It's not just that the incongruity of a gravelly-voiced mercenary in the kid-friendly fighting game is hilarious. It has more to do with the juxtaposition of what is more or less a human guy from a world that is kind of like the real world with, say, Mario, who is supposed to be human but clearly isn't. It's intriguing. It generates some really interesting cognitive dissonance. And then Snake fires a Nikita missile or snaps Mario's neck (M rating, here we come!) and we get a different kind of cognitive dissonance.
Putting Snake in the middle of a confluence of Nintendo universes makes them all look intensely bizarre, and makes Snake, a man who fights one-on-one with helicopters, seem like an everyman. When he expresses surprise at Wario's farting skill, he speaks for us. Of course, his everyman-ness still runs through a filter of Snake's life experience; he's still making long phone calls in the middle of a fight. He still sees strange animals as survival rations. There's really no other situation in which we'd be able to identify with this guy.
We don't really know how to form this discussion into a question, so we just thought we'd open it up to a discussion of Snake in Smash Bros. and how wonderfully weird the whole thing is. And then, for no reason, we're embedding the ridiculous "Eat Like Snake" Burger King commercial after the break, which has nothing at all to do with Smash Bros., Metal Gear, the Wii, or Snake, except that it has the word "Snake" in it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-03-2007 @ 9:14AM
Manny said...
watching more moves of snake, it shows that he may be a balanced character , and quite strong like the strength of C. Falcon
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10-03-2007 @ 9:24AM
Matt said...
Bizarre and amazing. Can't tell if I'll use him or not, but I know my roommate will. I'm personally an old school fan of Kid Icarus, so if I'm capable, Pit's who I'm playing, I think...
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10-03-2007 @ 9:32AM
Jeremy said...
I love the Metal Gear games and look forward to having some time with Snake. I just hope that I can snap some necks and hide in some boxes. :D
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10-03-2007 @ 9:39AM
Anon said...
The game is beautifully absurd! Where else can you have Kirby eat Pikachu while getting sliced up by Link before they all get blown away by Mario? The game is absurd...especially items. This one more than the others, is made, in part, with comedy in mind. What else can explain the Golden Hammer Missfire? *sqeeky*
And don't get me started on assist trophies! With today's new ones, the possibilities are truely endless! What's more...some of them can truely fill a person with terror. Lakitu...*shiver*. The game is visually stunning. Take a look at the water effects! The fire effects! Lucas's Ball-o-Death in that one pic!
Musically, it is a museum! I pray that Nintendo get's it right and releases a soundtrack in the U.S...because they aren't planning on it right now, or at least their PR people say that. If we get loud enough...we might be able to change that!
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10-03-2007 @ 9:56AM
Reeve said...
Anon: You've got me thinking... what happens when Kirby eats Snake (barring the obvious Snake Eater jokes!)? =D
I can't wait to play as Snake in SSBB, partially because it is so weird, but also partially because the character is so cool.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:12AM
samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) said...
I can't wait to snap Snake's neck with Kirby.
I hope they continue to play Snake straight. Especially if he shows up in the single-player mode.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:13AM
Kree said...
I love the way they've included Snake into Smash Bros so far. It reflects both the way that Smash Bros is such a zany mix of everything that normally shouldn't be mixed, and it also reminds me of all the hilarious ways that Metal Gear is always poking fun at itself, especially with codec calls.
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10-03-2007 @ 12:29PM
01 said...
The audio clips of Snake talking about Samus, Wario and Yoshi on dojo update yesterday were some of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Gender confusion on Yoshi? Should be good times for all when this hits.
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10-03-2007 @ 4:55PM
Mr Khan said...
I am really blown away by all the effort they are putting into this game, it already seems to be (just in terms of attention to detail) leaps and bounds ahead of Melee
And Snake isn't the only "normal" person there, Captain Falcon and Samus are almost as normal,
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