Narm / Metal Gear

!

What was that noise?

...

Oh... it's just some Metal Gear Narm...

Given that Kojima is Kojima, it can be hard to tell what's supposed to be straight-up dramatic, and what's supposed to be Mood Whiplash and/or Bathos. That's what this page is for.

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Eight-bit Metal Gear

• Natasha's amazing Final Speech in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. She manages to directly contradict her own ridiculous metaphor, twice.
  • Don't forget, "It was something about the ice... It felt... cold."
• The "deadly poisonous Zanzibar hamsters".
  • Nothing can top the absurdity of poisonous Zanzibar hamsters, but Yozef abruptly ending your call because the pizza man had just arrived provides the perfect silver lining to this particular cloud of Kojima mental flatulence. Hell, Yozef himself barely seems to care one jot about the incredibly serious situation his client Snake is in, as he also jokes about Snake being unable to find a burger joint in the battlefield when Snake tries to snag Marv's carrier pigeon. Maybe that's why a lot of people liked him... that and in the MSX2 version he was literally Danny DeVito.
• Likewise, "I FEEL ASLEEP!!"
• "UH OH! THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!"
• The owl puzzle, which involved hatching an adult owl from an egg and making it hoot to trick a guard into thinking it's nighttime.
• Fan Translation: Snake's response to having to beat his best friend to death: "FOX! I'LL KICK YOUR TWISTED MIND OUT OF YOU!"
• The whole game becomes one extended case of this if you're more used to the Solid games. If you are, you will be familiar with Snake as a badass Shell-Shocked Veteran-slash-Cool Old Guy and accustomed to the heavy melodrama. It's jarring to pick up an earlier Metal Gear and see exactly what traumatized Snake into Heroic BSoD in Metal Gear Solid.
• The climactic battle with Gray Fox would have been moving had it not been entirely based around Fox running around you like a chicken with its head cut off and flailing punches every now and again. What makes it even funnier is the way it's retold in the briefing files of Metal Gear Solid when juxtaposed with the actual gameplay:
  In the midst of a minefield, Snake and Fox fought without any weapons. A fist-to-fist duel involving no hatred or murder intent. During that weird moment of purity, the two were bound by forces transcending words and emotion.
  • In Metal Gear 2, Gray Fox, on his deathbed, talks about his failed relationship with his true love, Natasha. Unfortunately, the words he chooses to describe this make it sound like he's just dreadful in bed. You can't "make a woman happy", Fox? Then he explodes.
• The placement of the machine gun on Metal Gear D. Seriously, what is it with Kojima putting weapons and stuff on robot's dicks? Or giving them dicks to begin with (see REX and Jehuty)?
• There's multiple boss fights where they just stay in their general area, waiting for Snake to come by so they can try to kill him — and there's nothing stopping you from having a half-hour or longer diatribe of exploring other areas just to look for their weakness before you come back. This includes a man stuck in the walls so he can fling grenades at you, and an entire Hind-D assault chopper that stays in the air indefinitely.
• One of the bosses is called Red Blaster... and he doesn't wear a single speck of red on him. And if you're aware that he's Russian, it's still Narmy, since what Russian would proudly claim themselves "Red" in such a fashion?
  • Even better if you imagine Red saying "if we could just step out of our literal minds..."
• The simple fact that what does Big Boss in is an aerosol can/lighter combo. Mind you, this is the guy who once lifted the entire leg of a mech by himself, was electro-tortured, had his eye shot to hell, was shot in the thigh, survived a god knows how high drop down a waterfall and a near 10 minutes underwater. And this completely burns him down into a pile of ashes, Looney Tunes style.
  • Made even funnier by The Phantom Pain, and the reveal this this is exactly how Ishmael/ Big Boss dealt with Quiet in the prologue - this is actually supposed to be an ironic death.
• MG1 introduces us to the epicness that is Shoot Gunner/Shotmaker. The End could photosynthesize to regain strength, Psycho Mantis was an unparalleled psychic and Vamp is practically immortal. Shoot Gunner... has a shotgun. Compared to what the later games ended up with, the MSX games' bosses are so mundane it's hilarious. Considering that these are the guys Big Boss and Venom Snake put their faith in...
• Running Man. There's a boss in MG2 called Running Man. And his skill is... running really fast. And he can be beaten in the most ludicrously mundane of fashions: putting mines on the floor that he's too stupid to get around, treading on one every time without fail. And, yes, his name is an Arnie reference.
• The first boss fight in the second game is against Black Color/Black Ninja, who is an astronaut ninja. No, not someone who became a ninja and an astronaut separately. He was literally trained by NASA for ninja combat in space! Which also kicks off the franchise's running tradition of the American military making ninjas on a seemingly weekly basis. Perhaps it's Kyle Schneider lying out of his ass for a villain backstory, though, which just makes it intentionally absurd.
• One of the many versions of Metal Gear 1 writes Big Boss or rather, Venom Snake's Final Boss introductory line as a hilariously casual/energetic "YEAH, I'M BIG BOSS". Considering The Reveal in The Phantom Pain, one can't help but wonder if Venom Snake is overcompensating because he thinks there's a pressing need to snuff out any suspicions that he's seeing an imposter. That, or the above line is dripping with sarcasm.
• The boss battle against Dr. Pettrovich in Metal Gear 2. Controls make it impossible for Snake to actually do anything about the frail old man who is choking him, meaning the only way to win is to shoot Pettro repeatedly in the back with remote control missiles, or make Snake step on land mines or walk into his own grenades to injure them both. Yet MGS4 states that Madnar survived all of this since he's still around to help Raiden out (though he doesn't appear) and a cut codec conversation states that this isn't just some guy who happens to have the same name as Madnar, but the man himself somehow having survived all those explosions (Otacon relays an apology from Madnar for that stuff in Zanzibar, also his daughter's married).

