Metal Gear Solid Noob Diaries #5: Jumping Mad

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, time for another Metal Gear Solid session - I do love the fact that I’m actually looking forward to it each time I play. Big Harrier boss battle was completed last time, so some stealthy stuff is probably on the cards next!

Right, just got to shimmy down this pole and land on the big pipe.

Done, easy peasy.

Run a little bit, now a nice big gap to jump over. Obviously I’ve got to hit X to do that weird flying cartwheel thing Raiden does, shouldn't be too difficult. Here goes...

Agh! Nope, dead.

Right, back to the beginning, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy aaaaand jump!

Nope, dead again.

OK, third time lucky. Ready.... go!

Nope.

Fourth time actually lucky!

Nope.

Five you’ll be fine?

Nope.

Please, for the love of sanity let me cross this damned gap!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

*Timeout*

“Right, come on, concentrate. Go, go, go!

Yes! Success. Wasn’t even that hard *scans to see if anyone was watching*.
Ah, a silencer for my AK, very nice. Now I just go round the corner, a little bit of sleuth-ary and... wait, is that a drone. Ah, yes, and it’s spotted me, and is shooting at me, and so is everyone else, and now I’m dead.

And now I’m back to the beginning. With the jump.

Which I’ve failed again.

Kill me.”

So went my first half hour of today’s session. I think the most annoying aspect of the whole fiasco was that it wasn’t supposed to be a difficult bit. I’d feel justified spending time on a big boss battle (which I’ll get to, actually), but this just seemed stupid and completely dependent on my apparent lack of coordination. It’s OK though, I got through it. I’m here and willing to write about more than my immense failure. In fact, from then on I managed to earn back a bit of self-respect by actually being good at the game!

Now that I’ve got a properly good arsenal including a silenced pistol and machine gun as well as a sniper rifle, grenade launcher and various other pieces of weaponry, I’m a much more able soldier. While the early game stealth revolved around patience and opportunity spotting, the stealth is now based on my ability to pick targets and accurately take them out from a distance so as to not disturb the other guards. This, I’m happy to report, is something I’m actually decent at.

I’m now getting to the core of the game, which means some excellent gameplay sections, including a couple of really awesome heart-in-throat style underwater segments. What’s really impressed me so far with Sons of Liberty is the consistent rejuvenation of the gameplay. There’s always something new to do and a different spin on the gameplay to enjoy. A lot of modern games have a tendency to rely on a few core mechanics for the whole game, but not so in MGS it seems.

For all the excellent gameplay, it was the story that won me over today. Everything is starting to unravel, all beginning with the President who, aside from conveniently dying, spilled the beans on the Patriots, who I can tell are going to be big players in the MGS universe (OK I cheated, MGS4 is called Guns of the Patriots). So apparently the Patriots are a group of twelve men who essentially run the whole world from behind the curtain. All forms of power are merely puppet shows created to conceal the true power of the Patriots. It’s a really neat concept that I’m now totally sold on.

So it turns out that Solidus Snake, Ocelot and Dead Cell (Vamp, Fortune etc) are actively trying to oppose the Patriot’s supreme power which sounds quite nice actually...but hold on there Mr. or Mrs. ‘stick it to the man’, the destruction of the Patriots would lead to worldwide chaos and destruction! That’s not good. Of course, who’s to say it actually would; I’m sort of on the bad guy’s side here. But they’re ne'er-do-wells and Raiden and Snake are upstanding members of society, so go team!

On the whole, I’m loving the crazy plot, which isn’t something I really expected. Something else I enjoyed this time around was the boss battle with Vamp. It took me a good 45 minutes to an hour, but it never felt unfair, just challenging in all the right ways. Which, I suppose, sums up a lot of my time with the game. I had my difficulties to start with, but it’s all starting to fall into place. Every session presents something new, and it’s almost always something great. I’m still not a fan of boring fetch-quests, but I’ll suffer them if it means I get to play more of the good stuff.

Onwards and upwards!