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Here's to you dear listeners and welcome back to another episode of Metal Gear Monday's

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Revengeance where you'll find your favorite conversations around Metal Gear and Kojima

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related content delivered to you through tactical podcast action.

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We are moving swiftly through our portable ops season 2 dish and with me, because I'm

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certainly not doing this alone. I have no desire to do that. I have some Metal Gear

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twins? Mr. Chris Hampton. Hello. How's it going? I love it. How's things? Good? Things

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are wonderful. Happy to be here with you all today. I like it. I missed your shiny faces.

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Yeah. We have perfect lighting in our little recording corners. And also, twin number two,

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maybe number one in your hearts, Miss Tori Cortez. How we doing Tori?

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Also, number one to be born. Sorry, but I think Chris, I think everybody needs to know I was

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born first. Were you? Yeah. Oh, in this analogy, in this fiction, yes. Yeah, absolutely. I was

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confused for a second. Yeah, you were born first, Tori. It's like, what's the Roman line? Yeah,

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I came out and I was like holding your foot too. So I came second. Yes. And I'm the older brother

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that didn't want to play baseball, but was forced to play sports kind of a thing. I get it. I know

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this analogy pretty well. I get it. I'm trying to figure out how baseball factors into this,

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but I like the imagery. I just picked generic ass sport. There's no, I didn't all hate baseball.

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I didn't play it much when I was a kid, though. I was good to it in a sense. Once I got glasses,

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I couldn't hit a ball to save my life. So now I am in spite of baseball. I get fat doing nothing.

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This is fun positive energy. Oh, I love it. No, I'm feeling great about it. I had my little treats.

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They taste delicious. I had myself a pregame beverage before this recording, so I'm happy.

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What were you snacking on, Warren? I was curious about that. So I have this is important on air

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material. Well, they're also in the loudest packaging possible.

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Just if anybody was curious. But they're referred to as mystery monkeys, gummy candy.

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Well, they sure looked mysterious. I enjoyed them. I saw a blue one of an interesting hue. You know

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what? This is not interesting. We should probably move on. Welcome to Food Chat with MGM.

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I can't believe I bungled it a second time, you guys.

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Well, here we are. Now you got to choose it.

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We're doing it. I love it. So if you have left off listening audience and those we are so thankful

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for, we have left off with a pretty big cliffhanger. A snake is captured and potentially interrogated,

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which we are super excited for. But before we get into the story, Tori, I believe we have a

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patron that we must thank as we do in every mainline episode. Oh, you know we do. So if you're

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new to the show, by the way, this is a thing we like to do every week. We like to thank one of

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our patrons by name on air and talk about how great they are if we know them. If we don't,

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we like to encourage them to reach out a little more and get to know us because we wouldn't still

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be here doing this without you guys. So without further ado, yes, I concur. Christy, you concur.

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I do concur. Excellent. So without further ado, Mr. Justin Egan is our patron of the week today,

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and looks like he's been with us for a little over six months.

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Yes, he's the run of our revengeance babies. Oh, Justin, if you don't like being called baby,

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but we love you either way. Oh, but your BB in our hearts now. Yes, he's our little BB.

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I just don't know if we've talked like so screen names and discord, obviously, they don't say your

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name. So I don't know if we've we may have talked to Justin every day for the last couple months.

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But Justin, if you are a patron when you hear this and you have not been active in our discord,

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please feel free to do so because we're pretty active and we really enjoy

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especially meeting our patrons and learning a lot about them because you probably are the man.

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Or, you know, right into the show, send us an email at metalgearsmonday.gmail.

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That was a swift segue for we are doing a listener episode as we do at the end of every season. So

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if you guys are interested, just add a little subject line makes it tiny bit easier. But we

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always end our seasons with that. Feel free to send it in. You can just contact us if you'd like

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regardless. But if it Hey, this is for that episode, throw it in there and we'll be sure to read it out.

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But yeah, hi, Justin, you're the man. Thanks, Justin. One last one in there. You're the best,

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dude. So how are we feeling, guys, with where we left off? Are you guys a little shaken up because

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Snake is captured? No, no, didn't complete his mission, technically. But he did best Snake with

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Cunningham and everybody. So you think we're going to be able to save him? Like, what do you

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guys think? We haven't played the game yet. So I don't I don't think Snake's going to make it,

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you guys. This is it, guys, confirmed story ends. I think this is our last episode.

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This is where this is the episode where Big Boss dies. Yeah. Yep. But you guys didn't see that

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coming. Yep. When he died in five, but maybe even three. Yeah, no kidding. Some hot takies.

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Ooh, little takies here early. All right. So I mean, I don't know if you guys are cool.

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I feel quite comfortable to swim right on into the story, unless there's anything you guys want

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to drop right before we get started. Now, you you breaststroke your way into this. Beautiful.

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Pain us in, boring. Let's get in there real quick. Pain us a happy little tree first.

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Oh, I would love to. Black canvas, maybe get some some sign and some cadmium yellow. Oh,

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please. But don't forget the hold on. What is it? Thalo blue. Didn't we have hold on.

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Did we not have a patron? Not a page. Well, yeah, a patron in our discord named Thalo blue.

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We did at one point. I think extra patron shout out. Hold on. I have to confirm this.

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Everybody changes their discord names. I know each week. So it's hard to keep up.

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Yeah. And if you're a patron, we'll date this crazily because I was required to change my name

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before the end of today. So if you go back and my name is still that you'll know exactly when

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we recorded this episode. Oh, no, I think we lost Thalo blue, you guys. That's too bad.

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Or he changed his name. Okay. Thalo blue. Reach out. Please. It's important. Come back.

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Let's chat. Come back. I want to talk some colors with you.

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And some Bob Ross. That's our new sideshow, right?

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What Bob Ross stuff Bob Ross bum days.

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Hi, hi, Coos and Bob Ross with the MGM team. I'm ready. Let's do this.

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So yeah, about diving into portable ops. Yeah, so

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the story of portable ops. So again, we left off with a pretty sweet boss fight with null.

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And as the story goes, we were bested and Snake was taken captive. And I thought it was a pretty

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cool story concept to have that happen to where normally we start as Snake in an interrogation

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chair in any other game. But in this game, we're given Roy Campbell and Jonathan talking about

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like, well, we got to get them back, right? They're going to try and get info out of them. We got to

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do this. And pretty cool. So I give that some credit and we play as Jonathan. No matter what,

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which I thought was pretty cool. I mean, I know you can choose to play as him. Obviously,

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it's part of the gameplay mechanics. But as far as he is the main driving force.

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So we have to find Snake's whereabouts. We go back to the silo. So we don't have to go too wild.

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But I do, we talked last episode around how they're introducing mechanics you could have

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already been using in the game, but you basically have to get intel from the high rank officer.

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So again, kind of how they do you can't just shoot your way through, you have to actually like

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get info from people and interrogate them. And soon as we start to do that, we are on a cut scene

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with Gene and Cunningham. And you're discussing the interrogation of Snake. And again, Cunningham is

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obsessed with the philosopher's legacy. Like it might be a third of his dialogue is lines about

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or the actual words, philosophers legacy. Yeah, that's with that. Yeah, good. Like, I don't know.

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What's with money? Why do people want it? Yeah, right? It's the root of all good, right? It's kind

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of kind of it's kind of dumb. We don't need it anyway. But I do enjoy. Yeah, I do enjoy. I actually

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thought like, so Gene, up until this moment, I've been a little underwhelmed by Gene. Outside of him

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doing like that cool, like he could stop null without even trying in that last cut scene. Yeah,

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previous episode, I thought that that looked very cool. It sort of so he had some sort of power or

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prowess or other than just like people listen to him, quote unquote. I love his little like truth

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serum talk. Because Cunningham's like, Well, I normally we do this and just me I have other

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means to get it and Gene's like, you know, this don't work. Like even if they do, they're not

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going to tell us what we actually want to know. So truth serums are like, that's do do, like don't

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do that. I thought that was pretty cool. Like I normally that's like the answer is like, Oh,

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well, just we have means and they do some crazy needle pool. You know what I mean?

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But it was pretty cool. Cunningham gets you know, he steps away because he feels like a loser now.

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And Gene, Gene has a chat with Snake. And Gene give snake the lowdown. And this is where we're

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going to definitely open up some discussion here is we get the lowdown on his Metal Gear plot,

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the setup and a long discussion about the Russian economy and the fallout of the gameplay that is

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Metal Gear Solid 3 and how it affected Russia and the rise of espionage beginning. He talks about

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multiple independent reentry vehicles and Russian's balance of power with the CIA and Metal Gear

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and the Cold War and the loss of the legacy has left them war poor and the whole Fox mission

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is to guard the Metal Gear is a sham and Fox is there to steal it and give it to the Russians.

