There was always one particular part of the original NES Metal Gear that always bothered me. About a quarter of the way into the game, you purposely get captured in order to rescue Grey Fox. Shortly after leaving his cell, you enter a room where you can either head to the right or attempt to go through a door on the north side of the room. The door on the north seemingly wouldn’t open no matter what key card you attempted to open it with. I would later chock this up to being a door put in the game that never opens and leave it at that.
“This door doesn’t open, It just must have been put in there!” – A young Mike Mertes.
If you’ve actually completed Metal Gear yourself though, you know that the door does open and it leads you from one of the most important plot elements of the game. Now I thought I completed Metal Gear as well, but upon thinking about it; there were several things that didn’t add up. One was the door of course, but the major element I never remember doing in the game was destroying the master computer that controlled Metal Gear. Doing so requires you to place plastic explosives in a certain order on the computer to shut it down and begin the self-destruct sequence on the base. I never remember doing that, but instead I figured out that there was a way to get into the next room by discovering a hidden door on the right side of the room. I couldn’t remember what was exactly involved to make it appear, but for whatever reason I was able to bypass that sequence and fight the final boss. It become clear to me at this point that I must of reached a point in the game that I couldn’t progress any further and some how used a password to progress or I simply managed to break the game some how by trying everything else. Checking speed runs on the game, it seems I discovered how to utilize a bug that would allow you to glitch into the next room and finish the game. Even as a young kid I was figuring out how to exploit bugs in games, apparently!
Saving the good Doctor and his daughter. This portion can be skipped if you check speed runs!
Just a few weeks ago, I decided to fire up the game on my Retron 5 and these mysteries from the past suddenly revealed itself from my memory. Little did my 8 year old self know back in the day that there was a maze sequence you encountered towards the end of the game that would lead you to a secret prison building in the game. This building contained the actual designer of the Metal Gear, the man’s daughter and the sequence needed to destroy the computer controlling Metal Gear. The final shocking revelation was that this building was connected to the mystery door that I assumed never opened nor went anywhere! With this portion of the game completed and the info collected to destroy the computer; I finished the game properly. What a strange feeling to have though, thinking that you finished a game in its entirety; only to find out years later that you finished it by breaking the game with a bug!
Operation “INTRUDE N313” completed in its entirety.