Board 8 > Anagram ranks anything Metal Gear-related, with writeups (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I did it for Star Trek, Star Wars, and Final Fantasy. I considered Pokemon, Lord of the Rings, and Resident Evil, but dropped them for various reasons. Then I remembered everyone's ninth-to-second favorite series, Metal Gear, and decided it was time. Will we reach 500 again? I don't know.

I first played this series in 2008, right before MGS4 dropped, and immediately understood why people liked it. I've played the core four games multiple times each, and Peace Walker, MGSV, and MGR once each.

Same rules as before: everything gets a writeup, so long as it's tangentially related to Metal Gear. But I haven't played everything MG-related, so if you nominate a boss from Acid or Ghost Babel or something, don't expect much.

Metal Gear?!

Metal Gear (MSX)

Metal Gear Survive

Was going to pick one line that's a meme but like, they all are

So, the dialogue in MGS

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d9XOSzVb0O0

The TV Spots At The Start of MGS4

TNT

Let's just get it over with

Big Boss

Also we better get an RE sometime in the future!

The Trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater Pachinko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgnQFUssHxE

Senator Armstrong

What a Thrill
MGS Dialogue: Once, I was playing MGS3 in the living room. My sister and her friend came in, watched for a second, and started laughing enough that I just turned off the game because I couldn't hear anything. They were like "Adam, the dialogue in this game is insane." It's hard to really explain why, too. The dialogue skirts a weird line between utilitarian, overly verbose, poorly-translated, perfectly-translated, and completely nonsensical, and that's before you factor in that two of the games are period pieces. I guess I can best describe the dialogue in these games as "silly," but it's more than that. MGS has a really specific style to its writing that I've never seen anywhere else, or even attempted anywhere else, and that's possibly its greatest strength. It gives the characters a very tangible charm and connectivity in a way that, I don't know, medieval people saying "yore" does not. And all of that was just about the writing style itself, we haven't even gotten into the content! The games waffle between characters talking about very serious things and characters just shooting the **** with each other, talking about ghosts, Santa Claus, and whatever else strikes their minds. I would go so far as to say that there are no normal people in this series, at least none who have a significant amount of dialogue. We haven't even gotten to the glitchy computers yet. Anyway, I think the important takeaway is this: MGS' soul is its writing, not so much its gameplay. So if you were stupid enough to make a game that deemphasizes the writing, it would be like making a Resident Evil game that just doesn't care about horror at all. And don't say RE4! RE4 is still like 15% horror.

This Is Good, Isnt It?
Senator Armstrong: I remember learning that the final boss of MGR would be a senator instead of the president, and thinking "Huh, that's a step down from MGS2." But in all seriousness, I'll save my MGR thoughts for the MGR writeup. Right now, I'll say this: Armstrong is maybe the best. You can't match the emotion of the Boss's fight, and you can't match the finality of the Ocelot fight, so what do you do? You do something just plain silly. Armstrong works as a character for two reasons. The first is basically the same reason as Andrew Ryan from Bioshock: he has this incredibly stupid ultralibertarian philosophy that would never work, but he's just so ****ing charismatic that you can see why people would listen to him. But where Andrew Ryan is playing up the Great Man concept, Armstrong is just so loud and bombastic. I played this game in like 2017, and when this populist Trumpish figure actually said "make America great again," I almost did a spit take, I couldn't believe it. The second reason he works is just plain old character foils; he says "might makes right," Raiden says "nuh-uh," and as Armstrong dies, he says "killing me means I'm right lol," and Raiden's expression means he agrees. The idea of a villain you cannot defeat without validating the reasons you used as justification to kill him is always going to be more interesting than another giant robot fight. Also, the way he treats Raiden with respect even while screaming obscenities at him is also super compelling, yeah. Armstrong is almost like a master class in maximizing the value of your screen time; I don't think there's a single wasted second he's on screen.

