The last thing the game brings is the ability and need to cure Snake’s ailments. By sorting through various menus, Snake would perform basic triage on himself by curing poisoning, broken bones, leeches, etc. Of course, to get to the medical screen did mean traversing through a few menus and holding some buttons, a little annoying and something players grew to despise, but if you played your cards right, you really didn’t have to do any of that except in scripted sequences. Anyway, back to the story.

Naked Snake is on his way to extract a nuclear scientist named Sokolov who apparently everyone wants for his newly designed weapons, a behemoth called the Shagohod, a nuclear equipped tank. It was the first Metal Gear if you didn’t get it.

Anyway, Sokolov solved the world’s problems of not being able to launch missiles far enough while being accurate. Thanks for that! It’s basically the ultimate weapon and once constructed, would mean the end of the Cold War. See why America and Russia want him so badly? Upon extracting him, things go horribly wrong. First, the Ocelot unit, headed by none other than Revolver… I mean Ocelot himself, get in the way. But, nothing Snake can’t take care of with CQC, it’s what comes next that really sucks.

While crossing the bridge to the extraction point, Snake and Sokolov are attacked by a swarm of bees, disoriented and preoccupied, a mysterious soldier slides down and nabs Sokolov. It turns out that The Boss has defected from the U.S. and has joined Colonel Volgin and his effort to over throw the Kremlin. Along with her, the Cobra Unit, an elite unit of soldiers that each are named for their emotion in battle, have joined up. It’s a match made in hell. The Boss then proceeds to beat up Snake, break his arm, and then throw him over the side of the bridge into the river below. Not before he could grab her bandana however! Origin of the bandana solved!

Anyway, Volgin then fires a recoilless nuclear warhead from a helicopter and blows up a Russian research facility, prompting an investigation by the Kremlin of the United States followed by threats of attacks upon the country. Now we can move on to the heart of things which I promise will be shorter than this was.