January 2021 Review: Speeding Up

Belated Happy New Year! Feels like its been awhile since I've done one of these yet I don't have a lot in the way of news. Well, that combat nerf update in Neverwinter Online is live now, and it's surprisingly not too bad and since the New Sharandar module is set to appear next month, I've been grinding the current one like mad since I can already foresee a shortage in Feywild supplies to continue our stronghold progress. 

I've also upgraded my internet which means its more possible for me to get those bigger titles now and there by get distracted from the Feywild farming. :P

That's a decent improvement!

Blog wise I'm also trying to compress down my posts in waiting so that I can get through them faster. You might be seeing more of these multi-targeted things shortly as I'm actually getting tired of having stuff "ready to go in advance". Might mean less posts afterwards but certainly more spontaneity.

On to some future tech, since powered exoskeletons have that problem of "power" - did you know there are unpowered exosuits already in use? Dang. That's news to me! Lastly this little fox named Finnegan (and the saveafox foundation) has really kept me entertained lately. Now you know the answer to "What does the fox say?"

 Lose 1kg this month (fail)
 Web comic (-error: no progress detected-)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago

I wrote an Ode to some of Neverwinter's forgotten/removed content. That seems to be status quo now as the New Sharandar module next month will completely remove the old one.

Five Years Ago

I was playing Arkania and it's sequel Star Trail. Also our guild hall in Neverwinter was at rank 4... we've come a long way since then!

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days

MGSV: The Hammer and the Snake
GTFO: R4A1 - Cytology (Extreme)
MGSV: Fog of Skulls

While I kinda expect the GTFO tutorials to show up here I'm a bit surprised with  the two MGSV ones. Maybe it's because they have epic screenshots? :P

Metal Gear Survive: Solo Scout

[Part of the MGS Diary]

While Reeve and the team continue the Iris energy base digs I explore a little bit more of the map, finding it a lot easier now that I have the scout special ability active camouflage which literally turns you invisible for a time and makes all enemies drop aggro (or randomly attack the direction they are facing).

The cool down on it is pretty quick too, and it proves vital when I take on the deadly beast called Big Mouth. I can literally setup traps and shoot it a few times then run away and hide while the ability regenerates. It takes a little time and a lot of ammo but I am victorious!

Can't aim for the brain? Shoot the nuts instead!

I also try harvesting Iris energy from an abandoned airport - now this is meant to be a co-op map and it sure is difficult but I still manage a victory regardless. Unfortunately back at base camp, Reeve has fucked up on dig #6, and almost the entire camp is destroyed and wiped out.

Since that really means a lot of repetitive grinding to repair, I think I'll just call it a day here since I've had enough of it.

Insight: Co-op missions drop some excellent gear but they will make you work for it. For the airport map, but the large square traps (like flame) at the top of the interior staircases, as far over the edge as it allows (you'll get maybe 15-20% of it in midair). This really helps slow the horde down.

Metal Gear Survive: Aftermath

[Part of the MGS Diary]

With the Lord of Dust dead, we are now able to mine Iris energy right at base camp. This obviously attracts wanderers but I can finally let Reeve and the team deal with that (especially since the gap between attack waves is in the 12-22 hour mark). Instead I go rescue more people in the horrible jungle where it seems the spider things and mosquito things now also dwell.

On one rescue I also encounter wanderers who are fully armored or flaming, both of whom I simply flee from. Powerful creatures have also been detected in the dust, no longer hiding since the great centipede is gone - I make it a point to avoid those for now as my ammo is scarce.

I do manage to activate the teleporters I previously skipped though - the one in the swamp being much easier now since the trackers and mortars had moved elsewhere. It's there I find a portable oxygen resupply item, which would have been much handier earlier on!

Anyway, I retrieve one last memory board - this one located further past the mansion in the mountains but a walker gear assists to cut down the travel time. Upon making it back, this one unlocks "class" abilities and the four classes of assault, medic, scout and jaeger themselves... definitely an interesting place to find that.

