!

So the task now is to finally take out the Shagohod in order to prevent Volgin from mass producing them and starting a new world war. Eva gave me some C3 (the pre-cursor to C4, I guess) to blow up the entire lab that holds the weapon, as well as a key that gives me access. So it’s back into Groznyj Grad for what’s sure to be the build up to the big finale.

Breaking back into the fortress and planting the C3 proved to be pretty simple. A LOT of sleeping guards and maintenance workers on the way - looks as though I’ve learned my lesson from The Sorrow boss level. It’s probably a good time to mention that I’m so, so glad I’ve been able to use the 3D camera for this game. While doing a bit of reading I found out that the original MGS3 used the static camera from Sons of Liberty, I can’t even imagine how annoying that would’ve been in the game’s more open environments.

So with the C3 placed it was time for, dum, dum, dum - another cutscene! Metal Gear Solid is the classic cutscene machine, but I must admit that I wasn’t prepared for just how many there’d be in the games. Snake Eater in particular is just loaded with story segments, and while they’re almost all excellent, it does have a tendency to break up the gameplay to an uncomfortable degree. Certainly not enough for it to be an actual problem, but it’s something I noticed and thought could be improved upon. Apparently Kojima has accepted that long cutscenes just aren’t appropriate for the modern gaming market, so The Phantom Pain won’t feature any. Apparently.

This was another one of those ‘characters collide’ scenes featuring all of the primary players in the story. To cut it short, Snake gets busted and taken down by The Boss, only for Volgin to reveal that he has captured Eva after discovering that she’s the spy. He caught her trying to steal the Philosopher’s Legacy, or at least a micro-film that contains the various locations of the entire cash sum. He then explains how the Legacy came about - with some intriguing info and references thrown in.

The concept here is that the US, USSR and (for some reason) China amassed a huge amount of money to counter the Germans during WW2. With the war won, they divided the money around the world, I guess the plan was for it to never be used. The Philosophers were the group behind this whole plan, a group of powerful and intelligent people from those three nations. Volgin’s father, one of the Philosophers, kept tabs on the money and left the info to his son, who now uses the money to fund his own projects and climb to world domination.

So began my battle with Volgin, an ultimately simple fight that was a lot more difficult for me specifically because I was completely unfamiliar with the Close-Quarters-Combat (CQC) system. I managed to go through the whole game without actually learning how to use CQC, which essentially allows Snake to grab bad guys and beat them down, or use them as a human shield. Sounds cool, but it looks as though I’m not going to get a chance to use it again. I sure needed it for the fight against Volgin though. So after faffing around for a little while I decided that I’d have to look online; I’d come too far without learning anything about CQC, I wasn’t going to beat a boss with it now without learning about it.

So after a little bit of on-the-net training I managed to take out Volgin easily enough, which was by far the most satisfying boss battle yet. The bastard. Most of the rest of this session was a manic Great Escape-esque getaway sequence in which Eva and Snake (in a motorcycle and sidecar respectively) make a dash for the exit all while trying to take down the Shagohod. Volgin didn’t die unfortunately, despite Ocelot betraying him, so he’s the one piloting the giant nuclear tank. The sequence even sees Snake save Ocelot, despite the recurring character still hunting him down. The two have some sort of mutual respect despite their constant rivalry.

A really fun, and pleasantly long, sequence with a lot of variety. The game gives the player a lot of freedom throughout the game, so this one little on-rails segments feels perfectly timed and hugely satisfying because of it. The scene culminates in the destruction of the Shagohod and a very easy final battle with Volgin, who’s killed by a bolt of lightning - a fitting end for a man who could shoot lightning himself (not sure if I ever mentioned that?). As previously mentioned, he was probably one of the worst characters in the series so far, just too clichéd for my liking. He did make for a good antagonist though, so it was pleasing to see him go.

So Volgin exploding his way to an early grave signed off that session. Now we’re headed to the finale itself. I’m excited.