Kept you waiting, huh? Let's Play Snake's Revenge!

Oh whoa hey dudes, it's my first-ever Let's Play. Technically speaking, anyway. I would like to promise that it's going to be amazing and insightful and teach you crazy things you never knew about the game it covers, but this guarantee is impossible for me to make! For you see, I will be let's-playing the second chapter of the Metal Gear saga. No, not Metal Gear 2. I mean Snake's Revenge.


Of course, you know the terrifying true story behind Snake's Revenge. Metal Gear was designed by plucky young auteur-in-the-making Hideo Kojima for the MSX computer back in 1987 or thereabouts. Knowing it would sell a lot more on Famicom/NES, Konami had a bunch of other dudes port the game. While they did an admirable job of keeping Metal Gear's spirit intact -- the game was designed around the MSX's sprite and scrolling limitations, meaning most of its interesting mechanics were technically unnecessary on the NES but nevertheless integral to the experience -- they omitted a few essentials. You know, like the enemy mech that gave the game its name in the first place. It was kind of a janky port, really.

But we didn't know that back then. Which means we NES kids in America thought it was great and enjoyed it for what it was. We enjoyed it so much, in fact, that Konami decided it would be a brilliant move to develop a sequel to the game specifically for American (and European) NES players without bothering to trouble Kojima about it. And thus: Snake's Revenge. The second Metal Gear game. Never released in Japan, never published on MSX.

That can't possibly be a good sign, right? Right.

Here's the thing about my relationship with Snake's Revenge: I don't have much of one. I loved Metal Gear on NES, and I knew nothing of its heritage. And excited as I was about the prospect of a sequel, I just couldn't bring myself to buy Snake's Revenge. I remember deliberating long and thoughtfully one night at Toys R Us on how to spend the $40 I had saved up for a new NES game. Did I want the sequel to a brilliant game I loved, or did I want to risk the unknown quantity of Code Name: Viper? Snake's Revenge seemed the right choice, but something about the whole thing felt off. Maybe it was the screenshot of a side-scrolling action sequence on the back of the box. Maybe it was the attribution of revenge to the hero conflicting with the knowledge I took away from Return of the Jedi's mid-production title change, that good guys don't seek revenge. Maybe the tiny time-traveling core of my brain, the one everyone uses to look into the future to predict outcomes for important decisions, sent me unconscious impulses that this was a fake Metal Gear game. But whatever the case, I picked up Code Name: Viper instead. And a few weeks later, when I rented Snake's Revenge, I knew I'd made the right choice.


And now, 20 years later, I'm back to finish what I started. It's time to put a stop to Higharolla Kockamamie's Ultra-Sheik Nuclear Attack Tank.

Yes, that's really the name of the bad guy, according to the manual. Sigh.

Unfortunately, this mission is still in the planning stages, as the next three weeks will see me covering PAX and Tokyo Game Show and not having much time for bumbling stealth. Snake will take his ignoble revenge, but it probably won't commence until late September. Look forward to it.

I've always been curious about this game but never took the time to check it out. Now I get to spare myself the apparent pain.

Only if you promise that it will be amazing and insightful and teach me the power of love.

Y'see? This is why I love Konami games from the early 90s; word play so excruciatingly godawful that it loops back around to being sublime.

Better than that, I'm gonna do my best to reinsert this game into Metal Gear canon.

It was all a VR simulation made by the Mk. II to brainwash Sunny (who is the disembodied memory of Benjamin Franklin) into activating the Zanzibar Protocol which will resurrect the nanites from the Shagohod so Ocelot can ride in the carpool lane for patriotism.

This is really all one needs to insert something into the Metal Gear canon.

That, or a cutaway to a big animated pic of Snake sleeping, implying it was all a dream before his next mission. Hey, it worked for Super Mario Bros. 2.

I don't remember too much about this game, and I never beat it, so I'm looking forward to this.

There you go.

Elaborate training maze constructed on a giant ship in the middle of the ocean.

If that doesn't work, you can always re-insert this game into Metal Gear's cannon instead.

Did somebody mention Metal Gear canon?

The wordplay suggests that Snake's Revenge might be a continuation of the alternate "Ultra" continuity, which pits Solid Snake (under orders from a mysterious "Commander South") against the crazed terrorist Vermon CaTaffy who appropriately enough is never seen or mentioned in the game itself.
This is from the same manual that refers to the cartridge as a cassette (I guess it is, technically?) and the NES as "your computer".

Not to mention "The mission finally ends when you die. Or when you win."

The most succinct and accurate description of a video game ever.

Both Snake's Revenge and the NES version of Metal Gear actually make no mention of all the insane Reaganomique gibberish found in their manuals. Higharolla Kockamamie isn't in this game any more than "Jagger Froid" is in Super C.

Wasn't Jagger Froid the giant skull-critter in level 6?

Have.... have I been lying to myself for 20 years?

TELL ME, KISHI!

The answer is...

Oh—yes. It's yes.

"Yes, he's the skull-dude", or "Yes, everything you thought you knew was wrong"

Please be more clear. I.... I don't know if my heart can take it.

Oh my god, this user exists.

You are Al Yankovic in 1996.

Obvious exits are West, South, and Polka Cover of Contemporary Hits.

Cause it took so long to bake it, and you'll never have that recipe agaaaaaain?

oh crap I thought I was posting in that "worst songs ever" thread.

Uh, "it was another mission Snake went on before Metal Gear 2". There, done.

Oh yeah, that. Probably just another clone. Or he cheated death twice.

Always enjoy the LPs of painful NES games. I look forward to your pain.

The thing that always bothered me about this was the Shy Guys later appearing in games with that weren't a dream. Did Mario make them real through the power of imagination?

Or was it only kind of a dream like the second phase of the Hitchhiker's radio show?

Mario was dreaming about all the shyguy ass he kicked in the totally real adventure the day before.

No, they really exist, it's just that Wart had figured out the whereabouts of the third Warp Whistle. Super Mario Bros. 2 is really about Mario, Luigi, Toadstool, and Toad making a realistic dream for Wart that they can enter to steal that knowledge without him knowing it. Getting a game over means your character is stuck in Limbo.

The plan was pretty elaborate; they had a second layer to the dream, even. This level was much weirder, with Wart finding himself as a professional singer, going by the name of Mamu.

Without Mario 2, there would have only been two Warp Whistles in Mario 3.

The final boss of Snake's Revenge is actually Gaseous Snake, the little known fourth clone of Big Boss. Gaseous is Solidus' counterpart, so he got all the shitty genes.

He also got all of Liquid's hand-me-downs, such as his shitty jeans.

What do you mean, this isn't the worst jokes thread?

Well played. To reference that very song, let's just pretend Snake stepped into an alternate dimension and did all the events of Snake's Revenge without even knowing it wasn't real. And maybe the main bad guy also looked like Jamie Farr.

I think there's a ton of evidence that instruction manuals in the late 80s/early 90s had a lot of made-up stuff inside. Many localization teams had no time to write something in the instruction manual even remotely relevant to the game - there needed to be copy on something, anything! Get this crap out the door!

Anyway, I approve of the name Higharolla Kockamamie. Just because.

Looking forward to the LP!