Metal Gear Solid 4 character countdown: The women of Metal Gear

We have several weeks left before we finally get our hands on Konami Digital Entertainment’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and the home stretch of the waiting period is killing us. To keep you preoccupied, we decided to feature some of the key characters of the game on a weekly basis to freshen our memories on their roles in the series. This week, we’ve got a special edition because we’re featuring the most notable women in the Metal Gear series!

Welcome to the fifth week of QJ.NET’s Metal Gear Solid 4 Character Countdown. The launch of Konami Digital Entertainment’s potential master class Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is less than a month away, and we’re almost on the home stretch of our article series.

In previous posts, we’ve taken an in-depth look back at such MGS series stalwarts as Liquid Ocelot, Vamp, Otacon, and Roy Campbell. On the fifth post, we decided that it’s time to get in touch with the feminine side of things, so we came up with this special edition of the character countdown. This week, we’re featuring not one, not two, not even three characters. We’re talking girls galore because this week we’ve got the women of Metal Gear! Let’s get started right away.

Meryl Silverburgh

Meryl is the cute, short-haired rookie side-kick and love interest to Solid Snake introduced during the events of the first MGS. Snake is briefed in his mission that the niece of his commanding officer Col. Roy Campbell, was assigned to the Shadow Moses military base and weapons research facility. It was here where Liquid Snake and FOXHOUND led a mutiny to blackmail the US government. Snake was told that Meryl refused to join the movement and was held captive in a cell.

Being the green yet resourceful soldier that she is, Meryl tricks prison guard Johnny Sasaki into going inside her holding cell where she knocks him cold and strips him naked of his uniform. She then disguises herself as a Genome Soldier and blends in with the enemy until her encounter with Snake.

Meryl’s first encounter with Snake wasn’t exactly a romantic one as she mistook the hero for Liquid Snake and sneaked up on him. However, we all know that Snake has a sixth sense for detecting battlefield experience, and easily takes Meryl to school with some trash talk and slick moves.

Snake is later instructed by Campbell to find Meryl and cooperate with her to stop Liquid’s plot dead in its tracks either by destroying Metal Gear REX or by overriding the detonation sequence of REX’s nuclear warheads. The keys are in Meryl’s possession, which many of us remember because all this happens in the classic washroom cutscene.

If for some crazy reason you missed out on this cutscene, we found the remade version from MGS: Twin Snakes just for you. This one’s real good as it gives you everything from Snake’s philosophical speak about war, to some flirtation tactics that you may later find useful in life. Watch:

After this cutscene, the pair set off and do battle with the likes of FOXHOUND members Psycho Mantis and Sniper Wolf. In the Sniper Wolf fight, Meryl is critically wounded and is captured by the enemy. The same is true for Snake, who later undergoes torture at the hands of revolver Ocelot.

The torture sequence determines which fate Meryl ends up in. If Snake is able to resist, the “true” ending is obtained and Meryl will be found alive to be whisked off to safety. If the player gives in to the Ocelot torture, Meryl is found dead and is later revealed to be Campbell’s biological daughter from an affair with his sister-in-law.

Meryl doesn’t appear in the sequels and prequels that followed MGS, but has been confirmed for a return trip aboard MGS4. In the latest installment, she’s depicted as the leader of a new FOXHOUND team formed for the purpose of fighting Liquid Ocelot’s PMC movement. She uses her trusty Desert Eagle, and employs the SOP nanomachine system to command her squad in battle.

From what we’ve seen in trailers, Meryl didn’t seem to have aged much since we last saw her. If anything, she’s looking better than ever. Here’s hoping for more “classic” encounters with her. Perhaps in a washroom, if possible.

EVA

One of the big surprise returning characters in MGS4 has to be EVA from MGS3. The seductive blonde from the Cold War era is now known as “Big Mama”, and will play the part of a mother figure if comments from Konami’s Ryan Payton are to be believed.

EVA first appeared in MGS3: Snake Eater as “Sokolov’s woman”. It was later revealed that this was a mere cover as she was a double agent working for different countries. Her disguise as Tatyana was used to infiltrate Colonel Volgin’s stronghold in an effort to steal the Philosopher’s Legacy. All the while, she masqueraded as a KGB operative who supported Naked Snake (Big Boss) in his mission to clear America’s name and terminate The Boss.

