Metal Gear Solid/Headscratchers

Remember: Metal Gear Solid is not name of the series. This page is for Headscratchers concerning Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation and Nintendo GameCube. Put Headscratchers for the entire series on the Metal Gear Headscratchers page, or, if your Headscratcher is about something that only happened in one game, try one of the following pages:

Where and when exactly did Gray Fox get hold of the arm mounted laser cannon he uses to destroy Rex's radome? Firstly at no point was this weapon even alluded to until he comes to Snake's aid - Otacon or Natasha certainly won't mention it if you call them. Secondly he blatantly doesn't own the thing during your boss fight with him meaning he must have aquired it afterward from... the armoury? Alongside the Nikita in the nuclear storage building? both places have been explored completely before you fight him. Nowhere else on this base apparently stores small arms so keeping this gun anywhere else would be stupid in itself.
- Gray Fox is a sci fi futuristic cyborg ninja. Just because he didn't use the laser cannon in his fight against Snake doesn't mean he didn't have access to it at that point. He wanted to fight Snake fairly. Hand to hand. He spells this out during the fight. The reason he busts it out against Rex is because Rex is a different opponent, that he's not going to be able to fight hand to hand, or with a sword.
What was Solidus' motivation for shadow moses I mean at the end of MGS1 it is stated that Ocelot and Solidus are behind everything I mean what was going on in MGS1 what was the point.
- There's no specific source that really attacks this issue, but based on information from MGS4 For Solidus specifically, it's fairly obvious by now that he was being played by Ocelot all along. His motivations have always been clear - he was manipulated by the Patriots into office, but he had always resented their control and wanted to seize "liberty" for himself all along. REX was the weapon he likely planned on using as a bargaining chip to back the Patriots into a corner and cut them down, just as he did with Arsenal Gear in MGS2. He simply didn't realize the extent of what he was dealing with until it was too late. As for events of MGS1 as a whole, it's possible it has to do with Ocelot's masterminding and the deconstructive forces behind the breakdown of the Patriots. If Big Mama is to be believed, Big Boss' betrayal was the final straw for Zero. He lost his faith in humanity and chose to leave his legacy in the hands of an immortal AI, so that means by the time MGS1 rolls around, the AI structure is already in place thanks to the Y2K scare and other efforts on his part. It seems logical to assume that this would cause friction amidst the Patriots - after all, Eva had already formally left to create her own resistance, Paramedic/Dr. Clark was dead, Ocelot was working as a double-spy. So that leaves us with Donald Anderson, aka Sigint. It doesn't seem too far of a stretch to think he might have had his own motivations for aiding in the development of REX in an effort thwart Zero or otherwise. In addition, while Ocelot couldn't have predicted the far-reaching impact that leads to the events of MGS4, he certainly could have maneuvered much of the Moses mission in order to give himself a wild card. Ocelot's presence in the Patriots means that he would've known of the coming development of SOP - creating REX gave him a weapon that would be free of Patriot control. After all, why else would a nuclear walking tank be sitting around, functional and unused in an abandoned facility? The government isn't that negligent. Somebody must've worked it so that Shadow Moses was left buried for its potential use as a last resort. Mind you, this is just one fan's speculation, so the point is highly debatable.
- Solidus loves his daddy. Why wouldn't he want a Metal Gear unit ready and waiting for him just a faked death away? In addition, though the Shadow Moses incident destroyed his presidency (before the faked death part), it also ended the career of his Secretary of Defense. Secretary Houseman witnessed the births of the Les Enfants Terible and was close friends with one of the founders of the Patriots, and he was working in Sears' own office. When Solidus says he resented the Patriot's control over him, he very well might have been talking about this man, specifically.
Why does everyone, in MGS1 at least, call Solid Snake "Snake" and Liquid Snake "Liquid"?
- Snake was the original holder of the codename. Liquid got it later. Solid is the one everybody thinks of when they hear the word "snake" in soldier context.
Liquid Snake's plan in MGS1 requires Solid Snake's presence in order to activate Metal Gear REX. He then sticks the Fox Hound unit and the Genome Army in Snake's path. OK, he's got to keep the charade up to avoid suspicion, but isn't this going a bit far? Either Snake's going to die and his plan's a failure, or Fox Hound are going to get killed, which makes his whole "I want a world where warriors are respected" spiel seem a tad hypocritical.
- It's not hypocritical. It's believing that in order to make that world, sacrifices have to be made. Liquid and the others were willing to make that sacrifice.
- Could they have at least turned off the electric floor and gas? I don't see Snake saying "It's safe to walk on this floor? I must be doing their dirty work for them!"
- Or just kill Snake and take his PAL key?
  - Actually, that won't work. There was a specific way on getting using the PAL key (memory shape alloy) and only the chief knows how to open it. The bad guys figured that Snake will somehow know this, and he did, thanks to Otacon hacking the account of the chief and discovering how it can open.
