Metal Gear/ Metal Gear Solid

I understand that, but.

It's still sorta amazingly selfish reasoning on his part.

The Boss was always someone who was willing to put her principles and the needs of others ahead of her own life. That's what Snake learned at the end of Operation Snake Eater.

I suppose the difference is that, during Operation Snake Eater, the Boss kept fighting to the end, while as Peace Walker she chose to end it herself. Because there weren't a lot of options.

But the fact that he didn't think she'd be capable of that before that point. That until that moment, he thought the Boss would keep fighting, when the world she loved so much was at stake, because she wouldn't want to hurt Snake's feelings?

There's something beautiful about that sort of egomania. It's amazingly in-character for the sort of man who can go on and on about different models guns but doesn't know a damn thing about movies, who's only interested in wildlife for how it tastes, who is willing to massacre parents just for war orphans he can feed back into the battle field, and who keeps deadly poisonous zanzibar hamsters in his base.

Honestly, it's the sort of logic one comes to expect from Big Boss.

I know.

I'm not complaining.

edited 26th May '15 12:39:49 PM by unnoun

Oh, I agree completely; that beautiful, egomaniacal insanity is a large part of the reason Big Boss is one of my favorite characters.

I just don't like it when people attribute behaviors to false causes. Not sure if I worded that correctly.

edited 26th May '15 12:40:50 PM by TheAirman

The boss is a wonderful villain to have been made.

Greatly 3 dimensional.

The Boss isn't a villain. Perhaps you meant Big Boss?

edited 26th May '15 12:44:35 PM by TheAirman

Yeah... I reckon Snake's characterization was a bit off in this game

I mean, he was an absolute badass, and he was really broken up about The Boss, but his memories and thoughts of her legacy were way off the mark and seemingly contradictory to what he heard from EVA in 3. I can chalk his contradictions during his conversations with Strangelove, including his torture, as not wanting to contribute to the Mammal Pod, but it ended up seeming like he had really lost sight of what The Boss had told him. And it seems kinda dumb, even considering the 10 years between the Virtuous Mission and Peace Walker.

That may have been the point, though. Big Boss has already started losing his way before you start the game, and the end of the game - both the Peace Walker ending and the Metal Gear ZEKE ending - just hammers that home.

I think Big Boss understood what EVA told him.

He knows the Boss was loyal to the end.

But he thinks she should have been more loyal to him.

I mean, when you listen to EVA's tapes in Peace Walker. At the end, that's what he says.

He might not have known how far the Boss would have gone before that point.

Because if Snake had lost at the end of Operation Snake Eater. Well, the Boss could have nabbed the Philosopher's Legacy and beat it.

There is a slight distinction between being willing to die and being willing to kill yourself.

I can sorta understand that Big Boss might not have thought she would have been willing to do both of those.

But the Boss hated nuclear weapons. I love how, in Cecile's recording, the Boss A.I. is utterly flabbergasted and horrified by being told that she launched the Davy Crocket at Tselinoyarsk.

...I mean, the Boss did end up launching the second one later, but.

The idea that the Boss would rather die than be forced to cause nuclear holocaust for the entire planet really shouldn't be that hard a pill to swallow. The fact that Snake never seemed to realize that before that point is.

I mean, even if he had. The fact that he calls it a betrayal? That he thinks that it's rejecting her entire way of life, that it's rejecting him specifically?

I think it's amazingly selfish that he makes it about him.

But, I mean. Of course he does. Outer Heaven is, and always was, about Big Boss and Big Boss's ego.

A World of Men, Not Snakes is one of my favorite analysis things about this series.

edited 26th May '15 1:08:20 PM by unnoun

Speaking of EVA's tape, I have it but I don't know how to play it. Do I put it on the Walkman in-game, or is there an option to listen to it at Mother Base?

It's in the mission briefing files.

I had a look in the mission selector, but I can't find them. If there's another place to look at mission briefings, I haven't found it.

In the mission briefings, press r or l.

Still nothing - I've scrolled through the cutscenes and everything.

I definitely have EVA's tape, Kaz said something about getting a delivery and testing it for explosives and all that.

Okay, select a mission.

On every mission, after you select it, in the Mission Details screen, there's icons for Briefing Files, Mission Prep, Options, and, lastly, Start Mission.