However, it was revealed in the latter parts of MGS3 that EVA was actually a spy working for the Philosophers in the People’s Republic of China. She was able to land Snake in bed in the ending, seemingly falling in love with him, and stole from Snake the microfilm that contains the Legacy’s location. She was also tasked to assassinate Snake, but she intentionally did not do the job out of good faith to her promise to The Boss.

EVA ended up grabbing the wrong microfilm as Ocelot was able to snatch the real one and switch a fake replacement into Snake’s suit in their last CQC sequence in the escape plane. America ended up finding the Legacy and EVA was fired by her Chinese masters.

In the MGS3 epilogue, you’ll find out that EVA was later presumed dead. Of course, we all know better than to believe that. In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, it was revealed that she was able to escape the Chinese branch of the Philosophers and she ended up in Hanoi, Vietnam where she worked as a pilot. In the same game, she could be unlocked as a recruitable character, then a cutscene where she and Big Boss reconcile is shown.

Before we end our discussion of EVA, we want to let you in on what this hot chick dreams of. We won’t tell you. We’ll show you. Watch this:

Naomi Hunter

Naomi was first introduced in MGS as the head medic of FOXHOUND and the inventor of Snake’s sneaking suit. She was part of Snake’s Codec support team during the Shadow Moses crisis, offering advice on a variety of different areas.

Behind the pretty face, however, lurks a dark past for Naomi. It was revealed in the Shadow Moses incident that she’s actually the adopted sister of Frank Jaeger. As many of you may recall, Jaeger is the man also known as Gray Fox, Snake’s enemy in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. He’s also revealed to be the man under the exoskeleton of the Cyborg Ninja.

Naomi’s family name has an interesting backstory about it. Jaeger is actually German for the word “hunter.” After Frank’s “death” in the Zanzibar Lands, Naomi took on the name and became part of FOXHOUND’s support crew with a secret vendetta in mind.

Naomi is also credited for inventing FoxDie, a programmable virus which was injected into every member of FOXHOUND along with other important personalities such as President Baker. FoxDie can be set to strike at any given time, and its only symptom is a sudden, heart attack-like death to its victims.

Solid Snake and his twin, Liquid Snake, are also afflicted with the virus. While everyone thought that the two Snakes who had the same genetic code would die by FoxDie at the same time, the case was apparently not so. Liquid was ultimately struck by it, while Solid and the third Snake, Solidus, stayed alive. It was later revealed by Naomi that Solid’s FoxDie was assigned a random trigger date value, and would strike at an unknown time.

In the Tokyo Game Show 2007 trailer of MGS4, Naomi is shown sending a transmission asking for Old Snake to rescue her. She’s being pursued by Liquid because of her knowledge of FoxDie, which is a possible threat to his Insurrection.

She’s also seen at the end of the same trailer with a little girl whom she grooms. The girl then talks about her mother whose name she says is Olga. It’s likely that this is the same Olga from MGS2 who assumed the role of the Ninja under orders from The Patriots.

Mei Ling

Over to the brighter and cuter side of things, we’ve got the Shadow Moses mission’s data analyst. Yep, it’s none other than everyone’s favorite saving point person Mei Ling.

Mei Ling is an MIT graduate who specializes in programming and electronics. She was the inventor of Solid Snake’s radar which could detect enemies in the immediate vicinity of the user. She also developed the wireless codec which we all know and love because of the many useful and entertaining things it brings.

In a Codec conversation, players will find out that Mei Ling originally wanted to become a pilot, but because of her poor eyesight she was immediately disqualified. This is a real shame, because it’s been mentioned that she has superb BDA (Battlefield Damage Assessment) skills.

Metal Gear Solid 2 sorely missed Mei Ling as it was revealed that she was operating from within the US Military to procure weapons and other gear for the Philanthropy movement. She does make a short cameo of sorts as she corrects Otacon in his Chinese proverb delivery to Snake, but that was just about it for her.

Good thing for her fans that she’s set for a comeback in MGS4. Now this blogger knows we’ve yet to see the cute whiz in HD, but her Japanese voice actress did confirm it in one interview.

That’s about all the space we have for the women of Metal Gear. Join in again next week as we cover the biggest characters in the bunch.

Article originally posted May 16, 2008 at 1:14 p.m.