Now its up to Reeve and the squad to harvest that Iris energy and figure out what to do with it while I do what I do best... scavenge and rescue.

Basically you want three times the attack values coming for you.

Insight: In end game base digs you can choose to defend yourself or leave it to your team (and stupidly no in between combination). Leaving it to the team certainly seems easier as it is literally a mathematical battle per directional sector which you can observe on an active digger. Since explosives are plentiful, I've taken to dotting the base with mortars which increase the score of each side by a whopping 900 per emplacement. Hopefully that will be enough for Reeve to keep winning!

Metal Gear Survive: The Lord of Dust

[Part of the MGS Diary]

With the crew working on the rail gun and construction on the traps, I am sent to get the last thing we need: Iris energy to bait the Lord of Dust. Dan gives us the location of a teleport outpost he'd already activated (YAY) which is close to another singularity site: some hybrid of a shipyard and mine.

This is the worst defense mission to date with enemies coming from all around and a generally poor spot to defend. Even with guns and turrets I barely scrape through again, surviving thanks to a tracker kicking an explosive barrel next to me that also triggered a chain of bombers to detonate. Miranda patches me up back at base camp and once everything is prepared, it is time to face the Lord of Dust.

Once the bait wormhole is open, the gigantic creature comes running right into the traps operated by my crew - but its not enough to just railgun it then and there, first I have to fight off three massive armies of wanderers that he summons. There are a few defenses that are established for each, but really it comes down to the portable ones you can carry. While regulars and bombers are present in all, mortars show up at the end of the second force and a team of trackers arrive near the end of the third force: good thing I still had ammo for those!

The Lord of Dust, about to be dusted!

With all the minions defeated I head over to Sahelanthropus' rail gun and double tap the great centipede, finally killing the monster. Unfortunately we lost the disabled kid during the battle but the survivors now have a clear shot of trying to get home.

Insight: Your base defenses are somewhat useless here as you need to protect a trio of traps out on the field to the East. Between each wave you can sprint back to your storage area to resupply though.

Metal Gear Survive: Sahelanthropus Mansion

[Part of the MGS Diary]

After making preparations it's time to secure Sahelanthropus in one of the longest defense missions so far (15 minutes). The narrow passage is a great funnel for the first few waves to get caught on my fences and traps but bombers and mortars that appear towards the end push me back. Luckily there is a blind corner that is very handy not just for mines and balloon traps but the mortars tend to miss their shots which explode their allies who line up on the other side of the rock face.

Sending zombies into the stratosphere via hot air balloons is a thing.

Finally the rail gun is secured, but back at base Seth has shown his true colors: an infected agent for the Lord of Dust! With the disabled kid as a human shield he opens a portal back to the original base camp where Reeve and I chase him down. Grenades seem to do the trick in both stunning and killing the monster he turns into, and after some repairs both base camp and the FOB in the jungle are now accessible to the team.

Dan, who is actually a Charon Corps survivor, says we'll need a few more things before facing the Lord of Dust - the first being blueprints to a trap that can restrain the large creature. These are located in a mansion high up in the mountains and the trek there is both lengthy and dangerous as the jungle is full of grabbers. Somehow I sneak in and out and still have just enough oxygen to make it back to the Sahelanthropus outpost with the plans in hand.

Insight: Bait bottles will force grabbers to hop out of their hiding spots and investigate. Also don't be too greedy with looting in this mission as you have to make it all the way back before the game saves. That's unlikely to happen if you can only walk.

Metal Gear Survive: Dark Mire

[Part of the MGS Diary]

After the initial food scavenging I don't have much choice but to scout out the dust jungle and quickly find more enemy types: "grabbers" scorpion type bugs that pose as plants whose first attack is to rope your leg and immobilize you, "mortars" who are wanderers that can shoot either bullet like projectiles or explosive rocks from their hand, and the most deadly "trackers": kung fu wanderers who can leap great distances and enjoy spinning roundhouse kicks.

