00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games deep dive review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss my guest today is a friend of the show. 1 of the hosts on Left Behind Game Club and Cutscenes podcasts and she can cook a 5 star dish out of a python and some wild mushrooms welcome to the show Katie Lesperance. That's right? Yeah I was putting that together I was like you know what like preparation you know little ah little fire. 00:26.66 Katie Damn straight I can that actually sounds pretty good to be perfectly. Honest. 00:38.58 Dave Going on I dig it. 01:00.13 Katie Thank you for having me on though I am excited and you gave me an excuse to replay Metal Gear Solid one two and 3 and I it was a lovely time. 01:03.40 Dave Um, of course. 01:12.53 Dave Ah, don't put all of that on me. I gave you the chance to play Metal Gear Solid 3 and you took it upon yourself to replay all of them leading up to it. But today we are going to be talking about Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Which is a stealth action game developed and published by Kanami for the ps 2 in 2004 and it had an updated version with the subtitle subsistence that was later released in 2005 previously on tales from the backlog I have episodes about Metal Gear. Solid. That's episode 61 with Mick Arcade Metal Gear Solid to that is episode 105 with Kade from Gaming Memories and perhaps most importantly for us here today episode 84 of tales from the backlog is about Metal Gear Rising Revengeance with one Jacob McCourt so we have lots of Metal Gear history on the podcast today and we. Are going to tackle Metal Gear Solid three today if this is your first time listening to the show. Thank you for stopping by here is how the spoiler policy works for Metal Gear. Solid 3 today. We are not going to spoil the story for a while, we're going to talk about other story things. But we're not going to spoil like you know what happens in the game. So if you don't want to be spoiled. You can listen to this show for quite a while and you can check down in the show notes for a timestamp for when the spoilers begin. So with that being said, what is Metal Gear Solid three we have prepared some quick pitches for you I say Metal Gear. Solid 3 is the exact moment in gaming history when nobody could say no to Hideo Kojima anymore, Katie. What would you say? 03:39.25 Katie There you go. That's pretty um I have I've got to I've got Hideo Kojima took a nature survival course and got really really into it like it took over his life. Yeah, absolutely. 03:46.80 Dave Okay, ah yeah, he watched man versus wild a couple times. Yeah. 03:58.20 Katie Um, and then my other one is basically so what the game actually is is basically like James Bond if he was one of the castaways in the 2004 hit show lost because weird things happen in that place and we don't follow the rules of nature sometimes. 04:08.10 Dave Okay I could see that. Yeah. 04:15.98 Dave That's true. Yeah, absolutely um, maybe there's a secret smoke monster boss that I missed in Metal Gear. Solid 3 but ah, let's see here so I played this on steam deck. I played the subsistence version emulated and it took me about 15 hours to beat. Ah, Katie this most recent time how did you play this. How long did it take you? 04:36.25 Katie I played the HD release on the PS 5. How did it play on the steam deck? 04:45.44 Dave Ah, the steam deck emulators slowed down during cutscenes. So I actually had to watch the last cut scene on Youtube because it was playing at half speed on the steam deck. But other than that all the gameplay stuff was perfectly fine. 04:58.12 Katie Nice. 05:01.70 Dave Yeah, about 15 hours sound ah sound about right to you to beat this. 05:08.10 Katie Um, for a normal person. Yes, for me who I had not played this game in a long time and I got really really into it and I played too much like too much so I played probably like near 20 05:16.75 Dave Okay. 05:24.43 Dave Okay I was I thought you were going to. Okay I was good I thought you're about to pro gamer me and be like well for normal people 15 for me, it was like 7-8 hours um so we always get started by talking about our history with the series and with this game in particular. 05:24.86 Katie Ah, yes, it's actually about 15 ish. Oh. 05:40.92 Dave So um I asked you to come on this episode because I know you have a history with Metal Gear Solid as a series so tell everybody about that and then when did you first play Metal Gear Solid three. 05:52.59 Katie Um, yeah, I'm a pretty big Metal Gear fan. Not like the biggest I have gaps. Um, ah the main series I've played is 1 , 2 , 3 and 5. I wanted to play 4 but that was it. A time in my life when my gaming motion sickness was at its peak and I physically couldn't play it and it was really upsetting. Um, and that I haven't touched the other like side ah games which is too bad because I hear that some of them are very very good and I've wanted to and it they would just. 06:15.59 Dave Oo. 06:26.39 Katie I don't know if it didn't work out that I was able to play them easily and now it's harder. Um, but they're kind of on my backlog of like I need to get to those side games and Metal Gear. Solid 3 I played pretty much when it came out. Um so I was a teenager. 06:29.31 Dave Yeah. 06:39.75 Dave Um, okay, yeah, yeah, it was a ah it was a while ago. Um, so this is your second time playing it then for the podcast here. 06:53.21 Katie Um, I probably played it. I probably played it like 3 times through in my teens like I've played it multiple times but it's been a big gap since then it's probably been like a good 15 to 18 year gap since I last played it so I was really excited. 06:56.51 Dave Nice, Nice. Okay. 07:06.87 Dave Yeah, yeah, absolutely it can be a bit of a double edged sword going back to those games for the first time like since you were a teenager for sure for me. This was my first time playing Metal Gear Solid three for the podcast here. Um I've been working my way through. Like I said those other past Metal Gear. Solid episodes of the podcast Metal Gear Solid one two and then rising um, those are all me playing those games for the first time so I am a first timer working my way through the series Metal Gear. Solid 4 is coming up next by next I mean like it'll be on the podcast and. Seven months or something like that. So. That's that's the plan. Um, my first Metal Gear game or little bit of weird trivia was Metal Gear. Solid ghost babel on the game boy color the first Metal Gear game I played. Yes. 07:56.15 Katie I Don't even know what that is. 08:00.46 Dave Game Boy color game I couldn't tell you anything about the story. I never beat it but I did have it for the game boy color and it looks like the original Metal Gear like that top down type of look. Yeah yeah, like Metal Gear. Yeah, so. 08:08.71 Katie Oh okay, the old Nintendo games like Metal Gear one and 2 Okay, yeah. 08:19.37 Dave I did play that and then um I've played rising revengeance like 3 or 4 times now I fucking love that game but I was really excited to get some Metal Gear Solid three because this is the game that everyone says like oh you like the first one or you liked Metal Gear Solid two just wait till you play 3 3 is the best 1 everyone says 3 is the one. Um, so to get into our quick opening thoughts before we dive in after playing this I can see why people would say that this is their favorite one especially like this to this point in the series like The gameplay is the most diverse and varied of the series so far. Um, the storytelling is more like you said it was like a bond movie and I totally agree that the story makes a lot more sense in this game. Um. 09:14.47 Dave It's also I think the most emotional story in the series so far and so if you're looking for a story that's going to like you know touch you in a in a way three is going to be the one of the first three to do that for you I think um so i. Liked this game going through the story and stuff I had a bit of trouble with the controls and the gameplay It's always a little bit of a struggle um with this. Ah, when you go back to ps 2 games. It's always a bit of a struggle with controls. Um, but I did get through it. It was a little bit cumbersome at times but never stopped me from playing it entirely and I did appreciate all of those weird little gameplay touches that this game introduced so after playing it I like this game a lot I can see why it's a lot of people's favorite Metal Gear Solid game. Um, yeah, we will. Obviously have a lot of time to dig into that Katie are you still with me. 10:08.44 Katie Yeah I yeah I think it is I think it's my favorite. Um I think top to bottom it is. It's the most complete. It has everything you would want from a kojima game, whereas the complaints with five later on are that obviously he did not get to the story exactly how he wanted to. It's not. It's lacking the end kind of just fizzles out. Um 1 in two I feel like they're trying to find their footing. It's like this is this new kind of game. It's very exciting. Um, but then 3 just like it opens up like you said, like you have more options in how you're playing. You're able to, um, make use of your environment more. They give you more things to play with. 1 and 2 are one especially my god it's um, replaying one was was kind of tough I'm not going to lie but 3 yes the story is more grounded which is surprising. 14:05.22 Katie Only 20 years, um you know what? it's still really good. I really really like it. Um I agree that it is, I think it's the best of the main series. Obviously I've not played 4 but um, because 5 just obviously. Kojima did not get to finish that exactly the way he wanted and you can feel it ah whereas you know the gameplay obviously is great in 5 but 3 is where like you said it really kind of opens up and out of this solely. 14:40.43 Katie Ninety degree angles like there's your little map on the top corner. You know where your cone of visions are like it feels very um as you're playing it almost like pink by numbers like you know exactly where you're going and what to do whereas this it. It opens it up as far as. 15:00.38 Katie Um, environment you have more options you have more um items the items that you have to use for um, locating enemies makes it so you kind of have to be more on your toes. You can't just rely on 1 thing all the time. 15:19.63 Katie Like I like the environments I like the mixture whereas before it was like sometimes you're outside for a little bit but it's very brief. Um this you get a bigger Um, just a bigger mix of different places that you're in and different Strategies. You have to use the story like you said is um, the best so far in that it is. It's weirdly more grounded which is a strange thing to say for a kojima game even though that is crazy like it's ridiculous. Yeah, no, this is super grounded and like a spider guy. Um, but like it has an emotional core. 15:40.70 Dave Um, yeah, it's a crazy thing to say about a game that has a man made of bees. 15:53.25 Dave Ah, yeah, yes. 15:57.15 Katie And like an actually a plotline story with an emotional core that gives you something to care about whereas like 1 and 2 like the end of 2 like I don't care. It's so big and ridiculous and it doesn't mean anything like it's like but it's cool and it's fun. But. It does it like you know there's something to dig into here and it's yeah, no, it's still great. It's a little cumbersome but I don't think it controls badly um, one of the things with the controls is that there are things that you cannot do now whereas because the p I think it was ps. 3 had p. 16:34.12 Dave PS2 16:35.11 Katie Your PS three it had that um pressure sensitive ah face buttons so you could when you held people up with your gun if you like slowly released on the button you wouldn't shoot so you could like aim at somebody and then put your gun down without shooting whereas now you have to like unequip and reequip. 16:40.82 Dave Ah. 16:48.50 Dave Yes, yeah. 16:54.95 Katie There's like some things you have to do to navigate your way around how the controls are set up. But once you get past that it's still such a good game I had so much fun playing this and. 17:06.77 Dave Hell yeah, awesome. Well we got a lot to dig into so let's ah, get a bit of music going and then when we come back, we will set up the story for Metal Gear. Solid 3 17:19.00 Dave Metal Gear Solid three is a prequel to other events in the series and if you're looking at the Metal Gear canon timeline. It is the first game in the canon timeline. So ah, this is set in an alternate history. The story takes place in 1 64 after the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis and in this version of history. The soviets agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba along with ah missiles from turkey and italy in exchange. For the United States giving over a rocket scientist to a defector from the Soviet Union named Nikolai Sokolov and a lot of the early game missions revolve around helping to rescue sokolov. That's one of the things that. Gets you into the first mission in the game in this you play as a cia operative code named naked Snake who's voiced by David Hayter just like Solid Snake who's the protagonist in Metal Gear Solid one but they're different. Because there are multiple characters with the same name in this series. We have multiple Snakes. We have multiple people named boss throughout the series. I was a little bit confused by this at the very beginning until I was waiting for this to take place forty years before Metal Gear Solid one. It can't be the same guy. 18:44.31 Dave Even though the guy in the first game is a clone. It's all fucking thing with ah with these characters. So an early inciting event in the game is that Snakes mentor and a maternal figure named the boss that's capital t capital b the boss whose voiced by Lourie Allen defects from the United States and in doing so she gives a local opposition leader some nuclear warheads which he promptly uses to nuke a building in the jungle the soviets see that a nuclear bomb has been set off and there was an american plane in the area so they blame the americans. In order to prove that the boss actually defected the Americans are tasked with going and killing her and Snake is sent on that task. So when you told Katie that there's an emotional core in this game which I totally agree with, this is the emotional core. It is this relationship between Snake and the boss and um, the fact that she was his mentor and then she defected and now he's sent on a mission to go kill her. Um, we have a little bit of tug of war like this relationship between them. And then this theme of duty that's brought up throughout the game. You know do your duty as a soldier type of thing when we say this game has a good emotional core. This is it and I thought that this was what kind of elevates this story above. 20:15.80 Dave Metal Gear Solid one was like a roller coaster and Metal Gear. Solid 2 was like this meta thing mixed with a philosophy Ted talked about. This one is the one that takes it to a pop culture level that a lot of people can get behind I think. 20:31.27 Katie Yeah, exactly from the relationship between the characters in the game whereas like so also 1 and 2 the intercharacter relationships are ah they're not much there that like there's um. 20:47.60 Katie The Snake and Liquid Snake in the first one but they're just kind of um Liquid Snakes just kind of the big villain like it's just it's just the protagonist against the villain. It's not complicated right? Yes, oh my God he loves to yell he loves a good yell. Um, also the boss is. 20:52.75 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, he's just there yelling most of the time. 21:06.21 Katie Bad ass I Love the boss anytime she's she has that thing this poise when she's in ah in a scene where you're just like oh like she's in charge like she knows what she's doing. She has a plan. She's the boss and she might not tell you what the plan is but like she has a plan. Um. 21:07.34 Dave Yes, she is yeah um. 21:14.65 Dave Yeah, she's the boss. 21:24.10 Dave Yeah, there's a couple times when um, like Snake comes up against the boss and it's not time to kill her yet because he's got other things. Ah but like you know he might try and throw a punch or they might get in a little fistfight and she ah wrecks him. 21:24.65 Katie Yeah, the boss is fantastic. 21:40.51 Dave Like every time she shows and like even this version of Snake naked Snake he is like the ultimate soldier but she is a step above him and so you're right like she is a badass and you see her do that like many times. 21:56.32 Katie Yeah, and just kind of stands over him and lords over him like what like what are you going to do like it's like ah, an adult and a child like she really looks at him like oh you try it again like you should stop doing that like it's yeah, she's formidable. 21:58.40 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, um. 22:08.17 Dave Yeah, yeah, so this is a good, um, kind of storyline that's going throughout the game trying to figure out what her deal is because she defects very early in the game but you don't learn why until the end. So you are constantly on her trail while doing these other missions trying to rescue sokolov trying to stop this opposition leader named Volgan who's kind of you know you're infiltrating his types of um, you know warehouses and stuff like that. So they got these other storylines going on but at the at the center of it and I think at the center of this game's most important story it is the boss and Snake which is cool I thought this was really good and um, a lot of people might be listening to this twenty years later or even longer. And being like yeah of course everyone knows the story of metal. You're solid 3 like there's the meme of Snake saluting at the end. I didn't know the story like I didn't know anything about this. So I thought that this was really entertaining and um hits an emotional level. I have never played another kojima game that gets even close to what this game's ending does. I've done the Metal Gear games I talked about and then I played death stranding nothing in death stranding except maybe the end of that approaches Metal Gear. Solid 3 on that emotional level. 