Moose tries to play Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

After that confusing boss battle there was a much simpler one. I had to race to the helipad on Strut E before Fatman blew it up and then fight him. He didn't care about Dead Cell's goals or anything and just wanted to be a famous bomber.

He was wearing roller blades, which was weird. He raced around setting bombs and shooting at me, and for a while I just shot at him too (defusing the bombs was no problem). Then I realised I could wait until he got tired, punch him a few times and then get a head shot in while he was on the ground, which sped things up.

While he was dying he revealed there was one final bomb. It was bloody obvious where it was because it beeped and showed up on the radar and everything. It was under his fat corpse. But I died about 5 times because I had no idea how to get to it. Phoned the Colonel a few times but he and Rose just told me what I already knew. In the end I had to check the manual for the controls to see if I had missed something, and it turns out I had. I had no clue that you could pick up bodies and move them if you unequiped your weapon.

So now it's back to rescuing the President. Called Rose to save and she gloated about knowing where the bomb was as.

Gray Fox, or someone who looks suspiciously like Gray Fox, but I'll just call him Gray Fox until it's proved otherwise, showed up and gave me a whole heap of information. Big Shell isn't an environmental clean up facility, but the R&D site for the new Metal Gear. Also there are nuclear weapons on site, and because they have the President, Dead Cell also have the activation codes for the nukes.

To locate the President I have to infiltrate Shell Core 1, which is heavily guarded. I need a terrorist uniform, which Gray Fox kindly provided, and I also need one of their weapons, and I also have to somehow pass a retinal scan. Then I need to find a directional microphone so that when I find the hostages I can hear which one of them has a pacemaker because they will be the President's head of security and can tell me where the President is.

I'm sure I won't cock that up at all.

Rose also dug up some information on Solid Snake's death. His body was dug up for DNA testing and although the right arm was missing, the DNA was a match. Which means he's not dead. That has to be Liquid's body, since Ocelot has his arm.

Gray Fox also said he was a messenger for the La Li Lu Le Lo. Second time that's been mentioned. No clue what the fuck it is.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Gray Fox also said he was a messenger for the La Li Lu Le Lo. Second time that's been mentioned. No clue what the fuck it is.

Play MGS 3 for a neat twist. Play MGS 4 for a twist of an even greater level.

MGS2 is the best in the series.

(It's not the best game, but it's the best in terms of what it brought to the series and how it revolutionized gaming)

(And Raiden owns bones. Rose is the only bad part about the game.)

I made a mistake going into Shell Core 1 before getting the AK, because the AK is in Strut F and the bridge to Shell Core 1 is full of trapdoors that stay open. I had to navigate around security drones and snipers while hanging. It was a nightmare.

Then I remembered the chaff grenades. They made getting back into Shell Core 1 easier. Using my new level 2 access card I found the AK in Strut F and with a complete disguise I was able to get to B1 of Shell Core 1. That's where I discovered that bumping into an enemy makes your clothes fall off, thus ruining the disguise.

I've just been letting myself die whenever I accidentally set off an alert.

Had to go down to B2 to get the directional microphone. Now I need to find a way to get passed the retinal scanner.

Called Rose to save. She moaned about Raiden never talking about himself.

Using my newly discovered powers of grabbing people with no weapons equipped, I grabbed someone and his him to get past the retinal scanner, and then found Ames using the directional microphone to listen for the beep of the pacemaker in his heartbeat. What followed was thoroughly confusing.

Ames said he was sent in by the La Li Lu Le Lo, and he assumed Raiden was too. His job was to watchover the President. He knew about Metal Gear. He said the tanker was sunk on purpose so they could build Big Shell under a cover story, but it's sole purpose was the development of a new Metal Gear. Which I don't really get because the tanker was carrying a new Metal Gear so they obviously had the capicity to build one anyway.

But that one was stolen by Ocelot because he wanted to return it to the Patriots, and at the time it sounded like the Patriots and the La Li Lu Le Lo were the same thing, but now it seems like there not.

Ames was unaware of the ransom demand and said that a nuclear strike was the objective all along, but because of nanomachines in the President's body, the only way to launch a nuke is if the President did it willingly. The nanomachines monitor his vital signs and he can't activate the nukes unless they're within normal parameters, and then he has to reaffirm the activation 1 hour later.