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It's this whole frickin plan. What do we think about Gene's plan? Outside of how it's delivered

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to us, you're more than welcome to chime in that too. But what do we feel about like sort of what

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Gene's whole thing is moving forward, at least by this point of the game.

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I mean, he's he's saying specifically that he wants to create a world of his desire.

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There's some really strong megalomania vibes coming from Gene. And it's, I don't know, it this is

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one of the things that now that Chris has mentioned it, you know, what's up with money? What's up with

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wanting to rule the world? It's I don't know. I just I agree that is a scarface.

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I was going to make a banjo come like, yeah, I guess it's just you want to rule the world.

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Yeah, I just suppose as a villain, I'm not really thrilled with Gene. I think I will say once we

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get to his boss fight, I thought that was okay. But yeah, I don't know. He just his motivations

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didn't do anything for me. It just didn't do enough to justify everything in my mind. Does that make

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sense? Yeah, no, it does. Chris, what do you think with that? I mean, it kind of pivots a little bit

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later in the game, like we learn a little bit more about genes like I wasn't my whole plan, you know.

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There's some extra stuff we'll get into later. So everybody that's sort of screaming at us right

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now for not knowing the whole story, we're trying not to necessarily spoil it. We're talking about

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this in chronological events in the game. So chill out. Not only that, but just so you guys have a

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little idea of what's going on. I've been revisiting my notes to chunk up at a time as we record these

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and I've at this point, I have forgotten what happened in the game. So I genuinely have forgotten.

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That's incredible. I don't I don't remember what's I know it's it's I remember writing the lines.

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That's not my real plan question mark. Like that that was an actual line delivered. Yes, confirmed. Yep.

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That's not my real plan. Yes, you're not going to be anywhere near this investigation.

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I sort of feel like from a strategy perspective, genes off, like it's a really complicated scheme

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that he's got going on, you know. So I thought, oh, God, sorry, God. Well, I'm just going to say,

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like, you know, I have a six sigma belt certification and from a project management

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perspective, you really just want the less less links in the chain as possible. There's less

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opportunity for things to go wrong. And what Gene has done is create a very complicated,

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linky chain that's going to probably end up choking him. Yeah, probably. I like that project

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management gear Mondays corner that we just got there from the professional development

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Chris Hampton. Yeah. I mean, Gene could use a little little PR little PR guy. Now, overall,

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I did. I thought this was pretty clever. So Gene, I love first off, I love the name successor project.

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That's a pretty dope name for that. And it gives leaders special powers with their voice,

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which we had already sort of alluded to. And they definitely, they don't show it per se, but

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when Gene talks, people listen straight up. I mean, a lot of times, which is pretty cool,

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in a sense. And it was apparently something that the boss was also a part of, as in the boss from

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middle gear, solid three. So I love bringing any time we can get the boss involved, I'm probably

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going to sort of like have a soft spot and probably like, Oh, that's a cool idea. I like that. She

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was part of the successor project. And again, people listen to her too. We kind of picked on her

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and the Cobras in this middle gear, solid three season. It's just like these guys just

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went AWOL for a few years. And then she comes back to Russia and they're all like, yeah, boss,

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let's go spit hornets at this dude in the woods. You know what I mean? Like, but if she's got special

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powers that they never talked about, not a bad retcon. Like it actually felt, we just thought

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she was dope. And she's also just apparently enhanced to also be dope, which I thought was

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cool. It doesn't like ruin anything. I thought that was a pretty clever idea. And I like the gene

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sort of sees snake as his brother. Because hold on. Yeah. Are you saying that the boss was was like,

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she was doping? Is that what so like she was she was engineered? He said that the boss was also

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part of the successor project. So I don't know if she maybe helped design it. Was she also part of

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it in that sense? Like they don't really. Okay, so they don't say for sure that she she has been

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modified. We don't know that. But okay, look, I'm not saying that it's impossible. But I don't

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know any women in this world that are as fucking awesome as the boss. Oh, come on. She can just

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exist that way. Come on, Warren. God damn it. I'm kidding. No, I but again, I like the idea

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because again, chances are my first thought was actually that she probably helped design it

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because she created CQC. She helped create the Fox unit. Like she did a lot. She was basically

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like behind everything in some sense of the word. Either it was to get her or help her or save her.

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And I really appreciated that. You know, it's funny to me, the philosophers legacy, because we're

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picking up from the end of three. And I remember like at the end of the game, they're like, oh,

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it's on a microfiche, right? Yes. And it makes me think of like those old carousel,

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you know, the locks lock pictures from the Grand Canyon vacation. And I just imagine like they're

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like, man, I really want to see. I really want to see those photos, man. I want to see that legacy,

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baby. Let me see the legacy. Like the the small little we call them cartridges you put in a little

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kaleidoscope type thing. Just going to say that. Yeah, the little kaleidoscope. I don't

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what are they called? Snapchats. I don't I don't know what they're called. Yeah.

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It does look just like that. It almost looks like it's just like a little slice of cheese you put

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in your sandwich, but it goes in a computer and gives you money. A cheese sandwich that you put

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in a computer. Boring pictures. I'm not saying I'm technologically the smartest person in the

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room here. I mean, all I know is I read a book that you put cheese in the sandwich and you can

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get money. That's what I've read. Well, you're not wrong there. But I mean, what if the philosopher's

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legacy is just like some photos from the boss and the sorrow's wedding night or something like that?

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It's worth a lot of money. I was just going to say high value asset right there. I mean,

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I'll slot. We definitely want that weird. Actually, if I were also that I wouldn't want that. But

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that's what I'm saying. I just realized I was like, no, that's not good. That's right. That's a good

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point. Hmm. But the Russians and the Chinese got to have it big time. Let's send a sultry spy

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to go get some nudies. But you know what? It's like probably not far off from what the

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concept originally was in Kojima's mind, that dirty little perv boy.

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Well, yeah, it just I mean, they don't do a good job of show. But it has to just be very

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it's half of the fortune for one. So I guess it's two of those discs or whatever they are. So

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China thought they had one and now the CIA has one and we don't know where the other is. Is the

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issue, I guess. I don't know. I look, Ocelot's going to get involved, y'all, spoilers. So we'll

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get there. I bet you didn't know that. Yeah, but you didn't see Ocelot coming. Never, never.

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So again, Gene sees Snake as his brother, which I do like because again, Snake is a true

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disciple of the boss. I do like anything that ties to the boss. I love the dynamic

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and the performance in the cutscenes. David Hader does a really good job. And big boss is still

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compelling. And he is brutally beaten. So like just seeing him emote through artwork like that,

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literally having very little left in the tank as far as because apparently Cunningham is very good

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to torture, which we learned in the opening cutscene. So Snake has been in the guest house,

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which of course we learned through Intel. And the location can be found at the rail bridge.

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So let's head to the rail bridge. Oh, wait, hold on. Truck noise. So wait, before,

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before we I didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't talk about the gameplay part or I don't know if

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we skipped over that, but I just got to say this part because it leads into the single note I have

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for a section down the line. You guys playing as Jonathan was, it was awesome. I love Jonathan.

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He has my heart, but he doesn't, he doesn't have a trinket gun. Yeah, he doesn't have a trinket gun.

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I didn't know what to do without my trinket gun. I felt lost and my strategy had it was forced to

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change and I didn't care for it. Oh, I mean, I just went ham and, you know, yeah, stacked them bodies.

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Yeah, but I didn't, you didn't even drag them. Let them there a rot.

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Yeah, no. But it is, it's interesting because I think this is the only Metal Gear game that

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lets you play as people other than the main protagonist. Sure. Well, yeah. Yeah. So I don't

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know. Yeah. That's true because five has five has, but five doesn't let you do it on the main

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missions. It's only when you like do the free play and you replay certain stuff. Right.

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Just a first story. I don't, Peace Walker, you have a team with you, but you still play as

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Snake and I think even a multiplayer, the way the game presents it is like, you're always play a Snake

[00:22:08]
and like, right, the person you're playing online with just appears as a non Snake and vice versa.

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But, you know, in this game, actually, I tend to bring zero with me a lot

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because zero zero is my boy. He's sharp looking. He's got that bomber jacket, you know, and it's

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like back here, you know, he's he sucks though.

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He's like, you think you think Jonathan's bad without that drink gun zero ain't got nothing.

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Yeah, he's got a sweet ass coat. Okay. So I didn't this is a thing I didn't do. I'm

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glad we're talking about this. I didn't recruit any of any of our fun main guys.