23:40.24 Katie Yeah I'd agree with that I think dust training does um whether or not you connect with that story or not if it's you know a different story. 23:44.85 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so the. 23:55.77 Dave I Guess we kind of mentioned this earlier and so we have this like I said with this emotional story This very close interpersonal story going on with Snake and the boss and then we have the other side of Metal Gear Solid stories which is this like. Wacko collection of characters that like become your bosses that your boss fights throughout the game Lowercase B Boss this time your boss fights throughout the game. Um, you have this weird sense of Humor. You have this goofy thing that was described to me As. Anime wearing, you know a Western Spy story suit that makes sense to me so I have to ask every guest for every Metal Gear. Solid episode that comes on the show I have to ask you is kojima in on the joke or does he think that. All of this is very cool and profound. Okay. 24:53.32 Katie Oh it's both. It's totally both. It can be Ah, there're moments when it is almost nothing but a joke and you're like this is the silliest thing I've ever seen. This game is far sillier than I remember. 25:00.85 Dave Yeah. 25:07.51 Dave Um, yeah. 25:09.54 Katie I Don't know why as a kid as like a teenager it it I didn't realize how ridiculous it gets sometimes um, but then when he goes in on um divisions between the world and and the meaning of wo or and the meaning of being a soldier in this and that I do think he thinks that he's being very cool and profound and it is It is profound. 25:25.41 Dave Yes. 25:29.23 Katie Um, it's he's he's he's diving into things that are not a serious topic I don't know that he' a lot of things get said I don't know how much like he repeats himself a lot where it's like okay you said your message your like your profound message. 25:41.81 Dave Yeah. 25:48.41 Katie But then he will harp on it and harp on it and harp on it throughout the game and it's like we're not developing it that far. Um, so yeah, it's both. It changes on a dime too. It can go from ridiculous to so serious. 25:55.29 Dave Um, yeah, yes, it does. Ah. 26:02.43 Katie But then someone could be so super serious with like a giant Snake scar on their chest but they're saying profound things. It's like they intermingle I don't where we talked about this recently actually um at pax. Um I would compare him to a David cage. 26:17.62 Dave Ah. 26:21.82 Katie Who I think is only thinking that he is cool and profound and serious and I don't know I don't know that David cage is ever in on the joke whereas I think that kojima is usually in on it I would hope so. 26:26.81 Dave Ah. 26:34.92 Dave I have to hope so um because these things are cool and fun. Um, you know there is a character in the game that is made of hornets and they coalesce and form a person and then they split off into a cloud of Hornets. At a moment's notice and then you might have a really well thought out conversation and then at the end of the conversation revolver ocelot walks in and he's doing the gun twirly thing for a comically long time. So There's a lot of that mix like you said and it can turn on a dime. 27:09.23 Katie Oh. 27:11.26 Dave At any time. Um, but I think I think that as far as being profound is concerned Metal Gear. Solid too is the most profound of the Metal Gear games that I've played There's a lot of things in the other games. Touch on those subjects like you said, but then they just keep talking about them at that surface level and don't go as deep as they think they're going I think but they are talking about those things I do think that this game has it does set up an interesting. Conversation about duty duty to your superiors with Snake and the boss versus duty to your country with Snake and the United States and um, there is some cool stuff you know talking about how governments view the soldiers and the people that are doing the dirty work for them. And how they will use them in any way that might benefit them with little regard for anything else. Um I do think there are some interesting conversations and things happening here too. So yeah. 28:18.75 Katie Yeah, there, there are themes. There are cool themes that are being explored. It's just not getting like you said it's not getting that deep like you kind of have to make it deep on your own like you kind of have to think about it and dissect it on your own. But I don't know how much is actually happening in these Monologues? um, but yeah, they're very very serious but. 28:41.78 Dave Yeah, and there's a lot of Monologues that is how the story is basically told um you either have characters monologuing to Snake or monologuing to another character. Or the story is told through Kodak conversations just like the other games in the Metal Gear. Solid series so far. Um, luckily I think the voice acting in those long Kodak conversations is pretty good and charismatic. Everybody's got a fun voice at least i'm your handler. Ah, major 0 is a fun person to talk with ah voice by Jim Pittock hopefully I am pronouncing them correctly and um, we have a couple other people on the radio I think the 1 person you're going to talk to the most is named Paramedic who's voiced by Heather Halley and for those playing along at home. You're never going to guess what paramedics job is she is a paramedic who is on the radio. She will ah call and talk to you about local wildlife medical things. But that's also the person you call to save. And this is another weird like one of those things that you can tell this is like Koji Bell likes this idea. So it's going in the in the game every time you call to save paramedic asks you if you've seen a movie and then summarizes the plot for you so literally. 30:12.80 Dave You'll call to save and she'll be like Snake have you seen Dr Strange love and Snake will be like no never because Snake's never seen a movie in his life and then ah she summarizes it for him and Snake has a little quip and then that's the end and you spend a lot of time in this codex. So you know. You're a fan of the series. I assume that you enjoy these conversations to some degree. Yeah, ah. 30:37.19 Katie Ah, to some degree some of them I could I could skip some of them some of them it depends on my mood. Um, I don't know if they're just fun. I liked the movie with the paramedic because we know that Kojima is a big movie buff. 30:53.00 Dave Yeah. 30:55.11 Katie One of his passions is movies. So I just imagined um hideo kojima being like oh this is my chance to like put in a bunch of movie references and put in a bunch of things that I could maybe tie into what's happening in my game. And I get to see him being like oh what? which which movies are we going to talk about and like being excited about it and she talks about um like Godzilla and she's like you haven't seen Godzilla he's in Snake as you said no I've not seen Godzilla what on earth is that and. 31:23.10 Dave Yeah. 31:27.60 Katie And she's like I wouldn't be surprised if they're making Godzilla movies forty years from now and he's like really isn't that something and she's like mm she talks about how the vcr is coming and stuff and like I don't know it's kind of fun I liked it. 31:31.56 Dave Yeah, yeah, but. 31:42.35 Dave Yeah, um, the other kind of fun bit about those conversations is that a Snake kind of like in Metal Gear. Solid 1 Snake is horny on Maine on the radio again like father like son I suppose. So. This time when he's talking with Para Medic and other characters later but for now Para Medic it is ah you know it adds a little bit of fun characterization for them. Um, and parts of it get a little bit less fun with other things with Snake later on there but um. I did think it was funny in those movie conversations. There's one of them where she asks if he's seen a bond movie and Snake is like no he be he goes on like this little mini thing about how bond movies suck and how he's like real life's not like that real spies. Don't do that and ah. 32:37.11 Dave Ah, agent 0 gets on the radio and makes fun of him for being jealous that he's not as cool as James Bond so there's some good. Ah good stuff in there. 32:44.22 Katie Yeah, meanwhile Snake is in a James Bond movie as you say so. 32:49.43 Dave Yes, exactly? Yeah, so that's kind of like the tone that this story takes ah you've got a weapon of mass destruction that you've got to go ah ah figure out you've got a bond girl in this ah in this game just like in the movies. Um, you've got you know war theming and alternate history. Um, and then as some of the bond movies. There is that kind of human core to it as well. Um, touched on a little bit so let's just talk about this. Let's talk about the male gaze which is back in this game. Um, it took a game off between Metal Gear Solid one and 3 Metal Gear. Solid two was ah, not really like that. But it's back. So there's a character in this game named Eva and she is the bond girl type character. Ah, she is voiced by Susanta Minette and um yeah the first time you meet her she is ah getting dressed and you get an r one button prompt that zooms in right on her chest when she's getting dressed so this is back in this game. Um. Katie, can you guess the only 2 objects in this game that have jiggle physics ? Yes, those are correct. Yes, some things that ah I like whoa. That's not something I've seen in the rest of the game here. Um. 34:04.39 Katie If it is, perhaps boobs and butt. 34:20.36 Dave We talked about this in the Metal Gear Solid 1 episode and then I know there's some even weirder shit later in the series as far as this goes, but ah, some things about Kojima's portrayal of women tend to make me pretty uncomfortable and I wanted to get your take on this. 34:38.30 Katie It is ah it doesn't make me it more just makes me cringe more than anything like it doesn't make me upset it doesn't make me angry like I don't mind it I don't mind that like people are hot in these games. Ah I'm like. 34:44.83 Dave Yeah, yeah. 34:54.79 Katie Why are her boobs always out? It doesn't make sense I'm like she's riding her motorcycle and she's like Nope my boobs are out when I rode my motorcycle. It's a zipper she could easily zip it up. But anyway, um, and then just like the length of time that those shots play out for. Is just uncomfortable. It's long enough. Um, and the other thing that kind of bothers me is that I just imagined all of these like teenage boys playing these games and being like yeah Snake's Cool. He's staring at her boobs and I'm like. 35:22.88 Dave Yes, yep. 35:29.89 Katie It's not that's the more of the thing that like this nugget in my head that kind of bothers me is that I just imagine all of these young boys being like ah idolizing this in some way and thinking that it's cool and it's like no, it's just it's just weird and cringy. Um, but then there are things that way. Eva character where that character goes there are things in it that make sense just in the way that she behaves sometimes and the things that she says sometimes that I'm like oh it can't it makes sense after the fact but in the moment it. It's so uncomfortable and so cringy. 36:07.67 Katie And she's kind of embarrassing sometimes and I'm like could she be a little cooler right now and I don't know it's just yeah R one for boop shot it was just weird. Is it? It was weird then it's weirder now. Obviously it's weirder. 36:20.25 Dave yeah yeah I think I said in I think it was the Metal Gear Solid 1 episode that I felt like this was a game that was a game that was made for me when I was fifteen years old and kind of got that same feeling with this stuff in particular. 36:31.92 Katie Yeah. 36:38.96 Dave The 1 thing to like note and acknowledge is that you could have a read on this that this is a portrayal of the character Snake and not the creator being like hey let's stare at some boobs but then you get the press one. The press r one for close up. There's like hey we should put this in the game Snakes staring at him. Let's have everyone else stare at him too. Um, so there is that and like it's very obviously a thing about Snake, the character that he likes to look at and he likes to be horny on the radio. That's just him as a character. 37:00.13 Katie Um, yeah. 37:16.37 Dave Um, yeah, it's funny. Yeah, it's just there's a pattern with ah with kojima where um I actually think that like some things with Eva and then the boss are some of the best female characters in his games that I've played. 37:16.49 Katie Um, that's funny. Snake being super horny is funny. Um, yeah. 37:35.77 Dave Ah, there's some stuff with ah I haven't played Metal Gear Solid 5 But I'm aware of quiet's whole deal in that game where I'm just like this is ah a pattern that's been going on for a while and I don't buy the explanation for why quiet had to be that way. So um. 37:52.91 Katie She doesn't have to be anyway like you're choosing how she's going to be like she has to be this as if she's ah, an existing person. Yeah. 37:54.84 Dave Yeah, exactly. Yeah that was it I yeah, an idea someone had to explain why she's dressed the way she's dressed. Um, yeah, just ah, a pattern and I was like okay so is in Metal Gear Solid one you spent a lot of time staring at Meryl's butt as she's walking away now if you're solid 2 entire game took that off um and then three were back so notable for this game. Um, other than that though and I guess that does tie in a little bit with the um, the bond esque type of story. They're telling. 38:19.80 Katie Oh. 38:34.11 Dave And the types of characters that would make up that kind of story. Um, again, it doesn't have to be that way at the end of the day you can make the decisions for the thing you're making but it does kind of follow that trend. 38:45.54 Katie Yeah, it almost feels like it could be a parody of the James Bond movies which are um ah super objectifying, especially those early movies like those 70s movies. They're ridiculous. 39:00.81 Dave Yeah, ah. 39:02.17 Katie There's like pillow fights and stuff like it's so in like bikinis Anyway, um, ridiculous stuff and it's like oh I could ah if he didn't do this through ah all of them if it was only in this game I would think it's more clever and I would think it's more of a parody of a bond movie. 39:16.00 Dave Yeah. 39:20.13 Katie But because it is a thread throughout all of the Metal Gear games that I've really played. Um, it's It's a I buy the parody aspect less than I would otherwise. 39:32.81 Dave Yeah, it's just harder to give that charitable read to it for sure. Um, so I guess some ah some kind of wrap up thoughts about the story here because ah, well, we've been going for a little bit about the story but this game has a lot going on to it. Um. 39:50.27 Dave I think that this story is by far the most digestible story in the series so far. It is like you said the most grounded, as grounded as a over one hundred year old sniper in a wheelchair-containing story could possibly be. So it makes it a lot easier to follow. 1 thing to note is that this game has the same pacing issues that all the other ones that I've played have, where if this game's 15 hours long 80% of the really interesting story happens in the last two hours and everything leading up to that. You're thinking to yourself all right? Where's this going? Is it going to be like a rug pulled in metal? You're solid too, is there going to be a million plot twists like at the end of the first game. And it's neither of those things in this game. It's just they saved all the important exposition for the very end so there was a while when I was playing this and like recognizing that that emotional core is there and that we have this weirdo group of. Goofball villains that you're fighting along the way but there was a long time when I was playing this me like what's the point. What is this game doing and then you get to the end and you're like oh that's what they're doing. Why did this all have to happen in the last hour you know so that's. 41:18.49 Dave Kind of one of the takeaways about the way this plot is given even though I do think the plot itself is pretty good. 41:23.53 Katie Yeah I'll save some of it for later when we're in the spoiler section because I think I'll be able to just talk about it easier. But yeah, there are definitely and like motivations that are explained at the very end that I would prefer to be explained a little bit earlier. 41:28.12 Dave Yeah, yeah. 41:42.93 Katie Because I feel like then you can sit in the story. A little bit better as opposed to the end being like actually this is what this was and this was what this was and this is what that meant and you're like I would I would have liked to have been in the game knowing that for a bit longer because I feel like certain scenes could have been even more impactful. 41:56.24 Dave Yeah. 42:02.24 Katie Um, knowing those things earlier. Um, but yeah, he likes this very very long exposition cut scenes. Um, that was the thing about desk stranding. He was like, you know what? I'm going to spread them out through the whole game. So I'm going to do hour cut scenes like every 8 hours as opposed to all of them at the end which I don't know if that's better pasting or worse pacing. But um, yeah, he loves his long long cut scenes and I don't mind them. Sometimes you know I know what I'm in for if you don't know what you're in for I think you'd be like what is happening I'm still sitting here. 42:20.99 Dave Yep, okay. 42:26.81 Dave Ah. 42:36.75 Dave Yeah, yeah I mean I'm a huge Yakuza fan. So I'm in it for long cutscenes too . I'm not opposed to it. But um, it is a lot all at the very end and then the game is suddenly over. And you're like ok well I Guess that's what was going on even though like what happens is still Affecting. It's just I think you're right like you don't quite have enough time to sit with it I Guess unless ah you know the way they want to tell this is. That is how your character experienced this too. This is how Snake experienced what was happening So All of these things were happening at the same time. It happens for him the same way. It happens for you if you want to look at it that way. I think that that is pretty neat but ah. On the other side of that it's me playing a game experiencing a story and you know at hour Fourteen I'm like what's happening here and then our 1 hour of like extreme exposition and then it's over. So yeah, all told. 43:43.73 Katie Ah. 43:46.93 Dave Pretty entertaining story I think that a lot of the stuff that's going on here is pretty effective so we'll put a pin in it for now we will revisit this in the spoiler section. Of course, let's take a little bit of a break and we'll come back and talk about the presentation. 