Part 29: Metal Gear 2 Part Ten: Plot Sewer

Metal Gear 2 Part Ten: Plot Sewer


Now that we've met Natasha in the washroom and taken the washroom elevator down to the basement, we're ready to look for Dr. Marv.


Outside the elevator, we find Snake and Natasha in...some kind of sewer? It's pretty dry for a sewer, but I suppose that's what you get when you only have one toilet.



In this area, instead of guards, there are these zamboni bulldozer things. If you run into them, you're toast, and there's no way to destroy them. Thankfully, they're pretty slow and there's plenty of space to move around them.


Also in the sewer, Snake comes across this door. At this point, though, we can't open it. I suppose that all the C4 he's carrying only works on doors that have been cemented over.


On the other end of the hallway (it's a small area down here), the pair finds another elevator. What in the sewer is so important that it needs two elevators leading down there? And why does one of them need to go to the ladies' washroom?


Back to the first floor! Let's see what we find here!


Ah, a solitary confinement cell! The most reasonable place to put an elevator. At least it's more accessible than Snake's cell in Metal Gear, which was built around him.


In the cell is Petrovich! Hopefully he can help us out at least a little.

: Thank god you're safe...
: ...You've lost weight...Petrovich.
: You haven't changed, Snake.
: Snake, let's go! Dr. Marv is waiting!

Natasha interrupts the catch-up session to get these two back on track (and probably to stop anyone hitting on her again). At least someone on this mission is semi-professional.

: You mean he's all right? I've tried, but this elevator only opens from the inside.

Well, it's sure a good thing that the doors stay open for, like, five minutes. Is there even a reasonable way to build an elevator that only opens from one side? And is there any reason to use an elevator to transport hostages to and from solitary as opposed to just using a door?

: Natasha, let's go in single file!

Why?

: Wait! Snake, I've got something for you. I stole it from a guard...card 5.

Petrovich, you are about 75 years old. Any half-decent guard would be able to stop you stealing their keycard.

Zanzibar Land: home of the soldiers than can be outfoxed by an old man they have in custody.

: I'm right behind you, Snake...

You mean you'll be behind Snake and Petrovich, right? Bringing up the rear and covering the world's best hope of stopping a nuclear war and an HVT, right?


Nope! Natasha leaves Petrovich in the back of the line, right where he's most likely to catch a bullet in the back.



Poor lineup decisions aside, it's back to the sewers for us! What else will we find?


Let's use that card Petrovich gave us and see!


Aw yeah, just what I always wanted. A hallway with a big ol' shit puddle in it.



Hey Petrovich, if you want to be out of the shit hallway, maybe we shouldn't stop in the middle of it!

: Let's rest for a while...

Here's an idea: let's not stand around in the middle of a choke-point that's also full of shit!

: Snake...?
: Okay...we have time...let's sit down.

Alright, so that's what we're going with. Spectacular.

: I...I have to take care of my natural desire.

Petrovich has to piss, I guess. Have a good whiz, man.

Here's a little bit of music, which I can only link with Petrovich going to pee:




And so, Snake and Natasha sit down in the one part of the hallway not covered in dirty sewer water. Well, Natasha sits. Snake just sort of crouches there.


To the cutscene void!

: Petrovich is old, though he looks not...
: No, I meant us.

Nah, it's just two people hangin' out in a sewer. This is a normal thing that people do.

: A famous scientist, a former Olympic athlete, a special force member...All brought together here in this sewer.
: Is it fate, perhaps?
: Fate? Yeah, maybe...I was told that a lot, when I was a child. From my mother...about the Warsaw Uprising in World War 2 Poland. She ran through a sewer for days and fled from Nazis. Soaked with mud...blackened...one couldn't even recognize faces. She is still haunted by the war, even today...
: ...Natasha, why did you stop skating and join STB?

Solid Snake has heard all kinds of war stories, but holy shit does the man love figure skating.


This line, right here. Christ on a bike. And this can't even be written off as a mistake by the fan translator, because it's still in the newer version:

So this one is totally the fault of the writers, and it's an early symptom of a problem that plagues Kojima's games: the man cannot understand how a metaphor works.


Look at that! Even Snake doesn't know what's going on.

: Snake, do you have a wife?

For once in his life, Snake finds that he is the one being hit on.

: ...No. I have no family. What about you?
: Single...and not because I am a bachelor dogmatist. Maybe I had a few chances...
: Lovers, then?

Way to use that 160 IQ, boss.

: ...Only once I actually considered marrying. When I was still fleeting on ice. A grand romance that still makes me breathless...



: A western called Frank Jaeger...handsome, gentle...and intellectual. I wanted to trash my family, skates and everything, just to follow him...

At this point, Snake's age hasn't been established, but by MGS4 it's established that he was born in 1972. He would be 27 in 1999. If Natasha is around the same age (so, give or take 2 years), she would have been 14-18 during the 1988 Olympics - and the way she talks about her romance, I could believe this. Frank Jaeger was, as per the wiki, born in the '50s, so he would have been in his 30s by those Olympics.

The point here is that either Natasha is significantly older than Snake, or Frank Jaeger is a little bit creepy.

: You sought asylum?
: Yeah...but failed. At the last moment the West declined to accept me. I don't know a lot, for some political reason...
: Maybe the reception community wasn't ready. Happens all the time.
: Since then, me and my family have had a hard life...I was stripped of competition right, branded as a Refyuznik... I could only join STB. But, I have no regret... I learned many things about this world. ...I even killed.
: What about him?
: Never saw him again. ...The Berlin Wall between us still remained.

This is one of the first times in the series where a character is developed pretty much all at once just by talking about themselves. It's usually reserved for bosses, and Black Color showed some of that with his after-battle speech, but this is the first real character-centric dump that doesn't advance the plot much.

: Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting!


And now, Petrovich comes back! Must've been a big one.



Snake finds this worth mentioning, but Natasha just wants to get down to business.


The rest of the sewer and the next area will have to wait until next time, though. That's enough for today.