The Metal Gear Solid series is beloved for its great boss battles among other things. In my case there’s one particular battle a death so epic that I’ve come to consider it my favorite mistake.


Scariest Old Man in videogames

Snake Eater was the game and I had passed the halfway point when the game asked me to suspend my disbelief in a big way. Jim Sterling said it best when he called this called “An old sniper who’s on the brink of death and it’s also…photosynthetic” and his name was The End. I sat there on my bed in front of my TV watching as he talked to his pet bird and the battle started. The playing field was hug and I recalled a great sniping showdown with a Russian femme fatale called Sniper Wolf. I pulled out my trusty sniper rifle and…he beat me. The first time I fought The End I didn’t get a shot in, bullets rained and Naked Snake never stood a chance.

I don’t remember how many times I tried to beat him; I spend a full week trying to out-snipe The End. I remember being drowsy in class after long nights of failure, but what I remember the most were those epic 200 minutes. When I finally beat him and watched him die.

I’ve discovered in my many tries a couple of hiding spots were I could line up a shot every now and then, I thanked Hideo Kojima for making him bald, that way I could see his scalp in the middle of the jungle and take him down. The battle lasted for over 3 hours. When it was The End died so I could continue and it was awesome

The morning after that I went to school with maybe 2 hours of sleep. Between classes I told my best friend about my legendary battle and he replied.

YOU’RE A MORON. YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SNIPE HIM! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SNEAK ON HIM AND KNIFE HIM! THAT WAY IT DOESN’T TAKE THAT LONG!

Over the years I’ve learned that if you shoot the guy in the first act of the game you never fight him at all, also you can just set the internal clock of your PS2 a week later and he dies of old age.

When I first found out about this stuff I felt really stupid. I’m talking about Jason Friedberg level of stupid.


Further Proof that Death can be awesome

However, eventually I realized that my mistake made the demise of The End that much more important and significant as it implied that not only the character but the player had gone over a huge hurdle in order to continue their quest.

And for that reason I’ll always cherish that mistake.