But the President has activated the nuke apparently. Ocelot had a conversation with Snake (the terrorist leader calling himself Snake, which I had completely forgotten about) nearby and I listened in with the microphone. Ocelot called him King rather than Snake. Maybe he's Solidus? Anyway they don't know who Raiden is working for because they think FOXHOUND was disbanded, so they assume he's working for the Patriots.

I need a break.

Right.

Ocelot saw Raiden and Ames talking and wandered over. He knew who Ames was and said that Ames had failed them by not keeping the President under control. Ames was talking about how the President must have activated the nuke because he was tired of being a puppet or something, so I assume the La Li Lu Le Lo are the ones who are really in control of things.

So Ocelot is part of the La Li Lu Le Lo as well? But then why is he working with the terrorists? I thought he was with the Patriots? How many different fucking factions are there in this game?!

Anyway Ames died. It looked like the FOXDIE deaths from MGS1. Then Gray Fox showed up and saved Raiden's Arse.

Oh, also King talked about Outer Heaven. Their plan is to detonate the nuke in the atmosphere above Manhatten to wipe out all the electronics and take the city completely offline. Then I assume they'll take it over and turn it into Outer Heaven. Liquid briefly mentioned Outer Heaven in MGS1. Some kind of idealistic warrior culture that Big Boss dreamed up or something. That's what I remember anyway.

I am so god damn confused. But no one clarify any of this for me if it involved spoilers.

It doesn't get clarified. Just more convoluted.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Then I assume they'll take it over and turn it into Outer Heaven. Liquid briefly mentioned Outer Heaven in MGS1. Some kind of idealistic warrior culture that Big Boss dreamed up or something. That's what I remember anyway.

Basically, A Nation/State of Mercenaries. And after that came Zanzibar Land, Which was basically the same thing.

Okey dokey, time to get to Shell 2. The connecting bridge between Shell 1 and Shell 2 is rigged with IR sensors, but I'm familiar with these from Snake's part at the start of the game. Just shoot out all the control units, should be a doddle. Except I got blown up 3 times. Then I realised there was another unit I missed on top of a security drone. It was moving and really far away so I couldn't hit it.

Called Pliskin and he said I should be using a sniper rifle, and that I could find one in Strut F. Of course, the level 3 access card I got from Ames. I keep forgetting about the restricted access areas. Circled all the way around Shell 1 just to do a bit of sight seeing. Found the sniper rifle, a tranquiliser sniper rifle, and a grenade launcher in the Strut F warehouse. Should be able to get to Shell 2 easily now.

Called Rose to save. Raiden's all bitchy and jealous because Rose said something mildly complimentary about Pliskin. He has a serious inferiority complex. I don't know why she likes him at all.

To clarify (it's not spoilers you are supposed to infer this): The Patriots are the La Li Lu Le Lo. What happens is when a person in the government's employ attempts to say the "Patriots", their nanomachines force them to say "La Li Lu Le Lo" as a form of censorship. They don't realize that they have been censored. It helps stop the spread of information about the Patriots.

If someone can say "Patriots" without being censored it means they're cool. Either because they're outside of the Patriots' sphere of influence or they are so high up in the Patriots' employ that they have special privileges.

The reason they say "La Li Lu Le Lo" is because to a native Japanese speaker like Kojima, the letter "L" is difficult to pronounce. Thus La Li Lu Le Lo is supposed to physically difficulty to say and its a kind of meta-solidarity between character and player (which is lost somewhat in the English version).

Just to add to what casa said, when he says those words are hard to pronounce in japanese, it basically can't be written or pronounced properly. Where he says it stops the spread of information I made the assumption this means their name even couldn't be written down. I think that sounds right, but casa can correct me if i'm wrong.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Should be able to get to Shell 2 easily now.

So much for that.

Disabled the semtex trap on the connecting bridge, but then a bunch of crazy stuff happened. Pliskin showed up with Otacon in a chopper to try and rescue the hostages, but then King showed up and revealed that he was Solidus Snake. He looks a lot older than Solid and Liquid. But he has some cyber suit on and he can beef up his muscles like Brolli. Then Vamp showed up in a Harrier and Solidus got in and Pliskin gave me the Stinger missiles to fight off the jet.