Big Boss: I remember reading Hideo Kojima say something about how Big Boss is better than Snake because Snake is a clone, and therefore his feelings aren't real, or something like that. The important part of that quote is that it proves that some creators just don't understand their own creations. George Lucas is another one, but we already went over that. The point is, Big Boss will never be as interesting or compelling as Snake. I'll save this for the Snake writeup, though. Right now, I want to focus on Big Boss' arc through these games. In MG1, he's a madman obsessed with creating an eternal war where soldiers will always be venerated. In MGS3, he's forced by his government to murder his mentor so rich politicians can avoid a scandal. That scene at the end, where Big Boss salutes the Boss' grave, said everything. You didn't need another word after that; the audience completely understands how and why Big Boss progressed from MGS3 to MG1. Anything more after that is not only pointless, it's actively damaging to the character. I would have never in my entire life questioned how Big Boss got the money to form his soldier nation, but then we got Portable Ops. Then we get Peace Walker, which is both pointless and the most important game in the series, and then MGSV. And oh boy, MGSV. For a game about explaining how Big Boss "goes nuclear," there is zero nuclear rage. You lose the game if you hurt a child! You lose the game if you anything even remotely objectionable from a moral perspective. There is no way that the Big Boss we see in those midquel games turns into MG2 Big Boss (let's not even go into MG1 and Venom Snake). MGS3 is pretty much a perfect game, 10/10, and that includes Big Boss, and he's fine in MGS4, but every subsequent appearance erodes some of that perfection and leaves him less interesting and more damaged.

You're All Diamonds
TNT: The important thing about MGS3 is that it needs to be set in the 1960s, so it can't have all of the fancy equipment that exists in the 2000s, but it also needs that equipment for gameplay, so... it just sort of does, and it pretends nothing about anything changed in forty years. I guess there's no soliton radar? But TNT is just C4, we all know it, so let's move on.

At Least I Always Fought For What I Believed In
Metal Gear (MSX): I played this on some crappy emulator a million years ago in high school, I don't remember a ****ing thing. I remember the part where Big Boss starts giving you incorrect directions and being confused by them, and I remember him revealing at the end that he's evil. Why did I play this in high school and the later games, the ones people care about, in college? Because I thought "I better start at the beginning," then I lost interest. I remember dying to dogs a lot. Anyway, was this the first stealth game? I appreciate the vision of that, but I feel that certain genres just need a minimum level of technology to actually be good. You needed 3D to really make this concept work, and I think the PS1 was the earliest you could have really pulled it off. So, I guess I'll call this a little ahead of its time, in perhaps more ways than one -- Big Boss is a more complex villain than basically any other in this era. By the way, my favorite thing about this game? That Wikiquote has three entries for it, the first of which is cited as "Big Boss (actually Venom Snake)." But, we'll get to MGSV later, I'm sure.

MGS4 TV Spots: I didn't understand why these were in the game back then, and I have no keener insights now. I guess Kojima was trying to say that war is just so normal, it's something you watch on TV while flipping through cooking channels and talkshows? I think the equivalent today would be dumb youtube videos about the war being recommended in your playlist. Thankfully, youtube recommends lots of dumb things to me, but not that... yet.

More Than Enough to Kill Anything that Moves
Metal Gear Survive: You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Not just a survival simulator, not just a crafting spinoff, but a zombie crafting survival simulator with basically no plot or dialogue. If you wanted to create the most insulting idea ever for the final Metal Gear game, it would either be this or something pachinko-related. I almost can't believe this is even real, you know? It's something you'd make up as a joke. In a series known for dialogue, this and Ghost Babel are the only games not to have entries in Wikiquote. I looked up this game a little bit after it came out, and as far as I can tell, the gameplay is just constructing wire fences to stab zombies through a lot? I realize that Konami had this big fancy FOX engine and they wanted to squeeze another game out of it, but is this truly the best they could do?

MGS Snake Eater: Pachinko trailer: I understand why you don't want to remake MGS3 in full HD with modern graphics and all of that, I'm sure that's super expensive and not financially worth it. But does anyone outside of Japan like pachinko? I guess that this isn't that different from themed slot machines, but it somehow feels different. I can't offer a good explanation as to why; I just know that it feels vaguely insulting. I'm not even sure I'm wrong about that, given Konami's bizarre behavior toward Kojima with MGSV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srTqxL_6Ysg

memes

Poisonous Zanzibar hamsters

Jetstream Sam

Metal Gear 2 (MSX)

Cardboard boxes

Bladewolf

This 1997 Tokyo Game Show advertisement for Metal Gear Solid
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/2/AAR-tQAADETU.jpg

Paz Ortega Andrade

The Best Is Yet To Come

Hideo Kojima

Snake Codecs in Smash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VuMHH1v-4o

You're Pretty Good
MGS Dialogue

The Lightning in the Rain
Senator Armstrong
Big Boss
Cardboard Boxes: A perfect encapsulation of everything Metal Gear stands for. Stealth, absurdity, utility, and iconic design all rolled into one. I once saw someone describe this series as 'military surrealism,' and I think that's the best way to put it. To take a joke from literal cartoons and turn it into an integral element of your seemingly serious series, it would be like if Star Trek just had Martians show up for no reason. Like, little green aliens walking around, being just an uncommented-upon part of the world.

