Metal Gear Solid - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes; The Twin Snakes; Twin Snakes; MGS; TTS

Metal Gear Solid, considered by some to be one of the greatest games ever released and by others to be an overrated, convoluted mess (though less so than its sequels), was released in 1998. With its cinematic style and emphasis on story over action, it shifted the acceptable degree of Story To Gameplay Ratio, perhaps irrevocably, while also single-handedly popularizing the Stealth Based Game.

It is not, to many's surprise, the first game in the popular Metal Gear series.

Basic plot summary. Six years have passed since the fall of Zanzibar Land and the death of Big Boss. Solid Snake, haunted by the death of both Big Boss - who claimed to be his father - and best friend Gray Fox at his own hands, has retired from his life as an agent for FOXHOUND, a special operations force for the United States military. His days of running dogs for the Iditarod are, however, brought to a close when he's kidnapped from his home and brought aboard a submarine beneath the Bering Sea. There, he's greeted by his former superior and "friend," Roy Campbell and the mysterious Dr. Naomi Hunter, who draft him into service once more.

This time, the United States is being held hostage by FOXHOUND itself, which has gone rogue and is being lead by a man who not only looks uncannily like Snake but is himself called "Liquid Snake." Naturally, Snake's the only one who can stop his deranged doppleganger and the Five Bad Band working for him. What follows is a game that loves to tell the Fourth Wall what it can do with itself while also telling a surprisingly compelling and serious story about war, morality, and nuclear proliferation.

The game was later graphically updated and re-released for the Game Cube in 2004 as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, with a few changes. The game's story has also been adapted into a graphic novel written by Kris Oprisko, with stylized, sketchy artwork by Ashley Wood that deliberately imitates Yoji Shinkawa's concept art for the game, and the graphic novel itself has been released in a semi-interactive format as Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel on the Playstation Portable. There's also a novelization by Raymond Benson, who has also written book adaptations of James Bond films such as Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, as well as novels based on the Splinter Cell series.

This game uses the following tropes:

Alternate Universe: Not much attention is called to this fact since the game, when it came out, took place in the future, but the backstory already calls for several Ruritanias from the Cold War. Just about everything else can be explained away or are the usual sort of fictional liberties, but Zanzibar Land and Outer Heaven stick out.
Badass: Snake, to begin with. But he's far from the only one.
- Badass Longhair: Liquid Snake, who's both lovingly over the top and somehow believable.
- Badass Mustache: Revolver Ocelot, who somehow makes the idea of a Russian cowboy torture technician assassin with a giant, conspicuous mustache awesome.
- Badass Longcoat: Many of the villains are shown wearing longcoats once or twice, but Liquid and Ocelot seem to wear theirs the most.
Baby Got Back: The surprisingly important scene in which Snake takes a close look at Meryl's behind. Later proves important in identifying her.
- Supposedly, he's really watching her distinctive walk (and women do walk differently than men, though it's very subtle) but he later calls attention to this when he meets her later.
  Meryl: "So there is something you like about me?"
  Snake: "Yeah. You've got a great butt."
Back Tracking: Happens a lot, since the game all takes place in one very large area. The most egregious example is when you are forced to go back to the beginning of the game about halfway through for a sniper rifle in order to save Meryl from getting killed by Sniper Wolf. To be fair, Snake complains about it.
Battle Couple: Teased, but never happens between Snake and Meryl.
BFG: Vulcan Raven has one of these - a M61-A1 Vulcan 20mm - which he ''ripped'' off an F16.
Butt Monkey: Johnny Sasaki gets off to his long-run of this here, starting with his initial incapacitation by Meryl, who then steals his clothes.
Copy Protection: Notably, the game requires you to look on the back of the game case for a codec number (Meryl's) that's required for the game to progress. However, since this number is identical for every game, it's not really copy protection so much as the game giving the bird to the Fourth Wall.
Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Many. Notably, Gray Fox's Big Damn Heroes moment at the end of the game, where he rescues Snake from REX.
- Also, even though he's a villain, Psycho Mantis gets one of these in his boss battle when he reads your memory card and comments on the games. During the fight, he reads Snake's mind and cannot be hit unless the player actually unplugs the controller and moves it to another port. Or shoots a statue. In any case, yeah, Mantis has No Fourth Wall.
Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Either ending. in the "good" ending where Meryl lives, Snake realizes he should live for the sake of others - specifically Meryl. He also reveals his real name, David, to Meryl. The "bad" ending is almost identical, except Meryl is replaced with Otacon.
Crowning Music Of Awesome: Many, including the very popular Sniper Wolf's theme.
- And, of course, the main theme. More can be seen at the series page for Crowning Music.
Cyber Cyclops: Cyborg Ninja, aka Gray Fox.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Cyborg Ninja (i.e. Gray Fox), who "should be dead" but is kept alive through prosthetics, though it really seems to cause him more suffering than just dying would.
- It may have something to do, of course, with the fact that he was also used as a guinea pig for dozens of cybernetics and gene therapy experiments.
Death By Disfigurement: One of the series' few very straight examples in Gray Fox, who dies shortly after having his arm severed by REX's laser beam.
Death Seeker: Again, Gray Fox, who just wants one last battle to the death with Solid Snake.
Elite Mooks: The Genome Soldiers are supposedly elite soldiers, but they're basically the equivalent to a goomba. Of course, Snake isn't a pushover himself, so it's not exactly a fair fight, and they do fine against Meryl.
Faux Action Girl: Meryl is this, though at least they admit it.
Fetish Fuel: Some have said that Ocelot's torture of Snake is this. Or So I Heard.
- Also, Meryl.
- And Mei Ling, or, as Egoraptor (and David Hayter) puts it: "OhmygodhotnessIwannaBANGYOU!"
Five Bad Band: FOXHOUND
- Big Bad: Liquid Snake
- The Dragon: Revolver Ocelot
  - Subverted however, because it turns out Ocelot's also The Mole and a Chessmaster who puts Liquid to shame.
- The Evil Genius: Psycho Mantis
- The Brute: Vulcan Raven
- The Dark Chick: Sniper Wolf (Femme Fatal Dark Action Girl)
- The Sixth Ranger: Decoy Octopus
Five Man Band: Snake and his various codec contacts.
- The Hero: Solid Snake
- The Lancer: Colonel (sort of)
- The Smart Guy: Naomi/Nastasha/Otacon
- The Chick: Meryl
- The Sixth Ranger: Gray Fox
Freudian Excuse: Liquid believes that he's the "inferior" copy of Big Boss and so hates Solid, the "superior" clone with a deep passion, as well as their mutual "father" for creating him. Of course, it's all a lie by Ocelot.
- There's also Psycho Mantis, who began his slow descent into madness when he peered into his father's mind and saw what he really thought of Mantis' mother.
Get On With It Already: Compared to most games, Metal Gear Solid is this. In comparison to the other games in the series, however...
Hand Cannon: Meryl's long-barreled Desert Eagle. Lampshaded by Snake, if while being somewhat chauvinistic.
Snake: Isn't that a big gun for a girl?
- Meryl rebukes Snake with her own Justified Trope response - she's been trained to use it since she was a child and feels "more comfortable with it than a bra."
Hey Its That Guy/Voice: David Hayter, the voice of Solid and Naked Snake, wrote (among other things) the scripts for the first two X-Men movies and the Watchmen movie.
- Hey Its That Guyver. Hayter was credited as Sean Barker (his character in Guyver) in the initial release of the game. In The Twin Snakes, this is no longer the case.
  - Hayter is also said to have brought back most of the English cast for MGS all by himself for The Twin Snakes. Essentially, he offered up half his pay check so they'd get paid more.
- Dr. Naomi Hunter is, depending on which version of the game you're playing (since her accent changes from MGS original to TTS), either Bastila Shan or Electro Ovilo. Of course, they're both Jennifer Hale, who is also known as Fem!Shepard, Samus Aran, and, well... a lot of other people.
- Liquid Snake was Leonardo. The turtle, you know, not Da Vinci. He's also Kratos. And Cam Clarke.
- Colonel Campbell sometimes uses the alias Paul Eiding and is also Grandpa Max, pretty much every old man in the Capital Wasteland, Hojo. He also sometimes masquerades as some blue guy called Aldaris who would like to remind you that you must Construct Additional Pylons.
- Mei Ling, also known as Kim Mai Guest, has also been Lian Xing, Isabella Keyes, and Subaru.
- Revolver Ocelot is also known as, I Am Not Making This Up, Elroy Jetson.