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And how do you do that? So good question. I when we did the good guys episode,

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I don't remember if I included zero, but I know I talked about paramedic. Yeah. I don't know. I

[00:23:10]
talked about recalls coming in during gameplay. What we'll do is because I don't have it in front

[00:23:17]
of me. I don't have my needs. But I will be sure to potentially include it in a future ep. Maybe

[00:23:25]
when we do like our little ending. Yeah, that kind of stuff because I don't know. Some of them are

[00:23:29]
very convoluted. Some are like codec. Or it is complicated to unlock. You have to complete the

[00:23:35]
game with you have to complete the game on a PlayStation portable that has the middle gear

[00:23:42]
solid digital graphic novel on the memory stick as well. Okay. Yeah. So you have to have like two

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separate apps, I guess, portable ops plus this graphic novel thing. And when you complete the

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game, the game will recognize, Oh, you did this here's zero and you can use them now. Okay. All

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right. Good thing because I didn't have zero. I used the, I guess like the comms captain. I don't

[00:24:06]
know his exact name because there's a couple of them that are like that, but they're the ones that

[00:24:08]
have like the dope suit with the red beret hat on. Yeah. Okay. So did you guys get any of the other

[00:24:14]
main players? Any of our other I got I got paramedic. Okay. Because that was like a simple, I believe

[00:24:21]
it's I if I remember correctly, it's like a codec call that you call and there's like a code you

[00:24:26]
have to know. I just full disclosure. I know everybody heard I was using a guide because I

[00:24:31]
wanted to get the story down pat for talking on this. Well, then can I can I make a request of

[00:24:38]
our listeners then maybe maybe for the listener episode, you all could write in and tell us if

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and how you recruited any extra members. Yeah. I like that. There you go. You got homework listeners.

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Y'all better do it. No, I'm just kidding. That's a fun energy to come at our listeners with.

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Yeah, no kidding. Do it or you fail.

[00:25:07]
All right. So we make our way to the rail bridge, right? Now I made it a point to say this right

[00:25:13]
before we go. It's a little convoluted when we talk about Jean's plan. However, I thought it was

[00:25:20]
pretty sound as far as basically how he like kind of screwed over the CIA. I actually was like,

[00:25:25]
how does he know? How does he know this and why like, why is he so he's less interested in the

[00:25:32]
legacy and more interested in why he needs it, which I thought was compelling, not just I need

[00:25:38]
the money. He more like the money is to move forward with what I want to do in his heart is

[00:25:43]
the right thing to do, which we'll learn later in the game. But overall, I thought the actual

[00:25:48]
like screwing over the CIA, the abandoned base, the use the successor project, I guess, genome,

[00:25:55]
whatever we want to call it, the, the, the, I guess, what do they call them? Parasites. I guess

[00:26:01]
it's parasite technology. It since it's this early in the timeline. And I'm assuming it's

[00:26:08]
probably a, you know, a chunk of what turns into the Metal Gear Solid 5. Parasitic, you know,

[00:26:16]
parasitic issue, I would assume this is probably because it's a delivery system through talking.

[00:26:22]
So that's interesting. But yeah, so otherwise, what I thought was interesting is they've mentioned

[00:26:27]
like an informant a couple times, which we sort of dropped the ball on that, but it's me you've

[00:26:33]
played any yet. It's the Chris IA is who the informant is. It's anytime it's the CIA and

[00:26:41]
it's an informant, we always know who it is. It's, it's Ocelot. It's Chris. Yeah, it's Chris, right.

[00:26:47]
And we'll get into it, but I, it's a pretty cool concept of him being able to pull that off. So I

[00:26:54]
really enjoyed that. So again, as we get ready to head to the rail bridge out of nowhere, Null comes

[00:27:00]
in and wreck shop because he has not completed his mission to kill Snake. Cool, I get it. Makes

[00:27:08]
perfect sense. He's pretty convincing that you told me to kill him and you didn't let me. So

[00:27:14]
we need to do something about this. Ursula Jean does their best to stop him. And this is where

[00:27:17]
Jean stops Null like nothing and realizes that Snake and Null have a bond. That's clearly something

[00:27:25]
they have between them. We as players know, because they just had that conversation during

[00:27:30]
the boss fight that he was the kid from Mozambique and he knows who he is. We know that it's Gray

[00:27:34]
Fox or Frank Yeager. And I thought that was great. So we find ourselves back at the bridge

[00:27:41]
with our team hunting for Snake, obviously looking for Intel. And again, I don't know if

[00:27:47]
there's anything new as far as gameplay in this section, because this like part of this was because

[00:27:51]
we're backtracking to places we've previously been. So they're sort of using our knowledge

[00:27:56]
of previous zones to probably have maybe, because Jonathan Jonathan's a great character. But

[00:28:02]
if you compare Jonathan's stats to snakes, it's like half the life, two thirds of the stamina,

[00:28:07]
he doesn't have the ability to be silent. So it's more on your gameplay, not leveling up,

[00:28:13]
quote unquote. Because Jonathan doesn't have that. From a gameplay perspective too, it's

[00:28:19]
interesting because we've always played as the legendary boss. And as someone who just

[00:28:29]
played the game from a player perspective, it's like, Oh, this guy's legendary. But like, you

[00:28:34]
know, I mess up all the time. My snake is at that legendary or if he is, you know,

[00:28:44]
here we go. There are different standards in the world. But yeah. So this like gives you that

[00:28:51]
kind of comparison that a b of like, Oh, well, like you thought you thought it was tough with Snake,

[00:28:56]
like here you are with Jonathan, who is like poor, like your gameplay experience is limited because

[00:29:04]
of the character and the way it interacts with the game, the game world differently.

[00:29:11]
So that was interesting to me how they used gameplay and story to kind of create that experience. And

[00:29:18]
there's a lot of these little moments in the game. And I think that's what makes it a little special,

[00:29:23]
little interesting. You know, I agree. I think that was, I think that was my argument of like,

[00:29:28]
guys, we got to do poor blobs, right? And we're like, yeah, we're definitely doing poor blobs.

[00:29:33]
Because it gets forgotten. This could this is stuff that doesn't usually happen in metal gear

[00:29:37]
games for the most part, at least this exact concept. Tour, do you agree with like the, I mean,

[00:29:44]
again, your your love for Jonathan has been well documented. And I will never deep like discount

[00:29:50]
your love for him. But was it a little bit harder to play as Jonathan without your trank gun?

[00:29:56]
Yes, it was. I had a love hate relationship with Jonathan at that point. Well, but it's not,

[00:30:02]
it wasn't Jonathan's fault. I can't even be mad at him. What a great relationship you have with

[00:30:09]
Jonathan. Yeah, it was tougher. I, as I said before, I had to change my strategy. I got caught a lot

[00:30:17]
more. I because I just didn't like, I don't know, if I can, I typically try and play as pacifist as

[00:30:24]
possible. But no, I just had to straight start merkin some people after after a little while,

[00:30:30]
it just had to happen. I got they took your boss. Yeah, bodies. We want some tags. We got to do this.

[00:30:38]
I get it's true. I feel you toe tags. So, Alisa.

[00:31:01]
Of all people, she pulls some shade. So we're back to snake. So Alisa comes in and again,

[00:31:06]
we've been real sort of friendly with Alisa and we get why they have a moment earlier in the game.

[00:31:12]
Yeah, real friendly. And I like her little like, you know, why don't you go get this? I gotta talk

[00:31:18]
to the patient or whatever, you know, what he's literally like dying in a chair and the guy's

[00:31:22]
like, okay. But I did like their dialogue. I like Alisa a lot. I like the character and I like their

[00:31:31]
dynamic because it isn't gross. Even though we might, I think it's this episode we're going to get to

[00:31:35]
where it gets a tiny bit gross. Roy, dog. Thank you so much for saying that. I have that in mind.

[00:31:42]
I think it's this episode. If I remember correctly, well, if not, we're going to get there. Roy has

[00:31:46]
a problem in his relationship with women. Yeah. And it starts early. Yeah, we learn it's like,

[00:31:53]
it's a character flaw from his younger years. It's not a past trauma. He's been doing it a

[00:31:59]
long time. You weirdo. So yeah, so she's talking about how he's brutally beaten and they kind of

[00:32:05]
make reference, I guess, to basically like snakes junk is just, you know,

[00:32:10]
paced at this point because Cunningham is a psycho. His snake is also not legendary.

[00:32:19]
Didn't he have like radiated balls already? Yes, which will they talk about it.

[00:32:26]
Yeah. And I can't wait to get to that conversation because I although that's a funny

[00:32:31]
like sort of line, it's a little cheesy, but the content is what's really good.

