So, Metal Gear March keeps rolling and and is nearing a close with the rather quick I might add finish of Metal Gear Solid 4. Although you wouldn't know that judging by my playtime which apparently the playtime clock still rolls along even during the pause menu which is nuts. I did manage to get through the entire game with No Healing Items used , No Alerts, No Kills and No Continues on Solid Normal though.

I forgot how great MGS 4 is and was. Really great game overall although having done this in a series like this you can see exactly how much stuff they retconned the hell out of. Still, great game with some great and ridiculous moments. CQC slamming dudes never EVER gets old. I had a moment when I booted it up though when I was really sad I saw this screen and It really made me sad.

Throughout 09-10' I spent an absorbent amount of time playing ONLY Metal Gear Online. It was my utter obsession. Really, I don't think people understand how genius the game was. Was it unconventional Yeah. Had a huge learning curve? You bet. The best mode in the entire game was the Sneaking Mission. Two teams engaged in a death match while a single solitary person was chosen to be Solid Snake. Snake was given the task of immobizing 3 soldiers no matter the side and recovering 3 (or whatever the score was set to) dog tags while both teams hunted him down. It was a TRUE test of your skills in Metal Gear fooling not CPU's but real humans. There was an absolute thrill to navigating the battlefield grenades and bullets whizzing by just being patient... patient.... patient until the opportunity presented it self to make a move.

Whew, anyways....got sidetracked there. MGO could be an entire blog for me down the road. Which, actually I'll put that one in the idea bank for later. Back to MGS4 though.

It was such a good playing game as well. All of the added controls and functions are a blast to play with. Story wise I've got a few questions of things that I don't think I noticed my first few runs though the game back when I got my PS3.

• When JD is destroyed and the FROG soldiers go nuts from SOP going offline shouldn't Meryl and the troops under her all have been affected as well? Loophole I guess?
• Big Boss referred to "The Foxdie Zero planted in you" Like, the original strain or what?
• Speaking of... what is the new strain for? I don't think they talked about it that much....
• During the Big Boss epilogue scene he says the Patriots used snake to kill him via Foxdie how in EARTH would they have known that Snake would be successful and also coincidentally meet up with Big Boss?

Thats just a few things I noticed and have lingering thoughts on. So tomorrow starts Peace Walker a game I've never actually played before. Well, I've played it but I might as well not have seeing as I've only played the first 10-20 minutes. Also, last thing the Shadow Moses level when you walk on to the Heliport and "Best is Yet to Come" starts playing....just chills man. I stood there panning the camera around just kind of taking it all in. Which is something I don't really do in games. Anyways, results below. Metal Gear March rolls on.

@demoskinos: The Patriots used Drebin to infect Solid Snake with the new strain of FOXDIE. When he jabbed him in the neck with that thing after the power plant? That was it.

@demoskinos: I just finished MGS4 today. Wow, is all I have to say. The story really had an impact and almost uncomfortable with the B&B stuff. Connecting this game with the other ones by literally bringing back every single person from the previous games was really cool. I loved it. I am so glad that I played through all of these games and saw how they grew and changed after each one.

@noobsauceg7 You going to play peacewalker too?

Still working on Peace Walker? I wouldn't be surprised, there is a HELL of a lot of game in that one.

@demoskinos: He meant that the FOXDIE that the actual character Zero planted in you. Remember, they just refer to Major Zero as Zero instead.

@quarters: Yeah, I know that much but when the hell did Zero ever get near Solid Snake?

@artemesia: Getting close. I'm around chapter 4 or so I think. And yeah I agree theres a ton extra here to do. I'll be able to finish on time though. =)

Peace Walker is SO GOOD, so much content packed into a PSP game.

@demoskinos: I think he meant that the actions of Zero caused it, or that him/his AI triggered it, even if it was someone like Naomi that actually did the deed. For my sake though, which one was he talking about here? Was it the one that Drebin shot him with, or the one from Shadow Moses? Been a while since I played it.

Also, make sure to get the real ending for Peace Walker, as it's the direct set up for Ground Zeroes. It's kind of a pain, though.

@quarters: Real ending? Hmm... what are the requirements?

@demoskinos: How far along are you? I can't really talk about specifics because I don't want to spoil anything. However, I can say that it doesn't have to do with choices or anything, it has to do with replaying missions, playing extra ops, and just being more of a completionist. You have to get it after you actually beat the main game.

@quarters: Like I'm on the approach to the final fight in the missile base.

@demoskinos: Okay, I can at least tell you the first part then. You have to finish building ZEKE. That's the first step towards getting it. To get parts, you have to do two things:

1. If you want an actual body part(head, legs, so on), DO NOT damage that body part when replaying the boss fights. Instead, aim straight for the AI Pod.

2. If you want AI Chips, blow up the various parts on the Metal Gears, and DO NOT aim for the pod. Just keep blowing up as much as you can, so you can rip more chips at the end of the fight while you're inside.

In order to complete ZEKE, I believe you need all the main body parts, plus a rail gun. After that, and once you beat the game, you'll be ready for the second task.

Its over guys! I did it. I just got the "real" ending to Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and with that with only a day to spare (cause hey got distracted a bit by Tomb Raider) and DUDE the ending like what in earth was Hideo smoking? I'm not going to spoil the final thing or well...how its presented but seriously guys if you are REMOTELY interested in Metal Gear Solid V you NEED to play Peace Walker. Its a great game and it absolutely sets the tone both in the events and the mind set of Big Boss. I'm utterly ashamed I ignored it until now. And honestly with there being a ton more Extra Ops to go back and S-Rank and just a ton of other stuff to do I'll most likely go back to pick at Peace Walker some more most likely after I get through Bioshock Infinite which I'll jump into hopefully tomorrow.

Its been an absolute blast going though this stuff. The news of Metal Gear Solid V hitting while I was in the middle of this just seriously amped my excitement level for everything Metal Gear Related. While I did complete my set goal of beating all the titles in the "Solid" series I do want to go back and play the first two Metal Gear games via MGS 3 on the HD collection disc. Also thank you to everyone who commented in this blog making it my most replied to to date. Its been really fun discussing Metal Gear related memories and shenanigans all with you. Almost sad this whole shin dig is coming to a close now. I'll have to do it again sometime. Um... Peace?