What a Thrill
Jetstream Sam: Everyone loves rival characters. The guy who just has the same skills as you, who looks kind of like you and has a similar personality, but twisted in some way. Vergil, Vegeta, Gary, Bass, Knuckles, Ken... I could go on, I guess, but I won't. The point is mainly that 'character who is like you, but twisted toward evil slightly, and is also handsome' will always be popular and compelling. And yeah, I DID notice that all of the other bosses are ripped apart, while Sam is merely stabbed and looks dead, so that he could return in a sequel that never happened. MGR needs a sequel, dammit. Regardless, yeah, I even like the idea of everyone being 99% robot because it's more efficient, then Sam is 99% human and can just fight them anyway because he's That Good.
Liquid Snake Explains Big Chungus: 10/10 on the voices, they only sounded off a few times, and I was listening for it. 10/10 on nailing how MGS presents information and the bizarre things it views as critical. Overall, very strong. I particularly appreciate the slight pause while the game loads cutscenes. This is more in-keeping with MGS lore and style than half the series.
Memes: I'm not sure if you mean MG memes you post online, or memes as they exist in the game as brought up by the characters. I'll just assume the latter. Yeah, this is pretty intense, sometimes Kojima really does a good job of predicting things. I remember reading in college about the original conception and meaning of memes (this was before the word meme was codified as 'silly repostable thing on the internet'), and not really caring, but Kojima really understood right away, so props to him. Oh, and yeah, "the memes, Jack." Monsoon is a character who makes the most out of the five seconds he has. Nominate him and I'll spend the whole time comparing him to Fatman or something.

You're All Diamonds
Bladewolf: A good addition. Raiden teaches him a little about humanity, Bladewolf eventually has his moment at the end where he gives you a sword that's inexplicably better than yours (oh, sorry, I forgot that it's totally explained as "it's forged from a katana so it's unbreakable lol"), and he has his little DLC where he kills... that one guy? I don't even remember that guy's name, and I remember everyone's names. Oh well. Bladewolf is fun, but he's not one of the major, memorable parts of his own game, never mind the series. I can't think of a single Bladewolf meme, whereas every other character in his game is overflowing with jokes.
Codecs in Smash: Here's why Snake works better for this than Pit: Snake is, at least nominally, a normal man from a normal world. Him interacting with wacky cartoon things is therefore inherently funny. Having Otacon analyze a magical being from a science perspective, or Campbell give dead serious advice on how to fight a turtle monster, is automatically funny. You don't need to add jokes because the setup is already the joke. It also helps that if you've played the series, you know that MGS is less serious than it seems, and that Snake actually does fit in quite well -- I'm not even sure what I'd call the most 'normal' series in the game. Compare this to Pit, who's from another wacky cartoon world and is therefore unsurprisable. Imagine if there was a TV/film crossover, right? Imagine if Bugs Bunny was commenting to Porky Pig about how strange Spongebob is. It would be mildly humorous. Then imagine if instead of Bugs Bunny, it's Dominic Toretto from Fast and Furious. It's just automatically a better setup, no matter the quality of the writing. Not getting new Codecs in Ultimate was a big disappointment, but Snake returning was such a surprise I was okay with it anyway.

At Least I Always Fought For What I Believed In
The Best is Yet To Come: When I think of MG music, this is what comes to mind, yeah. This isn't really a series that I think of when I think of the best video game music, though, sorry! That title goes to MM or FF or something. The somber tone of this track is very good, but I don't know if it really encapsulates what this series is about, compared to something like, I don't know, the Harry Potter theme, where you immediately think "magic."
Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge (MSX): The first canonical appearance of Big Boss. Can I just ask, who uses a subtitle that's just the character's name? I don't think I've ever seen that besides Star Trek: Picard. Very bizarre. Anyway, I think, once again, that this is an example of the games reaching beyond their technology. MG2 wants to have this super complex villain with nuanced motivations, and it has the weird, silly aspects of later games where you defeat the final boss with a hairspray flamethrower, but the technology to make this game just did not exist yet. This is why MG1 and 2 are some of the few games I actually want to see remade from the ground up, and I know they never will be.
TNT

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Metal Gear (MSX)
1997 Tokyo Game Show Ad for Metal Gear Solid: Look, if I'm a Japanese guy who doesn't know anything about Metal Gear, and I see this ad, what I'm going to derive from it is that there's a hot redhead, weird and abstract art, a guy with a bandana, a beach, and a tiger. I can kind of imagine the beach, but where the hell did the tiger come from? Utterly bizarre.
MGS4 TV Spots