[00:32:34]
Yes. So Alisa reveals that she has TKE, she has telekinesis and communicates a snake to her mind,

[00:32:42]
which is like, okay, we kind of, I kind of thought that because Ursula, their twins,

[00:32:47]
she's got powers. They sort of talked about how they were, you know, close and now they

[00:32:51]
don't talk to each other. So I would assume that was pretty normal. And she catches snake up on her

[00:32:56]
mission and her premonitions of snake destroying a metal gear. Pretty cool. Okay. And then we

[00:33:04]
find the location of the guest house, obviously, right? You don't think snake killing a metal gear

[00:33:10]
is cool, man? I mean, that's probably the most predictable thing that you could say about snake

[00:33:15]
is him killing a metal gear. Yeah, that's true. You know, that's like, that's like a someone saying,

[00:33:21]
oh, I'm a psychic. And they come in and I'm like, Oh, really? Like, tell me more. And they're like,

[00:33:26]
yeah, you have curly hair. When you're older, your hair will be curly.

[00:33:35]
It's a good point. I guess I never, I guess I never thought of that. Curly hair.

[00:33:44]
Sorry for anybody that can't see that. But when Tori does snake, her whole like,

[00:33:48]
gesture, her whole face and her shoulders, it's amazing. David, you have to get into character.

[00:33:54]
It's an entire persona that can only be seen. It can only be described as like,

[00:34:01]
probably like a 75 year old heavy smoker. That's it. Just like, think of an old lady with cats

[00:34:08]
with a permanent slump and a constant cigarette in her hand. Get me a goddamn cigarette.

[00:34:15]
I love it. So much fun to derail the conversation with that.

[00:34:22]
So we make our way to the guest house. Now, I don't believe we've talked about this place before,

[00:34:26]
if I'm not mistaken. But the guest house, I thought this was a pretty cool map.

[00:34:34]
Very big for what is called the guest house. I would not have expected the map to be as large

[00:34:38]
as it was. And I thought there was a lot of cool like cubbies and like places to find stuff,

[00:34:45]
a lot of cool places to hide and find, climb and crawl. Again, it seems a little few and far

[00:34:51]
between, but I do make it a point that there's of like, I guess the 12 or 20 maps, like there are

[00:34:56]
eight that are like, really good, like progression, as far as what the player needs to do for a map.

[00:35:04]
And I like that a lot. We agree on the on the guest house. Is there any fun stories before

[00:35:09]
we actually get to rescuing snake? Not that I can recall. I'm struggling to remember the guest

[00:35:17]
house a little bit, though. So is this the one where a suit is up, like on the higher level?

[00:35:27]
Yes, actually, yes. Okay. So this one, yeah, the only thing I have to say about this one is that

[00:35:33]
again, I wasn't doing so hot without without my usual weapon. And I may have gotten caught like

[00:35:43]
three or four times and then accidentally stumbled into the right place with an alert still going on.

[00:35:49]
So that was pretty cool. But yeah, other than that, it went it went okay.

[00:35:53]
Well, that's good. Alright, well, then here we go. We enter in and we are rescuing snake,

[00:36:03]
quote unquote, we have a moment. And Cunningham intervenes. And again, one third of his dialogue

[00:36:10]
is dead set that snake stole half of the legacy. And I did kind of like, they kind of pulled out

[00:36:18]
like, why the hell do you care so much? Like, why is this so important to you do like maybe he's

[00:36:21]
got alternative motives. Talk to the Pentagon, like just like weird shit, like just like, like

[00:36:28]
Cunningham is a new character for us. But we they clearly made efforts to like that he's been embedded

[00:36:34]
in other things that we've heard in previous chronological stories from the game. Like there's

[00:36:40]
obviously something going on that this guy's been in the background for a while. In at least in my

[00:36:46]
head can and the way they did it. Alisa rolls in to save the day and brings them back to the squad.

[00:36:54]
So it's like a pretty cool little not really a firefight, but it's just more of like,

[00:36:58]
we got to get the hell out of here, right? And again, I did have to call out that I put a little

[00:37:03]
gross moment of Alisa being too young. And Roy saying but she'll be I think he says she'll be

[00:37:10]
a real looker. Is that what he says? But I put that she'll be hot in five years. Or you know,

[00:37:15]
he says in five years, she'll be a real knockout. I think he says, she's like, okay, dude. And heavy

[00:37:21]
I rule. He also implied that like Snake was like, Hey, this telekinetic chick, like she's cool and

[00:37:28]
on. She's been helping me out. But really, it's because I'm trying to get it in. Like, no, like

[00:37:32]
that's not even close to what it was. But Roy assumed that well, this one she's too young, bro.

[00:37:36]
Like, don't do that. And it's like, that's not why we're doing this. This is coming after the

[00:37:41]
conversation where Roy just like relentlessly dogs on like without meaning to relentlessly dogs on

[00:37:47]
snakes and ability to like land a woman apparently like, yeah, you're right. Talking about how

[00:37:57]
what was it? It just the kids conversation kept accidentally stumbling into Oh, well,

[00:38:02]
at least your situation isn't this bad. And it's like, exactly snake situation.

[00:38:08]
Yeah, I care. I would like to find that and cue it here. Oh, wait, it's not audio. Damn it.

[00:38:17]
Queue here where where Tori reads it. Yeah. Oh, no, actually. Yeah. Okay, Tori, cue it here.

[00:38:23]
Queue it here. You feeling down Snake? No. Ah, I just remembered, there's another principal

[00:38:32]
in psychology called the Romeo and Juliet effect. It says that the tougher the conditions faced by

[00:38:37]
two lovers, the stronger their bonds of affection become. So don't give up yet, Snake. As long as

[00:38:43]
she's not like some agent from an enemy country who's on the run because she screwed up her last

[00:38:48]
mission. I'm sure you two will find each other somehow. Snake, do me a favor. Just leave me alone for a while.

[00:39:03]
So yeah, so we after they escape, we learn of Alisa's true backstory with Jean. Again,

[00:39:10]
I legitimately feel fine. This compelling the the telekinesis the nuclear after math. And again,

[00:39:16]
I know they said it. I know I'm going to butcher it. Please. You can shout at me in the comments if

[00:39:20]
you'd like. I'm going to say the kishtim mountains, or the excuse me kishtim in the Ural Mountains,

[00:39:25]
I believe this is how it's pronounced. Ursula and Alisa lost their parents in the explosion that

[00:39:30]
the famous explosion that happened at kishtim. She wants Snake to destroy the middle gear to

[00:39:35]
stop nuclear war or at least potential nuclear war and says that Snake will be a good father one day.

[00:39:41]
And this is where Chris just bought up irradiated balls. And he kind of just makes like a I don't

[00:39:48]
think it'll be a father one day or something like that. It's like, we all know you got irradiated

[00:39:52]
balls, you weirdo. Yeah, I think that just means that, you know, he has a pain in the minute issues.

[00:40:00]
Is that what it is? Yes, Nick, you're going to be a great father someday. Oh, yeah.

[00:40:09]
It's like a backhanded dig. She's actually just trying to knock him like she's not even trying to

[00:40:14]
be nice to him. Someone considered an international terrorist is going to be an excellent father.

[00:40:19]
She's negging. She's negging Snake. She's like using negative reinforcement for him to like

[00:40:24]
destroy a metal gear. I like the psychology end of it. So she said that Snake was her Snake was

[00:40:31]
the first time that her and her sisters had visions that did not match, which seems a little

[00:40:38]
cliche, even though I don't know if I've heard of this per se of like sort of like dueling

[00:40:44]
telekinetics or psychics that are like dead set on something different happening with the same

[00:40:49]
subject. So I guess it felt like it was obvious. But then again, when I started like thinking about

[00:40:55]
it, I'm like, I can't think of anything that really did this before. As far as storytelling.

[00:41:00]
And I like that. Although that was pretty good. And she warned Snake, the one thing we now know

[00:41:04]
about Jean outside of the successor project is crazy reflexes, which is why he can also command a

[00:41:13]
perfect soldier, no, potentially others in the future. And again, anytime they say that, knowing

[00:41:19]
that the successor project included the boss, I'm like, maybe that's why the boss was a badass.

[00:41:23]
Like in general, like maybe she might have been the best anyway, but she wanted to definitely be

[00:41:26]
the best. So she could still be in charge of all the genes that were coming in the successor project

[00:41:33]
in my head. I like that. So I can get on board with her as far as as far as the Alisa Ursula

[00:41:40]
stuff. I don't know what it is, but I I really liked the performance. I still I believe it's

[00:41:45]
Tara Strong if I'm wrong, I'll probably correct myself before the end of this episode. But the

[00:41:50]
Alisa Ursula story, I legitimately appreciate the story they're telling. I like the dynamic of

[00:41:58]
they're both sort of in debt to Jean, in a sense, and the two of them are on different paths, but

[00:42:05]
sort of understand that they almost have respect for Jean, but they stand differently on what he

[00:42:10]
wants to do moving forward. I appreciate that. And as far as a story like a narrative perspective,

[00:42:15]
for this to happen so quickly in the game, like this isn't a revelation. This is just progression

[00:42:20]
of the story, which I really I liked, if I'm being honest, I really was taken by the sisters.

