Part 35: Metal Gear 2 Part Sixteen: The Jump

Metal Gear 2 Part Sixteen: The Jump

At this point, we're almost at the balcony and almost prepared to hang-glide across the gap.


The room there only has a kid inside it, and he has nothing new to say, so let's just carry on to the right.


Here we can see some busted elevators. It would have been nice if those opened up at some point, and we could have taken them up here through some new scenery, but they're just set dressing.



It's easier to get through this screen if you enter by the bottom path, as you don't have to avoid that camera (which means using the box on the top path). The noise from the tripwire can be dealt with by just quickly popping back a screen, which stops the guard being aware.



Over here, I lure the guard away from his post (he never moves, just looks around) by punching the wall, then looping around.


Inside the room, a child!

: The balcony over there was made for skydiving practice. But if I had a hang-glider...I would fly much further.

A child shouldn't be jumping off the balcony either way, but oh well. This does at least confirm that we're in the right place.


The guard's gone when I come out of the room, but the camera was right above the door. The fact that cameras don't have blind spots directly below them can be annoying in a lot of situations, especially if you forget where they are.


Outside, we find the balcony. It's all made of the noisy metal floor, so you have to be careful running around here.

Calling Campbell at this point nets us some advice about metal floors.

: Beware of floors and grounds that produce sounds. Even your noise-containment boots can't prevent it. The only way to avoid all sound is crawling. ...Over.

His advice is, uh, completely false. Crawling should just make more noise. But he's our CO, so who are we to question his information?


Or the guard (seen here checking on his food stash) will hear you and go over to hassle Snake.

There's a call coming through here! Who could it be?


Oh, it's our fan again. Why can't he just tell us who he is? Or who she is, if that's the case.

: You can only dive from there when the wind is blowing north. Usually it's blowing south. But occasionally the direction switches. You may have an item that helps you finding out the direction. ...Do well.

The wind: usually blows one way, but sometimes changes direction! Who knew? Well, besides, hopefully, the Zanzibarians, who built their skydiving training balcony on the north side of a building where the wind usually blows south. Do they only have practice on the rare occasion that the wind is going away from the building, or is it more a luck of the draw thing?

I'm just going to assume that Grey Fox is in charge of the Zanzibar Land skydiving program and that this is another one of his spectacular decisions.


The item that tells you which way the wind is blowing is not cigarettes, by the way. I thought they did, but they don't.

Since this one is a real puzzler, let's see if Holly has anything to say about which item to use.



: You may get a bit tired, but it's a good exercise...bye.

What? We already know that, Holly. We're already there.

A lot of the time, you can only get a hold of Campbell, Holly, or Miller, and all three are useless in their own special way.

Speaking of Miller...






Also, you can tune the radio to this frequency, and it will play a little tune for you:




The item you need to use to see which way the wind blows is the gas grenade. You also need to be in the right place, though, so you can see which way the wind is blowing (a little indicator pops up). I am a pro at screenshots, so I missed every time, but it's just a little arrow.

For me, the arrow pointed north every time, but I got my directions confused and thought it was south, so I wasted all my grenades like a fool.



Just grab your hang glider and step up to the edge, and...


...Nothing happens. This is what you get if you don't use the cigarettes before you jump. Solid Snake, a trained pro who has killed a hundred men today and who made a very similar jump without any issues in his first real mission, wusses out and won't jump.


So, use the cigarettes and try again.


Snake soars over some containers and a truck...


...then over the bridge. Natasha's corpse has rotted away completely.


This is our landing zone!



Snake flies up, then back down to simulate landing. Because the MSX can't scroll screens, we don't see the actual landing.


But then Snake runs on-screen, sans glider, and we're in the northern area of Zanzibar Land.

If this game were released on the PSX, I imagine that this would be the place where the first disc ended and the second began. It just seems organic to me. I think the actual halfway point is somewhere around the trip through the sewers and Natasha's death, but I consider this the division between the "first" and "second" parts of the game.