  - Welcome to Metal Gear Solid. Actually, maybe the Microwave Scene in MGS4 was the faraway justification for that, since in that scene it's stated flat out that Liquid absolutely needed Snake to get through his killer hallway in order for his plan to work. I guess Liquid just feels like he's not being sneaky enough if Snake isn't being killed by a hallway.
    - MGS4 actually makes more sense, since Liquid had a back-up plan: the rail gun. In MGS1, he had nothing, and if Snake died, he was screwed.
  - Remember that Ocelot is a torture fanatic, as stated in MGS3 he feels a man only shows his true self when subjected to pain and fear of death. Forcing Snake to half kill himself to get to the objective is perfectly in character for him.
- Liquid's plan didn't HINGE on Snake finding the PAL key for him, he was just simply killing two birds with one stone. He knew he had to find the key, and he also knew that Snake was coming and would royally ruin his shit. Instead of diverting everyone's attention between looking for the key and holding off Snake, he decided to let Snake look for the key instead while FOXHOUND tried to kill him, eliminating one of their burdens. If they killed Snake, fine. Now they can look for the key in peace. If Snake finds the key, awesome. Let him come and turn on REX like an idiot.
Okay, so the genome soldiers are supposedly all super soldiers enhanced with Big Boss' genes, yet they can't see past 6 feet in front of them, can easily be distracted ("whose footprints are these?!"), fall asleep while on duty, don't seem to be much tougher than a normal human and are in fact very weak compared to other characters in those games and apparently can't even stop a nerdy guy like Otacon, who has no fighting or sneaking skills (sorry but the camo combination doesn't explain everything. Knowing him, he must bump into loads of noisy crap or even into soldiers, which would blow his cover) from freely roaming through their base. What sense does it make?! Real life Soldiers are a bigger threat than these supposedly "enhanced" ones!
- Gameplay and Story Segregation. If you were up against enemies who were on par with what normal people could see, hear, and do, the game would have been impossible because they would have spotted Snake in his black sneaking suit against the white snow, and filled him full of lead right when he got off the elevator.
  - Not only that, but there were more limitations on AI back on the PS 1 on 1998 due to hardware and software. But yeah, in-story, they are supposed to be better than real soldiers, even if it doesn't seem like it in gameplay.
  - There is also the possibility that Snake is just that good. The Genome soldiers are the fastest, smartest, toughest soldiers ever... it just doesn't seem that way from our perspective because we're controlling the most legendary mercenary alive. Kind of like how Krillin is one of the strongest guys in the universe until you stand him alongside Super Saiyan 3 Goku.
- As for Otacon, he is pretty smart, even if he does get scared easily. Combined with his camo and a little luck, it isn't unreasonable that he was able to plan and execute his way around guards and so on for a few hours.
- Of course, since it was all a ploy to get Snake to activate REX, they might have been doing it deliberately.
So...what happens if you use autofire during the torture scene in MGS1 anyway?
- Nothing special. Ocelot won't know it.
- I've heard conflicting accounts. Some say he is bluffing and the game can't tell if you are using autofire, others say if the game detects an unlikely high amount of button presses in a short time, and others say that if you use a controller which is older than the game it can tell if you are using autofire but that's not the case for controllers made after the game. If he CAN tell, you are supposed to get a game over. I have no idea what is true for what version, though.
In MGS1 they said that a railgun-launched nuke would be impossible to track, because there would be no exhaust. I'm pretty sure that the air resistance from firing a shell into orbit would generate at least as much heat as just using a rocket.
- Most of the mass of a missile holds the fuel, while the railgun whould just fire the warheads. So it's possible the warhead couldn't be tracked due its small size, though you're right about air resistance.
If Psycho Mantis is so disgusted by sex, why does he dress in bondage gear?
- Strictly speaking, he's disgusted by the fact that sex is what everyone thinks about all the time. (Incidentally, artbooks reveal that he is... pierced.)
  - I always though Psycho Mantis was wearing a prototype version of the FOXHOUND Skull Suit. Not only is he in the correct organization but Raiden's version also has a mask.
On behalf of one of my friends who just played MGS1 for the first time: Just a minor quibble, but does Meryl know who Liquid is (and his relationship to Snake) at the start of MGS1?
- She does seem to know who Liquid is (she notes that Snake looks almost identical to him...), but she doesn't know his relationship to Snake (...but she says it in a way that implies she doesn't know Liquid has any relatives or BBBBBROOOTHER's)
On the back of the box for "The Twin Snakes", it says, "Two of the greatest games of all time, Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty are fused together to form the Nintendo Game Cube classic Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes". Obviously, this is not the case. Why does it say this when there's only one game?
- It is making reference to the gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 2 being infused with Metal Gear Solid, they both have the same general controls now. It is NOT saying that Twin Snakes has both Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 on a single disc.