Metal Gear Solid/The Twin Snakes

• Each of the alternate endings in the original Metal Gear Solid had a handful, so there was no escape. Upon failing to save Meryl, Snake - sounding on the edge of tears for the first time so far - rants at himself for being too selfish to save her; it's genuinely moving until he cries, "I'm a loser!" If he rescues her, you then get to sit through one of the most gloriously cheesy romantic scenes ever written.
  "It's so beautiful. The sky, the snow, the caribou... and... most of all... you."
• Though it's a problem throughout most of the series, this very game has it the absolute worst: Parrot Exposition. Every time someone brings up a plot point, Snake will repeat the major term they just said so that whoever he's talking to will repeat it to him with clarification. It's to the point that even when face-to-face with primary antagonists who want him dead, if Snake repeats something, they nearly always exposit about what they're rambling over, effectively reverse-interrogating everyone he comes across. Later games at least tone this down a bit, even if it remains a signature trait.
• The usage of stock footage in both Baker's and Otacon's long speeches. It completely pulls you away from the action in that "...Did they actually USE THAT?" sort of manner.
• The Twin Snakes had awful facial expressions, especially when you consider that MGS2 contained some strikingly subtle ones three years prior (for a good example, watch Snake's face during Emma's death scene). Snake, in TTS, has a permanent facial expression of mildly-annoyed confusion, which is all the more hilarious because it unintentionally suits his character. It hits rock bottom when Gray Fox is being crushed by Liquid, and Snake gives an impassioned scream of FOOOOOOOOOOOOX! - his face looks so terrible that it becomes immediately funny. And the Say My Name abuse was funny in itself.
  • The scene immediately before becomes Narmful too, if you're a psychopath who enjoys mashing the Square button to hear Snake complaining. "No! I can't do it! -" "AFTER ZANZIBAR - " "It's no good! I can't do it! -" "I WAS TAKEN FROM THE BATTLE - " "No! I can't do it! It's no good! I can't do it!" - "AN UNDYING SHADOW - " etcetera, as demonstrated in this comic.
  • While the inability of a professional killer to Shoot the Dog, having learned from his past mistakes, is arguably powerful, try destroying the radome with your last missile. Snake's dialogue changes to reflect this: "It's no good! I'm out of missiles!" So much for character development, Snake.
• After Rex stomps Fox into paste, it rears up, and the open, mouth-like cockpit that Liquid's sitting in moves as though it's... laughing while emitting what can only be described as a victory screech. Bear in mind its movements are controlled by Liquid.
• Also in the Gamecube version, we have Ocelot's face as he notices that his arm's been chopped off. It looks more like the kind of face you'd see in a Dreamworks Animation movie.
• Anything involving Liquid and genes.
  • "SNAKE . . . did you like my sunglaahhhhhses?"
    • Liquid's, er... 'British accent' in general in the original MGS. One of the few bits of narm that was arguably improved for Twin Snakes.
• His description of the "Super Baby Method". Followed by Snake's Parrot Exposition for added hilarity.
• The Cyborg Ninja (Gray Fox) fight. It's hard to concentrate since Gray Fox seems to be having an orgasm from the fight.
  "Now, make me feel it! Make me feel alive again!" (a few punches later...) "That's good, Snake!" (a few punches more...) "HURT ME MORE!!!" (a few punches after that) "MORE!!! MORE!!!"
• The DARPA Chief, Anderson (or rather, Decoy Octopus), dies of an apparent heart attack right in front of Snake, complete with trying to voice his final words while clutching at Snake's shirt. After he falls to the ground, Snake takes his pulse, and simply says, "Huh. Dead." Funnily enough, Snake is justifiably freaked out in the codec conversation immediately afterward.
• The conversation between Otacon and Snake in the elevator of invisible soldiers is rather scary, with the music growing in intensity... right up until Otacon leans into the screen and starts screaming at Snake to get out while the music swells in volume. There's just something about Otacon screaming combined with his zoomed in, terrified face that is hilarious.
  • Even better is that this conversation is actually kind of long, and yet these soldiers - who were in the perfect position to catch Snake by surprise and just shoot him - are perfectly content to wait until Snake figured out that they were there, before decloaking themselves and making a big deal about how Snake was clearly outmatched or something.
  • Additionally, even when Otacon finally figures out what's really going on in the elevator and the above-mentioned face-filling incident happens, he doesn't really raise his voice. He sounds like he's almost whispering to Snake about the bad guys being in the elevator with him when his face says he should be shouting at the top of his lungs. It's just as bad in The Twin Snakes.
• The fully animated Briefing cutscene in The Twin Snakes. It starts off fairly sedate, until Snake rather animatedly gestures and flails about while speaking in a manner well out of character for him. At one point, Snake leans on the waist high examining table after taking in a Wham Line, apparently unaware of how ridiculous he looks mooning the camera. Of course, this was probably meant as fanservice.
• "A rat must have eaten it!"
  "Now who's being ridiculous?"
• Snake's wonderful description of why it's unlikely that Liquid would survive:
  "He'll be sliced up faster than an onion on an infomercial."
  • This is changed in The Twin Snakes to "He'd have been cut to ribbons by the rotor blades." More accurate, sure, but less fun.
  • In both versions, Snake also surmises that leaving the parachute in an obvious location is Liquid's way of telling him "I'll string you up". Even Naomi realizes how dumb Snake is being and responds with what is essentially Stunned Silence.
• "Can love bloom, Snake? Even on a battlefield?"
• "Snake? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!?"
• "A surveillance camera?!"
  • This particular line in the PS1 version was infamous among the MGS fandom for the shocked tone Snake says it in, as if it's the last thing he ever expected to see. Because we all know top-secret, highly guarded military bases never have surveillance cameras. The Twin Snakes thankfully redoes the line so it's not something he's shocked to see, but merely a general observation he's making. ("A surveillance camera...")
  • Parodied in 4, where Otacon actually does an impression of Snake saying "a surveillance camera?!" to show him how freaked out he sounded. Snake doesn't see the funny side.
• Contrast and compare: Exhibit A: Colonel Trautman in Rambo III being electrocuted on a metal bed- pained expression with suppressed cries of pain. Exhibit B: Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid being electrocuted on a metal bed- NNNNNNAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
  • In Twin Snakes, mashing the button to resist way too fast can actually trigger the silent autofire reaction, even if you're playing legitimately, which results in the electrocution never stopping until you inevitably die. Hearing Liquid scold Ocelot as he meekly apologizes that "it happened again" makes it become extra hilarious as a result.
  • In the original, Ocelot Breaking the Fourth Wall in warning the player not to use turbo can be pretty narmy on its own. Twin Snakes ups the ante by having Ocelot dramatically point at the screen while giving said warning.
• The death of Sniper Wolf. Her long speech wouldn't have been unintentionally amusing if she hadn't stated at the beginning that she had been shot in the lung.
  • To add to that, Wolf magically ending up with only a shot up lung even if you spent the entirety of that battle blasting her with Nikita rockets or Stinger missiles. Twin Snakes fixed this by having the cutscene show Snake actually making the lung shot with his rifle.
  • And did we mention that it's long? Yes? Well, just try sitting through a tragic death cutscene that goes on for 8-and-a-half minutes. All of Foxhound's death scenes clock in at over 5 minutes, but this one takes the cake. Even with a shot lung, she's still able to give an eloquent, tragic recount of her backstory just fine, with a token choking noise as if to remind you she's dying.
  • The Twin Snakes "fix" is hindered by one thing probably making the scene a bit too over-the-top, though: disarmed of his weapon and straight in Wolf's sights, Snake suddenly leaps more than twice his entire body height to backflip onto the stock of his grounded rifle. He then catches the gun out of the air, does two full counterclockwise rotations for seemingly no reason, and then shoots Wolf before she can hit him a second later. Yes, he just 720 no-scoped off a superhuman backflip that even had Wolf confused.