44:19.77 Dave So We've mentioned the phrase like a bond movie many times and this extends into the way the presentation works to starting at the very beginning of the game. Ah, you have an opening credit sequence just like in a bond film with the song Snake eater the vocal track Snake eater which ah makes lots of appearances throughout the game at sometimes very strange moments sometimes very effective emotional moments. Um, I think the song fucking rules though I Love it. 45:02.56 Katie Yes, it's kind of um, it rules, it captures exactly what they're trying to capture, it sounds like an old James Bond track and it's still silly within itself. 45:10.78 Dave Even. Oh yeah, look up the words to that song? yeah. 45:18.62 Katie Like it's ridiculous. There's something about a tree frog and like it's so silly but like it sounds like um, really like momentous and like it swells and it's really big and um. And then yeah like I said it's it's littered with these silly little things. It's not taking itself. Seriously um I Love any time that song kicks in throughout the game I'm thrilled like I've I Never don't want to hear that song. 45:40.93 Dave Yeah. 45:48.28 Dave I'm glad you said the word thrill there because that's the first line in the game. What a thrill and so this game has that famous scene where you're climbing up the minutes long ladder like the longest ladder in the history of ladders. The. Guy in Dark Souls 2. That's building ladders. He's got nothing on this fucking ladder here and then halfway up there. The vocals just kick in what a thrill you're like what the fuck is happening. Ah, so ridiculous, but really good and I liked the opening credits a lot. That was really good. 46:22.29 Dave Ah, but the cinematic presentation um doesn't stop there like you've got all your classic you know action movie style cut scenes. You've got choreographed fights. You've got explosions. You've got chase sequences, all kinds of cool stuff that is. Maybe taken for granted now. But this is a Ps 2 game. We're talking about here. So really, really good from that perspective too. I think. 46:47.18 Katie Yeah, that is the thing with all of these games particularly one two and 3 is that each and every one at the time when it came out blew my mind like. 46:58.29 Dave Yeah. 47:01.10 Katie Oh my god I played the first one I was a kid I should not have been playing that game but we owned it and I played it um blew my mind I was like this is what games can be and then Metal Gear Solid 2 came out I was like wait this is what games can be like that was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen up to that point. 47:19.86 Katie Um, you could hold people up, you could throw people off of a you know balcony. It was just wild and then 3 the same thing I'm like oh my god less so than 2 because 2 was like 2 is a moment like I remember watching that first cut scene and just being like I cannot believe what I'm watching. Um, which is hilarious to think of now but whereas 3 was like oh we're doing this again but we were just keep pushing forwards I've never played anything like this again. Um and to do that repeatedly is crazy. 47:51.40 Dave Yeah, and it's something that like the remake that's upcoming like it's probably not going to grab people in that same way because we're just at this point now where every action packed cinematic video game looks like this now. But. Ah, it is need to try and put yourself in that time a little bit and even as someone myself who doesn't really put myself as you know in the shoes in 2004 very well. Um I don't really have that in me a lot of times I still thought that this was really fun as a. You know, an action movie video game. It's ah it's fun. The way that it's presented and all those fights and all those conversations you know you have your cackling anime villains that pop up. Um, the cast is really fun here too. Really fun characters. So. Ah, the way it's presented is fun. I also thought the music was really good. Ah, the best soundtrack in the series so far, like by a lot in my opinion. Um, credited to 2 people Harry Gregson Williams and Norihico Hibino they did a great job. Um. 49:05.53 Dave The big thing that sticks out to me is other than Snake eater that song with the vocals which gets reused is um the main Metal Gear Solid theme the one that's persisted through all the games that 1 gets reused in a lot of really interesting ways for wildly different situations. And that song can be like a hell yes by action tactical espionage action type song and it can also be the saddest fucking song you've ever heard in this game depending on how they use it. So I think they did great there. 50:49.40 Dave And other than music I suppose the other thing to note is um, really good sound effects sometimes funny. Ah, but you know the iconic exclamation point sound effect when people see you the way that your weapons sound. The sounds of animals out in the jungle because you spend a lot of time out in the jungle in this game. That kind of stuff is all really well done. So you from a presentation perspective I guess will say especially for a ps 2 game I think this is pretty fantastic. 51:22.50 Katie Yeah, I absolutely agree that the thing with the sound effects in this game is that they're adding all those wilderness sounds and it does sound like you are in the jungle. Um, maybe not quite as I feel like you would be hearing more things if you're in the middle of a dense jungle like it's like a. 51:26.23 Dave No. 51:40.25 Katie Like a Symphony like a lot of things are happening but um, but I feel like they captured it very well and I'm like oh no I feel it like I feel like I am in the Jungle I am ah you know amongst the Snakes and the birds. 51:48.57 Dave Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah you got bugs buzzing around your ears and all that stuff. So It's ah it's good stuff. It really puts you down there. Let's listen to a bit more of the music. Let's come back and talk about the gameplay. In Metal Gear. Solid 3 Metal Gear. Solid 3 is a stealth game just like the rest of the games that came before it and this game puts a special emphasis on stealth as well as quote. 52:21.50 Dave Realism and survival mechanics like we said ah earlier kojima watched an episode of man versus wild and was like you know what we're going to have him eating ah wild animals in this game. So there's a bunch of stuff going on. Let's talk about stealth though. So um. I think the Hd version that you played has the behind the character. Third person view is that right? Yeah, so does the subsistence version but in the options you can switch to the old top down style view which I read the original version of the game had. 52:41.85 Katie It does. 52:56.39 Katie Yes, the original version only has the top-down. Um and I do remember like I thought back and I'm like how was that to play and you did have to like go to your first person view frequently just to scope out where the enemies are. 53:09.61 Dave Yeah. 53:14.16 Katie Because of the way the camera is, you can't see that far like an enemy could spot you and you never see the enemy on the screen if you are in the top-down view. Um, so as soon as I fired it up I was like oh yeah, I've got this third person view to try out because I had never played it with the third person view I'd play like 3 times with their old one. And instantly I was like oh this is so much better like this is how this game should be played because it just makes more sense. Um, you can see what's before you um because as I said before you're doing topdown and you're relying very much on that little map with the cones vision of your soldiers. 53:35.14 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 53:49.51 Dave The radar. Yeah. 53:53.53 Katie And you're using that to figure out where you should go. Um, you don't have that here. So you're not just going to run around blind and then they spot you and start shooting you so like to have it and it is like a um, it's not like a tight third person like it's not like you're. 54:07.92 Dave Yeah, not like the last of us. Yeah. 54:10.30 Katie In um, resident evil to like remake or anything like that. It is far enough away. Um, but you do get to like seeing the environment around you a little bit better and you can move the camera however you want really? um so yeah, no I made use of the third person I was like nope this is it. This was absolutely. 54:23.87 Dave Yep. 54:29.85 Katie The way this should be played in the original version is a major flaw. 54:33.42 Dave Yeah, 100% I can't really imagine playing with that top down view anymore because exactly like you said Metal Gear Solid one had the radar all the time Metal Gear. Solid two had the radar after you unlocked it at the terminal but you. Probably did that because you wanted that radar that helps you with your limited field of vision I guess but in this game you don't have that permanent radar at any point. Ah you get radar by using items but they all have slightly different uses none of them are perfect. So. And they all have batteries that run out so you can't have them on all the time so you do need to actually see what Snake sees and so that third person view is really good and um, the stealth is I think still most heavily emphasized. The new thing they put in this game is a camouflage system where Snake will find different outfits. Ah, you'll find them around. You'll get them as rewards for beating bosses sometimes um, most of them just like raise your camouflage percentage or like you know. Percent hidden that you are some of them will turn everybody non-hostile to you like in hitman or something like that which is cool if you find the right one for the place that you're going. Um, I think the camouflage system is a nice thing in theory. 56:02.53 Dave In reality it just means you spend a lot of time in the menu switching costumes every time you're like oh I I walked inside better get my indoor camo on um but it's a nice idea that you need to think about that kind of thing the way that Snake. Would if he's trying to infiltrate some place. 56:24.20 Katie Yeah, yeah, absolutely and like in theory I honestly don't dislike it. Um, the thing that I wish um was just that they just condensed it down a little bit like don't give me 6 different forest ones. Like I don't yeah so it's like oh I'm up against this tree now I have to have my tree bark on but if I take 3 steps to the right I need my woodland one on it's like no, no, no let's like let's just bring it in a little bit um and have it. Yeah, just less like minute changes. 56:40.53 Dave There's like a hundred outfits. There's a lot. 56:59.26 Katie Within the same environment. Um I do like that they tell you how good this is because you just scroll through and you're like this one has the highest number and I click it and I'm like don't make me like to try things out. 57:03.90 Dave Yeah. 57:15.46 Katie I have these like 20 different camouflage things and face paints. Also um so it's like I don't know if part of it was executed well or part of it was executed poorly. I enjoy it. But it's and it's quick to switch in and out of them. So. 57:29.74 Dave Um, yeah. 57:34.84 Katie But yeah, it's definitely not perfect. 57:35.21 Dave Yeah, yeah, it's just a lot of going into the menu switching out your face paint. Some of the face paints are really goofy like there's one where Snake just has a big skull painted on his face and the rest of it's black. It's goofy shit Ah, some of it is more. 57:44.77 Katie Yeah. 57:51.96 Dave Realistically I Guess we'll say so that's kind of fun. Um other stuff that you're doing in Stealth you have a lot of like minute control over what Snake is doing ah you can run you can walk you can they call it stalking in the game which is like creeping up behind somebody. Ah, you can crouch, you can crawl, you can climb on Stuff. You can hang from ledges. All that stuff. Um, this was a thing that probably my biggest annoyance with the controls is ah just all these different modes of movement because it's not really smooth to switch between them. What got me? Hundreds of times if you're crouching and you press the move Button. You'll start crawling instead of doing a crouching walk or even standing up that got me almost every time like and especially during bosses if you're trying to hide or something like that. But then you're like oh shit they saw me I got to run away. Nope you're crawling. And got me a lot of times. This is the biggest part for me with the controls that like I was fighting against even in the final boss fight I was still making this mistake. 59:03.84 Katie Um I had less of an issue with it. I get it though not having a crouch walk is like oh I'm it's one or the other whereas today. We're used to stealth games having some kind of crouch walk. Um that and like having stalking be different. 59:04.60 Dave Yeah, that's fine. 59:13.24 Dave Yeah, yeah. 59:20.73 Katie From doing your like slight push on the stick like I'm like do we need these two things to be different I don't think we do if you just made this. Yeah, give me a slight walk on the stick and then I'm silent. That would do it. You don't have buttons. 59:21.76 Dave Yeah, use it on the yeah I you know. I I I kind of appreciate it being on the D Pad because I don't know you're not yeah, you're you're not going to push it too hard and like you know. 59:37.13 Katie But you're not going to screw it up if you're doing that at least right? You're not going to accidently push it too far. You are. 59:46.20 Dave You're sneaking up behind somebody and then suddenly you run full speed into their back like that's not going to happen So I do appreciate that happening there. Um, one thing I guess to mention that's new in this game is the ah they call it. 59:49.60 Katie Yeah. 01:00:05.00 Dave Close quarters combat and there it's like a thing in the game story too like it's kind of cheesy, but this means that if you sneak up behind an enemy. You have context sensitive things that you do depending on like your position with the enemy depending on. Ah, what did you do Once? you grab them. There's a bunch of stuff you can do So You'll grab the enemy. Um, if you're holding a rifle, you'll hit them with the butt of your gun. If you're holding a weapon that is labeled close quarters weapon you can grab them and pull them in ah you can slam them to the ground you can cut their throat. You can choke them Out. You can hold them out as a human shield. There's a whole bunch of Shit. It's comp I didn't do most of this because I had trouble. Um I had trouble just sneaking up on enemies and grabbing them like that. If I got that I was like okay, cool. They're getting choked out. I'm not going to try any of this fancy shit. Was having too hard of a time but it is pretty complex and I think that people who are really good at it or people who want to take the time to practice can actually pull off some cool stuff with this. You know, like holding someone out as a human shield and then tossing them away and running up and you know. Jump kicking another enemy and knocking them down and stuff like that If you're really good which I'm not. 01:01:26.10 Katie Yeah, um, yeah, they give you the ability to be um, really specific about what you're doing which I like it did occur to me as I was starting the game because I needed a reminder I was like oh yes, you you see how does that work and I had to like pull up the game menu. 01:01:39.92 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:01:42.00 Katie Ah, the manual and like look through it which is a pain getting through that manual in the game. It's just weird. But anyway I was like no I need to review cqc. Um, but I remember like it was much easier in 2004 because everything was physical games so you had the game manual. 01:02:01.70 Katie So I literally just have that would have the game manual open especially like in the first you know a couple hours while you're playing the game. Um and you would go How do I do that again and you look down and you're like oh yeah, that's how okay, it's just a lot easier to reference something back then whereas now it's like that's not just. You could pull it up in your phone I guess but yeah. 01:02:21.31 Dave And I did yeah the steam deck with the game manual open on my phone many times. Is it? 01:02:29.20 Katie But yeah, it's um so I would not so much. This is how I play Metal Gear three. I will typically just like Tranq gun people who are far enough away that everyone else won't notice and then I'll walk up. 01:02:42.31 Dave No. 01:02:48.50 Katie And then I'll kick them until they wake up and they wake up I hold them up I make them give me all their items I might interrogate them and see if they have anything cool and interesting little Easter eggs tell me about and then I will kill them and I will hide their body and then I'll see okay who's next. 01:03:00.94 Dave Um. 01:03:05.22 Katie Who's are enough away from the pack and I can take them out and I will headshot Tranq gun them go over there and repeat and it's not the most interesting way I think to play the game but I really enjoy it. It's something really satisfying about just clearing the area being like okay how am I going to clear this thing out and take them all out. 01:03:18.70 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:03:24.12 Katie Um, but yeah, actually sneaking up on people as they're walking. Usually it was like a fifty fifty success rate. 01:03:30.40 Dave Yeah, it's tough so that leads perfectly into the million dollar question when you get caught in this game. Do you reload or do you try to get yourself out of it. Ok ok, hell yeah. 01:03:41.30 Katie Oh I get myself out of it I'm not Reloading. No no, No no I take out whatever good gun I have. I Shoot whoever's coming at me like the immediate threats and then I just Bolt and try and find some place to kind of hide and camp out for a little bit. Um, or I'll just try and take everybody out. But um, but yeah, no I am always trying to make it work. 01:04:04.41 Dave Okay, a key thing in this game that allows you to do what you just talked about is that enemies don't infinitely respond. In this game you can kill everybody in a level where in Metal Gear Solid one and 2 They just endlessly come in so I did. 01:04:12.60 Katie Yes. 01:04:23.51 Dave More often. Just oh I got caught I Just you know load State Try again? Um, I did get into that sometimes in this game if I just wasn't feeling like fighting because shooting a bunch of enemies in this game is hard. Snake doesn't have a ton of Health. It's easy to get overwhelmed if there's a bunch of people. Um, some of the guns I thought were a little bit cumbersome to control. There's something very weird like some guns where you have to hold down L one to look down the sights and then shoot or you can't see where you're shooting. Some gum you have to do that and then press another button to look down a scope and it's a whole thing some of them. You don't so when I found a shotgun that was like my oh I got caught I'm blasted with the shotgun now. Ah so that's possible in this game If you're trying to hide. 01:05:16.13 Dave Like I think it's funny and kind of cool that you're like oh I can go hide under a bed or hide in a locker or something like that. Ah, but it is like the timer that ticks down and so you'll be watching that and it'll be like. 01:05:32.96 Dave And there's 2 timers. There's everyone's fighting timer and then there's everyone searching for your timer they're both 99 seconds and it's a really bad feeling when they don't see you but the timer resets to 99 and you're like wait what happened. 