I am forced to flee from that last type on our initial encounter, hanging off a broken bridge to hide until a herd of goats distracted them away from me. I also recruit survivors Seth and Dan who really distrust each other but are in agreement that the Lord of Dust needs to be destroyed before any further wormhole research takes place. There is a weapon that arrived recently that can do it too, but I first have to reach it.

Literally hanging on by a thread...

Using a handy walker gear I make my way through a wanderer filled swamp - so many that I opt to simply ignore the teleporter outpost in the center and sprint past, following the river to the remains of a familiar massive metal gear: Sahelanthropus! The rail gun it sports is the weapon we need but first I opt to unlock the teleporter outpost right beside it. While my walls and mines deal with the regular wanderers, emplaced mortars in the outpost clear out enemy shooters that appear on the high ridge line. An easy defense!

Insight: Enemies seem to spawn around objectives. If you complete the objective stealthily and leave enemies alive, there's a good chance that they will just vanish on your next visit to the area.

Metal Gear Survive: Hot Potato

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Searching for another singularity for Iris energy takes some time, but also lets me unlock more teleporters and expand base camp as I rescue more stranded survivors including a disabled kid. I also encounter new enemies: a horrible nest of alien spiders in another ruin and a swarm of giant mosquito things which I use a walker gear gatling gun on.

Best way to deal with giant mosquitoes? Shoot em with a gatling gun!

Yep, there are vehicles hidden in the dust but they don't work for very long. Back at camp Reeve is well enough to head up an expedition team and I task them to always collect wood. It seems there's always a shortage on that and on gunpowder, as opposed to the crazy amounts of explosives lying around. I guess the Charon Corps was going to try explode the planet as a fail safe?

Finally another singularity is located and I get the digger charged. The swarm here is bigger than last time, but thanks to the portable turrets I brought this defense is much easier than the previous dig. It's then back to camp to open the worm hole and stem yet another wanderer attack - again easy thanks to the expanded base and new gun turrets I prepared but we all had a collective jaw drop when the Lord of Dust itself arrived.

Apparently it too was attracted by the energy and with no way to fight it, we fled the camp through the worm hole to safety. But safety wasn't Earth, we just found ourselves at another, more jungle like area of the dust planet. With more mother base debris here we decided to setup a new camp, basically having to start over. Ugh. I'm going to miss our little potato farms.

Insight: The new camp starts with all the workshops and you get to keep anything you had in storage. Also, it turns out you don't have to build anything base related here either.

Metal Gear Survive: Digging the Sky

[Part of the MGS Diary]

The previous memory board gives us the location of a "wormhole digger" next to an inactive teleporter, which seems to be the key to escaping this place so I go to fetch it in the dust. It's worth noting that there's some form of giant monster in here too. Dubbed the "Lord of Dust", it's like a gigantic alien centipede that just marches from place to place.

I quite like it as it tends to ignore me while at the same time, stomps on hapless wanderers who get into its path. While sneaking past the horde guarding the digger is a little challenging, getting it out of there is not and soon it is powering up back at base camp to create a portal home.

Of course, this attracts a major attack on the camp (6 minutes worth) which I barely survive. The digger fires its ray into the sky and... nothing. Damnit, it looks like we need to charge it up first with something called Iris energy that can be found in singularities on this planet, one of which isn't too far from a teleporter outpost so I hop on over to dig that up and as usual, have to defend against more wanderers!

Hmm, just realized this is actually just a tower defense variant.

Again, I barely survive this defense and learn that the digger still needs 40% more energy before attempting another wormhole. Greeeat. Since it looks like we might still be here awhile, Reeve constructs some rainwater tanks and Miranda teaches us to boil water to purify it first before drinking it (which should be common sense).

Insight: There are three types of defense - defending a teleporter just requires you to best guess where baddies will come from, but you can clear them prior to starting the defense. Defending a moving singularity dig or base camp (more waves) has enemies dropping in from worm holes but you have red dots on the mini map to help you out and other "defending the digger" types actually gives you the paths enemies will use to attack so you can put your defenses on the correct spots.