[00:42:26]
I thought that was a really cool idea. How do you guys feel about Alisa and Ursula?

[00:42:31]
So, okay, I'm going to I'm going to go out on a limb here. If we are permitted to speak in a meta

[00:42:42]
sense, briefly. Oh, it's a Kojima game. Absolutely. Yeah. So did Kojima just steal this whole plot

[00:42:49]
beat and reuse it in Peace Walker with pause? Yeah, probably. Okay, cool. Just just wanted to

[00:42:56]
like check that real quick. We can't talk about this yet because we're not to that episode yet.

[00:43:03]
But if you're talking about her little twist, her little plot twist,

[00:43:10]
but just I think the whole kind of what the character function as functions as is in the story.

[00:43:17]
Got you. That too. That too. But everything about this character just seems to be recycled into

[00:43:24]
pause later. Yeah, I think that's a part of again, we'll get to it. But I love pause too.

[00:43:33]
Yeah, I really appreciate what she brings to Peace Walker when we get to it. And I again,

[00:43:38]
Tara Strong's performance is so good. Put some clothes on though. Okay, that's inappropriate.

[00:43:43]
She's a child. She's a child. There's a time where it's a moment of power and she's in her

[00:43:48]
underwear for no reason. And I can't say when that is because I don't want to ruin part of

[00:43:52]
Peace Walker. But like, yeah, it's a little, little gross, I guess when you think about it, like

[00:43:59]
yeah. I got to say, we didn't get that with these two. Like we don't really get gross. We get

[00:44:06]
Roy being gross, but she didn't ever do anything. She didn't walk into the room like in her underwear

[00:44:10]
and was like, Oh, you caught me getting dressed. I'm 16. You know what I mean? Like it was just more

[00:44:15]
like she had she she asked him a question and he was like, Whoa, like I'm like you're a kid.

[00:44:21]
She was like, Well, that's not what I was asking. But I appreciate that. Like, thank you for not

[00:44:25]
being a fucking kid. So now we're now we're close. Like I like well, and how much of that is like

[00:44:30]
attributed to the different writers on this project versus a more main the more mainline project,

[00:44:35]
you know, because this was realistically, this was a side game, right, produced by a different team.

[00:44:42]
Yeah. You know, you guys are having conversations of Ryan about that. And I would be interested to

[00:44:46]
hear on his perspective about the differences between pause and Elise's storyline and kind of

[00:44:54]
how they mirror each other and how, you know, the Metal Gear series as a whole just tends to

[00:45:00]
circle the drain a bit. It reuses a lot of the same plot beats and that sort of theme

[00:45:05]
overall. But in this case, it feels weak. And I don't know. I think Elise is a stronger character,

[00:45:14]
in my opinion, more well written. And it's it's a lot less tropey in the way that

[00:45:21]
the psychology of the character is handled. Agreed. Sure. Oh, yeah. No, it's a great idea. I totally

[00:45:28]
agree. So yeah, so we have Intel that we have to head to the plant. And I sort of made a joke,

[00:45:36]
are we familiar with every map yet, because we are starting to, you know, recycle totally

[00:45:41]
fine boxes. Makes sense. Yep. Yep. But again, what I like about this particular map, again,

[00:45:47]
the plant's not a boring map per se. I like checking all the corners. I like finding stuff.

[00:45:52]
I do like that. Sometimes if you were supposed to find something earlier in the game, it may just

[00:45:57]
pop up in the middle of nowhere because you might need this this item for the next mission.

[00:46:02]
Oh, hey, by the way, dimwit, you missed this way back there.

[00:46:06]
Oh, it's like clever enough where I'm like, shit, was I supposed to get that? Where would I get that?

[00:46:10]
And I'm like, I should have done more Intel missions. So and then we find Intel, get to the

[00:46:16]
hangar, prepare to drop the bombs, because we are been we've been making this whole plan to get

[00:46:22]
the metal gear, because ghost from the previous episode, which we found out,

[00:46:26]
do we find out who goes with Seattle? So we're about to. Okay. So ghost told us what to do moving

[00:46:32]
forward. Like he knows a lot about Metal Gear Solid 3. He knows a lot about the construction

[00:46:37]
and design of the new Metal Gear. And he's telling us how we can sabotage it and win.

[00:46:43]
So we're preparing to drop the bombs. We're in the hangar. We're like ready to go.

[00:46:46]
And Jean finds us and the Metal Gear is already being being piloted and it flies.

[00:46:56]
Did you did that surprise you guys at all? Did you guys remember a flying Metal Gear

[00:47:00]
being in any of these games?

[00:47:04]
Not no, not to this not to this point.

[00:47:09]
I kind of forgot that.

[00:47:12]
Yeah, it's like a hovercraft kind of thing, right?

[00:47:14]
Yeah. And we'll get to the we'll get to the fight in a minute.

[00:47:21]
But what's interesting is that Skoronsky, our Russian boy that we love, I thought he was rotten

[00:47:28]
in a jail cell and apparently we were wrong. And he fires on the men and he's just going to town

[00:47:34]
with the the minigun there. And he somehow misses Jean, which I'm assuming the amazing reflexes.

[00:47:40]
And I just for my sake, as far as a beer would go, I would definitely tip a vodka to that Russian

[00:47:48]
son of a bitch moving forward. I after this scene, I really like like Skoronsky like he's just

[00:47:54]
not like he's just like a perfect non moment character that just like makes in a movie he would

[00:48:00]
like chew the shit out of scenery and be like, man, I'm going to remember that guy.

[00:48:04]
Even if I don't remember this movie kind of a thing. He's just really fun.

[00:48:08]
And this is where Jean reveals his secret weapon, his trump card.

[00:48:14]
That you let's please let's rephrase that. It's his words.

[00:48:19]
It can't be in the lexicon anymore. Sorry.

[00:48:23]
Strike it for the English language. Can we call it his Donald card? Would that be better?

[00:48:28]
The Don card, the DC. The Don card. Yeah.

[00:48:31]
Dicard. His DC. Dicard. I like that. Yes.

[00:48:36]
That Alisa is Ursula. And he basically says like something like Ursula awaken.

[00:48:42]
And she can control the unfinished metal gear, which is pretty clever. That means nobody else

[00:48:48]
can use it against them because he has some telepaths. Not bad. So now this is where

[00:48:54]
let's talk about this battle. I'll start it off with I love the concept. It felt it felt very

[00:49:01]
metal gear solid one that it is this pretty cool machine. Again, it can fly. It's being powered

[00:49:06]
by a telepath, but it's in like this like small containment area. So it can't do what it's really

[00:49:13]
good at because it'll just smack into the walls and and you know, it can't really fly out of there

[00:49:18]
like the way everything's working. So I thought like making it very content, not contagious.

[00:49:24]
What's the word I'm looking for? Very constricted, very small, very claustrophobic, made it made

[00:49:29]
me believe more that Snake had a chance to win this fight. It was just sort of flying around.

[00:49:33]
I think Snake would just have to like rock it. It could be another hind to D fight or something.

[00:49:37]
So as far as like the battle arena itself and sort of your strategy,

[00:49:44]
I basically said like, all right, are you using TNT or are you using the the rocket propel grenade?

[00:49:50]
So how do we feel about the design? And then what was your weapon of choice for this fight?

[00:49:54]
I really enjoyed this. I thought for whatever reason, it was just it was a rhythm I could

[00:50:01]
easily get into once I got there. And it became quite an enjoyable fight. I did go with the

[00:50:08]
portable rocket launcher or whatever, whatever it's called. The RPG. Yeah, wait, what does that stand for?

[00:50:17]
Rocket propelled grenade. That's what you said. Okay. So yeah, I used the RPG and

[00:50:25]
I just kind of drink break. I just kind of ran around and like,

[00:50:31]
I think I need a refresher on how this goes, actually, because I know there's some sort of

[00:50:35]
rhythm and there's a lot of like storage containers in this room. And yeah, yes, the kind of rhythm

[00:50:41]
that I fell into is like you you have the RPG and you can also use TNT to attack it.

[00:50:48]
But I don't think I did any of that. Yeah, you just kind of like drop the TNT and if you can get it to

[00:50:55]
like go over it and you can just I think from wherever you are, you can like blow it up and

[00:51:00]
it's pretty helpful. I tried that in vain for like the like the first time I attempted this

[00:51:07]
and died. I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that ever again. So moving on. Yeah.

[00:51:14]
Yeah, you hide in these containers and like it shoots rockets at them and blows them up. So

[00:51:20]
it's a lot of like cover shooting with the rocket launcher. It's sort of this fight. I don't know

[00:51:27]
about you guys, but this room reminds me of those VR rooms and Revengeance.