01:05:38.91 Katie Yeah. 01:05:50.92 Dave They don't know where I am because otherwise they'd be shooting me so you do that mental math. You're like okay that's three more minutes of me sitting in here waiting out these timers and that's not great. So if I didn't feel like dealing with that or trying to kill everybody in the level I would just hit that load state. And be like you know what? this will be quicker. Let's just try again. So it's a constant thing with this series I think. 01:06:14.90 Katie That's totally fair with the timer resetting the most. That is one of the most frustrating things because sometimes it just resets because they found another body and you're like yeah but you already know I'm here it shouldn't be resetting. You're already looking. 01:06:27.84 Dave Um, you already know everyone's dead. Yeah. 01:06:32.53 Katie For me. So like why finding a new body makes you go like oh we need to look harder. It's like no no, you already know I've been killing people this whole game like so yeah and then it's like I've already killed 6 people. So now they're finding 1 body then they find another body then they find another body. It's like oh my god please make it end. Um, which is yeah I just try not to do that. 01:06:40.15 Dave Ah, yeah. 01:06:51.55 Dave That's when you just bust out of the locker and you're like all right shotgun time. Let's do this? yeah. 01:06:51.78 Katie And um, so it's time. Um, another thing with um how you said there aren't infinite soldiers because they're basically like oh we're setting reinforcements and then those are the reinforced. There's a lot of them but those are the reinforcements. Um. 01:07:08.88 Katie The cool gameplay thing that they added was the radio. So it's like no so that person has to radio for help or else. It's content contained to who was already existing in that area. Um, so either you were seen by some other guy and then he yells to the radio guy. 01:07:14.98 Dave Yeah. 01:07:28.73 Katie To Radio for help or it was the radio guy already. Um, but if you took out the radio guy they're like oh crap radio guys Down. Nobody's coming guys and they'll kind of state that and you're like yeah, that's right and you could also shoot out the radio. Um, like without even taking out the Soldier. You could just like if you can snipe that radio out and then he can like try and he'll be like oh it's broken I didn't even know Um, that's just a cool little thing that where they used the um the time and the place. 01:08:04.24 Katie To the benefit of the gameplay same thing with the sonar and the like the different kinds of radars that you have it's like no, they're all limited so you got to pick. Um it just it made it a bit more specific as opposed to like 1 soldier saw you now the whole base knows you're here instantly as with one and 2 01:08:09.88 Dave Um, yeah. 01:08:19.97 Dave Um, yeah, those little details are unquestionably cool I think and it's something that like you know whenever I do an episode about a game By. I Guess any of these are like auteur type people but especially with Koji Book I've done a bunch of them Now. There's always things to be like I don't get why he does it this way and then you get to this stuff where you're like this is the secret sauce like these cool little details like shooting out the radio and remember this is. On the PS 2 like this isn't you know a brand new game coming out shooting out the radio. The fact that if ah, there's a Stamina and hunger system and if Snake gets too hungry his stomach will growl and the guards can hear that and that might give away your position. Um. There's a bunch of boss fights with these details too like there's a boss fight against a sniper in this game and the amount of little things that I read about where people are like yeah this is my strategy if you look out in the distance you can see the sun reflect off of the scope of the sniper I'm like what that's cool. I did it this other way with these other hidden details that I figured out and I felt like a very smart boy because I figured those out. Um there are so many of these small little details in here and there's not a lot of them that are just weird little cosmetic things like you can take advantage of all of these things. 01:09:49.56 Dave In Gameplay and that's what I think makes this um makes him as a creator but specifically Metal Gear Solid three like it feels like a bigger step up because there's so many more of these details. 01:10:02.31 Katie Yeah, he never rests on his laurels like he is always trying to advance things which I appreciate a lot. 01:10:11.39 Dave Yeah, um, other things that were added in this game I mentioned the stamina system. Um, but to dive into that a little bit more it kind of functions as stamina and hunger so you have a health bar and then you have a stamina bar and. The stamina will slowly drain as you play pretty slowly. But if you get hit it will drain faster and the lower your stamina the more slowly your health refills and if your stamina runs out then your health will start to drain. So the way you get around this is Snake needs to eat. And you'll find food in like you know, storehouses around military bases and stuff like that and you can hunt and you can hunt all manner of wildlife ah gators. Ah you can eat plants too. But birds. You know wild ah like deer Snakes. In fact, the first time you eat a Snake in this game. There is an insanely detailed and comically long cut scene that plays of Snake eating a Snake. It's like red dead redemption to levels of love. 01:11:24.68 Dave Here watch this 25 second cut scene of him eating a Snake. You're like whoa. Okay, but I don't know how you feel about this um food and stamina system here. 01:11:36.70 Katie I really like it. Um I would usually like to try and keep it really topped up. Um, the other thing is that when you're aiming if you are down to bars. Um, you are waving like if you're our first person down the barrel aiming it is wavy as can be and you're like. 01:11:48.13 Dave Yeah. 01:11:54.33 Katie Oh no, I'm low. It's not good. Um, it also just gives me something to look out for like I'm like oh there's a Snake over there. There's ah, there's ah, a melon in the tree over there like it. Um, it just gives you something else to pay attention to and it. It's slow enough that it's not aggravating. 01:11:54.71 Dave Yeah. 01:12:14.80 Katie Because if it's constant. Although it can be because the more equipment that you are carrying because you have your equipment in your backpack and then you have whatever you want to pave from your backpack in your like quick access menu. You pick your um. 01:12:31.37 Katie Basically if your ah encumbrance is too high. It drains way faster. Um, depending on how much you're carrying and so then you're like oh crap. What can I do without here? Do I Really need the Rpg right now? I probably don't. I could probably set it aside. Um. 01:12:34.38 Dave 1 01:12:45.21 Dave Yeah, ah. 01:12:48.69 Katie Yeah, and it also gave me something as like kind of that completionist itch to be like oh I want to get all like all the Snakes I want to get all the things because are trophies for that on the PS 5 on the ah the remastered ah Hd collection and I'm like yeah. 01:12:53.66 Dave E. 01:13:03.12 Katie To do that I want to get all the things so that that also contributed to my lung play time is that I'm like I want to get all the all the spiders I'm like oh there's a spider I don't think I got that spider yet like result and then also the the food items that you can use because you can capture 3 um animals without killing them. 01:13:07.23 Dave Um, yeah, hell yeah, awesome. 01:13:18.83 Dave Yeah, live animals. Yeah yep. 01:13:22.80 Katie Which is helpful that they don't spoil for one because if you leave them in your inventory too long like dead animals. They will spoil and then they um are less effective. Um, so you can keep 3 live ones. They won't spoil but also you can then like Chuck them at the enemy so you can like throw a tarantula at an enemy and then it bites him and now he's Poisoned. It's like fat's cool. Um, it gives you just like extra things to play with um. 01:13:49.88 Katie Another thing I don't think I don't think you have it listed here in the gameplay aspects cool thing that ah kojima added is the storehouses so there are weapon storehouses and there are foods like provision storehouses and. 01:14:00.72 Dave Um, yeah. 01:14:07.48 Katie Every now and then in the game you will be able to pick up Tnt and if you blow up the storehouses. Um, then that will have an effect on the soldiers in that area which very much makes me think of like Metal Gear 5 where um, the equipment that they're carrying will change depending on how you're playing the game. 01:14:08.66 Dave Yeah. 01:14:26.19 Katie It does that Basically where it's like oh I destroyed the weapon storehouse. The enemies only can shoot so many bullets before they have to reload. Um, if you destroy their provision storehouse. All the soldiers are like I'm so hungry. So if you throw out um, something spoiled to something like um. Ah, mushroom One of the some of the mushrooms will either poison you or put you to sleep. Do you throw out a mushroom that puts you to sleep and they're like run at it and eat it greedily right away and then just pass out cold. That's cool. There are so many things that you can do in this game and it lets you like to play around with it. 01:14:55.53 Dave Um, cheese. Yeah super cool. Yep. 01:15:04.60 Katie In a way that 1 and 2 don't. 01:15:07.55 Dave Yeah,, there's a lot of um, a lot of those things I knew about and some of the things you mentioned I didn't even know about before like I knew that you could toss a live Snake at Enemies I Never tried it. Um I just. I'm just generally bad at playing this game So I was like yeah it would be better to just use the tranq gun like I have been doing and that'll do the job. But um, I'm glad you mentioned like oh hold on let you restart that let's see start. 01:15:41.80 Dave Another thing about the Stamina and Hunger system too is that bosses have Stamina bars too and you can non lethally take down every boss. So I think you can get through this whole game completely nonlethally whether you're train gunning people or just punching them and knocking them out. If you deplete a boss's Stamina bar before their health bar. They are nonlethally dealt with and you get unique items for doing this new camouflage stuff like that. So that's kind of cool I never did this because I was bad at the game but it is something you can do and. This also kind of plays in with another kind of survival system in here which is the injury system that I think is more goofy than actually like gameplay effective but there is a medical screen and various things that can happen that injure Snake Snake can break Bones. Ah, if you get shot with a gun Sometimes you'll get a bullet hole injury. Um, if you get bit by a Snake I think you get an injury from that. There's a lot of different Injuries. You can get injuries affecting your Stamina and you have to go on the screen and heal them. Basically. You've got a bunch of medical supplies that you pick up and this is why I think it's goofy because if you never have you'll never run out of medical Supplies. You always have so many of them. So It's more of just like a. 01:17:15.32 Dave Oh I got shot in combat Snake has a gunshot wound Your health bar is permanently decreased until you deal with that. So Let me go on the screen and the things to the process to heal a gunshot wound is to disinfect it and suture it. Bandage it and maybe dig out the bullet for a gunshot wound which is like canonically funny to me, you're in a Gunf Fight Snake gets shot in the head he digs the bullet out with his knife and then bandages it up and like like gives himself a fucking like. Staples or something to put it together and then just continues with the fight. It's kind of funny to me. I think this is goofy. Um, but there's a part later in the game where it's used for a um, a story purpose that I thought was kind of neat but until then it was literally just like. Hey hold on let me ah let me treat my burns real quick then we can get back to this fight. 01:18:11.46 Katie Yeah I think I think this is the feature that to me seemed cool at the time when you first heard about it. You're like oh that's cool and then but in practice it's completely ineffective. 01:18:19.96 Dave Yeah. 01:18:29.26 Katie Because like you said you can do it at any moment like so it just happened I'm still fighting the people I just go up pause did to death and it just it's very tasky. Um, which and it's it doesn't Um, there's no like finesse to it. 01:18:38.46 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:18:46.81 Katie You're just like oh I know I need these items you're like item item item item there. It's fixed. I'm out of it. It's just like I said it's completely ineffective. It doesn't serve the purpose that I think it tends to to serve if you need to get out of a combat state or something before you can fix it. 01:18:59.50 Dave Yeah. 01:19:06.14 Dave Mm yeah. 01:19:06.81 Katie That would be slightly better. Um I think it would be more annoying but it would make more sense and like it would be more useful right now it has no use. It's literally just to have a thing for you to do and it's just tedious. 01:19:11.64 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, again, yeah again, a lot of time on the menu. That's basically what it boils down to. I think you're right. 01:19:25.32 Katie Yeah, yeah. 01:19:31.80 Dave If it was like oh Snake broke his leg once combat is over you can deal with this but until then you're going to be like really slow to move or something like that then that I think would help a lot I Wonder if like the remake is going to do something about this kind of thing. Yeah. 01:19:47.36 Katie I. They have to like they have to write because it's just stupid. It doesn't do anything. Ah. 01:19:53.13 Dave Yeah, other than again just making me laugh and be like oh hold on I've got a bullet in my forehead. Let me dig it out. Let me disinfect and take care of this then we can get back to our fight. 01:20:03.28 Katie And also if you splint and bandage a broken leg. It's not broken anymore. You're good now like I don't understand. 01:20:10.58 Dave Yep, immediately good. Yeah, so it's ah it's goofy. But um, you know I guess the worst part about it is that you just know you got your menu tax. You have to spend 30 seconds in the menu dealing with that. Um, if that's the worst that it is then the times that made me laugh were worth it. I will say so yeah. 01:20:34.76 Katie That's fair, you know what there's 1 more thing in the gameplay I just want to touch on. We talked about the codec earlier. Um, they really developed that further where it has more use where um, if you hold up certain enemies and like threaten them. Sometimes they'll cough up information that is useful to you like um, they'll give you a frequency that's the call off alert frequency and then like they find you you hide and they're all looking for you and you can just like use that frequency. It's a 1 time shot and then it's done. But um, you can use it to call off the alert and then they're all done. 01:20:59.32 Dave Um, oh. 01:21:11.42 Katie And then they all like oh I guess it's over and they all go on with their day. Um, that or um, you can use artillery support. So It'll just like Bomb the area. Um, you're like tucked in a corner and you're like call the artillery and they'll bomb their own soldiers and there's a healing radio station that you can go to that plays like. Want to be beach boys songs that you can less like let play and I think they heal you. I don't actually know if the healing radio actually heals you or if it's just like a nice pleasant moment. Um, because I never left it long enough to actually heal me. But um. 01:22:56.52 Dave Ah. 01:22:57.72 Katie Yeah I don't know there's just so many things to find and it's like it's like little secrets that you can find that you're like oh my God This game goes deeper than I thought it did. It's great. 