• The ladder instructions.
  SHUT UP FOR CHRIST'S SAKE I KNOW HOW TO CLIMB A LADDER JESUS OW MY EAR
• This is more of a generational Narm, but... If you played the later installments first, then went to the original Metal Gear Solid, you won't be able to take it seriously. At all. Why? BECAUSE NOBODY HAS A GODDAMN FACE. Say what you will about the Twin Snakes, but they at least have recognizable human anatomy. Making the cutscenes on 3DO hardware without changing the engine after being scrapped in favor of the PS1 made the game look dated, even by the standards of the time.
  • This gets even more funny when you play MGS4 and obtain a camo mask of Snake's PS1 face, jagged textures and obvious pixels and all. Then you get to unlock MGS1 Snake's entire polygonal model, jaggedness and all, in MGSV.
  • If Meryl hadn't said "oh gross!" upon seeing Mantis unmasked, it would be pretty hard to tell that he was supposed to be horribly deformed.
• Snake's echoing death scream, which you'll have heard so many times by the end of the PS1 version you'll be ready to chuck your controller at the screen. "YAAAH...yaaah...yaaah..."
• Nothing screws up the mood of a duel between Solid Snake and Gray Fox like the onlooker (Otacon) proclaiming that "THIS IS JUST LIKE ONE OF MY JAPANESE ANIMES!"
  • What makes it better/worse is that the very next two lines are as anime as they can possibly be, with Gray Fox going on about he's "come from another world" to fight Snake and Snake assuming he wants revenge for something or other. TTS even gives us dramatic anime-style close-ups of their faces as they deliver these next two lines.
  • Keep in mind that Otacon says all of that while soaked in his own piss. And the stain is still there nine years later in MGS4. Now there's the real stains of time.
• Snake describing Metal Gear Rex as "A Nuclear Equipped Walking Deathmobile".
  • "Quick, Liquid! To the Deathmobile!"
• "I LOVE to reload during a battle! There's nothing like the feeling of slamming a long, silver bullet into a well-greased chamber." Not to mention Kenneth Baker moaning in the background...
  • The moaning was removed from The Twin Snakes. Whether that's better or worse is up to you.
• Vulcan Raven's line: "The raven on my head thirsts for his blood!"
• Gray Fox using the codename "Deepthroat". If you're not familiar with the Watergate Scandal (or fell asleep when Snake mentions it) it can elicit a giggle or two for other reasons instead.
  ?: Just call me 'Deepthroat'.
  Snake: 'Deepthroat?' The informant from the Watergate scandal?
  ?: Nevermind about that.
• The white Cyborg Ninja/Gray Fox is voiced by the black Greg Eagles, who, while he tries hard, badly conceals his African-American baritone with a bizarre high-pitched rasp that destroys the drama in most of his scenes. It's especially jarring since he does such a good job voicing Gray Fox's codec alter ego, Deepthroat. The Twin Snakes fixed this by recasting the role with Rob Paulsen, who does an awesome job.
  • Awesome though it is, it can get kind of jarring when you remember what kind of roles he normally plays. You are now imagining a sleep-deprived Yakko Warner doing his best Christian Bale impression.
• Revolver Ocelot is menacing right up 'til the moment that Naomi says that he's "totally obsessed with spaghetti westerns and cowboy movies". And then the Cyborg Ninja comes out of nowhere and hacks his arm off. It isn't until the end of MGS2 that Ocelot gets any of his man cards back.
  • A later scene at the torture section has him twirl his revolver to look cool as per usual — up until Twin Snakes adds hilarity to the scene by having him, of all people, fumble his weapon to the floor. Without even so much as a tweak to the scene's dialogue, he then points the gun at Snake after lifting it up as if pretending it didn't happen. This means to imply he's not as coordinated with his non-dominant hand.....until Snake Eater released eight months later showed he can masterfully twirl his guns ambidextrously.
• The Twin Snakes is absolutely loaded with narm, especially the "airplane noises" as Chip Cheezum calls them. Other interesting bits include the new cutscene duel between Grey Fox and Snake after the boss fight with Revolver Ocelot (which features, among other things, cartoonish tire squealing sounds when Snake is knocked backwards) and Snake's reaction to Kenneth Baker forgetting Meryl's Codec number turning from a rather sedate "Damn!" and thumping his knee in annoyance to sudden screaming, flailing, stumbling, and aiming a gun at his head in anger.
  • In the original, Snake stumbles upon Liquid and Ocelot chatting about their plans for activating the Metal Gear by accidentally running in front of the open door and then hiding, making you wonder how they missed that (though they did have a camera on him that he somehow failed to notice in turn, so they knew the whole time anyway). In Twin Snakes, they try to make Snake seem less like he bumbled into the scene by having him approach the door wearily... and then somersault side-flip over the entire doorway for seemingly no reason other than to justify getting him to where he took cover in the original scene.
• When the guards go to knock out Snake, the original version has him down and out almost instantly. Twin Snakes has him get hit with a gun up the back of the head as the guards prep for a job well done— and then he just turns and stares at the guy that did it as they cower in sheer terror. And, after several seconds of him starting to slowly walk towards the guard that hit him, then he passes out, and, much like the altered Ocelot fail scene above, the scene moves on like it didn't change at all and like that guard totally didn't shit himself.
• In the original Metal Gear Solid 1, right after exiting the communications tower, Snake gets shot by Sniper Wolf. A moment later, he gets up... and then promptly kneels down in the open field, right in Sniper Wolf's field of view, to take a codec call. The Twin Snakes mercifully fixed this nonsense by having Wolf's initial bullet miss Snake by a few inches, and then Snake wisely diving behind a tree for cover and then taking his codec call.
• Snake's victory over the M1 Tank in Twin Snakes goes from the original's immediate cut to exploding tank and dying gunner to starting with Snake unpinning a grenade, holding it for a good 5 seconds, and pitching it baseball style right down the barrel of the tank with ludicrous accuracy. And then the almost comical scene after of Raven opening the loading hatch, seeing the grenade, and recoiling in surprise like this is some sorta cartoon.
  • Even worse is the dying guard that was immediately dead and fried in the original.. but gets back up in Twin Snakes panicking, trying to put his flames out as he approaches Snake for help. Snake summarily throat-punches the poor bastard, who falls over like a sack of potatoes and then dies and is put out a second later by landing in the snow.
• One improvement Twin Snakes made was giving more voiceovers to the Genome Soldiers, which is good. Of course it gets a bit irksome for some when one of the VAs for the Genome soldiers is Scott Menville, which makes it pretty jarring when you end up getting seen and having backup sicced on you by Lloyd Irving, Ma-Ti or Robin. The same thing happens in MGS3 where Menville voices both an Ocelot soldier, a random scientist NPC and a Soviet radio officer in the ending.
• The Best is Yet to Come is a beautiful song and gets effectively used in the game's more emotional scenes. Well, for the first few, anyway. It's used so many times in nearly every dramatic confrontation it feels obnoxious. To the point where whenever the operatic vocals start playing, it becomes funny instead, comparable to a sitcom leading into every commercial break with a joke and a snippet of its theme song.
• Mei Ling and Snake repeatedly describe the Soliton radar and Metal Gear as being "made from currently existing technology." Well, no shit Sherlock. It's ostensibly meant to mean that the technology used wasn't newly-developed specifically for them, but expecting the target audience (especially in 1998) to immediately go to that assumption is pushing it - and then the phrase keeps getting repeatedly used so much that it becomes hilarious.
• The Otacon ending in the original game is poignant and has an air of tragedy about it since Snake failed to save Meryl, having him and Otacon climbing out of Shadow Moses with only the monologue about genetic fate by Naomi and the ending music going on in the background. Twin Snakes decided to liven it up for whatever reason by having Otacon repeatedly fall and stumble over himself like a complete and utter dumbass, in an attempt at comedy so horribly misplaced that it's hilarious because of the Mood Whiplash.

