PAUSE - Canyon - 

It's here that I stop to admire the options that the game provides to the player, whether most realized it at the time or not. After a brief chat with Meryl (and a bit more flirting, natch) you're tasked with traversing a short hallway filled with lasers, invisible to the naked eye. 

Now, I have the thermal goggles since I've reverted to a "check every corner" state of play. But what if I didn't? Occasionally you'll find players less patient and totally skipping such vital tools, and for those player the developers have provided... A pack of smokes. 

It's here that was alluded to in the beginning of the game in a chat with Mei-Ling where she asks what you could possibly need cigarettes for on a mission (completely ignoring their intended use of course). And it's HERE that I'm reminded that despite Snake being a badass and the main protagonist, over time it becomes somewhat clear that Kojima didn't exactly want kids to emulate the man. 

It starts subtle with the total lack of advertising around the intended use for cigarettes, with Snake foregoing talking about the calming effects and instead opting to respond with "you never know". In this game at least it ends with them actually literally slowly draining your life away as you use (equip) them. 

They may work in a pinch to see those lasers, but it comes at a price for sure - the Thermal Goggles do a far better job of visualizing the beams of light than the smoke from the cigs, and the goggles don't stab you every 2 seconds. 

Of course they also don't show you the location of the clay ores that immediately follow the lasers, either. Kaboom! 

The raven on my head, it thirst for his blood. 

The bosses in this game aren't particularly difficult necessarily, especially just playing on Normal, but I do notice that most WILL hit you multiple times if you just play guns blazing style. In both the Ocelot and Raven fights thus far I took a decent bit of damage, draining me of precious rations. 

On subsequent playthroughs I might take some time to determine the best way about this. Likely it's perfectly fine due to the abundance of rations in the game, but it does feel a bit odd just tanking all the damage. That said I don't recall if damage scales on Expert difficulty, and I do intend to get to that level of play by the end of this. 

Natasha would know better than I do. 

Yet another completely optional thing this time it's an entire goddamn supporting character - Nastasha Romanenko is a nuclear weapons specialist added to the support team to give Snake info about the nukes and other weapons. 

The only way to actually come in contact with her though is entirely manually, and only if you're actually paying attention. Colonel Campbell mentions her pretty off-handedly while on a codec call informing you that you can't use weapons around nukes. He simply mentions that she knows a lot about nukes, and here's her number. Then poof - never to be mentioned again. 

Just call me... Deepthroat. 

Now who could this be? Mmmm... Anyway just ignore that, look over here. The Nikita (which I picked up in Nuke Building B1) has this handy feature that little me honestly never even thought of, if I recall - you can go into first person mode while operating the remote controlled missiles to far more easily navigate the halls to the power unit which controls the electrified walkway stopping your progress. It took two quick attempts to nail it here today, while I'm pretty sure I remember having some trouble with the birds eye view missile control as a kid. 

That said, I realize now that I'm missing the gas mask. I seem to have neglected back tracking when I got the level 3 keycard. Fortunately not a big deal, moving quickly through the gas that fills this area is enough to get by. 

Straight into the horror scene of... THAT hallway... 

It's like one of my Japanese animes... 

The Cyborg Ninja is just such a cool character, man. Running around all ninja-y in Alaska surrounded by dude's with guns, sporting his sexy stealth camo makin him invisible (not to my thermal goggles, mind you), slicing dudes up with his sword. So cool. 

Otacon is your everyman doing it just right when approached by the Ninja with a healthy pissing of the pants. 

This is the first time I've died on a boss. It was actually quite close, I only really started playing carefully in the last phase of the fight when you literally HAVE to - if you just go in punching he teleport behind you and punishes you for it. So now I have to dodge the punches and I'm doing well, in fact I've beaten him, one hit remaining on my own health bar. Aaaand then he explodes in a fit of rage and electricity, hitting and killing me. I completely forgot that after beating this boss you need to step away from him or you'll take damage, and this time that meant a game over, and having to do it again. Aaahhhh good times. 

A good time to call it quits. 

That's gonna be it for this one, thanks for reading, and please look forward to the next!