01:22:59.90 Dave Yeah. 01:23:04.57 Dave Yeah, since I never like to hold up anybody for information I didn't even know about any of the things you just mentioned so that's I mean that's crazy and I would like to think that listening to the want to be beach boys will heal your broken leg if you. 01:23:21.31 Katie Yeah, throw a stick and a bandage on the beach boys. You're good. 01:23:23.55 Dave Let it play for a minute or something like that. Yeah. 01:23:34.55 Dave So I think it's time before the spoiler section to get into our closing thoughts. We'll do a little bit of housekeeping stuff like that. So ah Katie if you have any wrap up thoughts about Metal Gear. Solid 3 now is the time and then also. Who would you recommend to play this game? 01:23:53.21 Katie Oh um, wrap up thoughts. It's still a good game I genuinely think it's still good enough that someone coming to it. Fresh can find things in it that are like that are interesting and it's fun to play I still think it's fun to play. I don't know how biased my opinion is right because your nostalgia obviously how much I enjoy replaying this game is different is a completely different experience and if I was playing it fresh in this year but I think it holds up I still think it's good I am excited for a remake. But. I think the original still holds up and I really really like it. Who should play this game? I don't know if you like anything that kojima has ever done. I think you'll like it. Um, if you like anything that involves if you hate stealth if you're like I don't want to. 01:24:47.38 Katie Be strategic about how I move my way through an area and you just want to shoot things and you are an action only kind of player. Maybe not, maybe you should give it a shot but it might not be for you but like I don't know I think anyone who likes um, strategic action games. 01:25:03.22 Dave Yeah, yeah I can see that and like you know we talked earlier about how you can fight your way through rooms. You can kill everybody like that. But like there are bosses that require stealth so you're not going to get. You're not going to totally go this way. 01:25:04.91 Katie Can find something to like in this. Yeah. 01:25:22.70 Dave Whole game is just going loud. You know? So I think I'd agree with that. Yeah I do think this game holds up pretty damn well like the controls are weird but like every PS 2 game has weird controls. It was just an era before the whole industry decided to use the same. 01:25:25.72 Katie Um, yeah. 01:25:42.10 Dave 3 control schemes. So you're going to play a bunch of games with weirdo controls and like I got through the game I beat it I struggled at times with it. But I did beat the game. The final boss was very difficult but I did it . So there is that and I think I would especially like it. What you said, anyone who has enjoyed what kojima has done before or after says you only play death stranding like there are things about death stranding that make that game really neat that are in this game too. All of those attention to detail. Um, the. 01:26:20.60 Dave Like when people talk about kojima and myself included we often talk about those story things that you know sometimes profound, sometimes fake profound messages, all the goofy shit all the long cut scenes and Monologues and stuff like that. But I don't think Kojima gets enough credit for it. Innovating in gameplay is not nearly enough and this game does have a bunch of really cool gameplay stuff even stuff that I didn't know about because I didn't get deep enough into it to, you know, call in an artillery strike on the enemies or something like that. Ah, so that stuff is really cool. So I definitely echo that if anyone thinks this sounds cool then definitely play this and if you're like me and you only played the first Metal Gear. Solid. Maybe the second game will continue with the series because there's a lot of games that. You hear so much about you hear all this praise and you hear people say like actually this is the best 1 in the series. It's one of the greatest games of all time and after playing it I'm like yeah I get why? So many people hold this game in such high regard as all the cool stuff. It's really easy to see. So and then again back to what we talked about an hour ago. The story is really easy to follow along with and much easier to make a connection with than the previous games in the series and I don't know about the later ones yet. 01:27:55.56 Dave I Do think this game has a reputation of having the best story in the series and I think that that's probably earned although I haven't played the later ones. So we'll see but I did enjoy this game quite a bit. It's pretty easy to recommend to a lot of people. 01:28:10.17 Katie Yeah I feel like it's a game that is just like all of Kojima's games. I feel like there is so much effort put into making it good front to back like there are interesting camera angles even in the cutscenes and just like the voice acting is good and and like there's. So many things the attention to detail is so good consistently and I think that's why I go back to him all the time. 01:28:35.13 Dave Um, yeah, so ah, pretty easy recommendations for both of us for um, a select group of people. But that's kind of the way recommendations should go so before we get into spoilers. Let's do a little bit of housekeeping. We always start with the guest. So Katie tells people about the podcasts that you're a part of and what they can expect. 01:28:59.60 Katie Ah, so I am one of the co-hosts of the left behind game club. It is a book Club style video game podcast similar to this one. Um, a little bit shorter episodes typically. 01:29:12.38 Katie Um, and we will usually deep dive a little bit less into the story. But um, but yeah, very similar to this podcast. Um, also like good vibes we try to be positive. We're not going to just blast something for the sake of blasting it like we want to like video games. We like liking things sometimes we don't. 01:29:27.87 Dave Yeah. 01:29:31.92 Katie But we want you to know we give them a fair shake. Um, yeah, so there's that and then cutscenes: a video game movie podcast has been on hiatus for a bit but there are 4 seasons there. Um, where we are using the book club style podcast but this time for video game related. 01:29:35.15 Dave Yep. 01:29:50.16 Katie Medias like Tv shows or movies. Most of them are bad. Some of them are fine. Some of them are good and they're getting better actually um and we did a whole season on the first season of the last of us Hbo show which was a lot of fun. Um, and that is with Jacob Mccourt 01:29:58.75 Dave M. 01:30:04.43 Dave Um, nice. Yeah. 01:30:09.52 Katie And Travis Cole. Jacob Mccourt, who has been on another Metal Gear Tales from the Backlog show. 01:30:16.41 Dave That's right, yeah and then um, left behind game club. Ah often there's ah, a bit of rotating cast. Ah from time to time on that show but always Jacob as far as I know and then often features Flora who's also been a guest on this show a couple of times. 01:30:22.30 Katie Boom. 01:30:32.20 Dave Um, when we talked about the last of us part 2 and um, like a dragon gaiden so it's a good group of people I've been on left behind game club a few times we did a 2 part episode about final fantasy 16 and then we also did a a pax east wrap up episode together over there. So. You're right, like I think that anyone listening to tales from the backlog and especially if you come back to tales from the backlog often you should check out the left behind game club. You'll definitely find a similar type of vibe over there. Very smart people over there. So. It's a good time and yeah for all of your video game adaptation needs. Maybe if you want to catch up on the last of us before season 2 comes out whenever the fuck that happens. Um you go check out cutscenes as well and I will put links to those things down in the show notes. So people can easily find them. And while I'm talking about myself for the next minute or so you can go click around subscribe and look for some episodes to download. Ah you will not be disappointed. So for this show the best ways to support as always are to leave ratings and reviews that help people find this episode. When they search for Metal Gear Solid 3 podcast they might find this episode and that's what we want. Ah you can join the discord server. We have a lot of people chatting. Maybe some good Metal Gear. Solid conversations happening during the week this comes out. We would love to have you in there. It's a great community of people. 01:32:03.25 Dave You can listen to my other podcast. We do top 3 lists and Draft Topics. It's called a top 3 podcast and last but not least if you would like to support this show monetarily you can do that at patreon.com/real Dave Jackson where you can vote on games that I play for the show. And get bonus episodes and all kinds of cool treats. So with all that being said, we are going to take a break and when we come back, it will be full spoiler time for Metal Gear. 01:37:01.29 Dave Okay, we're back in. It's full spoiler time for Metal Gear. Solid 3 and we're not going to go in like a chronological walk through the story for this one but we are going to start the spoiler section here by talking about some of our favorite bosses, some of our you know, fun moments as these games are full of stuff like that. Um. And then after that we will get into like the big revelation about what's going on in the story in this game but for a lot of Metal Gear. Solid 3 you're kind of following the boss's footsteps making your way through all of these different people in what they call the Cobra unit. And those are your main bosses throughout the game. So I thought we could just start by talking about our favorite ones and I'll start with how this game is the origin story for Revolver Ocelot who is one of my favorite boss characters from the first game and ah. You see him here and you learn that he took 2 revolvers because a Snake schooled him early in the game and was like yeah that gun doesn't suit you revolver might be better or something like that and ah he picks up some revolvers. He does his gun twirling tricks. Um. 01:38:32.90 Dave Again, Comically long. Sometimes I love him in this game. He's very funny. 01:38:33.85 Katie Oh my God I to ocelot is my favorite character. Um, more mostly just because he has this like overconfident brashness of youth where because he's I assume like late 20s maybe early 30s at most. Um, even though he's very accomplished already. Um, but he is like but he's also it feels like he's insecure. 01:38:54.80 Dave Yeah. This. 01:39:11.21 Katie Like it feels like he wants Snake to think he's cool so bad So he's like look at what I can do I'm doing the thing I'm flipping my revolvers around I'm behind my back now and now I'm up here and now I'm juggling them and like he's like aha. Um, he's like showing off all the time in a way that feels not confident. 01:39:12.56 Dave Yeah. 01:39:30.75 Katie Even though he's like portraying confidence all the time. Um, and then like by the end he's like basically trying to be his buddy like he wants to be friends with Snake So bad. Yes, and it's um I don't know that it's this mixture. 01:39:38.48 Dave Yeah, he helps him out Sometimes yeah. 01:39:47.79 Katie With that character that I just find him fascinating throughout this whole game. 01:39:51.45 Dave Yeah, yeah, he has um, his motives are really unclear for a lot of the game until the very end when it turns out he's like double crossing multiple countries at the same time or something like that. Ah, but. he's he's fun. There's a scene in here where he's doing a version of russian roulette with sokolov where instead of like 1 bullet in one you know one bullet in the 6 shooter. He's juggling 3 guns at the same time and shooting them. 01:40:24.81 Dave And there's one bullet in one of the guns and he's just like toying with him but he's juggling and doing this shit. It's really ah really fun um there's a boss fight against him where it's like everyone's running between cover and stuff. But there's like beehives you can shoot down to go bother him. And at 1 point in the boss fight I wrote this down because I thought it was funny because of these weird survival systems in this game. He shot me a bunch so I got injured and my stamina was low so I killed and ate ah a rabbit in the middle of the boss fight which was just like you know. If you imagine yourself as playing out the events of this It's very funny for Snake to like be like ah low on stamina and div find a rock. Ah, there's a rabbit over there. Perfect. So I know I love anytime Ocelot gets involved in this game. 01:41:11.58 Katie Yeah, just hold please while I eat this rabbit. 01:41:34.76 Katie Yeah, no, Ocelot's fun. He's just a fun character and every cutscene is like I don't know what he's going to do at any moment. Um, yeah, he'll kind of call stuff out. Um, as far as a boss fight. Not my favorite. It's pretty similar. 01:41:42.11 Dave Yep. 01:41:50.94 Katie Pretty standard. You're on 1 platform, he's on the next platform you're separated from. You're shooting at each other. There's cover. There's not a lot there. Um, yeah, ocelot is great. My favorite boss battle I think of. 01:41:54.97 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:42:08.35 Katie Every Metal Gear game that I've played is the fight against The End which is the sniper fight. Um, the first 2 sniper fights in middle gear one and middle gear 2 are fine. They're fine that actually you know you're right? You're bad. 01:42:11.57 Dave Okay, nice. 01:42:19.78 Dave Oh I disagree the ones in Metal Gear one are terrible I I hated those so much. Yeah, yeah. 01:42:27.49 Katie You're but you're you're totally right? They're fine as it's an old game and I get through them and they're still kind of painful to get through. Um, so yeah, actually they're they're bad this one I'm like oh no, this is like we've unlocked the Metal Gear sniper fight where. 01:42:42.43 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:42:45.72 Katie You are in a forest area. You do not know where he is. You have to not be seen. You have to crawl around um and he will also like not see you if you do it? Well whereas I feel like the first 2 games eventually they shoot you like it almost felt like you were on a timer. 01:43:04.47 Katie And like eventually they're going to shoot me Oh I didn't do it fast enough this one It's like no, you could just stay hidden and he will not see you like you could legit do like a sniper standoff and just wait it out. Um, and then you I kind of think is what I did. 01:43:16.76 Dave Yep. 01:43:23.52 Katie When I was younger, the um, the heat, the heat goggles The you know heat sensing Binoculars or whatever. Um, they're kind of overpowered in a lot of circumstances in this game. Um. 01:43:29.17 Dave Yeah. M. Yeah. 01:43:41.96 Katie So but you can use that and kind of scan around or you can see his footsteps and be like oh he went in this direction and you can like so actually sneak up on him whereas 1 in 2 You are set up like I'm in this area there in that area. We're kind of facing each other the whole time. This is like no, this is three dimensional. 01:43:53.49 Dave Yeah. 01:44:00.85 Katie Sniper fight. You can do whatever you want to do and it's just fun. It's like um, it's just the whole strategy of the game like this is Metal Gear but a boss fight in Metal Gear and it's just excellent . I Love playing it every time. 01:44:13.49 Dave Yeah, yeah I think this is the best fight in the game and it's because it has the most options for what to do like um we talked about before you can find him by seeing the light reflect off of his ah sniper Scope. You can use the heat vision goggles to find where he is. You can follow his footsteps. I did a combination of those things to get a few shots in on him and then what I thought was cool is his Stamina Depletes. He gets more careless and less observant. 01:44:49.64 Dave Throughout the fight. So like the last couple times I snuck up on him I didn't sneak up on him I just ran up and he was just struggling because in the story he's over 100 years old he's the oldest man and Eva says that his body is photosynthetic which I thought was funny. So um. 01:45:05.60 Katie Um, yeah, and he's comatose. They are wheeling him around in a wheelchair and they're like no no, it's okay, he's going to wake up when it's time like that's just so funny. 01:45:08.63 Dave There's that and like he yeah. Yeah, and you can fight him the first time you see him like there's a short period of time where he's out on the dock and you see his boss's health bar come up and if you decide to fight him you can do it then. Um, but I didn't. I got too busy trying to stealth around and then he was gone. So I also read a couple of cool things about this fight. Um, if you are in the fight and you save and quit and then come back. You'll wake up in jail because he captured you while you were. Away from the game which I think is funny. Yeah me either I mean I didn't do it but it ah apparently can happen. Did you know about what happens if you set your system clock in the future? Yes, he dies of old age which is. 01:45:54.70 Katie This one I didn't know I had no idea that that would happen. 01:46:09.20 Katie He gets too old. Ah. 01:46:13.58 Dave Just so weird like ah this is this is the like more gimmicky side of kojima. But I think it is pretty funny that if someone had the original idea like hey this guy's 100 years old what if I set my system clock a year in the future. Did kojima think of this and the answer is yes he did think of it. Yeah, um, yeah, that's true. 01:46:33.51 Katie Course he did. I think it's also one of the harder ones. Ah, harder boss fights. So I feel like he's also just like giving you options to get out of it which he did also earlier. Um, if you blow up there is a helicopter parked in one area. And you can like Tnt that helicopter and then later when you're going up the mountains the side of the mountain. There are no helicopters looking for you if you blow up that one helicopter earlier like stuff like that's really cool. But yes, that is so there are things that he gives you options to not fight to the end if you don't want to. 01:46:56.89 Dave Oh sick. 01:47:04.47 Dave That's tight. 01:47:11.38 Katie Which is very cool. 01:47:11.48 Dave Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. Um other cobra unit bosses um, are there a little bit less remarkable I think than the end. Um I say unremarkable 1 of them is named the pain he is made of hornets. And all of his weapons are hornet related things. He will make a gun that shoots what he calls bullet hornets and they're special injuries. You have to go in the injury menu and get the bullet hornets out of you because canonically the bees are eating you from the inside. That's what the menu says. Ah, which is wild. Um, it's a very video game boss fight but ah made of hornets so you've got that guy. Ah, you've got the fear who is invisible stalking you through the jungle this was one of my least favorite fights. 