Last time we made the jump to the cinema, and now we're jumping into the world of literature with Raymond Benson as we talk about the official Metal Gear Solid novelization! You'd think we wouldn't have much to say, but you'd be wrong! We've got lots to say about what makes this novel a fun read and all the interesting adaptation choices Benson made.

We've gone to the movies to watch John Carpenter's 1981 classic, Escape from New York. We talk about all the ways in which this movie rules. We dissect and identify all the obvious and less obvious ways the movie influence the Metal Gear series.

We perform our due diligence by playing through the two DLC missions for MGR. Both are pretty inoffensive outside of some bad platforming and some S-Rank Metal Gear style horniness, so there's not too much to dive into in terms of story or characters. Thankfully Danny assembled some very thought provoking questions to get us thinking through our feelings about the Metal Gear Solid series as a whole, including the very important question: who would you want in your dream and nightmare blunt rotations?

Now that we've officially finished all the main Metal Gear Solid games, it's time to make good on our promise to play through the infamously ridiculous Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. We talk through our varying feelings about the combat, level design, the memes, and how much the characters and storytelling live up to our expectations from the main series.

We've done it! We've finished the Metal Gear Solid games. Time to wrap things up as we say goodbye to Quiet (questioning why we were supposed to be ashamed of words and deeds in the first place in the process), learning the truth (that we totally already knew) about Venom Snake, and hearing for the first time in a long time from our ol' pal Zero.

With the Skull Face taken care of, it's time to direct our attention towards Mother Base. Like finding out what sort of shady stuff Eli and the child soldiers are up to (and also thinking about what they could have been up to if the development team got more time to make this game), and learning about just how awful Huey Emmerich really is. Oh, and Master Miller's busy trying to break into the food industry.

31 missions/episodes later, we've come to the end of Chapter 1 of The Phantom Pain. It's time to get to the bottom of what's happening with the virus with the help of a new (but also very old) ally, confront Skull Face via the back of a jeep, and put a stop to Sahelanthropus, but not so much of stop that we can't bring it home to Mother Base when we're done.

So last time we rescued a bunch of child soldiers. Now, what MGS character do we know was a child soldier around this time. That's right! It's Eli. You know, Eli. Or perhaps you know him by his other name: The White Mamba. No? Well that's ok. No time to worry about him anyway because now everyone on Mother Base is dying of a mystery virus, so we should probably try to sort that out first.

Last time we saw the return of Huey and Paz. Now it's time for the return of another MGS icon: child soldiers. After we rescue some of those, it's off to a reunion with Skull Face which gets rudely interrupted by The Man on Fire and baby Psycho Mantis. Luckily, they've decided to fight us in an area conveniently filled with many water sources to douse him with.

Episode 43: [Cowboy Voice] Boss...

With Quiet locked up on Mother Base, we can now do the thing we were trying to in the first place: extract Huey from Cipher's Afghanistan base. Maybe in all the time since Ground Zeroes he's chilled out a bit. Maybe he regrets his involvement in all of that. Or you know, maybe he sucks more than ever. Let's find out! All of that plus an unexpected (and undeserved) reunion with someone else from Ground Zeroes. Who could it be?

Episode 42: Portable Ops Nation