MGS3: Home Stretch *MAJOR SPOILERS*

Well, it’s been awhile since my last update so this should be a pretty long one.

Escaping from Groznyj Grad did indeed turn out to be the hardest part of the game. Things had been going well up until I got to Groznyj Grad Northwest. That place was a huge pain in the butt. My biggest problem was of course the area near the sewer entrance. The guard that patrolled that area was not the biggest problem, but rather the guard dog there. My other big problem was the fact that I cannot aim worth a crap with the Single Action Army. I finally was able to aim somewhat better by using the binoculars to help center the camera on something, but even then that only worked on larger objects.

On the run that I finally made it on, I got extremely lucky by making mistakes that benefited me. To start off, when I crawled over near the spotlight to shoot it out, I somehow managed to make it ricochet off and kill one of the guards, so that made things a little easier. Then when I tried to blow up the barrels to take out the guard patrolling the area by the sewer entrance, I missed the barrel and shot him instead. A couple of more shots trying to hit the barrels ended up killing the guy, leaving the barrels to take the dog out (since they were never both close enough at the same time). After that happened I was able to easily make it out of that nightmare of an area.

From there it was smooth sailing for awhile. The part with The Sorrow is pretty interesting. I’m not sure if you’d really call it a boss fight or not, but it’s still something really different. After this I had the conversation with Major Zero and the others where they explained about The Boss and The Sorrow, but I must have missed one conversation because I remember it making it clearer that Ocelot was in fact their child. This conversation made mention of a child that was taken away (and she says that again at the end) but there’s no way you can gather that much just from this.

Getting back into Groznyj Grad and planting the C3 charges on the Shagohod was a lot easier than it had been for me before. The reason why was this time I had the maintenance uniform and so as long as the other workers didn’t get a good look at me I was free to walk around and plant them.

The fight with Volgin here was pretty tough and took awhile for me to do. For the first part of the fight I got the hang of using CQC on him and then popping him with the tranquilizer. In fact the first part of the fight was pretty easy. It was the second part where he would start shooting out multiple bolts of electricity that would get me. I finally was able to take him out using a few tricks that I had picked up, though.

After that has to be one of my favorite parts in the game. The chase in MGS was fun, but this tops it in every way possible. Mowing down the guards was a bit easier for me since I had the special Cold War camo from Volgin, so as long as I was facing them I didn’t have to worry about getting shot. I also love popping off the drivers on the motorcycles at just the right time and having them collide with the others. Both fun and a good tactic. Finishing off the Shagohod and Volgin was surprisingly easy compared to what I had remembered. I barely took any damage the whole fight and easily took him out. After that was more motorcycles riding which was easy but fun.

Then… Then we’ve got one more tough part to avoid being seen, though actually it wasn’t that bad. Once I got EVA to stop being an idiot and actually come when I told her to, I was able to distract the first wave of guards with some magazines and grenade them to death. Then it was just a matter of running for it and getting out of that area. In the next area I simply tranquilized her and left her right there while I crawled through and picked off all the guys. I’d also like to note here that while that’s easy to leave her like that, it’s also annoying and kind of disturbing to hear her talking about how “that feels good” and mentioning Snake, The Boss, and…. Fido? This is one seriously messed up girl.

Anyway, after that we’re on to the final fight. The Boss herself. I originally was going to fight her using CQC, but after getting royally pwned numerous times with no real improvement I decided to forget that and just do it the easy way. I hid in the flowers and sniped her using The End’s sniper and easily finished her off with time to spare. Get this, though. After getting my stats page, my jaw drops when I see that I have 16 alerts. What the…. Then it hits me. I didn’t realize that the stats carried over when you continued. Since I would only use it occasionally and it would always be in the same area I didn’t think anything about it. So while I did avoid being seen the whole game, I technically didn’t because of that. Crap.

Anyway, about the ending. I’ve heard some say that it was lame, but I don’t see how you can say that. It’s easily better than the confusing mess of an ending in MGS2 and I don’t see how the one in MGS can be considered better really. You’ve got the final duel with “John” and “Adamska” (a nice nod to the fact that he’s ADAM), everything gets wrapped up with EVA and who she really was and how she explained the truth about The Boss.

That right there makes The Boss not just one of my favorite female game characters, but just one of my favorite game characters period. You’ve got the whole relationship between her and Snake throughout the whole game being shown. She used to be his mentor and she’s seemingly on your side at the start. She explains about how as times change so do enemies and all that, and then next thing you know she’s turned against you, yet the whole time she’s actually on your side. She’s building you up and making you stronger and secretly helping you along. If Snake had known the truth there would be no way that he could have gone through with killing her, but she did her duty and made sure that things went as they should. Then when he’s standing there in front of her grave with the music playing and him saluting her (with his eyes tearing up) how can you not be moved by that?

Then just when you think everything is done and if it wasn’t enough to be surprised by all that with The Boss, you’ve got the traditional conversation at the end with Ocelot. I had honestly kinda forgotten that he was working with the American Philosophers (of course later known as the Patriots). I also didn’t remember that he had actually recovered the real Philosopher’s Legacy (or at least half of it) and that EVA actually had the fake. That makes me think now. If he was working with them there, then….. Of screw it, I’m not gonna even think about it now. I’ll finish playing what I have (and maybe make complete sense of MGS2) and only then will I bother speculating the whole thing. And I’m sure then I’ll be dying to play MGS4 even more.

So as of right now, I’m going to say that overall MGS3 takes the top spot as my favorite of them. What I said in the beginning about the other Cobra members not having much development is true, but like somebody pointed out to me, that was traded for the focus on the characters that really mattered and that was well worth the trade off. I will say that I think I still prefer the other setting to the jungle as far as sneaking around as stuff, but I’ll hold off final judgment until I play the others. Amazing game and one of my all time favorites.

Final Results

Difficulty: Extreme

Play Time: 20:38:30

Save: 67 times

Continue: 55 times

Alert Phase: 16 times

Humans Killed: 164 people

Seriously Injured: 59 times

Total Damage: 21 life bars

Life Meds Used: 0

Plants & Animals Captured: 30 kinds

Meals Eaten: 83

Special Item: Not Used

Title: Spider

~ by Tithenion on July 14, 2009.