A few recommendations before you enter the world of Metal Gear Solid: the guide contains some Spoilers so be careful to read the guide before the game otherwise you will be forced to read something unpleasant. However, I limited myself in describing the events concerning the plot to avoid sensational statements. The guide examines the whole game without losing even an unturned corner so if you want to skip somewhere to avoid wasting time in collecting avoidable objects go ahead, for the rest, good play.
The Port of Shadow Moses
The game begins, after selecting the game difficulty, with a short scene featuring Snake who is about to come out of the water and place at the edge of a staircase so as not to be discovered: you will be contacted immediately by the Colonel via codec. The conversation will be long and various things will be explained to you, including how to use the codec: listen to the end and once you exit the codec screen you will be ready to start the game. From where you started, go back slightly by diving into the water to find a portion of Ration in the upper left corner. Get out of the water and go up the stairs going left where, crouching, you will pass under a pipe to find yourself in an area controlled by some guards: it will not be difficult to avoid them by relying on the radar that you have at the top right that signals the position of the enemies and their visual range. If at worst you get caught you can wait for the warning sign to scroll by hiding somewhere. In the lower right corner there is another portion of Razion but remember that you cannot take more than two with you, so the message Full will appear if you have reached the maximum: you will also find another in the corner north east. As the names of the staff who produced Metal Gear Solid scroll, continue your journey north where you will be contacted by the Colonel who will tell you to wait for the elevator and get on it: you will see her arrive with a guard as a passenger. Avoid it and go up the elevator to start a cutscene in which your alter ego will show his face by taking off his swim suit.
The airport
After a quick look at his surroundings, Snake will contact the Colonel to explain the situation and your next goal: to rescue DARPA President Donald Anderson held captive in a cell on the base. You will also meet Naomi Hunter who will be your scientific manager: she has the same frequency as the colonel. take every slightest indication and get ready to cross the plane more than well controlled. You will make the acquaintance of Mei Ling and you will be given her frequency: 140.96. You will need it to save the game and listen to interesting stories: you can also make her nervous already after your acquaintance by calling her for a dozen times by refusing to save each time: the nice little Chinese girl will stop responding for some time after intimidating you to stop. Snake will take the binoculars and automatically go to look at any entrance areas. When you have control of Snake, head towards the ducts you saw a moment ago in the upper left corner: to do this you will have to cross the entire first floor of the base and first go towards the two spotlights that cross where it was previously parked a Russian helicopter. Try to recover the Chaff Granades, grenades that create interference on electronic objects for a few seconds, in the center of the platform avoiding being noticed by the spotlights that would trigger the alarm: if you do not succeed do not make a drama as you will find many others of Chaff grenades in the course of the game. Now try, past the spotlights, to go to the right where you will find an open truck on the back in which you will find a Socom pistol, small but very useful: continuing on the right you will find a Ration in the snowy path. Now go back to the far left trying to avoid the camera in case using a Chaff or by sticking to the wall and crawling under it, after which arrived at the two tunnels enter one of these. After a few steps in the tunnel you will hear the Codec sound and after answering you will start talking to an old acquaintance of Snake, frequency 141.80, called by McDonnel Miller who will give you some advice on how to behave in those cramped conditions. After the chat, continue to the tunnel to discover by two soldiers, spied on by a grate, that Anderson is being held prisoner on the first floor of the base together with a woman: the news does not end there because a man has killed three soldiers. Follow the rats to find the exit in case you get lost, as suggested by Miller, and you will arrive in the hangar where two Tank M1s are parked, powerful tanks that will not bother us for now. The way forward is not difficult but well controlled: crawl behind the camera on the wall and go through all the doors you cannot enter until you find one on the right that will open as you pass: enter it before the camera can see you. Inside the room you will find an optical sensor and once recovered, continue anticlockwise until you find a flight of stairs: go down.
The president of DARPA
Once you exit the elevator you will be contacted by Mei Ling who will advise you to look at the radar to see a green light that is equivalent to the position of the DARPA president: lean on the wall and you will see him from the view from above sitting on the bed meditating on his inauspicious future and bad luck. You have to get to the room from above since the door is blocked, so continue until you find a staircase at the bottom that goes up into another shaft from which you can observe, from two respective grates, two scenes: the first will show us a soldier who answers to physiological needs and in the other cell the woman of whom the soldiers met in the first excursion spoke. As you continue to crawl forward, the Colonel will contact you and tell you that the president of DARPA is in front of you: remove the grate and a rather long cutscene will start during which you will learn several things. The whole speech, as you will notice later, was overheard by the girl in the next cell and the president will give you a card that you will need to open the Level 1 doors. After this gesture, the DARPA president will fall to the ground dying of a heart attack: retrieve the ration under the bed and you will start to hear noises outside that look a lot like the moans of soldiers. When the door opens, exit and you will find a female-voiced soldier in front of you who will point the rifle at you. After another cutscene you will have to face a series of soldiers coming from the door in front of you: by killing the guards some Rations will appear on the ground and you will have to collect them because you will surely suffer some damage. Rely on Socom and its automatic aim and try to avoid the grenades that will start throwing your opponents: luckily they explode very late and therefore you have all the time necessary to deflect them. Killed all the guards the girl will escape in the elevator and you will be shocked by a figure floating in the void: Psycho Mantis. Meanwhile another scene will start in which you will see the lifeless body of the president of DARPA in front of three shady figures. Go to the elevator and select floor B2.