In all cases every time the defense target loses a set percentage it creates a small AoE that damages nearby enemies (and defenses). This means you can actually let a few of them through especially if you know they won't have enough time or health to destroy the objective.

Metal Gear Survive: Miranda is the Bomb

[Part of the MGS Diary]

In the dust, little wormholes regularly open up and drop a variety of materials at random but having a helicopter crash right out of one is definitely worth investigating. Sure enough, there is one female survivor stuck on a ledge as a whole herd of wanderers have also come to check out the noise (note: they do this with all the wormholes).

Since she doesn't have an oxygen mask her life is already draining away when I arrive, but the best way through the herd is the smartest: first throwing a bait bottle to get as many of the scum clustered together as possible and then using molotovs to burn them down.

It's game over if she dies.

Activating the next nearby teleporter gets us to safety and the woman introduces herself as Nurse Miranda. Reeve is slightly upset because now someone can tend to his leg to make him start pulling his own weight around here. By chance, the next memory board is pretty close to her crash site - in the depths of some dark ruins where I encounter a new type of wanderer: the bomber. Slow moving with a bloated head, these things explode when killed - unless you back stab them which is pretty easy as they don't have the reflexes the normal wanderers do.

Those ruins really test the limits of my air tank though, as it's nearly empty by the time I return to base.

Insight: If you are super sneaky or only have bait bottles, use them to sneak past the large group while ignoring the nurse and head to the opposite cliff. There are a pair of emplaced machine guns there than can easily wipe the herd out. The bait + molotov tactic is handy all the time though, remember it especially in places where time is not an issue.

Metal Gear Survive: The First Defense

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Visibility drops considerably inside the wall of dust as does all digital mapping which means its up to me to manually remember the path back out. Worse, the oxygen tank steadily runs out of air while traversing the area - meaning I often have to decide if I should just sprint past wanderers lurking within.

I soon find the first of many teleportation platforms the Charon Corps established here, which would link up to the one already present at base camp. Turning these on to expand our area of operations (thanks to the oxygen concern) is a no brainer, but the sound it makes calls all the wanderers in the nearby area to attack!

Arrows are heavy and wasteful. Should have stuck to the spear.

Luckily I had already prepared a whole set of basic defensive walls for this and while it initially seemed impossible for me to spear them all, the teleporter finished powering up and released a blast of energy that wiped out all the remaining enemies in the vicinity. Apparently, it is enough to simply survive until the countdown expires.

Insight: If the teleporter is destroyed it is the same as if you are killed - you restart at the last save point. This is usually just before you stepped out from base camp so to be most time efficient do the hard/dangerous stuff first before scavenging (in case you die).

Metal Gear Survive: Hunter Scavenger

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Having established a small base camp, the first order of business is to scavenge up supplies. This includes food, water and materials to make crude weapons. Thanks to the debris it's very easy to fashion a pipe spear, and a nearby watering hole offers some dirty water (yuck). Food wise, there are some goats, gerbils and wolves whom I hunt and cook to keep our strength up.

Afterwards, it's time to look for nearby memory boards listed on the damaged computer to see what else we can learn about getting off this planet. These lead to small outposts the Charon Corps previously established and are now guarded by the wandering zombies, who we end up just calling "wanderers".

Portable fences. Brilliant!

Early on I find their weakness: fences, especially the type you can poke a spear through. This tactic makes it pretty easy to clear those areas and retrieve the data, which in turn shows the location of the next memory boards. Eventually though, the next closest one is beyond a gigantic wall of deadly dust. Good thing Reeve knows a thing or two about oxygen tank crafting and can do something with the broken pieces of one I brought back.

Insight: The best way to hunt goat or wolf sized enemies is to sprint at them and punch them. This knocks them down, making for easy kills or captures. Careful against large packs of wolves though as this tactic is risky if you have four or more bearing down on you.

MG Survive: The Shadow of Mother Base

[Part of the MGS Diary]

They attacked without warning, and while we fought back as hard as we could the enemy used some sort of gateway technology to reverse gravity and rip Mother Base out from the ocean and into the sky, taking me along with it.  

