Part 26: Metal Gear 2 Part Seven: Bird Chasin'

Metal Gear 2 Part Seven: Bird Chasin'


This is where we left off last time. Snake is in the basement of the Tower Building after rescuing Holly. Next up, we have to go to the roof to try to catch a pigeon.

I see absolutely no way that this could go wrong.



Before we go to the roof, back to the first floor!



If you're playing the game, you have to go through the whole spiral and wait for the guards and it's slow and dull, but I cut that out. We're going to the tenth floor now.


The Zanzibarian administration has installed purple lights on the tenth floor.


: If you hit the wall you can hear where they used to be...

This means that (some of) the doors on the tenth floor are hidden. This means, of course, that Solid Snake needs to make his own doors in some places. There are no guards or anything here, just walls that need holes made in them by C4.



This is the first "door" on the floor.


I suppose that this is where the Zanzibarians keep their under-ripe fruit. We'll probably need those to catch the pigeon or something else stupid.

There are no doors into this hallway, by the way, so I guess that the kid was just walled in here while the Zanzibarians were renovating.


Zanzibar Land, in a stunning display of realism, features out-of-order elevators to go with its dozens of working ones.



Blowin' up some more walls! This seems like a well thought out course of action and couldn't at all compromise the integrity of the building and kill Snake.


Another elevator that's out of order. I hope they got a bulk discount.


These kids have a lot of repeated dialogue. It's kind of sloppy that this one is only one screen past the first kid to tell Snake this.



Boom! We're almost there, now.


: He hates grown-ups.

You guys can handle this one yourselves.


And here we find food, plastic explosives, and bullets. A decent enough use of an empty room, I suppose.



In another room, we find a bunch of grenades!

Grenades work the same way as the grenade launcher did in Metal Gear. These are the "pineapples" that the kids were talking about, by the way. These children obviously didn't get the same weapons education as the kid who told us where the stinger missiles were earlier.


And now, back to the first floor spiral room!


There's more vent food here. Vents are the best place to keep your rations, obviously.



At the end of the spiral, we find another elevator. This one is a long one.


We're going up to the thirtieth floor this time. We have to wait through every one of those floors, and I'd say that they take a second each. So nothing happens for almost half a minute.


And we're walking into a trap! Oh no!


Not Red-B! Whatever shall I do?


While this line is still on the screen, the speaker does a sort of shimmy thing from the left side. He is also in the ceiling, I guess? I'm not really sure and if you try to suss out the geometry of it, you'll just hurt yourself.


Yup, this is Red Blaster. He is pretty shitty in general. First, the manual's take on him:

In Metal Gear's world, there are university degrees in special ops. Honestly, that's more exciting than real life university. That and his ability to function in some kind of special magic space are the only exciting things about Red Blaster.

And now, Kessler:


Hate to break it to you, George, but the guy is pretty clearly wearing green.

: Assassination elite from Rumumba University. His method is setting booby traps criss-cross. He immobilizes his enemies... ...And finishes them off using a grenade launcher. Snake, return grenades with grenades! He must be hiding behind some barrier. ...Over.


You see those white lines there? Those are Red Blaster's booby traps. Instead of triggering an explosive or an alarm or anything, though, they just force you to run in place for a few seconds and then disappear. Theoretically, this would make you vulnerable to Red Blaster's grenades, but in practice the space between the two wires on either side of the elevator gives you enough space to deal with this guy.

Adventures of a shitlord, featuring Red Blaster.


After throwing a bunch of grenades into Red Blaster's pocket dimension, he dies and leaves behind the exciting item of nothing the fuck at all. Awesome!


There are more useless booby traps on the other side of the floor.


In addition, a single pit trap! Pit traps in Metal Gear 2, though, can't kill you if you just keep running while they open.


Whatever, this room blows. Red Blaster can eat shit in hell.


Outside: Zanzibar Land's less advanced method of transport, the motherfucking stairs.





To summarise: you run around five screens of stairs and then you don't find anything but a wall. Wonderful.



: But that was a quick job so you can blow it up easily I think. ...Bye.



Like Holly suggests, we have to use C4 to get through the wall and onto the roof. I don't think this would actually deter a properly-equipped invasion team, unless they all use the FOXHOUND ops manual and send agents in with nothing but their uniform and a pack of cigarettes.


On this screen, you can see that we've finally found our objective, the carrier pigeon.


Unfortunately, it won't land, so Snake can't catch it. As this is an animal-related situation, let's call up the zoologist that Petrovich introduced us to for no reason at all.



: Their range of living extends from Europe to Southern Asia. That pigeon is trained to deliver messages. Pigeons are sensitive to noises and quite cowardly. But at the same time they are hungry gluttons. You could lure them out if you have peas or potatoes or something. ...But I guess there's no McDonald's in battlefields! ...Over.


The point of pigeon talk with Yozef is that you can lure the pigeon down with peas and potatoes. Thankfully, Snake just happens to have some on hand. Once you equip your rations...


The pigeon will land! Now we can catch it!



: Help! WIS.OhIO Kio Marv... What does it mean?

Attached to the pigeon, a puzzling message! What does this mean?

Find out next time, on Metal Gear 2.