They Played Us Like a Damn Fiddle
Paz Ortega Andrade: The idea of the completely innocent girl who's full of hope and inspires the heroes secretly being evil (even though it's obvious to the player) is fine, and the idea that she just looks young and is actually an adult is also fine. But Paz never really resonated with me, and I'm not sure why. Snake has this whole crazy adventure with Meryl, and it cements her as someone you really care about. Raiden guides Emma for five seconds before she dies, but in those five seconds, she really gets her personality and hopes and dreams across. EVA, of course, is EVA... Then you have Paz, who has the entire game to establish herself, and-- wait, her name is Pacifica Ocean? I didn't remember that at all. That's like 30% better than Hot Coldman. Look, what I'm saying is this: I'm okay with the idea of Paz, and I'm okay with the idea of Big Boss (even though it's not Big Boss) being tortured by visions of her after he fails to save her. But there's something about this character that just didn't click with me, something intangible. Also, being killed by a vagina bomb is the stupidest thing ever and is completely fitting with MGS, I want it on record that I never had a problem with that, only with the idea that the super skilled medic would have missed it.
Poisonous Zanzibar Hamsters: I looked up venomous mammals, and they DO exist, so I guess I can accept it. Hamsters are about the most useless and stupid of pets, aside from goldfish, but goldfish at least have the additional benefit of not stinking up your room with poop. I guess some got out into the wild in Zanzibar, bred, and somehow evolved venom glands.
Hideo Kojima: Years ago, everyone wondered if Kojima was some kind of outsider genius artist or just a really lucky, really stupid man. That question has been largely put to rest, I think.

More Than Enough to Kill Anything that Moves
Metal Gear Survive
MGS Snake Eater

Snake5555555555 posted...

Also we better get an RE sometime in the future!

Probably.

Metal Gear Solid

Raiden

Rules of Nature

The Codec sound effect

Ninja Cat

The ousting of David Hayter for Sutherland

Gurlugon

Rathalos

portable ops

Anagram posted...

(even though it's obvious to the player)

what

I actually thought I was done with the game with the first ending that's how not obvious it was to me lmao

Also you realize MG2: Solid Snake and Snake's Revenge are different games, right?

Fission mailed

Leonhart4 posted...

Also you realize MG2: Solid Snake and Snake's Revenge are different games, right?

That was supposed to be MG2: Solid Snake, that's my error. I'll fix that in the future.

Snake's surprise reveal in the Super Smash Bros Brawl trailer

The Ladder

Slowbeef's Metal Gear 2 playthrough

Quiet's Theme

MGS2 Tanker

Solid Snake's Butt.

You're Pretty Good
Metal Gear Solid (PS1): AKA the first REAL game in the series. In that way, and basically no other, MG and Persona are equivalent. I waffle between MGS1 and MGS3 being the best in the series, but I think it's MGS3. MGS1 has a more concise story and utilizes all of its materials correctly -- despite how insane and rambling the game is, nothing in it is a waste of time (except running back for the sniper rifle), and every character serves the plot in some crucial way. The problem with the game is that the tech is still just slightly too primitive. The PS2 is the weakest system capable of doing this concept justice, but I still kind of like the dubiously human pixel faces, the inability to aim, and all of those technical limitations. There are certain parts of the game, though, that are just horrible thanks to the technology. And along with MGS3, this is the game with the strongest array of Codec calls. MGS1, 3, and MGR are the only games that really understand just how important those silly Codec calls are where characters talk about philosophy or war crimes or whatever for two hours. I would go so far as to say that Codec calls are like 20% of the appeal of Metal Gear as a franchise, which is probably why PW and MGSV are so weak by comparison. All the technology in the world, and MGSV can't stand up to a perfectly-crafted simple story about a man, his clone, his other clone, and a Hind-D.
MGS Dialogue
Codec Sound Effect: I was going to set my phone's ringtone to this, but I couldn't figure out how and was too lazy to look it up. Goddamn, it's just perfect, there's nothing else you even need to say about it.

