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===''Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots''=== |
===''Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots''=== |
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[[Image:Video004951164520cs0.png|thumb|Big Boss in the ending of ''Metal Gear Solid 4]]'' |
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Following up on the cliffhanger ending of ''Portable Ops'', ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' reveals that Big Boss and his former commanding officer Zero, were the founding members of the Patriots. However, a fallout between the two causes Zero to initiate the ''Les Enfants Terribles'' project. This led Big Boss to break away from Zero and plot a coup d'etat against him, causing the events of Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland. Big Boss is revealed to have survived his defeat in Zanzibar Land, but is placed in an artificially induced cryogenic coma, with his genetic code used for the Sons of the Patriots ID recognition system. His body is thought to be recovered and preserved by EVA (now known as Big Mama), but It turns out to be Solidus's remains. After the fall of the Patriots' AIs, his body is reconstructed and he is awaken from his coma. |
Following up on the cliffhanger ending of ''Portable Ops'', ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' reveals that Big Boss and his former commanding officer Zero, were the founding members of the Patriots. However, a fallout between the two causes Zero to initiate the ''Les Enfants Terribles'' project. This led Big Boss to break away from Zero and plot a coup d'etat against him, causing the events of Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland. Big Boss is revealed to have survived his defeat in Zanzibar Land, but is placed in an artificially induced cryogenic coma, with his genetic code used for the Sons of the Patriots ID recognition system. His body is thought to be recovered and preserved by EVA (now known as Big Mama), but It turns out to be Solidus's remains. After the fall of the Patriots' AIs, his body is reconstructed and he is awaken from his coma. |
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Revision as of 00:08, 24 June 2009
Big Boss | |
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Metal Gear series character | |
File:Big Boss (Metal Gear).jpg | |
First game | Metal Gear |
Created by | Hideo Kojima |
Big Boss (ビッグ・ボス, Biggu Bosu) is a fictional character in the Metal Gear series. Reputed to be "The Greatest Warrior of the Twentieth Century", Big Boss is introduced in the original Metal Gear as Solid Snake's commanding officer, but turns out to be the enemy leader and he returns as an antagonist in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. His legacy and relationship with Solid Snake (who is revealed to be his son/clone) plays an important role in Metal Gear Solid and its sequels, and he appears as the protagonist in the prequels Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops under the identity of Naked Snake (ネイキッド・スネーク, Neikiddo Sunēku). It is revealed in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots that he is a member of the Patriots, a secret society that controls the United States of America. He is to act as the protagonist of an upcoming PSP release, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
As Naked Snake, the character is voiced by the same voice actor who plays Solid Snake: Akio Ōtsuka in Japanese and David Hayter in English versions. In his appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Big Boss is voiced by Chikao Ōtsuka (Akio's father) in Japanese and Richard Doyle in English.
Character development
Metal Gear
Big Boss first appears in the original Metal Gear as the leader of the Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND and Solid Snake's commanding officer. He is depicted as an elderly mercenary with white hair and a beard, an eyepatch over his right eye. He initially acts as a radio contact who provides Snake with information about mission objectives, as well as weapons and equipment.[1][2]
However, near the end of the game as Snake approaches the final base where Metal Gear is stored, Big Boss begins to give misleading advice to the player, eventually asking Snake to abort his mission. After Metal Gear is destroyed, Big Boss exposes himself as the leader of the Outer Heaven militia at the base's escape route and confronts Snake in a final battle with the base self-destruct mechanism counting down. After the ending credits, a message from Big Boss is displayed swearing revenge against Snake.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Big Boss is revealed to have survived his battle with Snake in Outer Heaven (reportedly after receiving cybernetic "Snatcher" implants after losing most of his body according to a rumor mentioned by George Kasler in the game), and has since taken control of another fortified nation in Central Asia - Zanzibar Land. This time, he establishes a military force along with his trusted lieutenant, Gray Fox, and commissions the development of a new Metal Gear model, Metal Gear D. After Snake destroys Metal Gear D and defeats Gray Fox, he confronts Big Boss once again while escaping from the Zanzibar Land detention camp. With all of Snake's weapons lost during the prior fight with Fox, the player is forced to resort to a more clever way of fighting Big Boss (by collecting a lighter and an aerosol can which Snake can combine to make a flamethrower).