01:47:52.66 Katie Yeah. 01:48:06.12 Dave Ah, but the fear as a character is goofy as shit. Um, just like this chaotic madman with the ah gene the Gene Simmons long tongue thing going on very weird I laughed when he was on screen did not like the fight but. Ah, 1 fun thing about that fight is ah during the fight. He'll get hungry and he will go hunt food and eat it and you can use this opportunity to fight him when he's busy hunting. Sometimes he'll kill something or eat something. And it's poisonous and you'll see his health bar start draining and he'll complain that he has a stomachache and stuff like that really weird but kind of fun fight like from that perspective that again the things that were thought of. 01:48:54.43 Katie Yeah, the fear I do I did not remember how goofy the fear is like he comes down as if he's like a spider and he's just and he climbs up the tree in a weird way and it's like I did not remember you being this crazy. Um, he is. 01:48:59.60 Dave Yeah. 01:49:09.84 Dave Oh yeah. 01:49:12.51 Katie He is vamp from the last game dialed up to like 27 like he's ridiculous. Um. 01:49:16.96 Dave Ah, ah oh and 1 more detail about the fear is he's constantly yelling the word fear as he's in the boss fight in cutscenes. He's just yelling fear like he's a pokemon and it's great. 01:49:32.23 Katie That's why he's so crazy. I Love the fear so much I don't mind the boss fight as much because you really just hide from me. I Just find cover from his shots and then as soon as he runs down to the floor I'll take some kind of automatic weapon. 01:49:42.10 Dave Yeah. 01:49:49.23 Katie And just run and like shoulder shoot at him and I'd get him like every time and then I would just wash and repeat. Um, he's not terrible. Ah, but yeah, he is so crazy I think up to now. He is like the most manic and insane. Boss I think. 01:50:09.79 Dave Yeah, the other members of ah Cobra unit other than the boss. The other ones are called the fury who is a pyromaniac. He's got a flamethrower and a jetpack and this fight was unremarkable, but kind of fun. Um, reminded me of ah the vulcan raven fight from the first game just kind of like trying to stay out of his way trying to sneak up on him when he's you know turning around these corridors and stuff. Um, he explodes into a giant. So. 01:50:33.10 Katie It's a better version. Yeah. 01:50:43.70 Dave Flaming spirit face that chases you out of the room for some reason I don't know why? Ah but kojima we can just chalk those things up to kojima. Um, you got the fury and then the last member of Cobra unit is called ah, what was it called the sorrow. Yeah. 01:50:59.19 Katie The sorrow. 01:51:03.90 Dave Ah, which is not really a boss fight. It's just you have to um, make it to the end of this River that you're waiting through and the ghosts of all the people you killed in the game are coming at you and you kind of just have to like. 01:51:20.71 Dave Like frogger your way through and not get hit. Um I wonder what happens if you play non lethally do you know Katie. Okay, yeah. 01:51:28.42 Katie I think there's just the dead fish floating in the river like I don't think there's much of anything you still have to walk down the river um I yeah, that's another thing that's like it's cool in concept that. You see everything like every person that you killed walking down and also like in the method that you killed them so I had tons and tons because I killed a lot of people. Tons of soldiers with ah like blood spurting out of their neck because after I interrogated people I would just like to slit their throats. 01:51:57.14 Dave Um, yeah. 01:52:00.26 Katie Um, so there was just tons and tons of those going like my neck my neck and I'm like yeah I did do that to a lot of you guys? yeah yeah I did 01:52:05.27 Dave Yeah I remember that too because this is how I figured out that it was like actually the people that I killed is because there's a bunch of soldiers and then like a boss and then more soldiers and then I was like oh a group of scientists and I was like. 01:52:20.25 Katie Ok. 01:52:21.28 Dave I did kill a group of scientists that one time because they kept ah like they kept sounding the alarm and I was like you know what I gotta get out of here so I did kill a room full of scientists 1 time and they're back here. Um, this fight has a weird gimmick that I had to look up how to do because you get to the end of the river. 01:52:39.10 Katie Ah. 01:52:41.20 Dave You interact with a dead body down there and Snake dies instantly and I was like okay I did something Wrong. So I loaded it up and the boss fight again got to the end. I was like I must have still done something Wrong. What am I doing? So I did it. I think I did the full thing 3 times before I was like okay, there's nothing else I could have done. What am I supposed to do here? The trick is you have an item called the Revival pill. I think it's called the Revival Pill. It's lost in my notes at this point. Um. 01:53:12.88 Katie Yes, it is. 01:53:18.30 Dave That will bring Snake back to life and I didn't know that when you're on the screen you died. You could still pull up the menu and use the item. Um, kind of a cool trick but very poorly tutorialized because I never I never use the fake death pill. Earlier Did you ever use that thing as a trophy? Okay, yeah. 01:53:36.94 Katie I used it once to get the trophy. Yeah, that's about it. But yeah, that's like I said it's another example of something that is cool in concept but actually doing it is extremely tedious and pretty dull because like. Nothing. Nothing new is really happening this whole time. You're walking up this river and it takes minutes like many many minutes and you yes I killed a lot of people. Um, but yeah, no I think it was like 8 minutes like it was stupid. 01:54:00.56 Dave Many minutes for you. So. 01:54:12.40 Katie Um, and you're just kind of like going from side to side to dodge people and it's you're not doing anything. It's in an execution if it doesn't work. Um, but I did the same thing I couldn't remember. I was like what did I do so I did it again and I was like oh my god this is so long and then I got to the end and I was like. Oh crap. What? What did I do and I did the same thing? I had to do it 3 times and the third time I was like why can I not remember how to do this and I should have known like it's right, there. I don't know. But yeah, no I did the same thing I did. 01:54:46.20 Dave It. I don't know, maybe maybe the way that they think you're going to remember it is because you can't take that revival pill out of your inventory like it's permanent. You can't remove it So you're like oh I must need it sometime. Yeah, um. 01:54:56.24 Katie Um, yeah, yeah, cause it's like in your tooth. 01:55:01.56 Dave Yeah, it is hidden in your tooth. So if you wanted to put it in your backpack you'd have to rip it out and throw it back there or something. But anyway that was kind of weird. Um that is oh, there's 1 more boss fight. Um against the shagohod and Volgin. There's 2 boss fights against Volgin I think the first one is. 01:55:04.25 Katie Um, yeah. 01:55:20.69 Dave Super fucking easy 1 It's just like a 1 on one fight and then he comes back later with the shagahad which is ah if you're following along at home. Don't know the shagohod is like a prototype Metal Gear. Um part of the thing that you learn is like who designed the first Metal Gear. You meet the person who designed it. Um, he trusts you because you compliment his shoes which I thought was funny and you get 1 Snake line where he goes Metal Gear one as a treat. So I thought that was cute but um. 01:55:55.78 Katie Ah. 01:55:58.41 Dave As far as Metal Gear fights I Think the shagohod fight is probably the best in the series so far I tend to hate the Metal Gear fights in the other games. This one was fine. 01:56:06.58 Katie This one is I think once you know what to do I Think it's the easiest um whereas yet like the original Metal Gear is a pain in the butt. Oh my God this one. It's like oh no, you hit the wheel now. It can't turn until you get behind it. You shoot in the back. 01:56:18.97 Dave Yeah. 01:56:26.57 Katie And if you don't know what else to do another thing. It's nice there. There is a hint system in this game basically through your codec that if you're in a boss fight and you're like I don't know what to do you can radio your buddies. 01:56:33.10 Dave Um. 01:56:40.42 Katie And they'll give you hints. They'll be like oh you know the armor plating is really weak on the back you should try and get behind it and you're like oh thanks Um, and they'll get I give you hints with any of the um bosses. So yeah, it's kind of nice and you could keep calling and calling different people and they'll kind of give you a little different things. But 01:56:50.35 Dave Easy. 01:56:58.76 Katie Um, yeah, so basically the integrated hint system is um, helpful if it's your first time around and you haven't played these before. 01:57:02.68 Dave Yeah, Also also if you tuned out during a cutscene and forgot or missed like the instructions for what to do. You can just call the major and he'll be like go here look for this and I'm like okay got it so that was nice. 01:57:20.21 Katie I could not remember how much you fought Volgin because you fight him a lot in many different ways and I didn't remember like at the end of the game I was like particularly like as far as the gameplay How the last few boss by a couple boss fights work out I did not. 01:57:24.44 Dave Yeah. 01:57:40.10 Katie Recall Um, so I'm fighting Volgin at the bottom of this like little pit and I was like this is the worst um like this is the big bad like head of like the the guy who's been like the most intimidating aside from the boss. 01:57:58.97 Katie Um, throughout the whole game and I'm like this is his boss fight I'm like you must be joking and then you're escaping and then all of a sudden. He's like yeah yelling and you see him in the shagohod and you're like oh okay, okay it all makes sense now because that stupid little pit fight is a waste of time. It's a waste of everybody's time. 01:58:06.22 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 01:58:14.42 Dave Yeah, he's a pushover. Yeah. 01:58:19.00 Katie Um, it's just to have um um us a lot like look down and then like make decisions and basically show that like he's not with volgin more or less. Um, but yeah, the fight's dumb. 01:58:26.90 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah speaking of volgin real quick before we talk about the final boss fight and then talk about like the story. There is this really fucking weird thing that happened that I have like it. Made me dissociate a little bit and like question did I boot up the right game like what's going on here. So ah, there's a part where Snake gets captured and Volgin's torturing him and um, there's this whole thing. The boss is there Eva Iss there um ocelots there. There's a whole fucking thing. Ah, the boss comes over he she shoots Snake in the leg and then puts the gun in his holster and that is Snake's way to get out so the boss is helping Snake even though she's supposedly defected. She's helping Snake escape from this. Um. You wake up in a prison cell and ah you have to heal Snake up and all of this stuff now I got to this point and I was like okay time to stop playing so I saved I didn't do a save state I did like the in game save I quit the game and when I loaded the game back up. I was in this musou game. It looked like you're fighting these weird fucking things and like a yeah so you're in like a. 01:59:43.15 Katie Oh I heard of this and I never did it and I'm fascinated I need to look this up after. 01:59:54.34 Dave Like a parking garage or like a warehouse or something like that and you're just fighting these monsters. You're not playing as Snake. Ah you're playing as a character that has swords. Um, it's very fucking weird and after 5 to 10 minutes of just. Musso killing these enemies ah Snake wakes up and then you're back in the game and I was like what the fuck like literally I booted this up and I was like this has the same color palette as Metal Gear. Solid 3 but like maybe other ps 2 games did I boot up the wrong game because I'm picking from my emulator menu. 02:00:29.11 Katie Yeah. 02:00:31.70 Dave And I was like no this is the right game and then eventually it stopped but I was like what the fuck is happening here and I had wondered if you'd seen that before. 02:00:40.83 Katie No, um I know I saw it in your show notes and I was like I might have to reinstall the game and load up because I have got a bunch of different saves ah that I'm sure I can find one. That's very close to when you get captured. Um and I could easily just do this and I'm like I think. And have to because that's so weird and it's also it's like in 1 spot. It's in 1 specific part of this game if you do this thing this this whole other game. They built that little mini game for only if you save the game and close it. 02:01:09.72 Dave Yeah. 02:01:16.31 Katie While you're in that cell specifically and then reload it up and then it's going to happen. That's the only time as far as I'm aware of. 02:01:25.46 Dave Yeah I mean it never happened again. Um I just did a quick game fact search and it it doesn't appear that it's in the version of the game that you played ah people are saying they cut it out from the Hd collection from the Xbox 3 60 02:01:34.98 Katie Ah. 02:01:40.98 Dave Which is I think they did the NewHD version from those old HD collections so it might not be in the one that you played. Yeah, it's real fucking weird. So again I'm glad I played the PS2 version instead of the one that's re-released. Yeah I I was like. 02:01:43.61 Katie Okay, I'll just have to Youtube it then. 02:02:00.36 Dave What is happening did I and then I was like okay this might be Snake's dream. He's dreaming or something like that. So um, other notable thing. There's a character ah that you have to impersonate steal his clothes that looks like raiden from that you're solid too. 02:02:06.75 Katie That's so cool. 02:02:17.86 Dave Ah, his name is colonel Ivan Raidenovich Raikov and he's just got Raiden's face and ah you have to get a mask in his clothes and um, impersonate him and I thought this was really fucking weird. Um, because. Volgin sees through your disguise and the way that he sees through your disguise is he grabs Snakes balls and he's like oh you're not Raidenovich I know what his balls feel like or something like I don't know what's going on with this. So ah. 02:02:55.21 Katie That ah it's weird. Okay, so obviously um, kojima likes to like reference his own games sometimes or he'll kind of do winking nods to the audience and. 02:02:56.21 Dave What is going on here. Katie. 02:03:11.66 Katie The fact that you have to because a lot of people were very very angry that you played as Raiden that they did that switcheroo in middle gear solid two because they're like I know I want to be Snake and they're mad and also Raiden's kind of annoying and he's kind of whiny I don't really mind it I think it's it's fine I don't mind at all I Love it. 02:03:17.49 Dave Right? right? right. 02:03:27.14 Dave I Like riding. 02:03:30.92 Katie But a lot of people were really really mad. So I think this is his winking nod to the audience but it is. It's it's because I question the intent. I question the intention of what the joke is. 02:03:47.32 Dave Yeah. 02:03:49.36 Katie And I think it's really cringy because I think that once you kill Raidenovich and shove him in a locker and I think that's you know his winking nod like haha don't worry. We killed him and shoved him in a locker. We're not going to see him again but then to um. I feel like you're implying that Raiden is gay or you know of it of whatever sexuality. But it's implied as kind of a negative I assume because everyone hates riding so much that then he's doing winking nods. So then he makes it. Him having a gay affair with his colonel I'm assuming that he's portraying that as a bad thing. Um I mean you know, ah any romantic ah thing with your superior. That's not good. But I mean I feel like it's specifically because it is a gay relationship but I don't know but that's that's the vibe I get which makes it icky. Um, the thing itself is funny like I'm like oh like because Snake would never think that like he's like how is he going to see through my disguise. 02:04:47.30 Dave Yeah. 02:05:00.74 Katie He can't talk because the mask's mouth doesn't move so like oh maybe I'll figure it out that way because he can't say anything back to him? No no, he's gonna figure it out by just swinging his hand up and grabbing him and you're like whoa and it's just very unexpected and it would be funny but because it's. 02:05:03.73 Dave Right? ah. 02:05:19.14 Katie As you're riding and because he's trying to knock on Raiden I take it as like I and like a gay is bad thing. So I don't know the whole scene was super cringy for me for that specific reason. 02:05:28.13 Dave Um I didn't yeah I didn't see it as a gay as bad thing because that's all left up to your I guess like your interpretation. Or not your interpretation. You're putting the pieces together because I don't think they outright say like they're in a relationship where they are intimate or anything like that. Oh yeah. 02:05:45.45 Katie No, they don't absolutely. 02:05:52.87 Katie Ah, it's heavily implied. He's like why aren't you in my office and then grabs his junk I I think we know why? Um, but but yeah I am interpreting that you are appealing to the audience in that way and implying that this is a negative. 02:06:03.15 Dave Yeah, interesting. Yeah it. 02:06:11.34 Katie Connotation I am deaf I am reading into that. I don't know if that's accurate or not but that is why that scene got cringy for me other than that I think it's kind of funny. 