After the jet was destroyed Metal Gear Ray jumped out of the water and caught the falling jet in it's mouth, then launched a bunch of bombs and screwed up Shell 2 some more. Vamp got out of the jet and started running on the water, and then up a wall, to get back into Shell 2.

Raiden finally realised that Pliskin was Solid Snake and got all emotional about his mission because Snake fights for what he believes in and Raiden just follows orders. But enough of that, back to following orders. Metal Gear is already active, which isn't exactly a surprise since it was active 2 years ago when Ocelot stole it, but there's still time to stop the nuclear strike if Raiden can get to the President before he confirms the launch.

Going round the edge of Strut L I kept getting spotted and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. In the end I just got fed up and shot all the guards and drones. Still fell off the pipes a few times because the controls are a bit messy in tight spaces. Couldn't get inside Strut L or Strut K so I went straight to Shell Core 2.

Found the room where the President is being held, but Olga has activated the electric floor outside the room so there's no way to get to the door now. The Colonel informed me that I needed to find some guided missiles that I could shoot down the air vents into the room, and Snake tells me those are in B1. Which is flooded.

A swimming level. Hooray.

The Colonel's voice definitely changes during some of the tutorial messages.

What the fuck?! I got into the room and the first thing the President did was grab Raiden's dick. But apparently he thought Raiden was a woman, so... That's okay, I guess?

After that bizarre moment the President spilled the beans. All the beans.

The Patriots secretly run the country and politics is just a little show they put on to fool the masses. Simple enough. They decide who gets to be President and so on. Solidus is another clone of Big Boss like Solid and Liquid, except older for a reason I don't know yet (maybe he was cloned earlier or something), and he impressed the Patriots so they made him President.

But he betrayed them with the Shadow Moses incident. He sent Ocelot to encourage Liquid, and they planned to steal the Metal Gear REX and use it against the Patriots. That's exactly what they're doing this time too. They took over Big Shell to get the new Metal Gear to have another go at creating Outer Heaven and stick it to the Patriots. That's when the Patriots made this new guy President.

However, Metal Gear Ray is not the new Metal Gear they were after. Which was obvious from the start because they already had it, but Raiden didn't know that. No, the new Metal Gear is called Arsenal Gear, and it is Big Shell. The whole structure is the new Metal Gear. A giant fortress protected by an army of Metal Gear Rays that will control the entire military. Not only that, it will have some special program or something called GW that will be able to regulate and control all digital information so that the Patriots can keep their power.

That's what I took from it all at least. The President co-operated with Solidus because he thought he could use Arsenal Gear and GW to bargain his way into becoming a member of the Patriots, but when he realised Solidus was going to wage war on the Patriots he didn't want to help him anymore. So he started begging Raiden to kill him so that he couldn't make the strike confirmation.

Then Ocelot showed up and shot the President himself. Which I don't get because Ocelot is supposed to be working with Solidus against the Patriots. Now I have to go back through the flooded basement to find Emma Emmerich, Otacon's sister if I remember right, because she's the lead programmer for GW, and get her to stop it.

But the President grabbing Raiden's dick was still the most confusing thing about the whole scene.

that's how you greet people in my country. accept it or die

After all that there was a call from Snake and Otacon that made things a bit less confusing.

Arsenal Gear was being developed at the sime time as Metal Gear RAY, but it seems RAY was a Marines project that the Patriots didn't approve of. They wanted it dealt with, but they also wanted to deal with Solid Snake. He became a bit of a people's hero after Shadow Moses and he was going around the world destroying Metal Gears, and the Patriots didn't like that.

So they got two birds with one stone. They set Snake up with tip offs about Metal Gear RAY and timed their attack on the tanker to take place while Snake was there. They framed Snake for a huge environmental disaster to ruin his public image and used the sinking of the tanker as a cover for stealing RAY.

So Ocelot must be working for the Patriots then. Come to think of it...

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

But Ocelot betrayed them and killed them all. He doesn't want to use Metal Gear to help Russia, he wants to return it to the "Patriots"

Yeah, Ocelot said he was returning RAY to the Patriots at the beginning of the game. And Solidus was in hiding when this all happened, so he must not know.

