MGS: The Conclusion!

I just realized that the MGS series is now also guilty of slapping HD onto its games, and re-selling them that way.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  It’s just been done a fair amount over the last few years, and not necessarily to games that really needed it.

So I got to play Metal Gear Solid that night after the Bruns meeting, and was instantly hooked.  I can tell you exactly what did it!

In that first area, you’re just getting used to the controls and the way the radar works.  The credits are rolling, and you’re more or less focused on keeping out of sight…  then, you step in a frickin’ puddle and tip the guards off to your presence.  This game thought of everything, whereas I apparently did not.

There was a moment of sheer panic that I had never really experienced before.  “Where do I go???  What do I do?? AAAHHHH OMIGAD HE’S COMIN’!”  I had to figure out what to do pretty quickly and took a fair amount of damage, but it was on from there.  The game had me absolutely hooked, and I wasn’t even five minutes into it.

The next day, I hitched a ride into town to get picked up by John in his boat of a Caprice Classic.  His place was quite a distance out of town, and even though I was a bit nervous with him driving (through no fault of his own), I chilled out on the drive by listening to some Tea Party (the band, not the movement), and some Static-X.

For some odd reason, Cake’s “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” was in my head as I got out of the car.  *DUNNN…DA-NAnaNA!  DA-NAnaNA-nuh-nuh-nuhhh…*  John said “Don’t finish it.  Please.  Just stop singing it.  I hate it.  So bad.”

I also remember that R&B singer Aaliyah’s plane crashed that day.  Weird.

Anyhow, not to get too side-tracked, but it was a weekend full of video games and junk food I’ll definitely never forget.  I felt like, after that last hangout, my mind was clear of clutter and good to go.  I was back behind the wheel of a car for the first time the next week, classes at university started soon after, and then the attacks on September 11th happened a week later.

What a friggin’ weird summer.

I think I may have submitted to Ocelot’s torture the very first time I played through it.  The only reason being that I thought the ending was somewhat of a bummer – who wants to ride off into the sunrise with a dude on the back of a snowmobile??  Not sure which one is considered canon, but I’ll take the one where Meryl lives.  If you tough it out during the torture, you end up with an ending that’s considerably better.

Though it’s got a bit of drama that isn’t even mentioned otherwise (Campbell is Meryl’s father???), the game’s alternate ending is actually the funnier one of the two.  Seeing Otacon take that endless tumble down the cliff was definitely worth re-playing the second half of the game.

Then again, after skipping all the cutscenes and Codec transmissions I didn’t need to record, it didn’t take long at all!