The Lightning in the Rain
Snake in Smash: This will forever be the best third-party reveal in Smash, only because it was the first. Until this moment, no one was discussing third parties. Yeah, Sonic was fun and everything, but after this, people expected most of what came. The only reveal that even comes remotely close to this one is Cloud, and only then because Cloud wasn't on Nintendo consoles (and don't you dare say he has a cameo in a GBA Kingdom Hearts game or whatever).
The Ladder: I know that dramatically, this is meant to be a quiet break moment between the excitement of the sniper battle and the excitement of the base infiltration, but I've never seen anything like this in actual story design. It's just you climbing up a ladder for two minutes while a quiet version of the game's theme song plays. Who even thinks of something like that?
Senator Armstrong
Big Boss
Cardboard Boxes
What a Thrill
Jetstream Sam
Raiden: I don't hate Raiden, but he'll forever be the definitive "guy who replaced the main character and got fans upset." He's just infinitely less cool than Snake, for a million reasons. Like Nero and Apollo, he eventually comes into his own, but even then... It's like, Snake just oozes effortless cool, while Raiden has to turn into a katana-wielding cyborg and talk about metaphors, and while he's cool, he's still just so ****ing lame. His backstory, also, it's fine as the absurd history of someone selected to be the next Solid Snake by a computer running a filtering program to find the person with the most impossibly tragic childhood (more on that if someone nominates the B&B Corps), but taken alone, I don't know. Of the major characters in the series, I would say that Raiden and Meryl are the weakest links, but while Meryl is a side character in two games, Raiden is a protagonist in two and a side a character in a third. But yeah, as the 'put-upon newbie who's barely holding it together,' Raiden is pretty good, and by MGR, he's even good... but not as good as Snake. Also, barely unrelated: it will always be funny that Smash got Snake, and PSASBR, a Smash knockoff, got Snake's knockoff.
Liquid Snake Explains Big Chungus
Memes

You're All Diamonds
Bladewolf
Codecs in Smash
Fission Mailed: I'm not a nuclear physicist, but transporting fissionable materials by mail seems like a terrible idea.
Quiet's Theme: I have thoughts on Quiet, but let's just focus on the theme itself. It's pretty good! It fits MGS' tone, it fits her character, it doesn't fit the setting at all, but that's fine. The lyrics are the weakest part of the song, though. "When hope leaks out, all that leaves is doubt." Shut up.

At Least I Always Fought For What I Believed In
The Best is Yet To Come
Ninja Cat: Adorable.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX)
TNT

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Metal Gear (MSX)
Rules of Nature: I like a good battle track as much as the next guy, but I'm not that big a fan. Like, I like the idea of a song about survival of the fittest and it being the way of nature that the strong defeat the weak being contrasted to this super advanced technological future where normal people can't compete with cyborgs, all of that is fine. But the song itself isn't very good!
1997 Tokyo Game Show Ad for Metal Gear Solid
MGS4 TV Spots

They Played Us Like a Damn Fiddle
Paz Ortega Andrade
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops: I watched a LP of this game a million years ago. Gene is dumb, but it's fine, that's not too bad, and he's still not another giant robot fight. The South American setting is fine. Meeting young Campbell is fine. The game itself isn't the WORST thing, it's just sort of bland and meh, like the Mario Sunshine of MGS. It's not even really worth being uncanonized. But the problem is basically this: who cares? The question of how Big Boss got the money to form his own soldier nation never even entered my mind before this game. I just assumed he did evil mercenary work or something, it's the most unimportant question to answer ever. I recall this game also have Gray Fox show up as a little kid, but the timeline doesn't match up? Ah well, it'll still be better than the Harry Potter Professor MacGonagall thing.
Rathalos: Imagine if this was canon. I know MGS has a very strange relationship to the concept of canon, but you know what I mean.
Poisonous Zanzibar Hamsters
Hideo Kojima
Gurlugon: I never really did the challenge missions, so I had to look this up. Uh... okay?

More Than Enough to Kill Anything that Moves
Metal Gear Survive
MGS Snake Eater Pachinko
Keifer Sutherland as Snake: I have nothing against Keifer Sutherland, but this is the most inexplicable decision in all of voice acting. I still don't know why they did it, other than that Kojima wanted to work with a real Hollywood A-lister. It certainly wasn't about money! So what the hell was the point? It's just so bizarre.

Unranked
Slowbeef's Metal Gear 2 playthrough: I'm not watching a two-hour playthrough for this topic, sorry!v

Johnny Sasaki

butts

Slowbeef's Metal Gear 2 playthrough isn't a video, it's all text and screenshots - it's actually so old that it's both pre-youtube and pre-the idea of people doing playthroughs of games. It's considered to be one of the first let's plays. I haven't read it in a while so I don't know if it's still funny but it's one of the classics of old internet humor:

http://effinslowbeef.com/MG2/