Part 44: Metal Gear 2 Part Twenty-Five: End of the Mission

Metal Gear 2 Part Twenty-Five: End of the Mission


Well, everyone's dead and we have the cartridge, so it's time for Snake to get out of Zanzibar Land and take his unspeakably horrible nightmares home.


Through the north door of the Big Boss fight room is another silly-looking hallway. What is this widening here for? Why are the entrance and exit staggered like that?

Schneider, you space-ninja asshole.


Taking one step forward, a guard catches Solid Snake. Guess we're fucked, huh?


Oh, wait, shit, it's just Holly. I guess someone survived.


Snake is amazed at how bad an idea it was for her to sneak up on him.

: Surprised?

Yeah, actually, I am a little surprised. Grey Fox or Petrovich or Big Boss or whoever had to drop Snake down here and there's only one way through this area. How did she even get here?

: Phew...I barely survived...what are you doing here?

This is also a good point. Like, a dozen world-class mercenaries are dead. How did girl spy here make it through?

: Didn't we promise? ...Said we can always meet if we're alive.

I didn't, but thanks for reminding me.

: ...That I said.
: Here, I took this gun from an enemy.
: Thanks.

Hey, Holly gave me a gun. Maybe you're not so bad, kid.

: Now how do we get out of here?

Well, we can either try the hallway in front of us, or we can go back to the dead-end Metal Gear hangar. You figure it out.

_{How did Metal Gear even get in there?}

: Shall I call you a limo?

Solid Snake? More like Solid Sass.

: This is no time for jokes!

Go piss up a rope, you just sneaked up behind me with a gun.


As a response, Snake calls some guy named Charlie. Note that Charlie's frequency is 140.00, which is the same one that Grey Fox called us on.

Could it be that Grey Fox is alive...AND CHARLIE?!

: This is Charlie. Go on, Snake...
: Mission completed, please pick me up...
: Roger. I'll meet you at the pickup point. ...Any guests?
: One...a blonde beauty.

I think he means the VIPs you were supposed to rescue, not an independent agent. TOO BAD THEY'RE ALL DEAD, HUH?

: I'm looking forward to seeing her. ...Over.

Wait one more second, does Holly not have a personal exit plan here? Did the CIA just send her into Zanzibar Land and then abandon her?


Okay, we're not in the cutscene void anymore.

: Oh boy...this is going to be rough...
: You may get a bit tired, but it's a good exercise...let's go!

That thing about exercise is what Holly told Snake about all the stairs in the Tower Building, by the way.


And now we have a gun again! Lost our lighter, though.


Lost our spray, too. What if Big Boss comes back?


End of the game is a run through a hallway.


As we run, we're spotted almost immediately.



Thankfully, Holly is invincible during this part of the game. Also, guards are slower than Snake, so they're not much of a threat here.


The hallway jogs a little here, and there's a pit trap, so they might get close at this point.


There's a ration here, but running up into the nook means you're taking a hit 90% of the time. If you're really quick, you can kill the guards before that happens, but the healing is worth it anyway.


Look at that asshole running up into the nook to follow Snake.



Ah, an elevator! My favourite!


Hey, guards got in here. Get out of here, you jerks.


This is the last elevator, and we're up at the top. Savour it, guys.


The elevator lets out just outside this barn. No interior rooms or anything, so I guess it's just an elevator shed.

Oh, and there are no buttons on this side of the elevator, so it's another one of those dumbass one-way elevators.


The north part of Zanzibar Land is another jungle, just like outside the Zanzibar Building.


This leg of the escape race features tripwires, too. Getting through the tripwires means you're getting shot, and the guards spawn infinitely, so you're not shooting your way around that.


Two tripwires here. I have a gun with infinite bullets, and they have infinite men. Kind of disappointing.


One more of these boring little jungle paths, and...


...I find a field! Guards are still after me, and I don't see the chopper, so I guess I'm up shit creek.

: Charlie! You're late! Christmas will be over soon.

Snake is just so mad that he might not make it home for presents.

Oh, and the impending death thing, I guess.

: This is Charlie. I'm still 10km away...hang on!
: Please hurry!!


There's a pit trap on this screen, too. I wasn't expecting it at first, and it got me once.


Now that we're at the end and Charlie hasn't arrived, we have no choice but to kill guards.


All of a sudden, our infinite ammo runs out! Damn, indeed!


Holly is a little worried about this turn of events.