02:06:19.50 Dave It. It was definitely played as a joke that like here's this thing we can take advantage of but because he can get close to volgin. But ah yeah, the unexpected that apparently Volgin does this to Raidenovic all the time in. Official capacities at work. Um, and then that's how he sees through Snakes Disguise I Just thought it was really weird. Yeah, yeah, that's not Raidenovich who are you? So ah. 02:06:43.63 Katie And he knows he knows the shape of his parts so well that even through pants he's like Nope that's not you like that's funny. Ah. 02:06:57.90 Dave Weird Very very weird scene. Weird little bit in general just to bring Raiden back like this see I didn't see it as killing Raiden because I didn't kill him I Um, just choked him out like I do most people in the game or I um. 02:07:07.25 Katie New. Oh. 02:07:15.95 Dave Like tracked him or something like I didn't kill him though but I can't see it that way if that's what you do, um as a little wink to all the people that were mad about Metal Gear Solid too and then writing comes back in Metal Gear Solid 4 and then he's the star of rising revengeance. So. 02:07:33.39 Katie I've never played Rising Revengeance. I need to play that Oh my god. 02:07:34.64 Dave Yeah, it's my favorite Metal Gear game like by a lot I fucking love that game even Jacob liked it. 02:07:43.38 Katie Yeah, even Jacob liked it. Yeah I need to be on my short list of backlog games is I need to play that game. 02:07:50.47 Dave Yeah, and it's pretty short. Ah 5 5 to 10 hours depending on how hard you find it. It's good. Um, ah you like sekiro so you'll think you'll find stuff to like in there. Ah so we have any other bosses or um. 02:08:13.80 Katie Um I think it's funny I okay I feel like the pain needs a chaperone, like I feel like he needs somebody to help him out because basically the only weakness that he has is that the 1 thing that really messes up his whole game. Plan. Is that the bees can't get you underwater so where does the pain set himself up. He's like well I'm going to hang out in this cave. That's got a bunch of deep water that you could easily hide underneath. You could have taken you out easily anywhere else. But you're like nope I'm going to plant myself right here. That's a great idea. The pain needs some oversight. 02:08:34.00 Dave Yeah. Full bunch of Water. Yep. 02:08:49.46 Dave Um, yeah. 02:08:51.49 Katie A little bit. Um, yeah, there's a pain. I love the end. Um I like the fury as an updated um ah Vulcan fight because it's like tighter. That was the thing with the ps 1 vulcan fight like in the freezer room is that it's huge There's so much room that it's like it's not threatening at all. Um, whereas this is really tight and then the flames are coming up and it kind of cuts off certain areas or certain areas are hard to get through like you can't just sit yourself in certain areas because they're Burning. Um. 02:09:09.39 Dave Yeah. 02:09:28.70 Katie Yeah, it's just like a better version of that fight. So I appreciate it for that and then the shagohods fine. It's fine. 02:09:30.34 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's okay, yeah, but it's a fun. Um, it's a fun part where the shagohods chasing you like through the warehouse complex and then down like an airport runway and a bunch of stuff. Um. 02:09:48.60 Katie And then the boss. 02:09:49.61 Dave It's pretty cool. Let's see here. Yeah, um, let's see music break and then we have the final boss against the boss. The final boss Lowercase B where you fight against the Boss Capital T Capital B Um So like I feel like we've kind of skipped some story along the way. But it's kind of okay because that's how the game kind of goes like this. The ultimate goal is once you. 02:10:27.19 Dave Have accomplished the other missions or failed some of them. Ah, you were not able to rescue Sokolov. He gets killed. The final mission is to assassinate the boss and so you meet in this field of white flowers which has become a kind of trope. Um. Around ah video games for big boss fights. We just mentioned Sekiro The final boss of Sekiro takes place in a field of white flowers. Um, so you fight against the boss and ah before they talk. Um she tells Snake that she knows this is how it has to end. 02:10:49.66 Katie Oh. 02:11:01.19 Dave And that Snake must defeat her and inherit the title of boss and after doing so he will face a life of exit of endless battle and she sets a 10 minute timer so before we talk about this story and what's actually going on here. Let's talk about the actual fight. So it's on a 10 minute timer real time. Um, it is a cat and mouse stealth boss fight. Um, if she sees you she will run up and do melee combat and I don't want to say everybody. But I lost to these confrontations like 90% of the time. Um like you can kind of counter her or get the first hit in and then knock her down but most of the time she's going to fuck you up and what it does it doesn't hurt you that much. 02:11:41.95 Katie Yeah. 02:11:56.69 Dave But it will take time off the clock and that's time that you're not hurting her and I. So what you have to do is hide in the flowers and find where she is um the heat vision goggles that you mentioned earlier a little bit like they're still very powerful here. But there's also ah. Snakes hanging from trees around that you see that you know that light of that white from a living Thing. You're like oh there she is Nope just a Snake hanging from a tree. Um, So what you have to do is find her, shoot her, maybe run and hide repositioning. Try not to get caught. And I failed this many many times. I hate this final boss fight a lot. 02:12:41.78 Katie Oh no, what's many many times like 5 oh oh okay 02:12:47.84 Dave Ah, over over 10 We'll say yeah I spent easily 2 to 3 hours working on this fight. Yeah. 02:12:56.46 Katie Oh okay I understand then because that's a long time. Um Wow Um I think I think I got on my third try. Um, yeah I heat vision goggled. 02:13:01.77 Dave Because it's a 10 minute timer every failed attempt was 10 minutes long yeah 02:13:15.21 Katie And then just like laid down in the flowers and they would just crawl and hope that I would catch a glimpse of her because that's another thing when you're crawling. You can't really see very far so you kind of have to be close enough that you'll be able to see her. Um, but yeah I would just kind of crawl and then once I spotted her I was like okay and then I just crawl at her and then I would shotgunner. Um and then when I shot you shotgunner and she stood up. You can get a quick second one in before she does anything? Um, so I try to get 2 hits in and then bolt. Um, but. 02:13:49.34 Katie If you are having trouble finding her, the time goes fast. 10 minutes sounds like a long time. It is not and then the music kicks in which I love. But then you're like oh no, the music's kicking in and it gives you that like oh shit I'm running out of time. 02:13:55.10 Dave Yep. Yeah. Yeah. 02:14:07.30 Katie And then she'll start telling you. She's like 3 minutes left and you're like a shit and if you have like half the health bar left. You're like I'm not making it. It's not going to happen this time. Um, yeah, oh. 02:14:11.27 Dave Yep. 02:14:16.22 Dave Yep, she has a lot of health. Um I use the sniper rifle because I didn't want to get close to her because she just kicked my ass in Melee combat. So I would try to hang out on the other side of the Arena and use the sniper rifle which doesn't do. 02:14:33.63 Dave A ton more damage but it does do some more damage. Um, the time that I won it was literally like 15 seconds left on the clock. The song is almost over. Um, you're right when that song kicks in. You know you're struggling. 02:14:35.63 Katie Yeah. 02:14:50.85 Dave And you're like or you're on you like me, you're on attempts like 14 and you're fucking mad and then what a thrill you're like come on. Um, but I don't know if I like the idea of it. But I think if it was, it just wasn't on a timer. 02:15:08.44 Dave You know because she killed me outright a couple times too. Um, if it wasn't on a timer if the timer was more generous I wouldn't have had such a hard time but I had a real hard time with it. So Ah yeah, it was almost to the point where I would have looked up a cheat just to skip it. And watch the ending but I I did eventually get it. 02:15:31.79 Katie That's fair I was going to say you had to have been close just being like I'm I'm not doing this like I'm done I've had enough. So for me, it was um, it was kind of the perfect balance of challenging where I was like I got to figure out how to get this done in 10 minutes and it was right in that sweet spot. 02:15:34.29 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:15:48.21 Katie Where it makes it an enjoyable challenge but I could easily see it. Yes, it's incredibly frustrating. I'm glad you still like the song. 02:15:55.52 Dave Oh yeah, the song rules I can't hold the you know boss fight design against that song. 02:16:01.39 Katie Um, and yeah, another thing that she can do when she malays you is actually take your gun and like throw it. Along with a bunch of your ammo and you're like oh come on and now you're running around trying to get your gun back because I was like no I need my shotgun back because that's how I'm doing this and then she just shoots you or kicks you while you're doing it. You're like oh this is just embarrassing like. 02:16:26.16 Dave That is pretty funny because like throughout the game like we said every time you get in a little fight with her. She kicks your ass. She disarms Snake, throws him down and breaks his arm. She throws him off of ah, a rope bridge above a River 1 time like early in the game. Um, and then she's still toying with you in this fight. I didn't know that she could take your weapons and throw them. But that's even funnier. 02:16:45.12 Katie Oh yeah, just like how earlier she would take whatever hit his gun and she takes it apart in one motion and then just like drops the pieces. She's basically doing that but in the gameplay I like that. 02:16:57.37 Dave Yeah. 02:17:00.93 Katie Um, yeah, it's not executed perfectly. There are a lot of things in this game that are like oh that's cool, but the execution just isn't doesn't feel that good. Um, and this is like 1 of them for sure. But I like the Boss 02:17:17.86 Dave Um, yeah. 02:17:19.69 Katie The entire game you're like God She's so cool and then the boss fight itself looks good. It sounds good. The music's kicking in it sounds great. Um, so it's like I don't know it's this balancing act of like things that are positive about it and things are negative. 02:17:27.31 Dave No. 02:17:34.73 Dave Yeah I like everything about it except the act of doing it like the aesthetics the character everything about it's awesome I Just got very frustrated. 02:17:44.96 Katie In retrospect so ah, playing this as an adult who has since like played a lot more video games and tries to think about them in a bit more of an analytical way and absorbs things a bit more than I used to when I was a teenager I was like yeah that was a cool fight. But but but now. 02:17:56.50 Dave Yeah. 02:18:04.43 Katie Um I appreciate that so we are beyond the spoiler wall you find out afterwards that the boss um turns out never actually defected was actually on the American side. Um, and then. 02:18:23.47 Katie Basically accepted that she had to die in order for the US to absolve themselves of any fault of the explosion earlier in the game. The only reason that you can beat the boss is that she kind of lets you is because she knows that she has to die and she is willing to die for her country. 02:18:31.41 Dave Yeah, um. 02:18:42.80 Katie So it makes sense because you're not better than you were earlier in the game. Really like you, you haven't advanced your skills. You're not anything more special than you were earlier in the game. Um, but she just lets you now and you don't know that when you're doing it. But then afterwards I'm like oh that's why I can beat her now. 02:18:46.33 Dave Right. 02:19:02.64 Katie Because otherwise how can you explain that you suddenly can beat her like no if she chose to kill me, she'd kill me but she doesn't I think that's great. 02:19:07.45 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, so she kind of plays this role because she she full she was still on this mission. 02:19:25.14 Dave Infiltrating this. Um, this group with Volgin and the cobra unit and all of that she was doing while also basically taking the fall for the entire thing for the government and we talked about the lyrics Of. Snake eater earlier and that goofy side where they're talking about you know some days you eat a tree frog or whatever the line is the first few lines of that song or in the um in the chorus I'll say the chorus of Snake eater starts with I give my life not for honor. But for you. In my time there will be no one else, which is basically her spelling out what's going to happen to her and why she's doing this. So I think that she could only accept that this is the way she had to die if it was going to be Snake that did it. So. 02:20:18.69 Katie Yeah. 02:20:22.12 Dave Um, that was her choice to I Guess if she had a choice of the way that she was going to die. She wanted Snake to be the one to do it in all of the things that you learn about her role here you learn after the fight. 02:20:39.58 Katie Yeah. 02:20:41.81 Dave And I Really think that the emotional weight of that fight would have been greater if you knew this before the fight but you had this inevitability to the confrontation like both of us know we shouldn't be fighting right now to this like super strong degree Snakes. Still probably thinks that she's a traitor to some degree. So. It's His Mission. He has to kill her and like he might be questioning a little a little bit but he doesn't know how wrong it is and I really feel like if you had just learned that one little bit before the fight it would have made that hit. 02:21:20.32 Dave A lot more than the dump of information after the fight where you look back on what you did, but the other side of that is who is Snake getting information from in here. The government's not going to tell him the truth. 02:21:33.68 Katie Yeah. 02:21:39.48 Dave Before he does the job before he finishes the Job. We'll say he would have had to have gotten it from a alot or Volgin or somebody else. Um, so I guess it does make sense in that way. It's just a little bit a little bit of like what could have been if they made a different decision. You know like I don't think that it's terrible or something but just me kind of saying what? if. 02:22:03.79 Katie Yeah, and and the boss wouldn't she wouldn't tell him because he's very much like the stoic soldier like this is what I have to do So I'm going to do it and I'm not going to I'm not going to make it harder for him like it's already harder I mean you do feel that like inevitability. 02:22:08.10 Dave No no. 02:22:22.97 Katie But it would make that last bite I guess a bit sadder and a bit more solemn than it already is. I mean the emotions are there already. They're just I don't know it's just it's held back a little bit. 02:22:37.41 Dave Yeah, it could have been stronger if both characters knew that they shouldn't be doing this but they feel like they're being forced into it by the government in some way. Yeah. 02:22:41.21 Katie Hm. 02:22:51.19 Katie I Mean they're both doing it because of duty right? Like they're both. The reasons are the same, just the specific um angle that it's coming from is different but like they are still doing like I have my duty you have my duty as she has stated the entire game. 02:23:00.40 Dave Yeah. 02:23:07.87 Katie Friends today could be enemies tomorrow. We soldiers go where the winds take us and what governments decide and how things shift and like it's there. It's just seeing that I feel less strongly about this but I feel more strongly that. 02:23:11.74 Dave This is. 02:23:25.19 Katie I wish we knew more about Eva before the end because Eva is so much more interesting after like the last run of cut scenes and I'm like oh this explains so much and that character is so much cooler. 02:23:28.90 Dave Yeah. 02:23:43.55 Katie Then I thought before and I didn't have any time to like to sit in that with it and it reminded me of um, the movie bombshell with ah Charlese Theron spoilers if anyone wants to watch Bombshell and hasn't yet. 02:23:53.87 Dave Okay. 02:24:02.27 Katie But I'm basically spoiling the end of the movie. I'm so sorry. Um, you can still watch the movie. It's great. It doesn't affect your enjoyment of the movie but basically at the very end. The last thing you're like oh actually her allegiances are this and you're like oh but that's like 1 of the main characters. That's the main character. And I'm finding out after everything's done. What her motivations are and it's like I would have liked to have been in it with her and known her motivations and that would have been cooler instead of the the movie being like haha got you at the very end. It's like no I want to be in it. 02:24:29.57 Dave Yeah. 02:24:40.37 Katie With that person at the very end they're like ha I got you Eva is a totally different person and looking back. You're like oh all, everything that she does makes sense um her like being super flirty with Snake the whole time just felt kind of weak in the moment. It's like this is what you're worried about, this is what you're paying attention to and at the end you're like oh no, that's her plan. She did that purpose and like everything that she did was calculated and had a motivation but at the moment you think that she's just kind of silly and like a wannabe soldier. 02:25:11.27 Dave Um, yeah. 02:25:13.88 Katie So I wish that we knew a little bit more about Eva earlier and I would appreciated her more throughout the game. It doesn't have to be the whole game like just the last fifth even if I'm like oh if I know a bit more about her I would appreciate these scenes better. 02:25:27.14 Dave Yeah, we kind of learn about Eva's um that she's not totally who she says she is because she has ah she's double crossing ah vulgin by pretending to be somebody else. Um, so. 02:25:38.28 Katie Oh. 02:25:44.86 Dave I don't know, I think she showcases a little bit of deception. But you have no reason to think that's where it ends, which is something that is like Metal Gear stories. Always do this like you might sniff out 1 plot twist. But there are 3 plot twists and you're never going to guess the other 2 or something like that I think that like now that I'm thinking about it and now that we're talking through it I think a lot of this does make sense I would still I'm still a little bit like frustrated by the pacing of all of these games. 