Well, the ass safari was less than I had hoped. Meryl will literally run away if she spots you, not to mention, her footsteps sound different than the other guards. A shame.

Meryl runs off to the bathroom and we are treated to a nice long scene of character development. Meryl claims to have wanted to be a soldier all her life after seeing and hearing of heroes like her uncle, Campbell, and Solid Snake, soldiers who are soldier and not the genetically modified soldiers of FOXHOUND. Snake claims he is no hero (a theme we will see more of). Regardless, Meryl wants to help Snake. Snake is reluctant at first, but agrees since Meryl tells Snake to shoot her if she slows him down. She pulls out a Level 5 key card and says the next area we need to get to is the Commanders Office. Off we go!

The guards have all gone for some reason. The strange haunting music that was playing before has also stopped. All is quiet. We enter into a long hallway, and the music is back. A strange, haunting hymn like chorus. Meryl runs in front of us, and falls to the ground. The screen starts flashing, and the perspective keeps changing. Meryl suddenly stands back up, and in a hollow voice claims to be okay. Her voice sounds as if its behind a mask.

"Come on Mr. FOXHOUND. The Commander is waiting."

We enter the room and the door locks behind us. Meryl seems to lose her mind, raising her gun to us.

"How do you like me Snake?"

"Make love to me Snake! Hurry!"

Snake sees a man in a gas mask floating behind her.

"What? You don't like girls?" the man asks.

Well, we need to subdue Meryl before doing anything else. Preferably in a non-lethal way, requests Campbell. We unleash a few punching combos and knock her out. The floating man in the gas mask finally reveals himself as, Psycho Mantis. Now we let him read our saves, deaths, alerts, and memory card. Mantis tells me that I am "a highly skilled warrior well suited to the stealth mission." He obviously does not read this blog. And with nothing on my memory card, he moves on to shaking my controller. Thank you Dualshock 3. Thats it for the demonstration. Time to fight.

The Mantis fight is a very strange, meta fight. The first thing we need to do is a fun controller trick, otherwise he will dodge every single one of our attacks. The screen will go black at this time, and the word, "HIDEO" appears in the top right corner. Mantis has a few attacks. For one of them, he goes invisible, and appears in areas of the room to throw some sort of energy blast at me. Another attack is picking up furniture and spinning them around in a giant circle. He will also flat out just throw crap at you too. One trick to find him sometimes is to go into first person mode. The perspective will be from his, and not yours.

This fight is as simple as just dodging his attacks and popping a round off in his face in between his attacks. After a while, he will again, take over Meryl. Same drill as before. We knock her out. Mantis commends us for being highly skilled. It takes skills to beat up women in the MGS universe apparently. Failing at his plan twice now, Mantis now orders Meryl to shoot herself. We stop this from happening, again by beating Meryl up, and Mantis takes things to the next level, again. Now we use the first person perspective to spot him as he no longer removes his cloak except to throw things at us. A few more shots, and he down for good.

Now for a codec call. We reassure Campbell that Meryl is safe. Naomi claims that the effects of the mind control will wear off. Then in a passive aggressive manner, Naomi asks Snake why bothered to save Meryl when he has killed tons of others of people. Mantis tells us the way to get to Metal Gear, claiming that Snake has no past, no future, and no hope. He is helping Snake, because Snake is just like him. Mantis then drops that he did not agree with the Boss' revolution. He just joined up to kill as many people as he could. Snake, is worse than the Boss he says, and says Snake is a monster compared to himself. It also seems Meryl has fallen for Snake, but there may be no future together for the two. Mantis then opens a secret door for us, and claims it was the first time he had ever helped someone.

Now for Meryl to have a crises of doubt. Snake threatens to leave her behind, and she quickly regains control. She then pushes snake about what Mantis said about him. She drops the issue and asks Snake his name.

"A name means nothing on the battlefield."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to know what death looks like."

"Any family?"

"No, but I was raised by many people."

"Anyone you like?"

"I've never been interested in anyone else's life."

"...You're a sad lonely man."

And with that line, we end Part 4. Psycho Mantis is an extremely memorable villain and was just awesome to experience the first time around. His theme song is haunting, and matches him perfectly. The first time I ever did his battle, I did not know the controller trick. I died enough that Campbell eventually called me and told me what to do. It was funny and sad. Like this playthrough.