Part 18: Snake's Revenge Part Six: Some Stupid Crap

Snake's Revenge Part Six: Some Stupid Crap


Here we are, in a castle, looking for a walking nuclear launch platform. Let's get to it.


This is the castle's music.


A call from Jennifer in the next room. She means "ahead" in terms of area layout. Note that we don't actually have a stated direction to go in, the game is just linear enough that you're supposed to know where to go.



So let's hop on this long elevator (it's a whole three floors, guys) and try to find Jennifer/Nick.


weapon.

Here's an enemy officer. Does he mean Metal Gear 2 when he says "secret weapon"? Is he talking about a literal key or some kind of weakness or something?

Fucked if I know.


There's a pitfall in the room with this hostage, but I didn't show it. This line gets reused by a lot of hostages coming up. I don't know why they didn't just stick with the first stock response.


We're getting off on the first floor here, as opposed to the second basement. We started at the top coming off the gondola, remember.


This room has no guards or anything. It does, however, have something far worse behind those doors.




Three sidescrollers. Two of them that you have to go through twice, effectively making it five sidescrollers.

Let's get to work with the door at the top of the screen, shall we?



On the other side, items! Let's check out the haul, shall we?


Nope, fuck you player, you have to go around. There's no really effective way to predict pit traps, and you have to be pretty quick to escape them once they start opening. They'll usually kill you the first time; it's a pretty cheap way to add "difficulty" to the game, and Snake's Revenge uses them in an even worse way than Metal Gear did.


Going around the trap, here's card 5. It must be hell for the guards that actually patrol/live in this place to get anywhere with all these different keys.


The other thing to be found here is boots. I guess Snake was going barefoot. FOXHOUND must have spent the entire budget on the gun and knife they outfitted him with to start the mission.


Boots stop you taking damage from the floor traps that showed up on the train earlier. Never in a million years would I have guessed that they were "boards laced with poison-tipped nails".

And back to the hub room!

Then through the door on the left side!


On the other side is a pretty standard room with guards.


Boots protect us from these! The castle's floors are clearly brick, though, so the traps can't be nail boards.

I don't know why Konami thought it was a good idea to have their software manuals be full of jokes and bad information.




Another long elevator and we're back on the third floor!




This floor is a big circle. I got caught and didn't get a shot of the last bit, though.


These are the guards who come after Snake if you get caught. I think they're supposed to be the same type we saw on the gondola.

If you're playing the game properly, you'll never see these guards, but it's pretty nice that they bring out the heavy hitters if the alert is up.


The item here is the "hidden microphone"/"hidden mike"/"bugging kit".


This is essentially the same as the directional mic from MGS2. I don't think it would actually work as presented here, but oh well.


In another room, a bulletproof vest.


"Up to 50%"? What kind of shitty description is that? This is an important item to have, but I don't think it's for the reasons that it was supposed to be useful. Also, you can't use it in sidescrollers, which is where you should be taking most of your damage.

Let's get back to the hub, shall we?



Behind this door: the last sidescrolling section!


I have no idea why there's a room like this after the sidescrollers. They don't serve any purpose.


Another elevator! I wonder how hard it was to install these into the castle. I wonder how hard it was to wire the castle for electricity, too.


This area is almost set up like a maze, but it falls a little short. Someone's calling us, though, so let's answer.


launch nuclear missiles all over the world. Hurry up!

The enemy commander is going to use a nuclear launch platform to launch nuclear weapons! No shit, Jennifer, that's Metal Gear's raison d'être.


No weapons can harm him.

Ah, an enemy officer with actual information! The commander is probably invulnerable in exactly the same way the Arnolds were in Metal Gear. Has there ever been an enemy in a game that was actually invulnerable?




Also on this floor: a useless POW, an impassible pair of pit traps, and card 7.


Let's see what else is around in the castle, shall we?


It's just another boring floor. We're pretty close to the end, by the way.


Is the enemy commander not expecting Snake at this point? He hasn't exactly been all that subtle.


There is a stack of bricks to push before we can move on. They put every design element into this castle, I think.


Even these dark rooms. I don't think there's been one of these since the boat, they're completely useless.


There are pit traps, though, so stumbling through in the dark isn't a very good idea.


Another POW. This game has more ranks than are worth having. I'm pretty confident that the designers missed the point of having limited items.


Interrogating this officer (who tells us the same thing that the first enemy officer did) raises our rank to 6 stars. This system of advancement is awful; at the beginning when it's most useful, there are too few POWs. At the end when you already have a surplus of equipment, there are dozens.


The castle also includes one of these stupid moving platform sections. This game is stupid.



On the other side: a room with rations. There are not enough rations just sitting out in this game. I had to farm for them after pretty much every sidescroller and boss, but I can't remember the last time there was a room to stock up on them.

In other news, this room is vertical but the door you use to get into it is facing right. Trying to quickly move between the rooms killed me as much as any boss other than the tank.


Another POW. He doesn't know what Metal Gear is. What a shock.


This room has gas in it and those little orange blocks that you have to stab to reach the door. If you touch them, they send you back across the room but don't do damage, so they exist only to slow you down. There's no way to stop the damage the gas does, so you have to eat rations regularly as you stab at them.

Spectacular game design, here.


This guy looks like a POW, but he just explodes in your face if you try to rescue him. You can get away from him if you're quick, though, which makes his sacrifice entirely in vain.


More "nail traps". Remember how Metal Gear had a short endgame full of obstacles that could kill pretty effectively if you weren't prepared? The Snake's Revenge guys saw that and figured the only way it could be better is if it were five times as long.


This hallway contains spear traps that poison you if they hit you. They're easy enough to dodge if you know where they are, or you can use antidote to cure poison.

Of course, they made antidote a consumable that only shows up in one area, so you're screwed if you only grabbed one.


In another room is a backpack!


I told you.


There are so many ways they could have done this. I have no idea why they chose this one. I have no idea why anything in this game is the way it is.


Gotta explode a wall to move on. It's alert time!


The guards on the left are on the alert, but they just run into the wall like a bunch of assholes.


Somebody in this room is talking, but we can't make out what they're saying. Let's put that microphone to good use, shall we?


of his feet.

The commander who was supposed to be invulnerable? Yeah, he's totally vulnerable to those anti-tank mines Snake's carrying. I don't think anything smaller than a tank should be able to take more than one of those things.


Blow through the wall and run a bit and you'll find another hallway with spear traps.



Past them is an elevator that you can take down to the castle's very fancy foyer.

Next time on Snake's Revenge: the end of this shitty game!