Any fans of the cutscenes in the Metal Gear Solid games around? They have certainly given players a lot to choose from. Too many in some cases. Yet they’ve provided some of the most interesting, entertaining, and memetic sequences in video games.

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Still, some are better than others. The insane action of The Twin Snakes, the goofiness of The Pain’s Bullet Bees in Metal Gear Solid 3, and Skull Face crying “WHOOOOOO?!” in Metal Gear Solid 5 pale next to the classics. These are the best cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid, ranked by their storytelling, creativity, and impact.

10 “I’m a Scientist, and I Expect Answers That Make Sense”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- Peace Walker Torture

Peace Walker had some lovely comic-style cutscenes. Though it’s hard to settle on the best. The endings are touching, and kind of silly. Then Big Boss’ speeches make an impact, but they’re just audio set to a title card. Not really a cutscene. But there are a few that fit the bill, and they can only be seen if the player sticks around for some ‘interrogation’.

Dr. Strangelove tortures Big Boss with electric currents (or tickle sticks), demanding to know the truth about what happened to the Boss. He refuses, sticking to the official story. She tries to break him, but he breaks her just by refusing to give in. He keeps telling her to kill him as she’s left crying in frustration. The torturer ends up tortured, and the victim stands tall in their suffering.

9 “Peace Day Never Came...”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS5 Venom Snake Paz

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s storytelling fell short compared to prior games. Not that its troubled development helped anything, as its hinted-at finale was left on the cutting room floor. Oh well, at least players could still use real money to buy insurance for their digital bases! That said, there was a subplot that had a nice, bittersweet ending.

Phantom Pain revealed that Paz somehow survived the events of Ground Zeroes, but was left with a dissociative identity disorder. Venom Snake thought he was helping her process what happened by showing her photos from the old days. Instead, he was the one processing. He relives her death in gruesome detail until he wakes up and realizes it was all a delusion. Paz never survived. Harsh as it was, he needed to learn to let her go.

8 “This Isn’t My Sword”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGR Raiden

Metal Gear has often paired the poignant with the ridiculous. Metal Gear Rising just winked at the audience as it did so, with Raiden’s Mariachi disguise, and the giant Texan cyborg Sundowner wanting to take things back to “the good, ol’ days of 9/11!”. Each of those scenes took place between ones about identity and free will, mental trauma, and what makes a cause just.

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It’s why Raiden’s scenes with Senator Armstrong ring so true with fans. It’s funny when Armstrong boots Raiden like a football and declares why he’s so tough (“Nanomachines, son!”). Then he explains his plan to bring down the war economy to create a better world, which Raiden counters as a living example of what it would produce: broken people in metal bodies. With a last-minute save from Bladewolf, Raiden prepares to stop him for good.

7 “A Cornered Fox is More Dangerous Than a Jackal!”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS1 Grey Fox Death

Speaking of last-minute saves, Metal Gear Solid saw Raiden’s cyborg ninja predecessor Grey Fox save Solid Snake when he couldn’t destroy Metal Gear REX’s radome. He seeks to atone for his past by stopping the machine himself and loses an arm in the process. Then Liquid uses REX to pin Fox against the wall.

Liquid Snake gloats over his failure, saying he hunted more dangerous fodder like jackals. But Fox proves himself by blasting what’s left of the radome, which forces REX’s cockpit open and exposes its ‘character flaws’. Fox gets to say his goodbyes to Snake before Liquid finishes him off, and Snake makes sure his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

6 “Kept You Waiting, Huh?”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS2 Snake Opening

The opening cutscenes also count as they set the game’s first impression. The tracking camera around Camp Omega in Ground Zeroes sets a good tone, as does Snake’s underwater entrance in MGS1. If only Metal Gear Solid 2 didn’t outdo them both. Snake’s Tanker landing via stealth camo and bungee is done with style.

Harry Gregson-Williams’ moody, cinematic music and the dark, rainy New York setting makes the scene more mysterious and suspenseful, as Snake isn’t revealed until he lands with an electric flourish. It would be recreated for Snake in the Super Smash Bros games, and referenced in every subsequent Metal Gear game with one simple phrase: “Kept you waiting, huh?”