I must say this is all frightfully interesting.

Of course, I say it's starting to make sense. There's still a fucking vampire in the game somewhere, and a woman who somehow repels bullets.

Called Rose to save. The greatest mystery in the game, why Rose wants anything to do with Raiden, just gets more and more mysterious as time goes on.

Now I find out that after having sex, Raiden either leaves immediately or stays up all night and then leaves in the morning, because he's "scared of the night". They've never actually slept together. Raiden also refuses to let Rose into his own bedroom, but one time she forced her way in and he hit her.

Raiden really doesn't seem like the type of character that should be starring in a tactical espionage action videogame.

Found Peter's body while swimming through the basement. Also got a call from Otacon to tell me his sister was afraid of water. She nearly drowned when she was a kid and their father did drown. She was calling out for Otacon but he was in his room wanking or something.

Then I ran into Vamp, who informed me that the nuclear threat wasn't over. Arsenal Gear carries a purified hydrogen bomb, which Solidus doesn't know about apparently. Solidus seems to be in the dark about a lot of things. Everyone working for him has their own agenda. It sounds like Dead Cells terrorist reputation is more lies from the Patriots, but Vamp didn't go in to details.

The boss battle against Vamp was simple. He jumped around a lot and I shot him in the face with a grenade launcher whenever he stood still.

Emma's been injected with something that means she can't walk properly, so I have to slowly walk her back to Shell Core 1, holding her hand all the way, while listening to her dumb family issues. Otacon had a go at her for getting involved with Metal Gear projects despite their families history, she just wanted to hurt him because he abandoned her, blah blah blah.

But she also spouted off a whole bunch of information about Arsenal and GW. She wrote the GW program as well the virus that could destroy it. GW is a global social control system to restrict the flow of digital information right down to an individual scale so that the Patriots can write history as it goes along in the way they see fit. They've been doing that anyway, but the exponential growth and speed of digital information is making it harder, which is why they need GW. For example, studies have revealed humans have about 40'000 genomes, but actually it's closer to 100'000 and the Patriots just covered it up.

Also, during the Y2K hysteria, the US government supplied a counter measure program to every governmental agency in the world, and it was built into the OS of every commercial computer after that. This program contains a subsystem that will activate along with the GW to help monitor the flow of information. GW can pretty much control the entire digital world, and Aresenal Gear was built to house and protect it.

Oh, and Emma pissed herself when Raiden found her. Just like Otacon did in MGS1.

Got out of the basement with Emma. There were a lot of cockroaches around the elevator and she wouldn't walk through them, but I had the brilliant idea of spraying them with the coolant spray, which worked a treat. I wonder what all these bugs are about?

Got back to Strut L. I couldn't enter it before because it requires level 5 access, and I didn't even have level 4 when I first got to Shell 2. Emma has level 5 access though so it's all good. The upper connecting bridge between Shell 1 and Shell 2 was destroyed by Solidus and the harrier, so we have to find a ladder down to the oil fence on the water's surface. We need to get back to Shell Core 1 because that's the only place that Emma can use the virus from for some reason.

Got down to the oil fence. Emma had to walk very slowly across on her own while I protected her by shooting all the guards and cyphers with a sniper rifle because... I don't know. Raiden said the pontoon bridge looked like it could only support one person but it could clearly support two because right at the end Vamp showed up again.

He jumped out of the water and grabbed Emma. I had to snipe him while he was holding her, but after getting rid of him Emma started bleeding. I thought I had accidentally shot her and the game was rubbing it in before giving me the Mission Failed screen. But Vamp had stabbed her. Snake ran out onto the pontoon bridge, picked her up, and carried her back to Shell Core 1. I have to make my own way there, and it 600 seconds. After that I assume Emma will die.

I have to say I was a teeny bit upset when I thought I had shot Emma, and relieved when I found out I hadn't. Doesn't look like Vamp is dying anytime soon either. Already killed him 3 times and it hasn't had much effect.

Called Rose to save. Raiden did the classic "Hey can I tell you something? Oh no, nevermind. No really, it's nothing. I can't tell you. No, you wouldn't understand!" bit. But then he told her anyway. He's a cold blooded killer and deep down he enjoys it and boo hoo etc.