Metal Gear Solid Noob Diaries #23: The Fake Ending

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!

My time with Peace Walker came to what I thought was an abrupt end today, as I reached the final credits after a few hours of enjoyable play - certainly some of the best stuff I’ve played in the game, in fact. I was, however, a little surprised to see the story come to its conclusion so soon. I started to write this entry only to discover that there’s quite a bit more to the game after the credits roll. So I’ll get to that final part of the game in due course, for now I’ll take you through today’s session.

It was into the underground bunker first, a rather bland environment that took a lot of cues from MGS2. I’d become pretty consistent with my sneaking and shooting abilities by this point, so much so that it’s weird to think back on the beggining of these diaries when I couldn’t sneak past Stevie Wonder. This all led up to a great cutscene in which Snake finally confronts the Peace Walker weapon, only to discover that Coldman and Strangelove had captured Paz. Strangelove works out what happened to the Boss upon her death - that her final mission was to be killed by Snake - and so the Mammal pod, as the Boss AI is titled, is finally complete.

Hot Coldman took a turn for the awesome during the final hours of the core storyline. His demented voice combines perfectly with his equally loony plans. Using nukes to create peace!? Seriously, how could that ever be a good plan? Kojima obviously tries so hard to make it work as well. So following that cutscene it was time to battle the Peace Walker for the first time, which was another pretty simple fight that simply required that I continuously hammer the AI pod with rockets. Peace Walker has yet to really throw up a difficult boss, but I know that there are some more advanced versions of the other AIs coming.

Saying that, the Peace Walker boss fight was more like one giant extended level than a single battle, filled with lots of variation and original design. Certainly one of the best bits was a neat cutscene interaction segment in which I had to hammer the triangle button in an effort to keep up with the Peace Walker while riding The Boss’ horse. An adrenaline-fuelled joyride that ends with the sad demise of the horse - a beautiful scene that is compared with the heart-wrenching death of The Boss in Snake Eater. That willingness to retrace old ground, in particular the battle scene with The Boss and her subsequent death, has been a consistently excellent element of Peace Walker and one that I hope continues as I play more of the series.

Next up was a sneaking mission into an American base mysteriously inhabited by Russian troops. Followed then by a balls-out action segment in which I had to make my way back through the same level only this time with no hope of avoiding detection. Pretty standard (although at moments quite tricky) stuff that built up to...yes, another great cutscene. Coldman, in classic bad guy form, starts to give away his plan only for The Professor (remember him? Well now he’s called Zadornov) to storm in on the party and backstab Coldman - turns out they’d been sort of working together all along. Confused? Yeah, so was I. So now Zadornov ALSO reveals his big ol’ plan. This one makes a bit more sense than Coldman’s though.

Disguised as the Americans, Zadornov plans to launch a nuke on Cuba thereby beginning a wave of anti-American sentiment and potentially the growth of communist support. He almost got away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling MSF mercenaries! Following a distress message from Snake, MSF and the guerillas (led by Amanda and Chico) bust in on the scene and put a hold on it all. It seemed a bit odd and rushed - a crucial plot line had been both uncovered and resolved all in one cutscene. Plus, for some reason, Snake just easily forgives Strangelove - she apologises for torturing him and he just jokes it off! A badass in every sense of the term...

So it’s all happy goodbyes....until Coldman, on his deathbed after being shot by Zadornov, activates Peace Walker, emitting a fake nuke signal to NORAD and launching a real nuke towards Cuba. So it’s down to Snake to finish off Peace Walker - he’s probably getting a bit sick of being the only man to save the world time and time again. This final battle was by far the best boss fight of the game - proving to be properly challenging and pleasantly varied. As with the rest of the title (and the series), the soundtrack is on point during the level, perfectly complimenting the action. I took a couple of deaths trying to kill Peace Walker but completed the level on the third try to an immense celebration.

In typical MGS style, the final section is just too crazy to properly explain - long story short, Big Boss manages to damage Peace Walker but not enough to stop it emitting the fake nuke signals. It takes The Boss’ spirit to overcome the AI pod and stop the machine, drowning it in a lake. Yes, that’s right - The Boss’ spirit...or something like that. As ever, it comes off really well while playing the actual game. It’s these kinds of things you need to experience for yourself. So together The Boss and Snake, or Big Boss, defeat Peace Walker.

It’s a poetic end for the core MGS game I enjoyed the least, sad to say. It was still good by all accounts, but never came close to the first two games I played. As mentioned at the beginning, I’ve still got a bit to play. I’m tempted to just skip on to MGS4, but I’ll charge through it in an effort to play the proper ending. My next update will probably cover the whole build-up to the next ending.