5 “I’m Still in a Dream”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS3 Snake Eater Opening

When MGS3 revealed it’d be going back to the Sixties, people thought Snake would be going to Vietnam for a serious adventure. Then the next trailer had a technicolor Snake chuck guards around to a James Bond-style tune called 'Snake Eater'. Chances are it would be a little campier than people thought. And it was.

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The game’s intro played the ‘Snake Eater’ song in full to a collage of slithering snakes, Cold War symbols, and the game’s cast of characters. It’s also interactive, as pressing R1, L3, and R3, and moving the analog sticks do different things like changing the symbols, changing the subtitle language, and adding backing vocals. The only downside is that the HD version is off-sync with the music, as the big beats lined up with the big booms in the original PS2 game.

4 “To Begin With, We’re Not What You’d Call ‘Human’...”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS2 Patriots Talk

Technically, this is a selection of multiple cutscenes set between the Metal Gear RAY and Solidus Snake fights in MGS2. They also largely take place on the Codec screen with alternate scenes in between. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be right to leave out what one YouTube upload called “The Most Profound Moment in Gaming”. Before he fights Solidus, Raiden gets a call from the Patriots’ AI. They explain what they are, what their plan is, and why they did it.

It’s a chilling scene as it reveals Raiden, and thus the player isn’t immune to misinformation. They gave them the objectives, and Raiden/the player followed them because it made them feel good. The talk about how the truth gets smothered beneath lies and trivia rang a bell with those who saw the rise of the internet. Something filtering the web of the ‘fake news’ sounds good, but who decides what’s ‘fake’ and what’s ‘real’? An AI like the Patriots? That could be even worse.

3 “Let’s Make This the Greatest 10 Minutes of Our Lives, Jack”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS3 The Boss Fight

The finale to MGS2 may be profound and interesting, but it doesn’t tug on the heartstrings like MGS3. Once ‘Operation Snake Eater’ begins, Naked Snake is conflicted over his final duty: kill his mentor, The Boss, for defecting to the Soviet Union. Taking down Volgin, the Shagohod, and saving the world from their nuclear threat was the fun side of things. Fighting the Boss is another.

Once he meets her in the flower field, neither of them have a choice. They must fight. The Boss opens up about her motives, past, and feelings for her former protégé. Robbed of her child in World War 2, and rendered infertile soon afterward, she sees Snake as her son. She voices her appreciation for him before giving their last bout its time limit. Snake, conflicted but determined, has to complete his last objective in 10 minutes.

2 “She Was a True Patriot”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS3 Big Boss Salute

To cap that off, as soon as Snake returns to the US, he learns his partner EVA was a spy for China from a tape she left behind, along with more details about the Boss. As Snake receives his honors from the President and the title of ‘Big Boss’, she explains the Boss’ defection was all part of the plan.

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It would’ve gone smoothly if her new accomplice Volgin hadn’t destroyed Sokolov’s facility. With the blame placed on the Boss, the US used Snake to kill her as part of their clean-up operation. Disgusted with the CIA, and leaving his support team behind, he goes to her anonymous grave to salute someone who was loyal to the end and paid for it.

1 “Now I’ll Read More Deeply into Your Soul!”

Best Metal Gear Cutscenes- MGS1 Twin Snakes Psycho Mantis

From a story perspective, MGS3’s ending is the best in the series. Players could ignore the other prequel games, and it would set the stage for Big Boss’ future heel turn alone. However, it’s not the most iconic and impressive scene in the series. MGS1 cracked the 4th wall by hiding a Codec number on the actual game’s box. Meeting Psycho Mantis smashed it to bits.

At first, he comments on Snake’s character. Then he talks about the player’s game saves (“You like Castlevania, don’t you?”) and how often they’ve saved. Few games went to such lengths to freak its audience out. Silicon Knights cited it as an inspiration for the insanity effects in Eternal Darkness, before they would remake the scene in The Twin Snakes. Whether it’s on the PS1 or Gamecube, it’s still a powerful scene today.

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