The Armory - Part 1
Your new goal, commissioned by Anderson, is now to come from President Baker. Once you arrive in the B2 floor, or the armory, exit the elevator and you will find yourself in a room with many other small rooms containing weapons that are currently not accessible. Put on the Thermal Visor found in the hangar just before you find Anderson so you can see the traps laid out on the floor: two rooms are open and two more will open as long as you wear the Level 1 card given to you by the DARPA president. You will find ammunition and four pieces of C4, a powerful explosive that you will have to use, as mentioned by Anderson, near the empty parts of the walls: there are several areas to blow up, to the left and right of the elevator and in the corner lower left. The latter is your next step to continue towards President Baker, but you can still make a breach in the other two points marked to find more C4: to understand which is the right point to trigger the explosive, lean against the wall and beat with your fist to hear a noise different from what you might hear knocking on a wall without a concave part. Once you have blown the wall in the lower corner proceed into the new corridor where you will find two clear parts where to put the C4: if you have explored the previous three you are left with only one charge that you must use on that lighter part that is on the back wall on the right, since the other breach would lead us to some rooms that we would not need for now. Once the wall is blown up, enter the new breach and you will witness a scene with President Baker trapped between wires connected to some C4 charges ready to explode. A bullet immediately afterwards will pass near your head, forcing you to look from the direction it comes from in order to meet Revolver Ocelot, the best shooter of the Fox Hound, skilled manipulator of a Revolver as he will demonstrate shortly.
Boss: Revolver Ocelot
This is the first boss of Metal Gear Solid and the battle will be of varying difficulty depending on how you behave and depending on your ability as a gunslinger: the two things not to do absolutely are not to shoot Baker and walk only following the perimeter of the room without ever approaching the wires of the C4 in the middle of the room, otherwise you would die with the president and this is not your goal. You will notice that Ocelot has six shots in his Revolver and every time he runs out of bullets he will be forced to reload his weapon: he will do it very slowly and you will have the opportunity to shoot him as much as you can, but as soon as he starts moving, move away to avoid his deadly ones shots that also bounce off the wall and therefore could hit you with a rebound. You will find bullets for your weapon in the corners of the room but still be sparing in using them. Avoid hiding or stopping somewhere in the room because the Revolver bullets arrive everywhere and with great precision and therefore only by moving incessantly, in the opposite direction to this of Ocelot, can you save yourself and get to take away the entire energy of your opponent for a happy ending.
The Armory - Part 2
After depriving Ocelot of all his energy, he will continue to shoot towards Snake without hitting him: you will then see, from an unknown place, in a fast hiss of wind, a blade that will cut the hand of the Fox Hound gunslinger who will lose then the control of his Revolver. A soldier will appear, a ninja to be precise, with a camouflage suit and a blade in his hand, certainly a weapon that had, just now, killed those three guards you heard about in the tunnel towards the hangar. It will not show up and after a neurotic crisis it will disappear as it arrived: the same thing will do Ocelot now unable to continue the battle. You can now speak with Baker in complete tranquility: he will provide us with another card, this time of Level 2 and during a discussion with the colonel and Naomi you will learn that the woman who saved you from captivity responds to the name of Meryl and is Campbell's niece, while Naomi won't answer about the ninja she just met. Baker will die of the same disease as Anderson and in the same way, suddenly. Fortunately, before he died, he told you what to do: find Hal Emmerich. Go back to the armory, paying attention to the two guards who now control it and recover all the recoverable items also in the Level 2 rooms to which you now have access: by equipping the level 2 card you can also open the level 1 doors. In the lower right room there are infrared rays that you can identify with the Thermal Sensor, or cigarettes if you want, and crawl past: you will find a Fa-Mas rifle in this room. Go to the elevator when everything is finished and select floor 1 to return to the tank hangar. Once out of the elevator, go immediately to the right where you will find a sleeping guard: strangle him by approaching slowly, avoiding running and making noxious noise. Pick up the Socom silencer on the right and exit the room to notice that there is only one M1 left in the hangar and the other has disappeared from circulation. Go left to go up the stairs and enter the first room on the left, previously closed, recovering some Chaffs and a Box A, a very comfortable cardboard box that is used to blend in in this goods exchange port. Enter the next room to find a Ration and a Mine Detector that will soon be more than useful. At this point, it's time to check how Meryl is by contacting her via codec: you will be informed that her frequency is written behind the CD case and corresponds to 140.15. Compose it and start a long speech. Meryl will tell you to go through the large door near the room where you took the Socom silencer to reach the area north of the hangar and reach it: be careful in this room which will be opened thanks to the girl as it is a level 5 room and Snake alone could not have passed it. Put on the thermal visor and watch out for the lasers that this time move and at the slightest contact they will block you in this narrow corridor, suffocating you with a soporific gas.
