Part 2: Metal Gear Part Two: Searching for Grey Fox

Metal Gear Part Two: Searching for Grey Fox


When we left off last time, Solid Snake had just come across an elevator.


Taking the elevator up two floors, we find this room. On the left wall and along the top of the little box there are surveillance cameras, another series standard. If Snake crosses through their line of sight, they'll trigger an alert. Snake is also getting a call, so let's answer it.


Thank you, Big Boss.


Past the cameras is this little hallway. Also, the guard in the lower left can't see Snake here.


Through the open door, I find not only ammo, but also some guy tied up.


He's a POW, and once Snake saves him, he says this. Some of them have information, but they all say this line.

It's important to save POWs, because once you've saved enough, your class goes up (the class indicator is in the lower left, with one star right now). As class increases, you have more health and can carry more items. One part of the game is impossible to get through unless you have a high class ranking, so you need to rescue every POW you see.


Next to the POW room is this room. The main thing about this room is that it is fucking full of poison gas. If you haven't played the game in a while, you forget about this and Snake's health gets destroyed in a couple of seconds. Anyway, let's answer that call.


Resistance Leader Schneider knows its location. ...Over.

Apparently, Big Boss forgot to have members of FOXHOUND trained in the basic use of gas masks. What a joker. Let's see what the manual has to say about this guy.

Fun fact: Big Boss's eyepatch is on his left eye as opposed to his right, where it is in all the other games.


Big Boss also says to call Schneider to find out about the gas mask and even though I already have it, I call anyway.

Fun fact #2: Nobody at this point tells you Schneider's frequency. You just have to know it.


Even further into Outer Heaven, I find this room. The giant rolling pin in the top part goes back and forth across the room and instantly kills Snake if he runs into it. I have no idea who would make such a thing or how it works. The item at the top is a “Plastic Bomb”.

This is the same C4 as in every Metal Gear game, except it's set off by a timer as opposed to a button detonator.


On this screen, it's easy to show off one of the more useful limitations of the game, and one that takes a lot of waiting out of it.


If you stand here, the guard above Snake will never see him. The guard's legs will, in fact, pass through Snake's head without triggering an alert. If Snake were up a few pixels, though, he'd bump into the guard, take damage, and trigger an alert.


Carrying on and still using the extreme tunnel vision of Outer Heaven guards as a sneaking aid, I find the second key card.


Now that I have that, I can run all the way back across the floor to find this, the Remote-Controlled Missile.

They're pretty much the same as in Metal Gear Solid/MGS2; you fire a missile and then you can steer it around.


This is the room that leads to the R/C missiles. If I stand here, neither the guard nor the camera will ever spot me.


Nearby, I also find another POW, but this one is a bit more talkative.


The FOX HOUNDer who infiltrated a few days ago is safe. They're holding him.

Not exactly what I'd consider “safe”, but at least we know Grey Fox is alive. Let's try calling Big Boss, see what he has to say.


Jack shit. He doesn't even answer. If this were any other Metal Gear, we'd get a twenty minute lecture about how important Grey Fox is and then Big Boss would read Snake the first chapter of The Illustrated History of Nukes.


Here I get caught by the guard I made clip through Snake's cranium earlier, and he sets off the second type of alert (two exclamation marks in a yellow bubble). This type calls reinforcements onto the screen, and lasts until you go to another floor or just kill all the guards. Or you can die and reload, which is what ended up happening to me.


North of the room where I found card 2 is this place.


destroy the power panel of the high voltage current. Use a remote-controlled missile. Schneider, the Resistance Leader knows its location. ...Over.

Big Boss rings Snake to give him some more on-the-job training. This is the introduction of the series standard electric floor. Stand on it and it drains Snake's health constantly. Don't stand on electric floors.


Remote-Controlled Missiles are in the southwest. ...Over.

Schneider is the resistance leader, don'cha know? He is also useless. Southwest tells us nothing, you asshole.


Once I shoot an R/C missile into the power panel, the electric floor is just a regular floor.


This screen is pretty annoying because the two guards come down on different levels, so you can't avoid both as easily. The solution: kill a guard and book it.


frequency 12033. Diane knows enemy information.

Alright, more mission support. Thanks, Mr. POW. Let's call Diane.


Every time you call somebody, Snake says this. Even if there is not going to be an answer.

Fun fact #3: The only way to tell if there's no answer is to wait. The game does not indicate it.


Goddammit. Both Solid Snake and Steve identify themselves freely over the radio, by the way. That's not a particularly secure protocol.


These guys are guarding the elevator I need to take to move on, but there's shit to collect, first.


Also, if you punch people to death, they sometimes drop items, which is handy.


The door to the left leads to this screen, which is easy enough to get out of. You just duck through the door.


And find these four assholes, who immediately start shooting.


Should you kill them all, which is no mean feat, they drop the Silencer.

Now Snake's gun doesn't cause an alarm every time he fires it.


Through the door is another weapon, the grenade launcher.

The grenade launcher launches grenades. Pretty simple, really. It works a bit differently than the handgun, though.


Going back to the room with three red guards and heading north, I find this.



The cardboard box.

The manual has nothing to say about it, but the cardboard box is glorious in this game. Nobody questions it being in strange places, guards walk right through it (this can damage Snake, though), and it allows Snake to hide from cameras. Once you get the cardboard box, you are basically done worrying about sneaking.


All that's left on this floor now is a POW way back near the elevator from 2F. Once I rescue him, I sneak onto this elevator...


...and take it down to the second floor.