- Sniper Wolf (Tasia Valenza) has also been Poison Ivy and Spider-Woman though, really, neither of these is a stretch.
- In the original release of the game, Donald Anderson (the DARPA chief) and Gray Fox were the same person - also known as Greg Eagles, who also played Afro's father and Sulik. In the remake, the later became Rob Paulsen, who was also Anomen and Pinky.
Hopeless Boss Fight: Psycho Mantis, until you figure out that you need to break the Fourth Wall to a pulp. Colonel helps you figure this out.
Hyperspace Arsenal: To a lesser extent than later games, but still quite so.
I Cannot Self Terminate: Gray Fox, who clearly wants to die but for some reason needs Snake to do it for him.
I Got Better: Liquid Snake does this a ridiculous number of times. First, he appears dead when you kill him in a helicopter, but Colonel then has to go and say No One Could Survive That. Then, you blow up REX with him inside it. Then, you knock him off a several hundred-foot ledge that he himself just said you couldn't survive. And if that wasn't enough, you fight him in a Car Chase as you escape the military base before it gets nuked. And he's still not dead. Not just yet. Finally, minutes before the credits roll and long after gameplay has ceased, Liquid succumbs to the FOXDIE infection Snake carries in his vein.
Instant Awesome Just Add Mecha: Well, it is a Metal Gear game.
Laser Sight: Each of your guns have this, but it seems kind of pointless since it's automatic and doesn't give you any kind of benefit.
The Man Behind The Man: Ocelot plays Liquid Snake like a fiddle, even more than Liquid plays Solid. Not only does he prevent the nuclear launch Liquid aims to go through with, but he retrieves the test data and kills the only person - Donald Anderson - who could have revealed his treachery. The later games show that this is even more of a Xanatos Gambit than it initially appears to be.
Mysterious Informer: Gray Fox, going by the pseudonym "Deepthroat."
No Fourth Wall: Psycho Mantis. That is all.
- There are also a few other instances. Characters will remark in changes in music or make veiled references to the fact that the Genome soldiers were trained with "video games," and Ocelot also blatantly has a Fourth Wall crossing moment during his torture session, threatening Snake (the player?) not to cheat with auto-fire controls.
Pragmatic Adaptation: The graphic novel based on the game takes some liberties with the story, especially Psycho Mantis' Mind Screw sequence, but stays very true to the spirit of the game. The Novelization, on the other hand, is more of a Your Mileage May Vary kind of deal.
Recycled Script: Several plot elements and set pieces used in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 reappear in Metal Gear Solid, with no comment from anybody.
Say My Name: Quite often. "Snake? What's happening, Snake? Snake? SNAAAAAAAAKKKEEEE!!!"
- Likewise, when during the Gray Fox's Heroic Sacrifice Snake does this. "FOOOOXXXX!"
- Liquid does this at the conclusion of the Hind D boss fight, though in a more dramatic and less annoying fashion.
Ruritania: Not to the extent of the first two games to be sure, but still to a small extent. The Fox Archipelago does in fact exist, but there's no such island as "Shadow Moses Island." Possibly a Justified Trope in that Shadow Moses may just be the name of the military base (and top secret black project) located there.
Shirtless Scene: Several. Notably, at the end of the game, during the second-to-last battle with Liquid both he and Snake are shirtless. Especially blatant since Liquid takes your shirt off before the fight for absolutely no reason.
Shout Out: The freight elevator is a near duplicate of the one in Akira, even leading to a sub-zero basement area.
- Revolver Ocelot is also an explicit Shout Out to SpaghettiWesterns, even down to his look (modeled after actor Lee Van Cleef.
- There's also Snake himself, who, besides the initial Shout Outs made in the previous games, also takes his name from David Bowman, of all people.
- Hal is a Shout Out to 2001, Emmerich is a shout out to Roland Emmerich, and Otacon is an explicit Shout Out to the Otaku Convention.
- And Otacon's monologue about anime includes clips from Policenauts, though this is more of a Shout Out to himself from Kojima.
Sinister Silhouettes: FOXHOUND are initially this.
That One Boss: Psycho Mantis. Very memorable, not just because he completely obliterates the Fourth Wall but also because of the weird shit that goes down in the battle like hysterically laughing portraits, flying jars, the camera randomly switching to his perspective, his mind control of Meryl, the screen going black while displaying only "HIDEO," and, of course, the fact that you either have to shoot the head off a statue or switch your controller's port every ten or fifteen seconds in order to beat him.
Treacherous Advisor: Liquid Snake, disguised as Master Miller, is this to Snake. Bizarrely, his advice turns out to be pretty good 99% of the time. The rest of the time its a useless Ice Cream Koan.
- Also, Ocelot is this to Liquid Snake, though it isn't revealed until much later - namely after the game's credits stop rolling. Unlike Liquid, however, Ocelot seems to have been using others' trust in him to his advantage. He kills off Sigint/Donald Anderson in an "accident" to deprive FOXHOUND of the necessary launch codes and steals the test data from Snake, without handing it over to Liquid.
The Unfought: Decoy Octopus. Because you killed him in the first 10 minutes.
Vader Breath: Psycho Mantis
Warrior Heaven: It turns out this is Liquid Snake's ultimate goal, along with his whole, let's cure the Genome soldiers of their random genetic diseases thing and his desire to off Snake.
Where I Was Born And Razed: Psycho Mantis
With This Herring: As always, you start with nothing but the clothes on your back.
The Woobie: A few.
- Solid Snake: Snake's a minor case, but he has a few things on his shoulders. There's his guilt over killing Big Boss and Gray Fox in the previous game, as well as his general distaste for killing that plays directly against his "killer instinct." He also finds out that he's a clone, that he's got an Evil Twin, and might get Meryl killed.
- Psycho Mantis: He's a Complete Monster, due to Freudian Excuses and his delving too far into a serial killer's mind, but he still can earn a bit of sympathy. Having his mind torn open by everyone's thoughts and a Tragic Past can do that.
- Otacon: He's really not cut out for this sort of thing to begin with. He also is the helpless pawn who's horrified to discover what Metal Gear really is for. Also, his Stockholm Syndrome for Sniper Wolf. It would be a lot more effective if he didn't Wangst so much about it tough.
- Gray Fox: This is, really, the entire point of the character. Kept barely alive but superhumanly powerful with cybernetics that eat his soul, Gray Fox also has the whole "my best friend tried to kill me" thing going. Killing him is, as many in the game tell you, a mercy kill.