Metal Gear Solid 2

• Whenever someone says "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo" in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, it undermines the drama of the scene. The voice actors had a decent stab at appropriate enunciation, at least. The same can't be said of the excruciatingly corny Russian accents.
  • Olga Gurlukovich's Russian accent is right up there with Tim Curry's Romanian accent in Congo.
  • The La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo thing makes a cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl in all its deadpan glory (at least in the English version). It's in Snake's codec of Luigi.
    • Said Brawl Codec also mocks the death scream:
      "Colonel? COLONELLLLLLLLL!"
• MGS2 also had Jack and Rose's relationship drama, which, despite aiming for meaningful and moving, has been known to send many gamers into fits of hysterics. The favorite whipping-boy of these conversations is the one about Raiden's room and the infamous "empty like your heart!" line. Rose repeatedly attempts to get Jack to recall why April 30th is important to her; while some of her nagging was intended to be funny, it meant that, when it took a darker turn, it got funnier.
  • There's also the classic Raiden delivery of "We've managed to avoid drowning!" as if it's something to be terribly, terribly proud of. Even though in context, it kind of actually is.
    Campbell: There's a terminal in front of the elevator, a node.
    Raiden: Did you say "nerd"?
    • The 'nerd' line is supposed to be significant. A major part of Metal Gear Solid 2's subtext is that the gamer is fantasizing about being Solid Snake as much as Raiden is, and the node at the start of the game is where you input your name and other details. The intention is that you are the "nerd." However, the way it's delivered makes Raiden sound like a raging jackass.
    • Immediately following this is the first Codec call regarding luring guards away. The Colonel suggests making some noise... and Raiden asks "how?" in the single most confused tone of voice he will ever muster in the entire game, as if simply tapping his fist against a wall - something he has to have done at least once before considering he's outright stated to have played a VR representation of the MGS1 events as training - is something he's never discovered before and never would have if someone hadn't pointed it out to him.
  • Apparently, the narm of the MGS series has reached the point that things like having a terrorist squad with a freaking vampire who can run up a building, a woman who can't be hit by bullets who had a backstory worthy of a character from Berserk, a fat demolition expert that runs around on roller skates drinking wine through a bendy straw, and a leader who is also a former US President who wears a combat suit with Doctor Octopus tentacles and honest-to-god swords called "Democrat" and "Republican" are par for the course.
• The glory that is Stillman. "I killed mah SOUL!" "This is the only way I can defuse mah sins!" Even without the shouting, how can we take his dramatic confession seriously anymore if he drops a bad bomb-related pun like that? (He's the explosives expert who taught Fatman, but still.)
• ''A DUD!?!?!!" One marine's response to a grenade fired at Fortune failing to detonate. It's hilarious mostly for the weird American, near Noo Yoik accent he's sporting that none of the other SEALs we hear speak come even close to matching.
• When Raiden finds the electric floor blocking the way to President Johnson, Colonel warns Raiden: "Don't test it! You'll be bacon!" Nice choice of words there, Colonel.
• Otacon screaming out "E.E.!" during Emma's death scene or after she is killed in gameplay. This is a horribly awkward nickname to say, let alone scream dramatically, since it sounds less like a desperate attempt to get a response and more like a stereotypical nerd afraid of his own shadow. This is made even worse when Emma actually asks him to call her "Emma": he asks "what's wrong with E.E.", and with the best/worst comedic timing possible, she immediately drops dead. The moment just afterwards, where Otacon sees Emma's parrot and yells "E.E.?! DAMN!", is also pretty narmy. At least he starts calling her "Emma" in the fourth game, but it's a bit too late for that by then, ain't it, Hal?
  • It's even harder to take seriously if you're on a playthrough where Raiden and Snake are wearing sunglasses. Especially the moment where the camera shows all three and everyone has glasses on, since Otacon's the only one who needs glasses anyway.
  • Chris Randolph's delivery of the line "what's wrong with E.E.?" makes Otacon seem like an oblivious child with no grasp of the concept of death. You kind of expect him to follow that up with a question about when she's going to wake up from her nap.
• During codec conversations, feel free to press R1 or R2 to hear the (positive and negative respectively) thoughts of whoever you're playing as. Sometimes it's hilarious pressing R2 just to hear Raiden shout "Whatever!" just before fast forwarding a conversation you don't wanna hear. Especially from Rose. In fact, one fun thing for players to try is randomly tap R2, and if Raiden does indeed shout "Whatever!" then fastforward through the whole thing.
  • This one gets especially ridiculous in the conversation with Olga in the torture room as Raiden's reactions are just the same as for Rose, ranging from a sappy "I love you" to a bitchy "You are a very selfish woman", all that addressed in a tense scene between two characters that are supposed to be tragic.
• The Metal Gear Ray machines roaring. Okay, they're supposed to be scary, but do they really need to roar like a dinosaur?
• Vamp's tongue licking before the fight is kinda narmish.
• In one of the game's death animations, Campbell shouts Raiden's name, sounding like he's calling him for dinner.
  • One of Emma's deaths in the same video has Otacon saying Emma's name in an annoyed, rather than sad, tone.
  • Along the same line, if you deliberately kill Emma during the escort mission, Otacon will exclaim "Raiden!" but in the same tone Seinfeld would use when saying "Newman!"
  • Tranquilize Emma while she's walking the water bridges, and she'll flop right on off and immediately drown for it so fast that it might catch you off-guard. Cue Otacon having a similar "call for dinner" yell.
  • Snake and Otacon being shot down in the helicopter produces one of the funniest death screams in Metal Gear history.
• Speaking of death animations, every single time your character dies in gameplay that isn't a fall or special hazard and he's knocked to the ground, he'll always get up for a moment to dramatically gesture for trying to cling onto life before collapsing. This can happen even if blown up by missiles, blasted with a shotgun, sliced by a sword, kicked in the head, or squished by a Metal Gear.
• If Vamp wasn't bad enough, there's Fortune. If your character's every other word is a shrill nagging about how they want to die, don't expect them to be taken seriously. Hiimdaisy nails the narm:
  Fortune: Finish me off — like you finished off my father!
  Raiden: But I don't even—
  Fortune: I'M SORRY WHAT WAS THAT I COULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY TRAGIC PAST.
  • Fortune's father issues lead into a whole different can of worms. There's two separate characters in the Plant chapter who lost their fathers due to the incident in the tanker and hold Solid Snake responsible - and he was not responsible either time. It makes you start to think if "Solid Snake killed my father" is going to become a darker variation on Murphy's Law, holding some well-known soldier who doesn't know you responsible for all your woes. What's better/worse is that Ocelot killed them both instead, as if said darker variation of Murphy's Law was made manifest through him.
• The ludicrously whiny way Raiden shouts "400 seconds?!" when Stillman confirms the Strut A bomb's timer (the timer varies with difficulty, but most players play the game on Normal and get 400 seconds as a result). Combine that with how Stillman insists on measuring the timer in seconds instead of minutes. Regardless, there's plenty of time even on the highest difficulty.
• Looking through the original Grand Game Plan for the game reveals some pretty narmy things, which were possibly removed because it was realized how silly they would be. Fortune, for example, was originally supposed to play the saxophone, which probably would have come out of nowhere and been at inappropriate moments. She also was supposed to carry fortune cookies around with her, and open them at different points in the game to find out that they said.
• The codec that explains Vamp's backstory and the origin of his nickname. It starts off fairly serious, with Snake relaying that his family were caught in a terrorist bomb attack and how he only survived through drinking their blood...right up until Raiden exclaims "so that's why they call him Vamp..." It's at this point that Snake replies, in as deadpan a fashion as he could: "No. Vamp isn't for vampire, it's because he's bisexual." Not only is this a ridiculous and rather nonsensical reason for him to have that nickname (especially since "vamp" as a slang term tends to refer to seductive women, rather than men), but it's then followed by Snake and Raiden discussing the rumors surrounding Vamp's choice of lovers. It's played as seriously as it could possibly be played and it's hilarious.
• If you subscribe to the Naked People Are Funny school of thought, Raiden's naked run through Arsenal Gear becomes this and spoils any kind of tension this segment creates, since you spend most of it looking at his ass like it's a Crash Bandicoot game. Hell, Colonel and Rose say he can't use Hanging in this mode because of potential..."complications." In other words, Raiden can't use his hands for anything in fear of exposing his Barbie Doll Anatomy.
  • If Raiden dies in his state of undress, he'll collapse forwards, covering his junk all the way down until he's finally prone with his ass towards the air. Apparently his modesty is literally the most important and last thing on his mind.
• The sections of Arsenal Gear are named after sections of the human digestive system. The place where you fight Metal Gear RAY? It's the rectum. Inspired by Monstro as it is, it still culminates in an area called "Rectum". Said area also doesn't look like it takes place anywhere on the ship as it's a big, endless void with a floor modelled after the bonus camera model shoot games from VR Missions.
• More than a few players immediately tend to voice their concerns after the RAY boss fight where Raiden needed tons of rockets to take down the horde that attacked him — and then when Emma's virus causes the rest of them to freak out, Solidus pulls out a P90 submachine gun and starts destroying them within seconds through casually shooting them in their faces. There isn't a justification like special ammunition, or any distinctions to him carrying some sort of ultra-powerful version, he's just wiping the floor with five-story high giant robots via what amounts to a small, high-ammunition gun firing off pistol rounds that are exploding; some fans think this has to be metaphorical due to how nonsensical this is at the tail end of an already-weird and surreal section. And then he proceeds to miss Raiden against all odds because of his eyepatch.
• Call Colonel after Stillman dies and get ready to hear Raiden practically start crying as he whines about Stillman no longer being there to help him with the bombs, overreacting like nobody's business. This line delivery makes Quinton Flynn sound like he really is about to burst into tears.
  Raiden: Stillman is dead! There are no more explosive specialists!

Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops

• As legendary a soldier as she is, The Boss can make some truly AWFUL puns. Here's this one when she preps a sleeping The End for a fight with Snake: "And when he does (wake up), it will be The End for the boy."
• Some of Ocelot's cred as a hyper-badass is undermined by MGS3 when he calls for support. The kicker is how he calls for it:
  ''MRRRROWR!'
• The scene after the Ocelot boss battle. The Pain's hornets come out of nowhere and all of Ocelot's men start running and screaming like girls while Ocelot himself kills the hornets coming his way by twirling his guns, all the while keeping a straight face.
• The Fear stuttering his own name throughout his boss battle was meant to enhance the character's creepiness, but most players thought that his intonation was comical and made the entire moment less unsettling than it was supposed to be.
• Volgin sees through Snake's disguise by grabbing his crotch and realizing that he is not as well-endowed as the person he is impersonating. Though the method is ridiculous, it's played completely straight and leads to a tense interrogation and brutal torture scene.
  • That aforementioned torture scene becomes unintentionally hilarious when you realize that Snake is supposed to be interrogated.. and is instead being told virtually every key plot point he didn't know by Volgin, who is so much of a Sadist that he doesn't even care to realize that, in a room where every single other person present is a spy working against him for their own ends. While the Cold-Blooded Torture is horrifying and visceral, it completely deflates what badass credentials Volgin had when you realize he's just a power-obsessed idiot.
• The line "You are above even the Boss. I hereby award you the title Big Boss." from the ending is especially silly, given that the "Big Boss" title sounds more like an insincere praise that LBJ came up with on the fly.
• The death of The End is made much less dramatic when his dentures fly out of his mouth. That it happens mid-sentence is just icing on the silly cake. Bonus points for him immediately exploding, which makes it seems like his dentures were the explosive.
  "What a splendid way to end it all. I have no regrets. I can return to the foremrrfmrmurf" *BOOM*
• The End's eyeball popping out of his head at the start of his sniping duel with Snake was meant to be unnerving, but many players found it to be cartoonishly comical.
• When Ocelot decides it's time to leave Volgin high and dry by forcing him to fight Snake mano-a-mano, he proceeds to call Volgin by his name instead of his rank with a bit of spite. Volgin then looks up to Ocelot in confused rage and goes, "Vol-jin?!" Besides being a Lost in Translation case of Ocelot using some Malicious Misnaming to throw Volgin off of his game, the English dub makes it come off as Volgin either being offended at realizing everyone's calling him the wrong thing this entire time, or forgetting how to say his own name.
• The entire sequence with the Sorrow is tense, eerie, thought-provoking and heavy... until one voice-actor gives out the most over-the-top 'spooky ghost' wail possible, shattering the atmosphere completely.
  whoooHUUUAAAOHOHOH!!!!!
• The Fake Death Pill can be handy when used in the right situation, even tricking boss fights outright and leaving them vulnerable once you use the accompanying Revival Pill. And then you realize Snake's revival animation is just his death animation in reverse, complete with awkwardly and dramatically clutching his gut as he levitates back up onto his knees to stand again. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Peace Walker

• To receive a lower age rating for the Japanese version of Peace Walker, Konami replaced the electric torture with laughing rods. No wonder why Kojima was so pissed off after learning about this.
  • "Your next laugh will be your last!"
  • As one Youtube commenter said, "It sounds like he's playing with a broken vibrator". Thanks a bunch for the mental image!
• Peace Walker. Snake corners Zadornov, who, in a final act of defiance on his deathbed, shoots a peace sign at Snake with his robotic hand, screams "ROCKET... PEACE!", and shoots it at Big Boss's eye.
• Any time Paz opens her mouth.
  • Her commentary on the final boss battle: 'Soon, you will witness TRUUUUE HEEEELL!!!'
  • You will never hear a name so ridiculous as Pacifica Ocean. And this is a game where the main antagonist is named Hot Coldman.
• The sheer amount of times they say 'peace', 'deterrence', 'compas', etc., is enough that one would need to make a drinking game to keep track of it all.
• Any facial expression Coldman makes. Ever. Rape Face doesn't even come close to describing it.
  • The very name Hot Coldman qualifies as Narm to English speakers. It might be a good pun and sound cool to Japanese gamers, but there's no one in America, let alone the CIA, whose first name is Hot.
    • Speaking of names, Kojima really sucks at them. How many Johns does a series need?
• The scene where Snake meets Cecile. Let's see: Snake is asking an attractive, half-naked frenchwoman to come back to his place where she can have all the cigarettes she wants. Nope, everything seems COMPLETELY innocent here~!
  • Bilingual Bonus if you know French: Cecile has quite a strong anglophone accent for a native French speaker. Also, for someone lost in the woods trying not to let her kidnappers catch her, the way she reacts to meeting a total stranger...
  • The entire reason Cecile as a character exists is funny, too - she's named after the communications manager of Konami's French branch at the time, who got a character named after her after Kojima misheard her middle and last name, Cosima Caminades, as "Kojima kaminandesu" - i.e. "Kojima is God".
• The placement of the flame-thrower on Peace Walker.
• Amanda Libre is voiced by Grey DeLisle. The problem with voice actors is that once you learn who does what voice, all of the characters that they do the voice of start to sound the same. That's right, you're hearing Vicky scream out "SNAAAAAAAAAKE!!!" in complete anguish.
  • One of Cecile's is even worse. "Ze birds are weeping!"
• Speaking of Game Over scenes, sometimes you'll end up with Cecile begging Snake to get up which is tense...until Cecile desperately squeals "I'll even do a quetzal for you!" and just makes generic bird whistling noises...which are subtitled as "Kyoooooh, kyoooooh." It's more hilarious than anything, keeping in tradition really.
• The way Big Boss shouts "Bullshit!" after the Chrysalis battle in response to Miller talking to him about fighting an AI modeled after The Boss. It sounds more funny if anything, more so since we're unaccustomed to hearing David Hayter use harsher swearwords.
• The scene in which Strangelove offers Big Boss some snuff from her hand, which he takes in a scene that seems VERY deliberately animated like he's kissing her hand. Yeah, you're getting a bit overt with the symbolism, Kojima.
• Some vehicles, especially helicopters, will unleash salvos of explosives even in the stealth section of a fight. This is fair enough, it would be a valid "flush them out" intimidation tactic. But when their missiles sometimes hit the ground support troops by mistake? That's just cruel, chopper pilot.
• You can paint Metal Gear ZEKE. Enjoy the thought of your enemies fleeing in terror from a bright blue, purple, or pink Metal Gear.
• The True Final Boss: Metal Gear ZEKE. Which you may or may not have painted hot pink. Piloted by Paz, who shouts the most ridiculous taunts at you. While a peppy J-Pop theme plays. The only thing keeping this fight from being totally narmy is how absolutely frickin' awesome it is.