[00:51:32]
Well, not Revengeance, but I can I can see how even the VR training kind of seems similar to this.

[00:51:40]
And I know what you mean by the design of it. It's like it feels like an unpopulated room.

[00:51:45]
Like fit for one task. And in this particular task, it's defeat Metal Gear Raja as what it's

[00:51:52]
going to be called. I recall a Raxa for so long. And it's Raja, which I did. It took me like 10

[00:51:59]
times to just say it in a row to be like, okay, we're going to call it Metal Gear Raja now because

[00:52:04]
it was Raxa in my head cannon for the longest time.

[00:52:08]
Yeah. I mean, so this is probably the only Metal Gear fight that takes place in the holodeck. But

[00:52:16]
I don't know. I enjoyed the fight. I thought it was fun. It's interesting how

[00:52:25]
you like seeing this design of Metal Gear fit into like how it moves forward,

[00:52:31]
because it's a hovercraft, right? Yep. And at the end of three, Sokolov and Grannon,

[00:52:40]
like we we had that conversation with Grannon, he's like, oh, it's got legs.

[00:52:46]
Yeah, it went from rolling to walking. That was a spot on spot on

[00:52:54]
Grannon came in to the podcast for that quick second. Can you bring Chris back now?

[00:52:58]
Grannon, thank you. Chris is back now. Yes. And that's kind of been like the big thing with all

[00:53:04]
the Metal Gears is that they're bipedal tanks that go boom. And this honestly seems like a

[00:53:13]
superior design that would hover instead of walk. That would make it more mobile. I agree too.

[00:53:20]
Yeah, riddle me that. Why are they going back to an inferior design after they've made

[00:53:26]
this iteration of it? Yeah, can we talk about that? Because he he he says here in a moment,

[00:53:31]
can we get there? Warren, am I going to be skipping over anything? Well, I mean, we can we can

[00:53:36]
float back because it's all part of the this will all be part of this final the conversation of the

[00:53:41]
story bits and everything going on with this. My only pushback because I totally agree with you

[00:53:45]
guys, like I think this is the superior model. But at least as far as what we know, and I know that

[00:53:52]
there's maybe more of these potentially or whatever, you know, like stuff I don't want to

[00:53:58]
necessarily personally get into. But we, you know, they need to they need to telekinetic to

[00:54:03]
perfectly use this thing. True. So maybe telepats are cool. But maybe psychomantis was like, Hey,

[00:54:10]
man, I really don't want to sit in a little gear and like control it. But can you just give it

[00:54:14]
some legs and maybe a laser or something? Can you like a radar dish? Not maybe. Yeah.

[00:54:20]
Like so. Railgun. Yeah, exactly. So like where I totally agree with you guys, I just feel like

[00:54:26]
since he had Ursula, I guess, can let's agree on this. Do we just call her a Lisa? Or when she's

[00:54:33]
evil, we call her Ursula. This is specifically where I was wondering, is she Ursula being brainwashed

[00:54:42]
to be a Lisa? Or is it the other way around? So in my head counting, because I don't think they

[00:54:48]
actually don't say, I don't think they explain it. My understanding, I always took it as a Lisa was

[00:54:54]
in a war torn country that suffered, you know, a famous explosion, you know, bombing. And her

[00:55:03]
telekinetic powers, you know, I guess even like in Star Wars Jedi, there's always a dark side. Like

[00:55:09]
once you're drunk with power, you can use it for bad or use it for good. And maybe she's always had

[00:55:16]
this sort of conflict between her and the bad. I just always took it as that she was a Lisa.

[00:55:21]
And the bad side was sort of groomed to be her equal. So you could just make Ursula arise, not

[00:55:31]
just they don't battle for it. Like, you have to awaken Ursula. She's always a Lisa before like,

[00:55:37]
I don't see him say like, and now you're a Lisa, you know, so I always take it as she's a Lisa default.

[00:55:43]
That's a good point. You know what I mean? And it's all conjecture, but

[00:55:48]
the reason I ask is because part of me was wondering back when we were talking about

[00:55:55]
Alisa's conversation with Snake in the cell. Part of me wondered if that could have been

[00:56:02]
part of the plan, you know what I mean? But I don't think there's sufficient evidence for that

[00:56:06]
now that we actually talk it out. It was just kind of a thought.

[00:56:10]
My only, again, my pushback on that is because Alisa was like, if you are concerned, murder me.

[00:56:14]
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's easier if I'm dead. That was my next thought.

[00:56:18]
She is full agency because Ursula doesn't really ever talk about Alisa.

[00:56:22]
Alisa only talks about Ursula, at least in our perspective. We never hear Alisa talk about,

[00:56:29]
I mean, we never hear Ursula talk about her sister, Alisa.

[00:56:31]
Did Ursula talk at all?

[00:56:33]
She has like one or two lines in the helicopter. And she talks about Null once or twice or the

[00:56:40]
perfect soldier. And she doesn't have like a different voice, but it has like a different

[00:56:43]
affect to it. So hard to tell. But I think I thought that was a narrative choice,

[00:56:50]
like why we don't hear her say much. I would argue she is talkative. We just never heard it.

[00:56:56]
Okay. Yeah, I super can't remember some details from this at this juncture.

[00:57:02]
So yeah, so yeah, so this fight was fine with me. You go for the legs, then they have like the

[00:57:08]
flaps on the Metal Gear Raja opens and closes. You have to time your shots.

[00:57:12]
Poor design, honestly.

[00:57:14]
Poor design. So the boss fight felt a little easier than I thought it should be,

[00:57:18]
but I playing the game, I kind of thought like, well, maybe there's an emotional baggage because

[00:57:22]
you're basically killing Alisa if you win the fight. So maybe that was part of it.

[00:57:27]
You know, like it didn't, it felt like a choice. Well, but were you connected enough to Alisa at

[00:57:33]
this point to really care that much? I thought Snake was because I thought she was gonna help us

[00:57:38]
because she got him out of the cell. That's true. She was trying. We're gonna have Alisa,

[00:57:42]
like she's gonna kick some ass before this game's over. But this happened so quickly after that.

[00:57:47]
I don't know if I had the time to be really invested enough, you know? Sure. Yeah. No,

[00:57:53]
I totally agree that the pacing, while for the huge swaths of this, the pacing works really well

[00:58:01]
moving forward. This is one of those where it's just like, and we learn a thing and a thing happened

[00:58:05]
and they're gone and let's move on and something else happens. Like it's very, very, very, very fast.

[00:58:11]
So yeah, so we blow up the Metal Gear Raja and we kill Alisa. You know it? But then there's a pretty

[00:58:20]
dope cut scene of like all the soldiers are like, oh my God, that's the legendary big boss. Any

[00:58:25]
kill, the Metal Gear. We're doomed. Like we lost. Like we're not winning this anymore.

[00:58:33]
Which is pretty cool. That makes kind of sense. I totally get it because we've learned very quickly

[00:58:37]
you can sway them just with having a conversation, let alone seeing that you're also winning like the

[00:58:42]
war, I guess, of the game. So we're, I guess, we're like talking to Gene, but Gene's up on like that

[00:58:50]
big scaffolding, that cliff side, and we're sort of low down. And of course, I put Gene brings up

[00:58:55]
Ocelot and I was like, nice name drop asshole. This is where we finally know that it's Ocelot. We

[00:59:02]
sort of already knew that, but he actually like, yeah, he basically just name drops them super

[00:59:08]
quick. We get a call from Ghost and Ghost reveals that not only is Raja a test model,

[00:59:16]
but we also learn that Ghost is Sokolov, who is quote unquote back from the dead.

[00:59:25]
And he doesn't want to see a Metal Gear used on his motherland, Mother Russia. And I just put big

[00:59:32]
history lesson here because they just start, they start talking a lot of stuff. And it's,

[00:59:38]
it's, this is where I'm like, okay, like, I totally get it. This is a Metal Gear game. But I was

[00:59:42]
like, this is, this is a lot. Like we're learning about all the Russia stuff. And then I guess we

[00:59:48]
learned that Sokolov Ghost was he was in a refugee camp because he survived the gunshot and the

[00:59:56]
brutal beating from, oh my God, the Vulcan, there it is. I knew it was a V. And I guess he just

[01:00:03]
sort of was there. Gene saves him. Like a lot of Gene saving people, they trust him, which I guess

[01:00:09]
we learned for nefarious reasons. And then I did make a special note because I laughed. So Gene's

[01:00:15]
talking and he says, today's ally, maybe tomorrow's bitter enemy. And I was like, I see what you did

[01:00:24]
there. Pretty, pretty clever. It was a little twist on it, but it's like his version of what the

[01:00:30]
boss says and then the same project. So I get it. So Gene uses his vocal power, his successor project

[01:00:37]
concerns. And he convinces the troops and this is pretty clever how they do this. He convinces the

[01:00:42]
troops that someone out there is committing treason to basically make them all kill each other.