And...we're surrounded. Before we move on, though, let's just question the geography one last time: what is this clearing doing here? It's obviously not natural, because it's trapped. Did the Zanzibarians carve out this path, build an elevator shaft to it, and then just run out of budget or something?



As soon as we're surrounded, the guards are cut down by machine gun fire from offscreen!


A helicopter, I guess.


Ah, Charlie's here! Guess FOX-HOUND really trains their guys in dramatic timing. Too bad about the equipment and personnel budgeting, though.

: Didn't want to disturb the two of you...



What? Snake got here on Christmas Eve, and didn't you hear the guard at the prison camp? It's evening already!

: Good idea. I've had enough of those combat rations.


There's the chopper!

Enjoy the ending as a video!



Once Snake and Holly get on, the chopper flies off into the sunset and the credits roll.


Unlike Metal Gear, though, we're treated to an after-credits conversation to tie things up.

: Nightmare's gone. I'm free.

Snake had to kill all his buddies and a hundred other people, but his nightmares are gone.

: I see...a pity. Anyway, the cartridge...is it truly the one Marv left?
: Wanna try opening the cartridge?
: No need to. I'm sure it is the right one. Insert it into an MSX as it is...

What are you talking about, Snake?

: I have one here...my good old MSX!

Haha, Campbell's a nerd.



So they pop the cartridge in, and Holly's right. Nothing is happening.

: Look...Snake is right!

How could Snake be right about this? Why would he expect anything weird to happen? Did we pick up an MSX and I missed it or something?


Holly doesn't know what the boys are talking about.

: Marv's signature is on it..."Kio Marv" in full.


You see it? They're talking about the "VRAM: 01k".

: Now the world is saved...
: Dr. Marv's last performance.
: He really loved games...

Looks like he really loved dumb plans, too, Holly. Snake and everyone else got really incredibly lucky on this one. If one or two things had gone just a little differently, the world would be ass-deep in getting nuked at this point, I guess.

: He died entangled in a stupid politics game.

The politics aren't the only stupid part of this game, Roy.

: But...he left a game that saved us all. Didn't he, Snake?

I wouldn't say the game saved anyone, Holly. Hell, it got Marv killed. And Petrovich, sort of, too.

: Snake? ...Where are you? ...Snake is gone!

Snake has disappeared!

: ...Snake? ...I guess his place is no longer here...

But where can he go? Were Big Boss and Grey Fox right? Can Snake really only be happy on a battlefield?

: Snake! Snake! ...How cruel, after he made a dinner appointment with me.

Yeah, how rude of him. Snake's lack of direction and the fundamental meaningless of his life aren't addressed.

Oh, and OILIX is never mentioned again. In fact, it's very clearly absent in one scene in MGS4, where it would make a big difference.


Time for the cast credits!


Roy Campbell retired from FOX-HOUND and went on to get fat eating Cheetos and playing MSX all day. Then he lost all that weight and went back to FOX-HOUND by 2005.


Holly White was probably murdered on a CIA field mission because she didn't have the world's greatest super mercenary to save her ass.


Kessler got fired because all his intelligence was shitty and he sucked.


Petrovich came back from the dead and went on to make at least one more cyborg. He's mentioned in passing during MGS4, and Snake is right there, but says nothing about it.


Yozef lived a long and happy life studying zoology and eating pizza. Lotta good times there.


Master Miller went to Alaska, where he was murdered by a shirtless man with a fake British accent. His last words were probably some dumb fortune cookie crap.


Neither Kio Marv nor OILIX are ever mentioned again, even though they were both pretty important parts of this game.


Came back as a crazy Cyborg Ninja with a death wish. Not a space ninja, though, Schneider had the market cornered on those.


Natasha is never brought up again, even in Grey Fox's later character bits.


Big Boss comes back and just talks forever in MGS4. He goes through the motions of dying about 10 times, but he's just psyching Snake out every time. Big Boss is a jerk.


Hind D died, just like his brother, but their cousin, also named Hind D, came in for MGS. Unfortunately for the family, Solid Snake really hates this particular model of helicopter, so that one was blown up, too.


Not really important in the future development in Metal Gear technology.


AND! And who?

And...Green Beret Man?

And...Chopper Charlie?

And...Shoot Gunner, even though he wasn't in this game?


Oh, it's just Snake. Snake went to Alaska, but really never could escape war and the battlefield. Also it turned out that he was a clone and he got old as hell and died of a virus.


That's it for Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Thanks for reading, everybody.