Metal Gear Solid 4

• This is the first game in the series to incorporate Ragdoll Physics, which is used as you'd expect for knocked down and killed enemies. Except they're strangely floaty yet heavy at the same time; if someone gets sent flying by a grenade, their entire body visibly locks up as they ascend and then flop on their face, stiff as a rock before flattening out. Funny against the odd Mook or in online matches, absolutely hilarious when Snake's body doesn't ragdoll properly when he's knocked back by something, leading to his body rigidly falling to the floor. This even happens when he dies, resulting in a massive Mood Whiplash of the support team freaking out as his life flashes before his eyes while Snake awkwardly flops over, dead with rigor mortis in an instant.
• During Raging Raven's fight, once you manage to get her out of her robotic suit, she begins ranting a Madness Mantra. Then you get a prompt to press R1 (first person view during cutscene), and doing so at the moment she turns away from Snake causes the camera to zoom in on her butt, accidentally making the cutscene go from disturbing to hilarious.
• After the mighty Moment of Awesome where Rex and Ray fight it out, there's a thoroughly ridiculous scene where Snake falls over and breaks his arm, leaving him to limp onward in an almost too-fast jerky manner while one-handing his rifle (which, naturally, he refuses to actually fire until Ocelot is well out of harm's way) with his other dangling uselessly behind him, as Ocelot runs off, giggling like a twit and occasionally turning around to point and laugh at Snake like a schoolyard bully. It's like a militarised Benny Hill routine.
• When the time comes for Liquid Ocelot to demonstrate his "Guns of the Patriots" plan, his choice of executing it is by pretending his fingers are guns and shouting "bang" a whole bunch. Though this leads to his troops wasting the opposing armies, his mannerisms are too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
• The fight when Raiden ends up with two Gekko strapping wires to his feet. He counters by breakdance-spin-kicking on his head upside down whilst spinning said Gekko around. The imagery is just plain ridiculous and so over the top anime that not laughing is impossible.
• Whenever you beat the BB Corps' Beast forms, you then have to deal with their Beauty forms trying to hug you to death. What propels this into narm is if you try to run away from them, you can literally see them powerwalking towards you with their arms outstretched for a hug, which is more ridiculous looking than it is scary.
• When Laughing Octopus is massacring the rebels, she uses her face-camo to mimic Snake's face, though she retains her real voice and doesn't do anything to conceal her body. Many players thought the otherwise horrific cutscene was hilarious thanks to the presence of Old Snake's head on the body of a young woman.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

• Raiden's reaction (or lack of) to having his left arm severed? "Not again!" Yes, he's a cyborg from the jaw down, but this silly line comes in the middle of a tense battle.
• Sam chastises Raiden for being a hypocritical murderer, but some of his analogies sound more like jokes than actual criticism: "You ever think about them? When you're chopping them into hamburger?"
• When Sam receives damage, his voice actor gives a weird, rather emotionless delivery. This is best exemplified at the end of his DLC, when Armstrong pierces his chest and the combination of Sam's bizarre grunt and unnatural facial expression made an otherwise heartbreaking scene humorous.
• Monsoon's speech about memes didn't exactly age very well. Memes are cultures spread from person to person, but in the present day are practically unanimously associated with funny images and videos on the internet. It can be quite difficult to take him seriously and can incite a few chuckles when someone mentions them in a serious conversation.

