Solid Sun — South America

During the briefing you can pilot the Mk. II around the Nomad for carry-over items — optional collectible hunting only.

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• Go prone and crawl to the cliff edge for a view of the PMC execution below. Blend with OctoCamo before sniping or you're spotted. Drop each PMC with rifle + night vision, then wait out the follow-up wave (watch the nearest house, then further down).
• Drop down and search the houses with night vision on:
  • First house: Stun Grenades, ammo, Playboy.
  • Next house (to Snake's right from the cliff, the only one on that side): V-Ring ammo, the South American Rebel disguise, and the Muna (slow Psyche recovery).
  • Barn beside the ruined house: Pentazemin, and a Ration up the ladder. Turn around for the SVD sniper rifle across a gap — run, roll (X), then mash Triangle to grab and pull up.
  • Last intact house: a track, ammo, and Smoke Grenades under the porch. The Twin Barrel and M10 can also drop from dead rebels later.
• Move out right into the open valley. Snipe PMCs with night vision (or close in with the Mk. 2), climbing ledges to the upper trails. Dead PMCs may carry the G3A3.
• Past a small hut, a Codec call. Follow the rebels up as they hit more PMCs, past a cabin with ammo, then right through the valley to the next area.

• Codec call, then advance with the rebels. Stay left, take the opening on the right, stay low and snipe the two snipers on the ledge ahead. Cross right. The PMC-vs-rebel firefight is endless, so only silence what you must and hug the right wall — a Ration sits in a small basin, and a trail leads up the cliff to another Ration and a mortar you can fire on the PMCs.
• Drop down and follow the station perimeter, watching the enemies on the left. At the gap in the left gate, drop two PMCs from range and enter — an MP7 drops nearby. The building holds a Ration and C4; wait for the rebels to blow the generator if you like. Continue along the perimeter for a cutscene.

Down the road you pick a route to the Confinement Facility. Left is a quieter entry with fewer PMCs and a shortcut option; right drops you into the action near good loot. This guide takes left now, then doubles back to sweep the facility and countryside.

• Take the left path (rebels tag along if the power station blew). The key find here is the XM8 carbine under a small wooden roof. Continue, handling PMCs, into the next area.

You arrive at a rocky junction: left = prison + mine-shaft shortcut, right = the facility. Do both.

• Left first. Stay on the rocks, onto the high ridge, follow it to the prison (small buildings + guard tower). Snipe several PMCs from the ridge, slip in, and take the guard in the first building's doorway to free the prisoners — they help clear the rest. The prime target is the VSS silenced sniper rifle, in the room in the building with a hole in the floor. The road past the prison is the mine-shaft shortcut — ignore it and go all the way back.
• The big countryside/bog area (what you'd have seen from the right fork): cross the creek, up the hill to the road, clear PMCs to the sandbag barricade nearest the road — the item box there is the FIM-92A Stinger. A helicopter and an APC are around to test it on. A track sits on the middle plateau of the large three-tier island in the swamp.
• Head to the facility and enter from the left wall: first door = barracks (Playboy, a track). Down the hall, the next door is storage with heals and Chaff Grenades — rare, take them. The mess hall has Noodles. The small house inside the walls holds ammo and the M870 Custom shotgun. Move on through the small valley ahead.

• Meet more rebels. A PMC patrols ahead unaware; the fight starts either way. Back the rebels, watching the right (PMCs hold the right hill and the one above you). Move up to the big gate staying low; a bulldozer breaks it down.
• Inside the grounds, PMCs gun down your friends — loot bodies for the M72A3 anti-tank launcher and the PKM. From the entrance, go right toward the tents (hug walls, use tents as cover). Up along the wall to the pair of dark-red containers — hug the wall to slip through the gap for a track.
• Back to the entrance, go left into the garden. Stay on the outer perimeter, swing left of the doorway the PMCs shoot from, clear them, and enter.
• Inside: a PMC runs down from the next room — hide on the red carpet or rush both on the stairs. Next room: stairs up (optional right-hand room has Pentazemin, dining room has ammo). Up the stairs (empty), around the corner, into the room with the roof door. Enemies may be on the roof — go left to the small deck and drop through the floor opening into the cellar.
• Cellar corridors: Noodles, ammo, then a store room with Stun Grenades, Grenades, ammo, a Ration, and a Compress. Continue to the ladder.

Scenes, then a fight. FROGs attack two at a time — wait them out from under the bed and drop each pair, or hunt them with the M4 from cover. Avoid normal CQC grabs (FROGs counter); only the throw-down works. After four pairs, the boss engages.

Laughing Octopus

Difficulty

A creepy hide-and-seek fight through the lab and its hallways. Her hiding spots repeat — learn them and the infrared makes the tracking half trivial.