The tape is in the Briefing Files.

...Also, to unlock a certain series of missions you need to listen to all of Chico's briefing tapes. So. Have fun with that.

edited 26th May '15 1:29:34 PM by unnoun

Oh, okay.

Sorry - I didn't realize those were even up there.

I sorta love the idea, both in the article and implied by what Big Boss says in MGS 4, that Solid Snake has been unintentionally following the Boss's will perfectly the entire time.

There's something poetic about that.

Also, watching Chip Cheezum's let's play of Peace Walker, I sorta wish Big Boss had been able to tell the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff what the CIA Station Chief's name was.

"Hot Coldman."

"That's bullshit. No one is named that."

edited 26th May '15 2:11:04 PM by unnoun

I don't think its just an idea. That pretty much is what Snake and Philanthropy are doing.

"To let the world be."

edited 26th May '15 2:17:15 PM by TheAirman

I think the most unrealistic thing about Hot Coldman's name is the fact that nobody reacts to it.

It is the dumbest name in I'm going to go ahead and say the entire series.

I mean David Oh is a reasonable-ish name. Most of the real names we hear are somewhat ordinary, and the codenames at least make sense and have a reason for them.

...I like to think that if they had been able to make that game about the Cobras, that Gear Rex would have been involved.

Maybe the Germans found them from the future and tried to weaponize them.

Time travelling radioactive zombie Nazi dinosaurs.

Basically Jamais Vu except as part of the main plot.

EDIT: I just realized that.

In the MSX 2 games, the Cardboard Box is extremely effective. Ridiculously so.

And I can't help but wonder whether it's because the guys in Outer Heaven think it's their own guys or their leader or something.

edited 26th May '15 3:08:35 PM by unnoun

Soldier #1: "Where did that box come from? Why is it moving"

Soldier #2: "Oh that's just Big Boss hanging around, that's a thing he does sometimes."

Neither. They think its DD.

So apparently one of the things Sunny can do in the pause menu in MGS 4 is wear a cardboard box and run around in it.

That's adorable.

I feel like if they made a cardboard box that could launch a nuke, Big Boss would have given up on Metal Gears.

I wish this series had a boss fight involving cardboard boxes.

...God I hope that's how we meet Eli in The Phantom Pain. That would be great.

Just a room full of boxes. And you have to find a guy.

EDIT: I have spent way too much time thinking of ways Mantis could fuck with the game in MGSV that wouldn't contradict 4.

I mean, the reason that switching controller ports didn't work is because the game itself wasn't designed to recognize that solution. That's what Otacon said, anyway.

Presumably someone could make a PS 3 game where that worked.

...God I wish having him recognize data on the harddrive would work. But Mantis specifically says he can't do that without a memory card, so.

Again, I have thought way too hard about this.

EDIT: This is a neat story.

edited 26th May '15 8:27:53 PM by unnoun

I'm so sad we'll likely never hear Mantis getting bizarrely enraged over someone's fondness for Super Mario games ever again.

edited 26th May '15 9:57:18 PM by Pulse

@ Big Boss vs. The Boss

The point of MGS 3 was abundantly clear, to the point we didn't need PO or PW or anything else really.

The Boss believed soldiers were nothing more than the tools of politicians and thus their lives have no real value. The Boss herself is a perfect example. She was an icon and yet as soon as it was necessary she was thrown away. That's because even the best tools can be replaced.

Naked Snake came to understand The Boss. He saw that she killed the man she loved for her country, she lost her baby for her country, and her country rewarded her with a death sentence and being branded a traitor.

So what did Naked Snake take away from all of this? "We're not tools of the government, or anyone else." He would make a nation where soldiers could not be used and disposed of.

And if it wasn't transparent enough from 3, PO has him saying point blank "I'm not going to live my life the way the Boss did!"

No doubt he loved and respected her but he clearly hates the way she wasted her life.

edited 26th May '15 10:16:07 PM by Nikkolas

Do a cartwheel!

I'd take that over the Quiet figure any day of the week.

Every time I play MGS 3 I can't help but think of Hiimdaisy's comic about it. Especially with the disguise part.

"I'm a scientist!"

Tommy gun! Grenade! Beekini!