Metal Gear Solid V

• Kiefer Sutherland's delivery of Snake's Catchphrase comes across as this, given that it sounds rushed. Doesn't help that there is absolutely no context for him saying it at all this time, making it seem even more forced.
  Big Boss: Keptyouwaitnheh?
  • Sutherland in general has a weird slur that muddles many of his lines.
    Big Boss: She survaif?
• For the most part, the dev team thought of everything as is standard for Metal Gear, and will change small parts of the story if you decide to, for instance, rescue Paz first instead of Chico. However, if you bring Paz with you to Camp Omega's prison cells and then try to rescue Chico while carrying her, Snake will unceremoniously drop her to the ground with a loud thud as he enters cutscene mode.^*Alas, there is no cutscene where Chico moans how he got Paz killed while she's lying right in front of him.
  • Big Boss also doesn't really have individual animations for most of the prisoners you can extract in Ground Zeroes. This results in him hopping up onto the open chopper door with people unable to even stand or walk on their own and typically in great amounts of pain, and just dumping their limp bodies roughly onto the floor. Including the heavily-injured and half-conscious Paz as well as the crippled Chico. It's especially jarring since this completely opposes how careful he tries to be with them, especially Paz, in the cutscenes.
• The face and noise Big Boss makes when you have to use the health spray when near death. UUUUUURRRRRRRHHHHHH-GA...
• Miller's reaction to the destruction of Mother Base (and by extension, his dreams) is pretty heartbreaking... With the exception of the metaphor that he uses and the strained delivery of the line, which wouldn't be out of place in a Resident Evil game.
  Kazuhira Miller: They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!
  • It gets better next. In his angry burst he shouts "NOW START TALKING, BITCH!"
• Paz having a bomb in her vagina. Granted, it can be heart-rending to some if you know the context, but if you aren't shocked or horrified by it, you'll likely burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it (and its resemblance to that episode of South Park) and how it was pushed so stoically despite the fact that of all places to put a contingency bomb, Skull Face decided in his infinite wisdom to sneak a snuke up Paz's snizz. It's the one place he reckons Big Boss "will never look". Unfortunately, he was right. For the wrong reasons.
• The opening level of The Phantom Pain, featuring Ishmael guiding the one-armed and horribly crippled Punished Snake out of the hospital, is mostly ruined by Ishmael's hospital gown being open and exposing his bare ass the whole time. The fact that Snake spends most of this on the ground and Ishmael is crouching in front of him makes it worse.
  • Also in the same scene is Ishmael repeatedly telling Snake to hurry or follow him, despite Snake having been in a nine-year coma and barely able to even move under his own power, let alone catch up. Ishmael, of course, doesn't bother helping him around.
  • In the final game, the sequence is somehow even worse because of the copious amounts of ass shots during the cutscenes. It even has ass shots while innocent people are being brutally gunned down by soldiers.
  • Fridge Brilliance manages to kick in here because it’s goddamn Metal Gear. There’s only one set of men Kojima gives that many ass shots to.
• A few people found that the use of "Nuclear" in the E3 2014 trailer for The Phantom Pain, while trying to be serious and melancholy, was an unfitting music choice given the Wangsty lyrical delivery of the song's content matter. While the dark atmosphere of the song itself is thematically appropriate, they might as well have played "Crawling".
  • The "Not Your Kind of People" trailer, for similar reasons. A power anthem for "different" people - while it does possess some level of thematic resonance, if taken at face value, the lyrics become too easy to interpret as basically equating Big Boss to your average self-absorbed emo teenager.
• And now Phantom Pain has actually weaponized its Narm as a form of Easy-Mode Mockery: there's an item that makes you harder for enemies to see, and overall makes the game a bit easier. The catch? Venom Snake is forced to wear an adorable chicken cap for the rest of the mission, including during what are otherwise very serious and emotional cutscenes. God bless you, Kojima.
• The name Punished Snake is a huge one itself because of how Wangsty it sounds, and spawned a minor meme of attaching "Punished" to random names. Chances are Kojima himself realized this and that's why Big Boss now goes by Venom Snake instead in later trailers. Unfortunately, "Punished" had the last laugh as by the final game, the pre-mission intro credits now list him as "Punished "Venom" Snake" creating the ultimate in early '90s Image Comics edgelord names.
• After escaping through the hospital and Ocelot and Snake escape on horseback, the Man on Fire literally conjures up a giant magical flaming unicorn flying through the sky and then chases after them on it.
  • The revelation that he's a reanimated Volgin pretty much ruins nearly all the intimidation factor from the get go.
• The "Birthday Party" Easter Egg is pure Narmy gold from start to finish - from the terrible singing by Snake's fellow Diamond Dogs, to Quiet lighting up Snake's cigar with a sniper shot.
• The short quasi-credits that play at the beginning and end of every single mission can start to feel like a giant Running Gag very quickly. It also has some odd combinations like "Starring (insert vehicle here)".
• Skull Face's death, as brutal and satisfying as it is, would've been much better if it weren't for his bizarre Major Injury Underreaction.
  • And then there's what finally finishes him off. After Snake and Miller indulge in an especially grisly moment, they walk away to leave Skull Face for dead, only for Huey of all people to finish him off. After seemingly taking a few minutes to absorb the gravity of what he's done, what are the first words out of Huey's mouth? A childishly Adorkable cry of "I did it!...Revenge!"
• True to Kojima tradition, one of the cassette tapes you can unlock is just audio of a guard having an EXTREMELY loud bowel movement, which is both Nausea Fuel and this trope.
  • It gets even better. If a guard is suspicious to your position and comes to check you out, you can hide in a porta-potty and play the tape with an upgraded iDroid to drive them off.
• Virtually everything about Quiet is made of concentrated amounts of Narm:
  • Just the fact that they justified her skimpy outfit by saying she "breathes through her skin". It comes across like a hamfisted attempt at trying to have their Fanservice and make it work in-story, only achieving something really awkward and silly.
  • The easiest way to complete her recruitment mission/Boss Battle ("Cloaked in Silence") is to summon a supply drop on her head twice. Not only does this cause her to No-Sell the effect (it knocks her over for a moment before she teleports away), but it leads to a hilarious case of Gameplay and Story Segregation when you complete the mission and find her sprawled out, trying to shoot herself with her own gun and having failed her mission.
  • Quiet's animations in the Air Command Center have her suggestively trying to woo Snake, even if the player's in the middle of a mission planning screen. It doesn't help matters that one of her idle animations is her stretching, with her rear facing the player as she stretches backwards, the "playful" post (she sits on her chest and stares at Snake with a longing look on her face) or the "butt shot" she does when the player stares at her for too long.
  • Later on in the game, there is an optional scene where Quiet strips down the (very few) clothes she has before seductively rolling on the ground in the rain. Then when Venom comes in, Quiet... starts to splash Venom like a little girl.
    • It's entirely possible to have this cutscene happen directly before the cutscene where Ocelot and Miller torture and interrogate Quiet.
  • Having Quiet with you on a mission is a constant source of HMMMMMM, HMMMMM-HMM-HMMMMMMM. That's her humming her theme into her radio to distract enemies, but she does it almost constantly whenever she's in the same combat zone as you. Even better, if you move your camera ever so slightly, she'll target a different guard and start the humming all over again. HMM- *Chht* *Chht* HMMMMM, HMMMM-HM- *Chht* *Chht* HMMMMM...
  • The actual "Quiet's Theme" is hard to take seriously after going through much of the game hearing Quiet humming more or less as if she were thumbing through a magazine in a waiting room.
• At the end of Mission 23 ("The White Mamba"), Snake brings Eli back to Mother Base, and teaches him a lesson about not pulling weapons on comrades when the latter tries to stab him. Eli's expression makes it look like he'll attack Snake again in the future and he goes to walk off. At the moment, Snake lights up his Phantom Cigar and (unlike the rest of the cutscene-based uses of the Cigar at Mother Base), we get to see exactly what Snake sees - Eli walking away in fast-motion, waddling like a penguin. It lends an unintentionally hilarious mood to the ending.
• Midway through Mission 30 ("Skull Face"), the titular villain spends a couple minutes monologuing to Snake about the importance of language and his master plan. During this scene, Snake not only doesn't speak, despite the two of them sitting into a jeep just inches from each other's face, but his idle animations cause him to routinely turn in the direction of the player with a "Can you believe how bored I am" look on his face while Skull Face makes grand gestures and reveals the English-language parasites. Even better, as soon as Skull Face finishes talking, the scene continues for several more minutes as Snake and Skull Face stare at each other very dramatically while Donna Burke's "Sins of the Father" plays in the background because one of the soldiers driving the truck put a cassette of it into the truck's radio.
  • It's also possible to use the Int-Scope and Night Vision Goggles during the drive, making Skull Face into a bright green silhouette or having him monologue to Snake when he's very clearly looking at something else.
  • And as Vinny showed, you can even turn your iDroid on during Skull Face's ranting and put on tapes at your leisure, just to show you little you care.
  • Possibly the strangest thing about the jeep ride comes at the very end: As the screen fades to black before the next cutscene, Skull Face is shown leaning EXTREMELY closely into Snake's face, as if to kiss him.
  • This is followed up soon after with "Such a lust for revenge! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!" when Mantis turns on Skull Face and takes over Sahelanthropus. Considering he does an awesome job in pretty much every other cutscene he's in, James Horan obviously didn't know how to deliver a line like that in a straight voice, so he decided to say it in the most over-the-top hammy way imaginable.
  • The Japanese version is apparently even worse, sounding like Skull Face is gargling while saying the particular word at the same time.
  • Speaking of "Sins of the Father," while it's certainly a fantastic piece of music by itself, its use as a Leitmotif can be this, especially when the section used is the soundbite of Donna Burke wailing "Whoooa-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". That said, the segment plays everytime Snake lights up a Phantom Cigar, which just gets silly.
• In Mission 31 ("Sahelanthropus"), during the middle of an intense action scene (Snake racing to drive away from Sahelanthropus as he destroys Skull Face's base), we have Skull Face ranting and raving to no one in particular. Made even more narmy because he makes an ill-timed David Bowie reference ("Major! I'M BURNING UP!!!")
• During Mission 45, Quiet speaks English to save Snake's life...by boringly giving Pequod directions in Stefanie Joosten's thick Dutch accent. What's supposed to be a serious moment is made hilarious as Quiet stumbles over her lines, casually directing Pequod like she's telling him how to get to the nearest gas station, as the music swells into a grand reprise of Quiet's theme. It doesn't help matters that Pequod makes several wisecracks over this supposedly-moving and powerful plot moment, as he happily exclaims how surprised he is to hear her talking and mentions that he never knew she was so personable.
• The Deja Vu mission in Ground Zeroes is either a funny and heartwarming Call-Back to the original Metal Gear Solid, or it's this trope due to how bizarre the whole thing is. The Uncanny Valley nature of Snake being rendered with PS1 graphics while the environment remains unaffected; the vital importance placed on recreating certain scenes from the game, regardless of how banal the original scene in question was (with a leitmotif playing and dramatic camera angles to compare the screenshot with the original it's replicating); the empassioned way that Kiefer Sutherland yells "LIQUIIIIID!"; and all of it capped off in a bizarre quiz section in which random dialogue has been repurposed, with the implication of there being a live audience who cheer and boo when required.
• How about the fact that Skull Face just randomly wears a domino mask for the entirety of the game? He doesn't need to disguise his identity or anything, it's just sort of...there. He definitely did not have one on in Ground Zeroes either.
  • At one point, he takes it off really dramatically, and the game tries to play it up like it's a big reveal, even though his face is clearly seen in the trailer that came out two years earlier.
• One of the many Oh, Crap! phrases the Africa-based soldiers can shout sounds a lot like they're shouting "FLIPPING OCELOT!" Okay, what did he do THIS time?
  • One of the phrases a Soviet soldier might say when interrogated sounds like "S-Sponge!"
• One late game tape has Miller and Ocelot pretty much telling a guilty Huey that they know he caused another parasite outbreak on Mother Base and got many personnel killed as a result, informing him that as soon as they get evidence they can use in their Kangaroo Court, his number is very much up. Only problem is, Huey's attempt at self-defense becomes laughably petty when he claims that the Diamond Dogs are all deluded thugs...and promptly throws an accusation at DD, the team dog! His claim? DD is really a wolf, complete with this ridiculously desperate line:
  Huey: Anyone can see he's a WOLF!
  • Christopher Randolph acted his heart out as Huey but it doesn't change the fact that Huey, when he's acting as his own defense attorney, sounds so much like a Large Ham that it's hard to take him seriously. Especially when he's practically blaming the frigging dog for the Diamond Dogs' many problems.
• "Boss, have you lost your mind?!" The line is spoken after the player kills one of their base soldiers or every other time that the player harms Miller during the first mission. The problem is that Ocelot's line delivery, while appropriately enraged-sounding, also sounds oddly throaty. Even more glaring is how, in its former usage, the line is contrasted by Ocelot's voice suddenly getting calmer. Luckily, it helps that you only hear this line if you actively choose to engage in Video Game Cruelty Potential.
• Ocelot's shot back at Kaz after he (reasonably) voices concern that Quiet may be a spy. Besides the intentional Irony of the moment, Ocelot gives such a non-response that it's basically equal to a little kid saying "I know you are but what am I?"
  Ocelot: What if I'm a spy? Or you?