[01:00:50]
I get the feeling this isn't the first time Gene's done this because he had like a script,

[01:00:55]
basically. Like obviously he wasn't reading anything, but you can tell that he's, he knows how to use

[01:01:01]
his power to, you know, like basically hit, you know, let's delete the whole thing and start fresh.

[01:01:06]
Like this plan didn't work out, so I have to move forward. This film, if I could really liquid

[01:01:14]
also quote unquote really liquid also a lot like, sure, if you know what I mean,

[01:01:21]
oh definitely. And I like, I like a lot of the snake emoting of just like this, stop firing. What

[01:01:30]
do you do? You know, like trying to win all of them are trying to defend themselves. They don't

[01:01:34]
know what's going on. Yeah, it's just a, it's a fucking nightmare of what's going on. Like there's

[01:01:39]
just like, it's just a shootout and everybody's murdering everybody, which is insane. And can

[01:01:45]
I add one more thing? Yes, please. My notes say literally, good to hear Sokolov's horrified crying

[01:01:51]
sound is still the same. Yeah. Sokolov again, like, what a, I don't look pretty cool idea, right?

[01:02:03]
Sokolov didn't die in MGS three. It's a pretty logical reason. He's like, yeah, I thought my design

[01:02:09]
was pretty good, but clearly Grandin had something better and I wanted to go even more than that,

[01:02:14]
right? But then once he said I was going to use it on Russia, it's like, dude, you know how this,

[01:02:18]
you've already been fooled before like, what are you doing? Yeah, come on. Morgan already dropped a

[01:02:23]
nuke in Russia the last time. Like, what are you doing dumbass? So, but again, he may have been

[01:02:30]
mind controlled or whatever through the successor project jeans. But of course, Jean beautifully

[01:02:36]
escapes the fray and hen and heads to Metal Gear, which we learned there's a potential another one

[01:02:43]
because the Raja was a test model. And there's like some final shooting, we're trying to protect

[01:02:50]
each other, we're doing everything. And of course, it appears snake is about to take a fatal shot

[01:02:56]
and Jonathan jumps in his way and dies in the shootout. Now I did put this in here. And this

[01:03:04]
is for everybody. This is going to be for the listeners too, because I do want to hear from you

[01:03:07]
guys. Did we care enough about Jonathan in this game? Tori, from your response, how did you feel

[01:03:15]
about Jonathan? I wanted to cry. I miss Jonathan to this day. Yeah, I just, I mean, that made me

[01:03:26]
love him even fucking more, man. This is a guy who has displayed the utmost loyalty. He was

[01:03:35]
completely loyal to Jean until, you know, he realized that the wool was being pulled over his

[01:03:40]
eyes. He's been completely loyal to snake to the extent that he takes a bullet for him. And that's

[01:03:46]
just, it sucks. But like, that I thought that was a pretty cool way to resolve Jonathan's story.

[01:03:55]
Because obviously Jonathan doesn't come back up as a character later in the series, right? He can't,

[01:03:59]
it would be shitty just to be like, oh, well, that was a really loyal

[01:04:04]
comrade of snakes. And now he, now they don't work together. Oh, well,

[01:04:09]
he gets a card in Metal Gear acid too. That's what, that's what that's the best case scenario

[01:04:15]
for Jonathan. Right. So it sucks. And I'm sad. But I think it makes sense. It makes sense,

[01:04:21]
story wise. And I mean, like, you can't expect zero casualties from Team Alpha, you know.

[01:04:31]
True. What about you, Chris, with Jonathan? Is that your boy?

[01:04:35]
You know, anyone that says that this game is a canon disrespects Jonathan's memory.

[01:04:43]
Disrespects the memory. Probably one of the most compelling characters in the Metal Gear canon.

[01:04:49]
Hey, hey, cheers to that. Yeah, you know what? Cheers to Jonathan.

[01:04:53]
Fucking good call, Chris. Yeah, because I had a poor one out for my homie.

[01:04:58]
Yeah, I mean, let's be real because a lot of the characters in this game, it's like,

[01:05:03]
there's only five people in the whole world and everyone else is an NPC. But this game,

[01:05:08]
it makes an attempt to give a voice to those characters. And, you know, of all the events

[01:05:15]
that are going on in the world, it's people like Jonathan that are the most affected by that and

[01:05:21]
most impacted by the chaos of the times that in the Metal Gear saga, right? Jonathan is a pawn

[01:05:31]
in a much larger game, but Snake helps him, like, gives him the opportunity to take control of his

[01:05:40]
own situation so that he can, like, have some sense of agency in his life again.

[01:05:52]
And I think that's some of the deepest writing in the entire series.

[01:05:56]
I agree. This is, I mean, I was genuinely surprised with how invested I became in this story.

[01:06:05]
And not just in Jonathan's story, just in the whole, this whole creation, you know, this was

[01:06:11]
supposed to be a side game that only a fraction probably of the Metal Gear community was going

[01:06:18]
to end up playing. And to, in order to make that sell, I think they did what they had to. Obviously,

[01:06:27]
it probably wasn't as successful as they hoped, I think. But to compensate for the very limited

[01:06:35]
I don't know, playability, not even playability, just, you know, the other limited factors of

[01:06:43]
bringing this game to a portable system. This, this story beat, I think, alone was enough for me

[01:06:52]
to forgive all the frustrations I had with the game.

[01:06:57]
Yeah, this was a good, this was definitely my, I think this was the moment of the game where I was

[01:07:04]
I'm glad we did this one. Like, I'm like, I'm like, this is like, you can pick on the jank,

[01:07:10]
you can pick on the camera, you can pick on the color palette, it's like the stuff we still

[01:07:13]
pick on because we're, you know, analyzing this game for episode to episode. But the story holds up.

[01:07:21]
And definitely, like, I'm surprised we don't hear more about Jonathan when like,

[01:07:26]
YouTubers are like, top 10 Metal Gear, like Jonathan's a good character. Yeah, he is.

[01:07:31]
Good arc. And it's a good, it's a good representation of moving on of like,

[01:07:38]
you know, he's like proto riding, right? Like he's like the guy that's like, oh, dude, you're,

[01:07:43]
you're a big boss. Like, I've been reading, I've been reading up on you for years. Like,

[01:07:47]
he is that kind of guy of just like, Hey, man, if you're as good as you say you are, we got this

[01:07:52]
to the point where he defends you to his death is pretty, pretty great, pretty powerful stuff.

[01:07:57]
Like, I really, I really enjoyed it. And I, I get it was a little sarcastic Tory,

[01:08:02]
because she called me out on my notes when she was going over them. But again, I mean, some people,

[01:08:08]
you know, we're just like the guy that we got going the plans game for like five hours, I'm

[01:08:11]
supposed to care about this guy. I don't agree with that sort of, you know, Lucy goosey mentality.

[01:08:16]
I, I was pretty invested. I mean, Jonathan, I would say I'm a little more invested than Alisa.

[01:08:22]
But Alisa, like they almost had similar back stories, like Jonathan's the reason why we even

[01:08:26]
knew what the hell was going on at San Jorano. Anyway, yeah, hey, we got sent here to defend a

[01:08:30]
nuclear base that basically they forgot about. So now we just sit here fucking doing nothing. I got

[01:08:35]
a family at home. Like we learned that there's a lot of stakes for him and the soldiers in general

[01:08:40]
through him, like he's their arbiter, I guess, or like their vote, their voice.

[01:08:46]
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's, that's the part that I think makes him stand out as, as a representation

[01:08:55]
of something larger. You know, we, I think the community talks a lot about how Kojima sees

[01:09:03]
the world and, and, and imitates it through his art, right? Some people like to, to call that

[01:09:13]
that he's that he's predicting right predictions of the future. But I think it's, it's more likely

[01:09:18]
that Kojima sees these themes that have gone on in war torn spaces and he recreates them in his

[01:09:27]
games. And this is definitely one of those that I was appreciative, appreciative to have experienced,

[01:09:35]
because I don't know when a war is going on individually, I think we rarely think of how

[01:09:44]
the soldiers are affected. Usually we're thinking, how is this going to affect me in my life?

[01:09:50]
How is this going to affect the overall structure of our country and, and stuff like that. But,

[01:09:55]
in Jonathan's case and in his, his fellow soldiers cases, like you said, Warren, he was,

[01:10:03]
they were left out to dry. You know what I mean? And, and that's a reality for a lot of people

[01:10:09]
that engage in war. It's not, I mean, it's not just you fight for something noble and,

[01:10:17]
because you're fighting for something noble, you win. You know what I mean?