Somehow I survived - waking up in some dusty ruins, and I wasn't alone: the place was inhabited by aggressive crystaline zombies! Thanks to teaming up with Reeve, a soldier from the enemy PF who also survived the gateway event, we both made it out of there alive and found that we were on a different planet!

Reeve was just as in the dark about this development as I was, and was adamant his PF had nothing to do with the portal. Since his leg was injured, we decided to make use of a small abandoned camp in the shadow of the Mother Base debris and found a damaged foreign computer system there.

That's a nice title card.

In its files we learned that we were not the first ones here. An army known as the Charon Corps had been sent from Earth to harvest some form of energy in this world. Both Reeve and I gained some hope with this, as that meant they would have had a way back home. We just had to find it.

Insight: Crawling makes you near invisible to the enemies but crouching walking works too - as long as you use the "walk" key when you get closer to these baddies, who seem a little bit more alert than the soldiers in Phantom Pain.

MGSV: Outer Harem

[Part of the MGS Diary]

It has taken a long while but our group, "The Guns of Heaven" have finally reached the top tier in espionage ranking! As expected, there was more and more resistance on the way up but it was a nice feeling to surpass some of our other peers. Targeting a few for a ranking race really helped keep the squad motivated to keep pushing on.

As a reward for the men, we've begin to hit a pink FOB called "Outer Harem" who seem staffed entirely by highly skilled females in bikinis. They are surprisingly efficient at defending their base, but that doesn't matter as our true objective is to abduct those soldiers to add to our own number. We even developed new tech for better non-lethal take downs, just for this base! So far, we've kidnapped around a hundred of them, and since it's a fun past time I think we will continue doing so.

Yep, you can literally kidnap bikini clad girls in this game,
and force them to do your bidding.

Little do some of the troops know that once we hit capacity, these females are going to replace them simply because they are far more skilled.

-Razor Hedge

Insight: Withdrawing from a wormhole still netts you the stuff you captured, but you don't get the "win" bonuses.

MGSV: The Hammer and the Smoke

[Part of the MGS Diary]

As our Espionage Rank continues to improve, a few more Kill Count bases have been located - all of which are in the business of kidnapping. Our troops have had difficulty raiding these as some use "The Bound Dragons" defense meaning all the guards present are in heavy riot gear armor that is hard to penetrate and sport equally heavy machine guns. The other set of bases are full non-lethal, with guards armed with stun or tranq weapons. Both versions have support drones on patrol.

Being prone is the stealthiest option.

It's a little surprising that we have more fails on the non-lethal variant - but those mortars loaded with sleep grenades are dangerous. Caught stunned or unconscious, some of our own soldiers have been fultoned into captivity. Still, thanks to our efforts we have been given enough funds to build and complete our second FOB - meaning we can house more units, send more teams on combat deployments and research more advanced equipment. Raging B is working overtime offsite, mostly at OKB Zero and the central Afghan camp where she is procuring soldiers to fill out the numbers for this new facility.

It is unlikely we will ever afford a third FOB however, as the contracts for each location have doubled in price. I've also heard tell that the boss is setting up some sort of major operation in South Africa which is eating up most of our resources. It's his company after all, he can do what he likes.

-Razor Hedge

Insight: If you don't mind the enemy going on alert, motion detectors are great trap lures. Bring some C4 or decoys and intentionally trip the alarm to draw the enemy into position. Power Generators can be used similarly, and if you go the decoy route, can be used over and over again - just make sure the FOB isn't on alert when doing so.

MGSV: Espionage Rank

[Part of the MGS Diary]

There have been some changes since the Skulls left a week ago, he biggest being that I'm now in charge of this FOB as Commander Ocelot's gone off to lead a campaign against the Mosquito PF. They are the same group who he fought off Mother Base long ago. From what I've heard, there's nothing too heroic happening there as they are simply slaughtering every enemy in their path while raiding their supplies.

