Part 28: Metal Gear 2 Part Nine: Solid Snake's Adventures in the Women's Room

Metal Gear 2 Part Nine: Solid Snake's Adventures in the Women's Room


Today on Metal Gear 2, we find Solid Snake on the fourth floor. If you'll recall, we're here looking for the women's room so that we can meet Marv's bodyguard.


The first thing other than an elevator on the floor is a sensor and a guard. Hardly a problem.


This floor centres around an intersection, as you can see here. I, as a talented player of Metal Gear 2, had to throw on the cardboard box to avoid being detected.




To the right, we find a guard (in the shot, I killed him and nicked his dinner), a kid who tells us about Zanzibarian anthem proceedings, and a door Snake can't open right now. Will we have to come back later? Probably. There are a lot of stupid little rooms in this game I don't remember.


Up from the intersection, there's a surveillance camera. I could be hiding behind the plant there, but .


It's in the southeast. ...I'm scared at night.

We already knew that there was only one restroom in Zanzibar Land, but this kid at least tells us that it's in the southeast part of the floor. Every other part of Zanzibar Land must smell fucking terrible.


I don't remember how, but you can get a cold in this game. I think that the medical room is the one I couldn't open earlier in the update, but don't quote me on that.


After that, Snake finds himself in a dark room with a little girl! I don't know why Zanzibar Land doesn't have a daycare or something (it's because of gameplay reasons - they took out hostage rescue and filled their role with children).



Throwing on the nite site, you can see that there's a pit trap in that room, too. In the game it doesn't open until Snake runs over it, but somewhere on the third floor, there has to be a six-foot deep pile of child corpses.


Kid must be telling us about the barracks or something. Meeting hall, maybe.


Or...not. I guess that this is just where the Zanzibarians keep their collection of full-size, realistic guard mannequins. Why not, eh?




There's a bunch more in here, plus one real guard. For whatever reason, he's not looking at the door, so it's easy to kill him.



This room has a similar set up, but with three real guards. You're a lot more likely to get caught here, but it'll generally be because you're not paying a lot of attention to which guys are turning circles in place.


Past that is the Zanzibar Land cafeteria. I'll spoil it for you right now, the washrooms are pretty close by here.


You can hide under the tables if you end up seeing a cafeteria guard. It's pretty empty here right now, though.


Here's the washrooms! Before we go looking for lady spies in them, though, there are a couple more things to grab around here.




Well, the first actually is found in a washroom. In the men's room, you can find a bucket.


The bucket is a disguise, like the box. Unlike the box, though, the bucket makes noise when you move, and can alert nearby guards.


This is what it looks like when you run around with the bucket equipped. Either the bucket is shitting ginormous, or Snake is some kind of contortionist to fit in there.



The last thing to grab here is a pair of extra rations kept in a freezer. Hanging around the freezer freezes your rations, though, and they can't be used for a while.

Before we hit the ladies' room, though, let's call Campbell and see what he has to say about the situation.



: Forget those action movies you saw. ...Over.

There are a lot more radio calls available in Metal Gear 2 than there were in Metal Gear, but in general they're just generic messages like this one. Nobody else has anything new or useful to say at this point, so let's get creepy.


Unfortunately, Zanzibar Land's restrooms are equipped with magic gender-sensing doors, so Snake can't open this door. I guess we have to sit and wait and hope that a woman spy is dumb enough to come along and give herself away by going in there.




Soon enough, a guard comes along and, after checking out the men's room, pops into the ladies'.


Before I can follow her, though, another guard shows up.



He checks out both washrooms as well, before going into the men's room.


Unfortunately, since I had to wait for that creepy asshole to finish checking out the other washroom, the other guard comes out and catches me hiding behind the plant.


A quick reload and a well-timed noise when she's checking out the facility options and they enter at the same time, which gives Snake time to chase her into the restroom.


Apparently, she removed her disguise as soon as she got in there, and is...

Wait a second, what's that in the top right? Is that a fucking elevator?



Maybe-elevators aside, though, yes, Natasha the super spy was actually dumb enough to walk into a ladies' washroom in the middle of a fortress with no other women in it. She is also absurdly sarcastic. Just look at that portrait.


165 cm is about 5'4". Holly is 5'5" - 5'6", and Snake is 5'10" in this game, or 5'11" - 6'0" in later games. Also, every one of the main characters in the manual has a weight listed except for the women. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing at all.

As far as Natasha herself goes, though, there's not much to be said. You'll see why in the next couple of updates.

: You look familiar. Haven't we met before?
: Isn't that the cliche Western men use to seduce a girl?

Solid Snake: always trying to get laid. Western men, am I right?

: ...Now I remember. Natasha Markova, fairy on ice... ...Gold medalist at the Olympics in Calgary.

Holy shit, Snake! Get your priorities straight!

Natasha, as an STB agent, would be Czechoslovakian. Czechoslovakia placed 20th in Ladies figure skating at the Calgary Olympics in 1988. This also isn't important, but now you know.

: You must be thinking of someone else...
: Can't be. You should be...
: Leave it. Where is Dr. Marv?
: I contacted him with my transceiver, but I didn't understand what he was saying.
: He's all right then...good. Snake, let me borrow your transceiver...
: His frequency is 140.51.

Do you know what this means?


Yes, it's time for a codec conversation in Czech! Just for fun, I'll include Google's translations alongside the game's text.

: Ja jsem Natasha. [I'm Natasha.]
: Ja jsem Marv. [I'm Marv.]
: Marve! Jak se mas? [Marv! How are you?]
: Diky, mam se fajn, Natasho. Jsi stale krasna? [Thanks, I have a good time, Natasha. You're still beautiful?]
: Kde jsi Marve? [Where did Marv?]
: Jsem v Tower Building nad prikopem. Jak se ma Shushunova, Shilibash a Iketani, tvoji stari pratele, Olympijsti atleti?[I'm in the Tower Building of a ditch. How's Shushunova, Shilibash and Iketani, your old friends, Olympic athletes?]
: Musis uz koncit. [Musis already ending.]
: Tak jo. Pospes si. [So yeah. Hurry.]

And with that, Marv and Natasha hang up and we're back in the bathroom!



: He is held in a detention center north of Tower Building. He was very concerned about Dr Petrovich...

It's, uh, interesting that you know that, considering what you talked about and told each other.

: Petrovich is safe. Our first priority is Dr Marv.



Now Natasha heads over to that mystery elevator there.

: It's a shortcut to the north side of Tower Building.
: An elevator in here...?
Even Snake can't believe this crock. Unfortunately, just pointing out that something is dumb doesn't make it any less dumb.



For the time being, Natasha also follows Snake around like they're an RPG party.



It's a fairly long elevator ride down to B3 of the Zanzibar Building, but not nearly as long as the ride up to the top of the Tower Building. Snake smokes all the way down.

What will happen on the third basement floor? Find out next time!