Walkthrough

Stage 01: Lobito Laboratory - Outside Gate

Make Your Way Inside the Lab Through the North Gate

Alright, it's Snake's first big mission since whatever his last mission was! Time to get under way.

Now, you're going to have to get into the north gate here somehow. Unfortunately, the guard stationed in front of it doesn't move...but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

We're not kidding when we say that the card system that MGS:A uses is a bit confusing at first glance, so feel free to make an immediate in-mission save by hitting X when you have a hand of cards and selecting System - Save. This will boot you out to the main menu, but you can immediately get back to where you were by hitting the Continue button. This will help if you manage to supremely screw something up here, and it's easy to do so when dealing with the guard at the gate.

First, though, we should find some easier prey and get a taste for killing. Head up the road to the north, then take the eastern path when it turns and start heading to the southeasternmost building on this map. Almost any card can be used for movement, but try to select cards with low Cost, such as Boxes and Rations, whenever possible. If you have weapon cards in your hand, then you'll want to save one or two of them for attack purposes, so be sure not to use all of them up in movement.

There's a single guard in front of the southeastern building. He doesn't move and doesn't turn around at all, making him a perfect target for our first kill. If you walk up beside him and face him, then you should be able to use either a SOCOM, FAMAS, or Cyborg Ninja card to dispose of him without a sweat. Killing soldiers doesn't cause them to be alerted to your presence, luckily, although they will obviously go into alert mode if they survive your fire and get back up (which is unlikely when firing at this extremely close range).

With this soldier out of the way, you can move to the door of this building and grab the MGS1 Pack inside. Each of these packs will net you three random cards from the classic Metal Gear Solid game for the Playstation after you complete the mission. There are three of them in total on this map, although you're best off only getting two of them, for reasons that will become clear shortly.

Getting To The Gate

When you have the first MGS1 Pack in your greasy little hands, start moving to the two buildings to the northwest, each of which has another pack inside it. . Note the positions of the three guards around this area. There's one that paces between the two buildings, another that's motionless near the truck to the east, and the gate guard himself. If you want to check and see how far each of these guys can see. The guard between the buildings is obviously not going to be able to see much beyond the corridor he's in, but the gate guard is capable of seeing up to full four squares directly in front of him, including the entrance to the northern building here, making it unlikely that you can get in there without distracting him away from his position. In our opinion, it's not worth bothering with the northern building's pack. It is, however, a simple matter to get inside the southern building and grab the pack there, since none of the guards can ever have eyes on the doorway leading in unless you alert them ahead of time.

When you have the pack in the southern building, head to the door and step one tile out of it, looking north. Wait for the guard to walk to the western end of the corridor between the buildings, then get behind him and shoot him with one of your weapons or attacks. Attacks deal more damage when they hit your target from behind or from the side, so any of your attacks should be able to off this guard without a problem.

With the guard between the buildings out of the way, all that's left is to distract or kill the guard at the gate. In order to do so, you'll first want to distract him away from his post by knocking on a wall. The best technique for doing this is to flatten yourself against the northern side of the northernmost building here, preferably on the western edge of that wall, then end your turn. When you have a fresh turn, you can knock on the wall (which doesn't require any cost or use up a movement card, since you can select it from the X menu), then run to the north east and hide behind the western guard tower of the gate. If you End your turn a few times until the gate guard's turn pops up, he should run past you to check out the corner, allowing you to run around the pillar and into the gate.

Now, you can kill this guard, but it's extremely tough to do so without getting mangled. He's got Ceramic Armor on which will absorb the first 80 or so damage that he takes, meaning that even a Claymore mine will bounce off of them without leaving a scratch. If you're deadset on killing him without setting off an alarm, then you'll need to lure him over to the corner of the building here and do as much damage as you can to him in a turn. If you've got an Action + card in your hand, now would be a good time to use it, since it'll let you make an extra card action each turn for ten turns, and thus let you use as many as three attack cards on the guard in a single turn. One theoretical sequence of actions would be to lay down a Claymore facing south on one of the tiles adjacent to the northern building, then knock on the wall next to it; this will lure the guard over the mine, which will blow him into the wall (and thus prevent the vicious knockback effect that might knock him backwards and away from you if he ran into the mine straight on) and deal 20% more damage to him, since it'll be facing his side when he runs over it. This won't be enough to kill him, so he'll still be able to get up and will probably spot you anyway, which will result in a large point deduction at the end of the mission, but you'll be able to finish him off with one of your other weapon or attack cards. The only way to really kill him without being Found, so far as we can tell, is to lure him over with a knock and then use a Cyborg Ninja card on him from behind, which slices through his armor and will always kill him in one blow. If you don't have one of them available, then it's best to just avoid him altogether and get to the gate to end the mission. If you can kill him, though, feel free to walk into the northern building here and grab the last MGS1 pack before heading out through the gate to end the mission.