In 2004, the game was re-released for the Game Cube as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. For the most part, the game was identical, with exactly the same level design and plot. However, the dialogue, while almost entirely the same was completely re-voiced (though with virtually all the same voice actors), with the foreign accents of two characters (one of whom was American anyway and the other raised by an American) being lost (a trait that was carried on when both characters reappeared in Metal Gear Solid 4). Gameplay elements from Metal Gear Solid 2 were also added, such as tranquilizer guns.

Somewhat conspicuously, both the cinematics and music were completely redone, with mixed results. The new soundtrack is sometimes held to be superior to the original but the new cinematics have often been derided for their over-the-top (even by Metal Gear standards!) style and blatant use of Bullet Time in imitation of the then popular Matrix movies and Max Payne games.

This game uses the following tropes:

Back Tracking: Averted slightly in Twin Snakes, where during the first fight with Sniper Wolf, Snake only has to go back a fraction of the distance he did in the original MGS to get an adequate sniper rifle.
Crowning Music Of Awesome: Some hold the Twin Snakes soundtrack to be superior to the original one. It's certainly longer. Unfortunately, it's not available by retail, though you can find it pretty easily for download.
- Some good examples are its boss themes, such as Soldier vs. Ghost or Snake vs. Mantis.
Cutscene Power To The Max: Very conspicuously. Infamously, in the ending cutscene for the boss battle with the Hind D, Snake leaps onto an incoming missile and jumps off of it to shoot the Hind D in the face with his own missile in MID AIR.
It's Easy, So It Sucks: Twin Snakes included many gameplay features originally introduced in Metal Gear Solid 2, but the level design was hardly changed at all to match the new features, leading many players to complain about how much easier the game is when you can aim in first-person view.
Video Game Caring Potential: The Twin Snakes carries over the non-lethal weaponry of Metal Gear Solid 2 and actively encourages the player not to kill their enemies, even rewarding them for it.
Video Game Remake - Well, obviously.