About

Metal Gear Solid Game Over Parodies refer to screenshots created in the style of a "Game Over" screen from the Metal Gear franchise.

Origin

The original Metal Gear Solid featured a number of allies that Solid Snake, the game's protagonist, could talk to via codec. Should the player die in the game, one of the allies that Snake has contacted will futilely try to make contact with him (shown below, left), usually by a variant of "Snake? Snake!? SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!". The sequence is considered to be unintentionally funny due to the overacting of the vocal cast, and is also used for self-parody in the form of Easter Eggs of later titles, such as Snake's own call to Colonel Roy Campbell in Super Smash Brothers. Brawl (shown below, right).

Spread

Some of the earliest parodies of the "Game Over" sequence could be found on user-generated website YTMND starting in 2004.^[1] The first of these parodies, Mario Gear Solid used content from the Super Mario series, made by user toastypk. Since the site's posting in May 17, 2004, the site has obtained over 75,000 views, over 700 votes (with a site average of 3,88/5.00), over 50 favorites, and a total of 100 comments.^[2] The site gained steady popularity over time, and several variations appeared since then, such as Metal Gear Wilson, Nintendo 64 Gear Solid, Metal Gear Chocolate, Metal Gear Flintstone, and Metal Gear Doc. The search term "Metal Gear" brings over 600 results on the website.^[3]

On the 15th of September, 2016 (in the UK- premiere dates vary), the thirty-fourth episode of the fourth series of the popular children's TV show 'The Amazing World of Gumball' premiered, titled The Blame. In this episode, a parody of the Metal Gear Solid game over screen appears after Gumball fails to convince Felicity (the head of his school's PTA) that video games aren't harmful to children.

In addition to the "Snake? Snake!? SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" parodies, other spoofs relating to the series' "Game Over" sequences have risen in popularity. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, the message "Fission Mailed" (a corruption of "Mission Failed") appears twice near the climax of the game as a way to fake out the player, giving them the impression that they somehow lost in one of the game's climactic battles. The phrase itself has gained notability as a way to call out failure between Metal Gear fans. Likewise, the prequel Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater used the term Time Paradox for nonstandard "Game Overs", should the player do something that directly prevents later events in the series from occurring. This term is used by fans to call out plot inconsistencies and make fun of hypothetical occurrences that would apply to the concept.

Search Interest

External References