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Attacks

• A weak but constant gun, and a tentacle grab/electrocution
• A rolling ball attack — climb onto a box or bed to avoid it
• Homing bombs released when she vanishes
• Disguises: Mk. II (mined), marionette, ceiling machine, wall painting, storeroom box, limp soldier, Naomi’s face

Strategy

• Customize the M4 with the grenade-launcher attachment first (L2 on the weapon), then open with sustained fire until she vents black mist and vanishes.
• Let the homing bombs stick to Snake, then run and roll once to shake them all off at once — they don’t explode on contact.
• Track her with Solid Eye infrared (she lights up) and the radar (shows her position whenever she speaks). In the lab-room machine disguise, shoot the machine, not the tentacles.
• When she mimics the Mk. II and Otacon’s voice, call Otacon (he knows nothing) and do NOT approach — she’s mined the area. Shoot the fake from range.
• Late in the fight she stops hiding and crashes through the windows — hose her with the M4, grenade launcher if she takes the ceiling, dodge the roll. Finish her as she keeps advancing.

Laughing Beauty

Difficulty

The unarmed second phase, as with every Beauty and the Beast fight.

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Attacks

• Contact grab that slowly drains life

Strategy

• No weapons — if she grabs you, wiggle the left stick free and press Triangle to throw her down.
• Back away slowly with your gun on her; she sidesteps, so aim carefully (automatics beat a pistol).
• Good time to grab room items, but she speeds up if you get too far away. Empty her health to end it.

• Reward: FaceCamo (extra concealment under OctoCamo; it shows in cutscenes) and a Drebin call.

Footprint trails (infrared) split constantly. Only one path is "true"; the rest are dead ends or traps, a few worth a detour.

• Follow the trail (Ration in a basin on the right). First big fork (left/middle/right): right is a shortcut back, middle is a dead end with a PMC + ammo. Take left to a bridge, cross to the next fork.
• Hold up or drop the patrolling soldier. Of the three paths the right is correct, but check the others: center (under the clothesline) has a house with a PMC — toss a Stun Grenade into the doorway; inside are Stun Grenades, a Playboy outside, and the PSS on the right side of the house. Left has Instant Noodles guarded by a Claymore — crawl to collect both.
• Take the right path, snipe the PMC on the hill, and find Naomi's handkerchief further on. Three paths: left is a dead end with a Ration; the other two converge — take the scenic right one. A ruined house with two guards — clear the open one, Stun or lure the one inside.
• Next: a dozing guard; left/right converge, favor left. You reach flattened grass and a scripted audio flashback (MGS2 lines) — bonus DP, the first of several.

• Cross the river; the trail splits (converges). The right branch has two FROGs (one behind a log, one around the corner).
• Three paths: left/middle converge; right is a trap — Naomi's voice lures you to a hut, and a FROG watching from the distant hill triggers an ambush if it sees you enter. Snipe that FROG first. Inside: Smoke Grenades and an annoying stereo (shoot it); outside, a Regain and Sleep Mines.
• Take the left path (see both FROGs before they see you; Ration in a basin), then follow the footprints through the small valley.
• Next area: a lone PMC dangerously close to a Claymore. Three paths: center/right converge; left has items. Then take center to a grassy spot with a hard-to-spot FROG that spots easily (worse with IR on) — she may drop the DSR-1 sniper rifle.
• One PMC, then right down the trail; right again to the area overlooking the trap hut (RPG-7 nearby). Back, and take the path straight ahead-right, blocked by a big rock — a horseshoe with a center cut (a PMC patrols the outer loop). Go through the center to the mine entrance for a scene.

Man the turret (Triangle near it, R1 to fire).

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• Mansion grounds: suited PMCs come through the gate — fire freely, but PMCs swarm and climb the APC. Knock climbers off with heavy fire or they dislodge Snake.
• Next area: a wall of Gekko — the turret handles them; aim for heads. Their explosions kick up blinding dust, so don't let any get close. Big DP each, and they don't count as kills.
• An APC attacks near green doors — shoot the drums by the doors to weaken them, hit the APC to stop it, then finish the doors.
• Final stretch: more Gekko up a long road and into a valley — keep firing until Drebin says "Don't fall off!" for a scene.

Otacon is ahead but the street is full of Gekko and there's no time to fight — keep moving.

• A collectible sits roughly in front of Snake at the start. Stick left under an awning (ammo), then up and left into the alley.
• Villagers flee and a Gekko charges. Don't fight it — disable it: a few Mk. 2 rounds into the legs drops it. Run past, turn the corner, left again past another Gekko.

• Before going on, check the last stall on the left for another Chaff Grenade pack. Move forward for a scene. Act II ends.