According to Kyle Schneider, Big Boss had also saved many of the war orphans/refugees, including members of the resistance, when NATO had bombed Outer Heaven[3]
Metal Gear Solid
Despite his apparent death, Big Boss's presence figures prominently in Metal Gear Solid and its subsequent sequels, where Solid Snake is revealed to be a genetically-altered clone of Big Boss, created from a secret government project known as Les Enfants Terribles (The Terrible Children) along with two other clones: Liquid Snake, the leader of FOXHOUND and the antagonist in Metal Gear Solid; and Solidus Snake, the U.S. President during the events of Metal Gear Solid and the antagonist in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The Genome Army that Snake faces in Metal Gear Solid are also genetically altered soldiers who were implanted with Big Boss's genes after his body was recovered. Big Boss's remains are part of the terrorists' demands in Metal Gear Solid, who call themselves the "Sons of Big Boss."
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, a prequel to the previous games set three decades before the events of the original Metal Gear in 1964, introduces a young Big Boss as a former Green Beret codenamed Naked Snake (the player's character in the game), following up on the revelation that Solid Snake is Big Boss's clone. Naked Snake is virtually identical to Solid Snake from the previous Metal Gear Solid games in terms of appearance, wearing a similar bandanna during Operation: Snake Eater (which he snatched off from The Boss during his battle with her at the end of the Virtuous Mission) and is even voiced by the same voice actors Solid Snake in the Japanese and American versions. He loses his right eye from a muzzle flash burn caused by a young Ocelot and begins to wear his characteristic eye patch late in the game. His primary outfit is a battle dress uniform with changeable camouflage patterns, although he also gets to wear a Soviet prototype of Solid Snake's sneaking suit from Metal Gear Solid as well.
In the prologue sequence of the game, the Virtuous Mission, Naked Snake, a member of the newly-formed special forces unit FOX (a precursor to FOXHOUND founded by the CIA), is given orders to infiltrate the fictional Soviet region of Tselinoyarsk and extract a defecting Soviet scientist named Sokolov. After rescuing Sokolov, he is confronted by his mentor, The Boss, who defects to the Soviet Union and defeats Snake. In the main portion of the story, he is sent on a follow-up mission called "Operation: Snake Eater", with the objective to assassinate The Boss; as well as her new benefactor, Colonel Volgin; and destroy the secret Soviet weapon Shagohod. In the end, Snake fulfills his mission and is awarded the title of Big Boss by President Johnson, only to learn the true nature of The Boss's defection from a recorded confession left by EVA, a female spy he worked and became intimate with during the story. Realizing the truth of The Boss' defection left Big Boss distraught and demoralized, leading Big Boss to leave the FOX unit.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Set six years after the events of Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops features Naked Snake once again as the main character. In this game, Naked Snake wears a new version of the sneaking suit he wore in Snake Eater dubbed the "Close Quarter Combat Enhancer", which serves as the uniform of the FOX unit. Although already awarded the title of Big Boss, he prefers to be addressed by his former codename, believing that he has yet to surpass The Boss as a warrior. Snake finds himself involved in an armed uprising caused by the FOX unit (now led by Gene) in the fictional San Hieronymo peninsula in Colombia and learns that he has been convicted for instigating the revolt. Hoping to clear up his name, Snake forms his own team of specialists by recruiting both old allies and defecting enemy soldiers to his cause. He faces not only the members of the FOX unit, but also the first built Metal Gear prototype known as the ICBMG. He defeats Gene and obtains the fund for "Army's Heaven", a precursor to Big Boss's own Outer Heaven.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Following up on the cliffhanger ending of Portable Ops, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots reveals that Big Boss and his former commanding officer Zero, were the founding members of the Patriots. However, a fallout between the two causes Zero to initiate the Les Enfants Terribles project. This led Big Boss to break away from Zero and plot a coup d'etat against him, causing the events of Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland. Big Boss is revealed to have survived his defeat in Zanzibar Land, but is placed in an artificially induced cryogenic coma, with his genetic code used for the Sons of the Patriots ID recognition system. His body is thought to be recovered and preserved by EVA (now known as Big Mama), but It turns out to be Solidus's remains. After the fall of the Patriots' AIs, his body is reconstructed and he is awaken from his coma.