Boss: Vulcan Reaver
You will be contacted by Deep Throat, a person of whom you will not know anything and you will not be able to see the face in the codec due to interference: he will however tell you that the area is full of Claymore mines and that you will have to be very careful and that we could obviously recover them with our look for freshly collected mines in the hangar. Crawl on the ground with the equipped mine finder and passing over them you will recover them all without problems: Golda Profonda will also tell you that a little further on a Tank awaits you, the one that disappeared from the hangar, and at its guide there will be a shaman who responds to the name of Vulcan Raver. His strategy is to throw his grenades and hide by moving very slowly: take advantage of this factor as it will take a long time after launching his burst to regain his position. Hide behind some large boulders to avoid his attacks and when Raven stops her Tank approach to throw a grenade straight into the cockpit for a precise and powerful shot: with the second grenade you will kill a soldier, with the third you will also kill the second. putting Vulcan out of action which will confirm the rule that a bigger boss is easier to beat. He will drop the Level 3 tile and you can continue north to see a cutscene in which Vulcan will challenge you for a future encounter at much higher levels than the latter.
Storage warehouse - Part 1
After defeating Vulcan proceed north to enter the storage depot of nuclear warheads: immediately go up the small flight of stairs to the left that ends with a dead end in which you will find a Ration, after which go back to the entrance and take the main road until to get to the small crevice to be crossed by crawling. This space is quite dangerous since first of all you will be prohibited from weapons except for the Chaffs by order of the Colonel who will also introduce you to Natasha Romanenko, a weapons expert, and as soon as you are discovered, the alarm will not start but also a gas that will give you it will kill in a short time without giving you a way out: so be very careful not to let yourself be discovered. Collect the grenades in the lower left and approach the truck by knocking on the wall to lure the guard towards you: go around the truck and continue up the ladder, evading the camera and then the soldier coming near the elevator. Enter and select the B1 floor, escaping from this bad storage area. Exit the elevator and go left into the bathroom to kill, always approaching very slowly, the guard intent on satisfying physiological needs: therefore eliminating the guard who could give us some headaches we leave the bathroom and go south towards the hall of the floor where we are many rooms now inaccessible. The only things you can grab with your Level 3 cards will be the Nikita missile launcher and go back to the elevator by selecting floor B2. Exit the elevator as soon as you get to the floor and going to the far right you will see a doctor in his white coat shaking: this is Hal Emmerich, the man you were supposed to find on behalf of Baker. Continue along the only path available to reach a room with an electrified floor that cannot be overcome without the help of Deep Throat who is about to arrive: he will tell you and show you the device to be destroyed to overcome the area. You will have to hit it with the Nikita you have just taken, fire a shot and direct our missile with the help of the directional arrows avoiding the cameras equipped with machine guns and all the furniture in the rooms: when you arrive in front of the generator let us go the missile with great force to destroy it . If you fail more than once, pay attention to the gas in the room and go get a breath of air at the elevator to catch your breath: once the floor has been cleared of the electrical problem, go south to recover the gas mask and then continue in bottom right where, after passing the Level 3 door, we will find a chilling scene. Slain soldiers and other creepers on the floor begging and begging for mercy color the corridor with their red blood that you will have to cross to get to the room where Hal Emmerich is kept.
Boss: Ninja
We will find the scientist threatened by the Ninja and his sword and as soon as we enter we will become a juicier prey than Emmerich can be: a very long movie will follow in which the Ninja will talk a lot and start a fight with bare hands. Put away your weapons and equip the thermal sensor to see the movements of the Ninja wearing a camouflage suit: by doing so you will control him every time he approaches you and you can safely hit him with kicks and punches to knock him down momentarily. The fight is divided into three parts: in the first you will have to face the Ninja with his dangerous Katana, in the second you will have to clash with him with only the help of your hands and feet, while in the last you will have to deal with a dangerous energy field that , if you arrive in poor condition at the end of the fight, he will kill you instantly. Fortunately, in the last part of the fight you can equip your weapons and hit the Ninja as you see fit, both with the Socom and with the Fa-mas until it falls to the ground. After beating him, a movie will start in which the Ninja will reveal his identity: he is Gray Fox, one of the most significant and unforgettable characters of the Kojima series already present in the two versions of Metal Gear for the NES. Gray Fox will display wonderful words in inciting Snake on his mission and then disappear, in the throes of another nervous attack, from the laboratory leaving you alone with Hal Emmerich.