02:26:00.63 Katie Yeah. 02:26:17.30 Katie Yeah. 02:26:19.88 Dave Um, but I'm a little bit frustrated by like dropping the bombshell on us the players but it does make a little bit more sense here because I think we get the same information at the same speed as Snake does so Snake is getting a bomb dropped on him. 02:26:33.31 Katie Yeah. 02:26:39.50 Dave At the end we experience it the same way. So. 02:26:42.66 Katie Um, yeah, because we don't see anything that Snake doesn't see. 02:26:47.80 Dave There might be a few cutscenes of like ocelot talking to Vulgin or something like that. That's right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:26:51.19 Katie Even then though Snake is up in the mountains and he is like binoculars watching them so he's there like we are never completely detached from Snake so it does make sense. 02:27:05.62 Dave Even if we are wishing for a little bit of like what if Snake learned the truth about the boss right before he had to go fight her and then you had this extra layer to that boss fight in that extra layer to that feeling that she's letting you win or something like that. 02:27:10.50 Katie Yeah. 02:27:25.62 Dave The way it's given you kind of get the feeling that like she defected but she had second thoughts because then she helped you get out of prison. She helped you do that and she saved Eva earlier in the story like me. She's trying to atone and then she lets you. Kill her so that there's an end to it and she can rest or something like that. But then you learn the real truth later and I don't know. I don't think it's bad. But I mean I actually think it's quite good now that I'm looking through it. 02:27:50.24 Katie Now I yeah. 02:27:58.90 Dave Now that I'm looking at it through the lens of like we get information at the same time that Snake does um so it may be just you know, wish casting saying like what if Snake knew and that final confrontation was all the more emotional because of it. The ending is still really emotional and. 02:28:14.33 Katie Oh yeah, it's still emotional. You're still hitting the same beats and and to think I don't know how you would have eva how you would have any how you would have that reveal before the end because the whole thing is that she is trying to steal the philosopher's. 02:28:18.00 Dave Good. Yeah, um so what happens ? 02:28:32.89 Dave The Philosopher's legacy. Yeah, which I thought was funny. Um, they called it an ancient treasure at the beginning of the game and it turns out it was created during world War one which um. 02:28:33.94 Katie Something. Yeah. 02:28:46.34 Katie Is like thirty years ago forty forty years ago 50 had 02:28:47.83 Dave This game takes place in 1964? yeah like yeah thirty years ago forty years ago ancient treasure I was like oh okay, they found something in a pyramid or some shit like no, it's just $100000000000 that they collected during world war one? Um, so. She's trying to steal that and this is how you're getting all this exposition. At the end is this tape that Eva recorded and left for Snake that's playing that tells him the whole truth about the boss, the whole truth about herself, all of that. So. Actually, I really like the way this is presented because it starts when she and Snake spend the night together and Snake wakes up the next morning when she's gone. He hits play on this tape. She tells him the truth and then in that recording the scene shifts. To Snake back in like Washington or something being awarded by the president for a job well done and it's still telling Eva's narration is still happening over the top of this. Um. So Snake has been given the title of big boss and a medal from the president. The president goes to shake his hand and Snake refuses which I thought was cool and then he eventually does shake the president's hand and then like some other dip shit politician comes up and wants to shake his hand and Snakes like nah and he leaves. Um. 02:30:13.86 Katie Yeah. 02:30:17.19 Dave Then he goes out to her grave. Um, it is an unmarked unremarkable grave and like the narration over the top is talking about how she will be forever known as a traitor. Um, when we know this is not the truth um her grave just says. The person who saved the world or saved the United States or something like that. But it doesn't have her name on it. Um, because what she did was she thwarted a nuclear catastrophe basically by doing this. So. 02:30:54.90 Dave While this narration is playing Snake Puts flowers down on her Grave. He puts her gun down on the grave she gave to him as she was dying at the end of that. Ah that boss fight and then ah Snake salutes and he sheds a tear as he's looking at the grave and this is that part. The music. It's Metal Gear. Solid theme song but it's really slow and it's really fucking sad during this part and um I never thought that ah Metal Gear. Solid story would bring tears to my eyes. But this ending was really really well done for any complaints about. Pacing at which they give you information even if we do see why they did it that way any complaints that you might have I think this ending where you're processing this information at the same speed that Snake is processing all of this and the person that he looked up to his mentor. Is now known as a traitor to Everybody. He killed her and the president gave him a medal for it and all of these complex emotions are going on while he's saluting at her grave um and everyone around him in that ceremony's clapping by the way which I thought was like. 02:32:10.70 Dave Oh that's brutal. So um, this is really really good. I think it's like by far the best story cinematic content in any of the Metal Gear games I've played so far. 02:32:26.16 Katie As far as mysterious emotional storytelling. Um heart of the game aspect. Yes, um, there are very well executed goofy ridiculous ones that I think are awesome where the camera angles are creative and we're just. 02:32:32.54 Dave Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, hundred percent 02:32:43.83 Katie You know we're just throwing everything at it. Um, I appreciate those two. But yeah, this is the most emotionally significant 1 by far it actually executed well and not like it's not cringy. We're not doing anything um, kind of out of bounds. It's like no no. Everything like you said everything has a purpose like they are giving him a medal while they're explaining this. They're clapping for him. He is kind of showing what he thinks of how he feels about their um, they're like commending him like he's. Not happy about it like you get everything that you need to get from it. It hits every note. It's great I have I I don't really have any notes on it really, it's fantastic. 02:33:46.68 Katie But then you know what I did not need. I didn't need the extra ocelot phone conversation. I think that's after the credits. Um, being after the credits makes it better for me. Because we're not like connecting the 2 things together. It's like no no, we finished the game. This is an added segment afterwards. But I'm like I don't need this because I don't actually I don't care about the really big political stuff I don't care about the Patriots. I Don't care about um I don't know any of that stuff I'm like no we did it that was perfect I feel like we could have ended it I guess you throw in the after credits thing. Also it brings us a lot back in and he gets to say his little thing about how he's like in it and knows what's going On. Um, yeah I don't know he's just Koji. He just always has to do more and. 02:35:09.87 Katie Hello, No nothing. Oh now I could still see and hear you the entire time again. It's okay I was meandering on and I was like this isn't necessary anyway. 02:35:16.61 Dave Now we're back. Oh man. Okay I you froze up as soon as you started talking So I heard nothing that you said. 02:35:32.58 Katie About. 02:35:36.44 Dave Ah, after I stopped talking about what the final scene is like and then you started and immediately froze up I was like shit. 02:35:46.99 Katie Um, we should have ah we should have settled on like a hand signal or something. 02:35:52.30 Dave Yeah, true. Um, okay, so do you want to retake your thoughts there or do you want to just kind of summarize it briefly and I can. Okay. 02:36:02.70 Katie Yeah, like oh I'll summarize briefly I mean I I There was a good nugget and then there was a meandering bit that I was like I don't need to be saying any of this but exactly what is what did you say. 02:36:11.11 Dave What is podcasting if not meandering bits that you don't need to say. 02:36:21.28 Dave Like I just described the ending and then talked about you. Yeah, I loved it. 02:36:21.35 Katie What is the last thing you said oh yeah and you're like this is great. This is like the most meaningful ball up. Um, yeah, no I agree This is by far the most. Emotionally significant um like compact like story like ending to a story that makes sense and it hits all your points like it. It is emotionally meaningful. Um, ah not. 02:36:49.90 Dave Man. 02:36:55.85 Katie There is not that much wasted. 02:36:59.44 Dave Yeah, good now. 02:37:01.86 Katie Everything has a purpose like you said, like the ending of two. I'm sorry there is so much wasted nonsense because I don't care about the patriots. Like I don't actually care about any of that stuff like the illuminati type things realistically, it's a neat story element. But I don't care. So if you're going to spend 25 minutes monologuing about the patriots I'll listen to it because like it's weird but I don't. Care whereas this is like no this is the purpose he is like you said he's getting a medal for a thing that he hated that he had to do um that he probably shouldn't have had to do. But that's what you know being a soldier means and they're applauding him and he resents and you can tell he resents it because he's not like you can tell what he thinks. 02:37:46.84 Dave Um, yeah. 02:37:52.79 Katie Of those people too. Um and what their congratulations mean to him like not that much. Um, it all has purpose and it all hits and I don't really have any notes on this one like it's just good. It's very very good. 02:37:55.39 Dave Um, yeah. 02:38:05.87 Dave Yeah, yeah, the thing with the end of Metal Gear. Solid too was I actually really love the content that they talk about at the end. The problem is it is. An entire game's worth of philosophy and ideas in a 25 minute cutscene and it's just way too much. This one is I mean again, we've talked a little bit about pacing and like what could they have done differently to not shove this all on you at the end. But they made the choice to shove this all on us the way that it was all shoved on Snake and the way that it's all pulled off and I really like this the way that it's presented this whirlwind of things that's happening. He learns about it and then he's getting a medal and then people are shaking his hand and. Clapping for the you know he followed his duty but um, his duty meant you know killing the closest person to him because she was set up for something that she didn't do and she had to take the fall for it like the entire thing is bullshit. So you can like you said you can see how much he resents everything that's happening here and then she had told him like during that boss fight. Um, you have to kill me now and the rest of your life will be this endless battle basically and you can kind of see that beginning. 02:39:30.89 Dave During this ending here and it's just ah, just really really well done. I mean you got to give credit like I think I said for a while when I was playing this game I was going through it and being like yeah the pain is funny and you know the fear is funny and the end was a cool boss fight. But it's like volgin shooting electricity and shit like that's kind of cool. But why does everyone love this game so much and then you get to the end and you're like oh ok I get it. It's a lot all at once but I get it so this ah it's really really powerful here. Um, and you can kind of see the other puzzle pieces fall into place after this is over um you learn a little bit about how the philosophers and the people who put together this treasure. It was initially 3 countries cooperating. America, China and the Soviet Union um the American version of the philosophers became the patriots so you have that origin story there. Ah you learn about the oh I can't say this is french I'm not saying this shit but the project to create. Ah, solid. 02:40:45.98 Dave There we go exactly. That's exactly what I would have said um the project to clone solid and liquid Snake ah from Ant Solidus Snake I suppose from um, from big but from fuck the names. The new big boss naked Snake in this game. Um. You see where that comes from and then you get the fucking double crossing triple crossing ocelot at the end. Um so Eva thinks that she stole the philosopher's legacy like data chip but she stole a fake now. Um. The soviets I think still have the treasure at the end because ocelot was double crossing everybody. Um I know that ocelot's one of the only yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, um. 02:41:30.79 Katie There's like too many double crosses too many where I'm like let's calm it down just a little bit. 02:41:39.22 Dave Ocelot is a main figure through a lot of the rest of the series from what I understand um for I have 4 and 5 in peace walker to play. Um I like that ocelot's a character that's in all or most of the games. Yeah. 02:41:52.78 Katie I Think it's the only character I think it's the only consistent character because Snake is not consistent right? yeah. 02:41:59.12 Dave It makes sense. Yeah Snake is consistent but it's not the same Snake because of course so yeah, a lot of stuff going on here. Um plot wise. But after that big emotional Bombshell You know you're hearing ocelot on the phone and I'm like yeah okay like. 02:42:18.26 Dave You double cross everybody. That's cool I'll see you in the next game we'll see what's going on. 02:42:23.70 Katie Yeah, and I love that. That's the sendoff. Okay, the plane ah whole segment which is also funny earlier when Eva's like ah Eva is hurt and Snakes like no, you have to keep going I need you and she's like what say that again is like. I need you. I can't fly the wake myself and I'm like oh so deflating? Um, but anyway so she's flying the wake and it's not rising because oslot's on the plate I guess. 02:42:44.60 Dave Um, yeah. 02:42:52.30 Dave Yeah, was yeah I was like yeah that this plane's too heavy because there are 3 adults in it like what kind of plane is this. 02:42:59.28 Katie Yeah, and it's a big play. It's a relatively speaking. It's like a big like car military cargo Plane like yeah, um, but yeah that whole segment with ocelot and is like. 02:43:05.40 Dave It's the yes, it's the plane that likes paratroopers to jump out of like it's not. It's not that you could surely hold more than 3 people. 02:43:19.20 Katie He basically just wants to hang out with Snake one last time because he helped him get away like he helped him at the end game but that he I want to fight with you one last time because I think you're because I really think ocelot just thinks that um that naked Snake is cool. Um. 02:43:20.33 Dave Um, yeah. 02:43:31.40 Dave Yeah. 02:43:34.21 Katie So he's like no no I want to whip around my revolvers one more time and like let's hang out one more time I'm gonna like oh buddy you're being so needy. But um. 02:43:42.94 Dave It's like that. Um it's It has the same feeling of like a lot of ah I mean I'm out of my depth here but like a lot of Japanese media will have like these rival characters for your protagonist and that's what a lot that feeling that he's giving off here like. 02:43:52.83 Katie Yeah. 02:44:00.29 Dave 1 more fight just because we're two bad asses and you know we got a fight because fighting's the best thing we can do and then like they fist fight in the plane and then as a lot like once he's satisfied. He just jumps out of the plane. No parachute just into a lake. 02:44:05.56 Katie Yeah. 02:44:16.54 Katie He's basically like well see you later man like see you later buddy till next time and then yeah jumps out of the plane. It's great. 02:44:19.26 Dave Yep. 02:44:23.39 Dave Yeah, see you in Metal Gear. Solid five I guess I think that's the next one in the timeline. Maybe I know that's pre-pre-shadow moses. Yeah, so who that'll gear solid 3 02:44:31.64 Katie Um, I think so I believe so yes. 02:44:42.57 Dave Any ah anything else. We want to mention before we wrap up here. 02:44:46.29 Katie I don't think so. I think we covered it pretty well. I mean we could keep talking for two more hours but I don't think we need to like it. I think we covered it. Oh yeah. 02:44:49.90 Dave Yeah, a lot of stuff probably could we could. I could get another half hour material out of the pain easily so ah Katie. Thanks so much for coming on and talking Metal Gear 3 with me and putting up with all the. Internet issues that the listeners were completely unaware of until I just mentioned them here. Yeah. 02:45:10.48 Katie No, absolutely nothing happened. Everything went super smoothly the entire time. Um, thank you for having me like I said thank you for giving me a reason to go back and replay these games because I wanted to already and I'm like yes I will absolutely do this and I've had. 02:45:21.70 Dave No. 02:45:28.35 Katie Ah, wonderful time and I've had a great time talking about it with somebody else and being able to hash it out for a while. Um, yeah, yeah, I had a great time. Thanks for having me. 02:45:32.54 Dave Ah, yeah, of course we'll be happy to have you back sometime and for everybody listening one more call for you to go down in the show notes check out everything left behind game club and cut scenes. Lots of good podcasting material for you down there. So again as we're signing off as you're listening to the music at the end of the episode go look for some topics and podcasts you'd like to listen to from the things Katie's doing and you will not regret it. So. With all of that being said, all that we can do is say thank you to everyone who listens all the way to the end like always you are my hero and tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.