The other candidate for FOB leadership was Flaming B but she was sent to Afghanistan to deal with the challenges there pertaining to recruitment and vehicle capture. It's good to see that she finally managed to nab us a missile guidance specialist to help the R&D team with the next phase of their shoulder mounted weapon research.

She even managed to locate a familiar face...

As acting commander I've continued to push forward with our deployments to improve our worldwide "espionage rank" and as of now we are rank 7801 which has surpassed our frenemy MEME.DADDY at 9755. Not bad given when he invaded he was around rank 10000 and we were just over 20000. Despite an active resistance at around the 15k mark, it's been smooth sailing. The current goal is to get us under rank 4500 to reach the highest tier. That's still a long way off as basically we'd need to double our current efforts just to reach it but with enough perseverance, we'll get there.

-Razor Hedge

Insight: Completing FOBs in fatigues gives a higher bonus (700) than completing them "naked" (50). You get 100 more points if you don't bring a back weapon/shield.

MGSV: Fog of Skulls

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Our FOB finally finished construction, just in time as the ghost platforms we were happily mining suddenly came under attack by the Skulls! Our men were getting slaughtered until the R&D team found a particularly effective gear combination to at least give us a fighting chance.

Since they like to "form up" upon finding an enemy, a field of C-4 is effective as an opening move if placed correctly - as is the Sevral anti-materiel rifle. While headshots are ideal, using the sniper rifle like a shotgun is equally effective. Then, should it run low or out of ammo, a Hail grenade launcher fires fast enough to finish off the severely weakened foes.

It feels good to counter those bastards.

Improving our hand to hand skills is also important, as learning the delay to counter a Skull machete can stun them long enough to get an extra shot or two in. While this load out isn't fool proof, as evidenced by continuing losses, it's at least balanced the scales against these supernatural foes - often forcing the Skulls to fall back to god knows where. I can only hope each victory to us hurts them bad enough that they withdraw from this campaign entirely.

-Ocelot

Insight: Soldiers with the "Gunman" trait are good for infiltration, but for an all out fight you are better going with "Tough Guy".

MGSV: The Nuclear League

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Attacking a high level PF turned out to be disastrous as we lost our operative to soldiers of superior training and high grade equipment. With the two that were KIA against Kill Count, that's our third loss and since that number is only going to go up I've authorized FOB assault teams to deploy ahead of our solo infiltrators. Backed by numbers and vehicles these squads severely reduce the defenses of any targeted FOB making infiltration as much as five times easier. On the flip side, around one fourth of the assault team is killed in each sortie.

Despite the losses our base is still filled to the brim with new recruits while our funds and resources skyrocket, especially from the higher tier PFs we raid - so much so that Mother Base is now complete and our FOB not far behind. While we run the risk of retaliation I've tasked the intel team with finding suitable "unmotivated" targets (who have stopped playing the game) to mitigate that. During their scans we found a PF of weaker strength, the "cyhlww", that held a pair of nukes. With no better time to live up to our mandate of disarmament, I sent an operative who successfully extracted the warheads and defeated the active invader.

However, before we could disarm both weapons at our FOB, our first active (player) intruder - MEME.DADDY - appeared. A skilled operative himself, he got past our defenses and managed to fulton one of the nukes out before being incapacitated by our own active defender. As it turns out, MEME.DADDY is also of the Anti-Nuclear task force and so I decided to ransom him back to his people who were more than happy to pay. As long as the nukes get disarmed, I don't think we'll have an issue with him.

FOB defended!

-Ocelot

Insight: Decoys are quite useful in FOB missions. When first inflated they can stun any enemy nearby and subsequently draw attention away from you if placed properly. A more violent option is C4 - which provides a big enough boom to draw attention in one direction.

MGSV: Kill Count

[Part of the MGS Diary]

The boss has really pushed for a lot of changes on the base, from silver paint we use on the platforms and new "Guns of Heaven" insignias to the new directive as our world status of "heroes" to find and disarm nukes from other private forces, or PFs as I like to call them. I'm a little concerned that he spends so much time in the incomplete medical wing, but otherwise it's business as usual.