Following the voice casting credits at the ending, Big Boss appears before Solid Snake along with a now-catatonic Zero as a final twist in the story. After revealing the truth about Zero and the Patriots, as well as Ocelot's "possession" by Liquid, Big Boss shuts down Zero's life support system. He then reconciles with his clone/son before dying from exposure to the FOXDIE virus implanted in Snake, but not before asking Snake to live out the rest of his life peacefully and not waste it fighting.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Big Boss is scheduled to appear in the upcoming PlayStation Portable game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Set in 1974, four years after the events of Portable Ops, the story is set in Costa Rica, where Big Boss takes command of a mercenary group known as Militaires Sans Frontières ("Soldiers Without Borders"), which eventually becomes the private military company Outer Heaven from the original Metal Gear.[4]
Miscellaneous
NES games
When Metal Gear was released for the NES in North America and Europe, the plot within the actual game itself remained unchanged. However, the instruction manual features a different version of the story that strays from the canonical version and gives a more satirical depiction of the game (as with most of Konami's American manuals at the time). The leader of Outer Heaven is mentioned to be a so-called "Vermon CaTaffy", a play on Muammar al-Gaddafi, who is described in the manual as a "once tranquil shepherd boy who turned to terrorism". Big Boss is never mentioned by name in the manual either: instead a character called "Commander South" (a parody of Oliver North) is described as Snake's commanding officer.
Snake's Revenge, a non-canonical sequel to the NES version of Metal Gear released only in North America and Europe, features Big Boss as the final boss before the player's confrontation with "Metal Gear 2". He attacks Snake as a regular man, before transforming into a tall cyborg after sustaining damage. Like in the first NES game, the game's manual names a character other than Big Boss as the main antagonist: in this case, the apparent villain is "Higharolla Kockamamie" (a parody of Ayatollah Khomeini), an ally of Vermon CaTaffy from the first game's manual.
Backstory
Much of Big Boss's established background story has been revised through the course of the Metal Gear series. In the original Metal Gear, Big Boss is characterized as having served in the Green Berets, SAS, and GSG-9 prior to serving as the commander of FOXHOUND.[1][5] The character portrait in the Japanese manual for the original MSX2 game depicts Big Boss wearing his eye patch over his left eye. However, the character's sprite in the game depicts the eye patch over his right eye. All subsequent depictions of Big Boss features the eye patch on his right eye. Big Boss's military career is further fleshed out in Metal Gear 2. He is revealed to had served the LRRP during the Vietnam War, followed by SOG and the Wild Geese, before losing his eye in the 1980s and becoming FOXHOUND's commander in the 1990s.[2][6] According to Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2, Big Boss was in his seventies during the events of Metal Gear 2 and his clones were created back when he was in his fifties during the 1970s (the exact year is specified 1972 in Metal Gear Solid 3).
Much of Big Boss's established past would be revised in Metal Gear Solid 3. Big Boss is in his late-twenties to early-thirties in the game, which is set in 1964, making Big Boss a decade younger than previously stated. He loses his eye during the course of Snake Eater to Ocelot, contradicting earlier statements of Big Boss having lost his eye during the 1980s. Additionally, the end of the game alludes to Big Boss forming FOXHOUND in 1971 (an event later depicted in Portable Ops), contradicting FOXHOUND's formation during the 1990s in earlier games.
Reception
Computerworld named Big Boss as one of the most creative "badass villains" in video games, citing the complexity of his betrayal of Solid Snake, fueled by Snake being his genetic heir.[7]
References
- ^ a b "Metal Gear MSX2 version, instruction manual" (in Japanese). Konami. 1987.
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(help); Text "archiveda" ignored (help) - ^ Kyle Schneider: You've still got a lot to learn, Snake. I was almost killed, but not by them. By you, and your country.
Solid Snake: What are you saying, Schneider?
Kyle Schneider: ...Snake, after you destroyed Metal Gear, NATO launched a massive bombing campaign against Outer Heaven. All of us Resistance fighters...and the children of Outer Heaven...they didn't care about any of us. There was no escape from the flames... They died like animals in a cage.
Solid Snake: I... can't believe this...
Kyle Schneider: Think about it. The children of Outer Heaven were originally was orphans and refugees from all over the world. They were a liability... and NATO didn't want to deal with them...
Solid Snake: ...No...
Kyle Schneider: You're no different. They'll forget about you, too... but he wasn't like them...
Solid Snake: Who....?
Kyle Schneider: He came... and saved us from the annihilation. He forgave us for what we'd done. He gave us a new land to call home... A new family...
Solid Snake: He did...? You mean...
Kyle Schneider: Snake, you'll understand soon... what a wonderful man he is...
-Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake PS2/Mobile version. - ^ http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6210882/psp-go-due-october-1
- ^ "Metal Gear — Character Profiles" (in Japanese).
- ^ "Metal Gear 2 - Character Profiles" (in Japanese).
- ^ Gagne, Ken. You can run, but you'll only die tired: Gaming's 'baddest' villains. Computerworld. Retrieved on 2008-09-16