Non-canon Metal Gear

• Not even Metal Gear: Ghost Babel is immune. After killing the boss Marionette Owl, he says that he and his unit have vowed vengeance on 'Anonymous'. This was fine at the time; but with the rise of certain Image Boards, the effect is reminiscent of a certain FOX news broadcast. "His madness surpasses even my own," says Owl (the line was aimed at Black Arts Viper, but with how the dialogue is written it instead looks like it's directed at Anonymous). Considering Owl's Freudian Excuse was that he found the murdered, shredded body of his friend Laura as a child, you can understand he'd have such a hatred for a board full of trolling and Guro.
• Another non-canon one, this one from Metal Gear Ac!d 2. Ho Yay between Snake and his friend Dalton reaches its hilarious climax with Snake lying semi-naked on a bed while Dalton chides him for being so reckless as to endanger his own life; Snake responds that it wasn't really recklessness because he knew Dalton would always be there to save him. Dalton agrees, says, "This will probably do you some good" while implicitly approaching - and then there's an extended Fade to Black. If you've been picking up on the Sub Text and are familiar with the Sexy Discretion Shot trope, you'll either be relieved or disappointed when the fade to black is revealed to be a loading break for the next part of the cutscene, in which Dalton is giving Snake a fairly innocuous item.
  • In the same scene, Snake is finally reunited, after huge personal tragedy, with his 'family'. Unfortunately the artist drew him with a look of absolute dread as his allies throw their arms around his neck, making it look as if he would rather have never seen them again.
  • Snake's hairstyle in that game ruins every single serious moment he attempts to have in it. You could argue that his usual hair was pretty Eighties, but at least he wasn't sporting a golden blond high-top-mullet.
  • Talking of Snake's hairstyle, in the first Ac!d, Snake had a straight, shoulder-length cut with the bandanna tied under. It's flattering until we see a couple-of-years younger Snake in a flashback who has hair the same length, but very wavy. The image of Snake picking up a pair of straightening irons so he can preen himself before a mission is patently absurd enough to ruin even a seemingly normal haircut.
  • Metal Gear Chaioth ha Qadesh, once you get to fight it. In theory, great: it's a living Metal Gear which combines the best parts of all its predecessors. The graphics don't help it look intimidating in a REX or RAY kind of way, but the real narm is that, while the camera offers loving views of its lower body, you have to shoot its Metal Gearhood.
  • And how does Snake manage to escape the Metal Gear's Self-Destruct Mechanism once he does manage to defeat it? Using its railgun to launch himself into the ocean. Though it crosses over with Moment of Awesome, and he does break just about every bone in his body, it's an absolutely ridiculous way to conclude the story with one final big moment.
  • And then there's the ending of the first Ac!d, where the real villain Charles talks about fooling everyone with the fake Hans Davis, before suddenly going on a spiel about how he wants Snake and how he could... mold him into something greater than No. 16 was, and finishes by saying "Snake is mine. It's inevitable". Viewable here.
• It falls somewhere between Hilarious in Hindsight and Moment of Awesome, but the final boss of Snake's Revenge is Big Boss!... who, upon defeat, transforms into an invincible giant purple robot and chases Snake down the halls breathing fire. Anything we could put here would completely fail to describe how this actually feels to play.
  • His weakpoint is the soles of his feet. It may be impossible to impart that vital piece of information and still sound cool.
• Nick's death in Snake's Revenge is a fairly dramatic moment, but it's spoiled by miscolouring one pixel on his heaving back. As a result, instead of appearing to pant out his last words, he appears to have a long, firm sausage-shaped object on his back that jiggles up and down like a wagged finger.

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