Speaking of other private forces... the "Kill Count" PF seems to be a major threat at the moment with multiple high-value contracts out against them so I've been reassigned to muster our own FOB to organize assaults against them.

Our two best soldiers volunteered to go first, with "Razor Hedge"-hog (Rank S++) barely surviving his foray on their main platforms while "Flaming B"-uffalo (S+), currently our best female combat soldier, finding far more success on their proxy sites and gaining intel about ghost platforms (zero level security challenges). Impressed by her skill, the boss has reassigned her with a special mission in Afghanistan while the rest of our troops scouted these unguarded silos. It seems they are excellent places to train our soldiers as well as harvesting much needed fuel for our expansion. Razor has argued that attacking other PFs would be a faster resource gathering method however and one I'm becoming more inclined to try to speed up base expansion.

Girls have the "distraction" attire option too...

As it is with the limited space, I've already had to start dismissing the least capable of our troops - though I suppose that could be a good thing.

-Ocelot

Insight: Heavy machine guns are ideal for FOB missions - especially the ones with high level guards - as they have a lot of ammo and decent stopping power. You can also customize them to have a silencer, but don't count on that lasting too long. Note - if you don't want to kill people, shoot their legs to incapacitate them. You will then need to fulton them before they bleed out though.

MGSV: Big Boss

[Part of the MGS Diary]

Confident with my truth it is time to get things at the base back in order, starting with the traitor who mutated the virus and who helped Eli steal Sahelanthropus - Dr. Emmerich. While Miller calls for his blood I opt to exile him instead, knowing that fools like him are prone to suicide anyway.

Funnily enough it is revealed Dr. Emmerich was also behind Skull Face's attack on our base nine years ago after tricking Miller at that time too. With his failures mounting I opt to exile him as well and take his place as base commander.

As the intel team has located Eli and Sahelanthropus, I dispatch a whole squad of Diamond Dogs to deal with him once and for all - with helicopters, D-Walkers and  ZHUK missile trucks. He kills a number of them, but is eventually brought down by random S rank tough guy soldier, Bitter Gecko.

Metal Gear vs Walker Gear

The scrap is returned to base but Eli is nowhere to be found. I can only hope he died and burned in the wreckage because kids like that only grow up one way. They become snakes.

Insight: While the ZHUK missile salvo is cool, it is the fast firing auto cannon that really can tear Sahelanthropus apart - especially if aimed at his weak spots: the pod type things on his back, the shoulder ball, his core when he lifts his sword and his face. Destroying these all do bonus damage and stun the robot for a little while.

MGSV: A Real Snake

[Part of the MGS Diary]

I awaken to a squad of Diamond Dogs administering the snake anti-venom to save my life. Quiet is nowhere to be found. According to the crew, she broke her silence on the radio to direct the rescue chopper through the storm - activating the English strain of the virus. A tape recorded message she left behind indicates her plan to eliminate the threat she now carries, and she is never seen again.

The snake anti-venom has another side effect though - one that restores my memories. I am not the original Big Boss... that was Jack Bauer back at the hospital! Ocelot, who knew this whole time, explains that I am his secret "phantom" whom the world knows about while he works from the shadows.

Was I just a doppelganger?

Shaken by this, I decide to challenge myself on a few more missions to prove to myself that I am Big Boss - sometimes deploying with just my knife and fultons, and other times requiring total stealth to complete a task. In one of these sorties D-Dog is killed by an enemy gunship, and with Quiet gone I am forced to use D-Walker in a battle against a left over Skulls unit.

Turns out its speed and mounted gatling gun make for the perfect weapon against those freaks. It is only when I standing over their corpses than I confirm to myself that I am no phantom. I am... Big Boss!

Insight: In the subsistence mission where you need to take out a tank convoy, you can fulton them out. In "total stealth" ops, you only fail if the enemy sees -you-. Feel free to nuke everything from orbit and call for air support from a far.