[01:10:20]
Right.

[01:10:21]
So I really appreciate Jonathan's character because it's, it's eye opening for how these

[01:10:25]
things really go. And that's one thing that I appreciate about Kojima's storytelling.

[01:10:30]
I'm not, I'm not trying to be all up his ass or anything. Like he, I don't think he did

[01:10:34]
everything perfectly with this game. He and, and team, I guess, I don't know. I don't know how,

[01:10:40]
I want to be careful to trade that territory, but we'll just say, we'll just say the writers,

[01:10:43]
because it includes, his influence is clearly here, but then also there's clearly a separate

[01:10:49]
voice here. So if you just, the writers get the credit because I wouldn't know who to call out.

[01:10:54]
And maybe it's a question to bother Ryan about this to be like, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Hey man, who,

[01:10:58]
who decided on Jonathan? Like, because I honestly, as we're talking about this, he, I think he's

[01:11:03]
going to be the mascot of this season. Oh, Jonathan. Like Jonathan's going to be like our baby.

[01:11:10]
Hey, Ryan, do you want to be our mascot? You want to be our Jonathan?

[01:11:15]
So just a quick fun tidbit here and we can do this. So we're recording a little ahead because

[01:11:19]
we're trying to be very active with this stuff. So this episode is supposed to drop April 19th.

[01:11:25]
Okay. So a little peek behind the curtain. Since the day after we dropped this episode

[01:11:31]
would be 420. I think, I think we figure something out between now and 420. I think we make it like

[01:11:40]
a Jonathan appreciation post, have a beer forum, do it in the discord. Oh, I'm down. I think we do

[01:11:47]
that. So we'll let our patrons know and listeners will find a way to include you guys. We'll try to

[01:11:52]
post about it or we'll talk about it after this, but I think we should do like a little

[01:11:56]
Jonathan, pour one out for Jonathan on 420. I'm just throwing that out there now.

[01:12:00]
That's so sweet. And here's the thing. I want to go back to something you said earlier, Warren.

[01:12:05]
I know that not everybody is going to care about Jonathan the way that I do. It's fine. He is,

[01:12:12]
at the end of the day, he's an NPC and an NPC that you don't even get

[01:12:17]
a hell of a lot of interaction with unless like me, you died as a snake in some boss battles that

[01:12:25]
were tough and you relied on the rest of your Alpha team. So I personally play it as Jonathan a lot.

[01:12:31]
And I think that that probably lends a little bit to my love of him. I get that not everybody's

[01:12:38]
going to be as as into it or excited about discussing their feelings about Jonathan.

[01:12:46]
That's what we're doing this for people. Have emotions. It's 2020 on Christ.

[01:12:49]
I have a fucking heart, Jesus. But no, I like that idea, Warren, and I certainly will celebrate

[01:12:56]
Jonathan on 420. Absolutely. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it just because it makes

[01:13:01]
perfect sense. It's like I looked it up and I'm like, this seems too good to not bring up like

[01:13:05]
during the recording. So all right. So laying Jonathan to rest, I'm going to tell you guys,

[01:13:13]
we, my choice as far as like how the story is going to flow, this is where we're going to end

[01:13:17]
this episode of Metal Gear Mondays Revengeance Portable Obsidition.

[01:13:23]
Leaving you on a dramatic note. Like what are we going to do now that we've lost Alisa and

[01:13:30]
Jonathan? Gene is gone. We know Ocelot's involved. There's another Metal Gear. Like shit is lit.

[01:13:37]
Right. And Cunningham's still out there. That psycho bastard. Yeah. Cunningham's out there.

[01:13:41]
He's still ready to go and Noel. We still have Noel too. We know he's still around.

[01:13:47]
So there's still a lot to talk about. I'm sorry. Did you guys find it jarring that we were fighting

[01:13:53]
a Metal Gear at this point in the game and we still had a pretty good amount to cover afterwards?

[01:13:59]
Because usually Metal Gear, you know, except in Peace Walker Onward, I guess, Metal Gear is

[01:14:05]
something you expect towards the end of the game. It's like end game status. So and I know that it

[01:14:11]
was a test model and and I appreciate that as a as a piece of the story. But when it came to

[01:14:20]
actually fighting Metal Gear, Raja, were you guys prepared for that?

[01:14:26]
Me personally, no, I thought it was soon. I thought I was way closer to the end than I was

[01:14:33]
when I played it because I was like, oh, shit, we there's got to be one more

[01:14:37]
half naked fistfight at the level of Raja, right? Like that's what we're doing. That's how this

[01:14:42]
works. Like Gene's going to show his fucking sculpted abs underneath that dope jacket in his hat.

[01:14:47]
Either that or a swordfight, right? Yeah, some sort of laser swordfight or some crazy shit.

[01:14:52]
I don't know, Chris, like what did you think? I mean, as far as my expectations on the normalcy

[01:15:00]
of the situation, it's not really any different at all from some of the crazy stuff that we

[01:15:06]
experienced later on in the franchise. Sure. It's fair. The pacing is a little strange to me

[01:15:13]
and a little foreign, but I think that's just because it was the first time they tried to take

[01:15:17]
a Metal Gear experience and make it portable in the sense like, well, I know Ghost Babble

[01:15:24]
predates this. Ghost Babble is basically just an NES game on a portable, right? And this is like

[01:15:34]
a game with a portable mindset design focus. So correct. Yeah, it's not just ported, quote,

[01:15:41]
unquote, it was designed in mind, right? Right. And I think you have to look at the plot beats

[01:15:46]
from that perspective for it to make sense. Sure. Well, good. Well, let us know, guys,

[01:15:54]
how you feel about the placement of this Metal Gear fight and how you feel about Jonathan.

[01:16:17]
Yeah, this is going to wrap up another episode of Metal Gear Mondays Revengeance,

[01:16:38]
portable ops edition. Before we do our little sign offs again, guys, we appreciate all the

[01:16:43]
downloads and however you listen to us, if you find a way to rate and review, we would greatly

[01:16:48]
appreciate it. And we have noticed that you guys have been doing that, which is fantastic. We love

[01:16:53]
you dearly for that. We have a Patreon at Metal Gear Mondays. You can sign up on our Discord for

[01:17:00]
a buck a month. We have a lot of stuff outside of that. If you increase, we do the on the off weeks,

[01:17:06]
we drop episodes, we do a Metal Gear, we have a game club, like so a monthly game club, we have

[01:17:12]
a monthly movie club now, which we are dubbing MGM goes to the movies. We are still trying to figure

[01:17:17]
out how we're going to talk about them in a more case, but we always drop an episode now,

[01:17:21]
we're committing to that, as well as some merch, you can get a bit.ly slash MGM store.

[01:17:28]
And I guess Metal Gear Mondays.com, if you want to, you know, see what's going on with

[01:17:31]
current host, previous host, if you want to find a way to contact, that's like one of the easiest

[01:17:36]
ways to do it. But otherwise, Tori, where can they find you on the internet? You can find me in the

[01:17:43]
Discord and some other social places at youngneal, it's Y-N-G-N-E-I-L. You can find me,

[01:17:58]
just, you can find me morning the loss of my sweet and beloved Jonathan

[01:18:07]
at some random graveyard with some, what are those flowers that we had for the boss?

[01:18:14]
What are those lilies or? Oh no, I think they're a kind of lily. Oh no, I think it's cherry blossom

[01:18:19]
actually. It's definitely cherry blossom, god. The cherry blossoms. Yeah, you can find me at your

[01:18:25]
local graveyard with holding a bouquet of cherry blossoms. Local graveyard.

[01:18:33]
Chris, how about you, man? Where can they find you on the internet? You can find me on LinkedIn,

[01:18:41]
getting that grind on or in the Discord. There it is, there it is. Yeah, and I guess for me,

[01:18:49]
you can find me at Warren Minnix on all the socials that I'm old, so I don't use them very much.

[01:18:54]
I'm untaggable gamer if it matters and I change my name weekly in the Discord, but you can find

[01:19:01]
me there a ton. I think outside of one final drop of, so we are going to be doing a listener

[01:19:08]
episode at the end of this season, it'll come out like late June is our plan. So as you're

[01:19:14]
listening to this, we're going to set a date for June 14th. If we can have your responses by June

[01:19:20]
14th would be perfect. We may slide that date around here and there, but the intent is that

[01:19:25]
the episode will drop at the end of June based on that, but as you are hearing this, there'll be a

[01:19:30]
lot of time between this recording dropping and June 14th. So again, guys, we thank you so much

[01:19:37]
for listening, downloading, subscribing, whatever you do to do this, and I think it's time to let a

[01:19:42]
ripjack. It's been a while since I did that one.