Detonation code activated. 

And all the cards begin to fall into place for ol Snakey-poo. With the PAL Card(s) entered, the detonation has been activated, and Master Miller has revealed that he was Liquid Snake all along. Snake has really gotten the raw deal the whole game, and it's all coming to a head. 

It's pretty easy to armchair general and say he should have seen this all coming, but there's really no way - Snake was depending on his team to be trustworthy and boy were they not. 

 But I still have a job to do, and that's to stop Metal Gear. The only way left to me now is to destroy it... After I escape this poison gas filled room! 

Snake, did you like my sunglasses? 

But why'd he take his top off? 

And goddamn, all the twists and turns in this freaking game, man. Gray Fox killed Naomi's parents!? I mean... I know that and all, but golly, just... Damn, eh? The depth of some characters in this game, man. And then my boy Fox over here takes on Metal Gear with his weirdo laser arm gun thing and gets himself crushed dead. Liquid boutta get the back o my hand in a second here. 

Soon... Soon... It will finally... End... 

The fights against Rex took me a few tries, but eventually I got into a good rhythm with the Stinger and took it down. I'm confident there's some trick to it that speed runners use (isn't there always?) but per usual for this playthrough I'm going in naked as Snake himself. It's certainly more fun getting through stuff myself. 

Boss fight, boss fight, monolog... Boss fight... Monolog... Boss fight... Monolog... Metal Gear! 

I do love that part of the terrorist demands is a billion dollars. Like, Liquid is all "once we have our BILLION dollars we'll cause chaos all over the world!". I mean yeah I'm sure in what, 98? It was a ton of money, but now it's like... Really bro? 

Also how bloody crazy is the whole Les Enfants Terrible project? I'm not even gonna lay it out here but golly is it convoluted. And the genome soldiers... I can't even. 

And now they wanna nuke me... 

Ugh, time for a fist fight with my... Brother... 

This game. 

Snake? Oh, you're alive! Thank God! 

The fist fight is actually pretty good, it definitely feels pretty epic having a topless fist fight on top of Metal Gear with your clone brother. It gets a bit harder as the fight goes on, and they give you 30 fewer seconds on your first attempt (which I failed pretty miserably on), so doing badly makes it a bit more lenient on subsequent attempts. 

So I beat him up, get a nice little scene with Meryl (whom I saved valiantly), and then my boy Otacon secures me an escape route, promising he now has a reason to live, so no way he dies here! 

Meryl and I hop into a jeep with a mounted machine gun and we're on our way, ready for the final action sequence. Such a fun and varied game, I swear. I love doing the jeep scene in first person, it makes for a really great action sequence (if a tad unfair at times, boohoo). 

Look Snake, the sun! 

And that's... It! I've beaten my first play through of Metal Gear Solid in a good ten or no years, and it was a ride and a half. I really love this game so much, its a near perfect stealth action game, honestly. It's got pretty janky controls compared to modern games but it was working with very early 3D tech. 

Honestly watching the end again gets me a little teary eyed. Snake over here giving Naomi the fake truth she needed to hear after Gray Fox's death, and she starts crying and I'm just like... When did it start to rain in here eh? 

I honestly wish I had the words to describe how the game makes me feel. I dunno. Young again? Happy? I hope that as I get back into writing and reviewing and stuff I can Form the words to better communicate the greatness that is Metal Gear. 

For now all I can say is I lack the words. Maybe that's enough. 

I only felt truly alive when I was staring death in the face. 

That's gonna be it for this playthrough, and this entry. From here on it'll be all serious business as I'm done taking in the scenery, and it's time to git gud. This playthrough was on normal, so I'll upgrade to Hard next, then Extreme. Again, the main goal here is Big Boss rank, which has some pretty harsh requirements. I'm also self-imposing a "no game clear items" rule for my goal; it's possible to beat the game twice through and use the clear data to get the Infinite Bandana and Stealth Camo and use those to clear Extreme and it will still give Big Boss rank. No thanks, I'll beat it proper. 

For now, I rest. 

Let me know what you think of the series so far! Have you enjoyed the writeup on my first playthrough? What are your own personal thoughts on the game?