[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4Tusk_V2k[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK7SeYf8zxs[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=houDtgBNPCA[/url]

[url]http://www.gamesradar.com/mgs5-unfinished-s-entirely-point/[/url]

finish Chapter 2. By the way, where was it said that the Camp Omega map was supposed to be in TPP?

You have got to be kidding me.

I thought the game was beautiful, amazing, just about perfect... up until that ending.

So the "truth" is that I was never playing as Big Boss? Yeah yeah whatever, what is truth, who is a man but his identity, memes vs genes, so what difference does it make that someone else assumed it... No, I am not happy with this.

I played the entire final mission (after the revelation) with a flat expression. I spent most of it just plain bored. I kept, wanting, hoping, that the character I was playing as was going to die and it would turn out that I really had been playing Big Boss this whole time.

"What was it all for" indeed, Miller. Indeed.

Venom Snake takes Sahelanthropus back from Liquid

a third chapter after that,

After some time to reflect I can already feel the healing beginning, but still... It hurts. This is the first game in the series that has ever made me feel anything less than stellar at the end of it. Before now, MGS games had always been satisfying; I still remember how I felt after MGS4, and even the lower-key Peace Walker, and I wish I could have felt the same way about this game, but I can't.

Even so, I see how it makes sense -- how it fits with all the hints. I started seeing it before I had even finished the (really boring) flashback mission. It was during one of those long slow periods of crawling along the floor (which was boring enough the first time) that I realized, for example, that the reason Eli showed on a DNA test as a non-relative of Big Boss is because Big Boss was not truly Big Boss, rather than Eli not really being Liquid Snake. It also, of course, finally provided an explanation for who "Ishmael" was. I noticed even at the time that he was obviously voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, but back then my immediate guess was that he was Solid Snake, at least until I realized Snake would be a child at the time and so my next guess was that he was Solidus because I vaguely remembered Solidus being artificially aged or something like that. I continued to disbelieve that "Ishmael" could possibly be the real Big Boss all the way up until it was absolutely confirmed, because as far as I could tell his right eye was normal (so I guess it was an artificial one or something) and it almost seemed like his left eye was covered (but maybe it wasn't after all?). And then of course, that whole thing about plastic surgery at the beginning that you're supposed to write off as half-assed gameplay/story integration.

It's no asspull -- just an outcome I don't like.

I think the healing began when I was listening to the Truth tapes and Zero said he'd made a memetic clone of Big Boss. That helped me contextualize what I'd just discovered, even though I still don't agree with it. At the time it seemed to be just completely pointless except to ruin the relationship I had developed with Big Boss, but after those tapes I understood its thematic relevance.

When I was playing that mission, I thought to myself that I would write here that I would never be able to play the game again -- not any time soon, at least. The pain of realizing that I was not playing Big Boss had sullied it. Even after the healing process began, as I was running around Mother Base for what might be one last time before putting this game away for good like so many before it, I thought to myself to my soldiers who kept talking to me "Don't call me that! I'm not really Big Boss!" (And yes I understand the meta level to all this -- obviously, you the player are not really Big Boss and were just pretending the whole time, just like the MC. But there's a reason people get annoyed at the "It was all a dream" card when a show pulls it even though they all know the entire story was fictitious in the first place; the same is true of being hurt discovering that your character is not who you thought they were.)

Obviously, this isn't the first time the series has pulled a "things were not what they seemed" card, in fact it's happened in every single game (Liquid Miller, Not-Campbell, Eva however predictable that was, Paz-cifica Ocean, Not-So-Liquid Ocelot), so why is this one different? It's hard to say. I guess there's something about the fact that it happened to the character I was playing as; a significant part of my pleasure in this game was saying to myself "I am Big Boss" and liking how the game makes you really feel like you are the one and only Big Boss. Maybe also the fact that it happened to a character who existed across so many games -- I really got to know Jack through Snake Eater and Peace Walker, so I was upset to discover that the story being continued in V was not truly his. At the same time though I guess it's not that bad in certain ways, because he certainly acted differently in V (and not just because he was voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, who also plays the "real" Big Boss anyway), more taciturn. Part of the pain is wrapping my head around whether or not these new experiences can truly be said to add to the story of Big Boss and belong to his history. It pains me to think the real Big Boss never knew Quiet.

I guess another part of why it hurts is that Big Boss in this outing was already something of a stranger, and now all that adjustment feels undone. The shift away from David Hayter as the voice actor took some getting used to, and the shift was a whole lot more than just the voice -- Kiefer Sutherland brings a fundamentally different, more serious Snake to the table, a Snake who acts nothing like the Snake from Peace Walker and didn't even 9 in-game years ago in Ground Zeroes even though it took place immediately after. Call this strange, but I think I might have been completely, 100% okay with this twist if the "real" Big Boss were still voiced by Hayter instead of more Sutherland, and I consider it a grand missed opportunity because it would have alleviated the alienation by making more sense of it all and turning the apparent change into a move of stealth brilliance. But no -- instead, it only increases the alienation, because now the "new" Jack as played by Sutherland is a total unknown, practically a stranger, neither the old Big Boss we knew from Snake Eater through Peace Walker nor the new man we just spent 100+ hours playing as and journeying alongside.

I don't know enough about the original Metal Gear games to know how necessary or good of an idea this twist was. From the text crawls after this mission we learn that this Big Boss is the one Solid Snake kills in Metal Gear, whereas the "real" Big Boss is the one he "kills" a second time in Metal Gear 2. I don't remember any hints in MGS4 suggesting that these two were different people or needed to be different people. I don't see what hole this plugs in the grander narrative, not that it has to in order to exist (I mean Quiet and Paz sure don't, yet they are two of my favorite things to come out of the prequel games), but because it otherwise pulls such a troll on the audience that I feel like it needs some bigger payoff.

The game felt like a masterwork of utter perfection up until this revelation, and I would not have been bothered any more by the questions this twist answered if they had been left simply unanswered compared to anything else that the game leaves unresolved (like, what was that vial Mantis gave Eli if not the third mating pair), because I would have been able to just fill in "Oh, that guy at the beginning was probably Solidus or maybe even some heretofore unknown clone" and accepted Liquid turning out to be unrelated to Big Boss as a twist that makes more sense than the truth given that they look nothing the fuck alike to begin with.

That said, even though the ending essentially undid a huge portion of what I loved about the game and has left it severely tarnished for me right now, the healing process has begun, and I don't know how I'll feel even a few hours from now let alone days, months, or years.

Especially because, as of this writing, I've barely read anyone else's reactions yet -- maybe I'll learn stuff that will turn my mind around.

Though I must say that a very strong part of me still wants this whole thing to have turned out to be a joke or get retconned right out the window.

When Paz first resurfaced, I was shocked, but didn't care how little sense it made. The obvious questions came to me even at the time (like, why the hell did nobody tell Snake?), as well as the knowledge that it would be seen as bullshit by many. After all, it was such a blatant retcon. But I was happy to have her back, even if I knew it would lead to only more pain given where the story seemed to be going with her. I had no idea it would go the way it did, but it was obvious from the beginning that it was nowhere good.

Having her turn out to be a "phantom" in the end was brilliant, and I loved it. It took me so completely by surprise because it had set up such a viable alternative narrative -- my head was filled with anything but what actually happened. The way it ultimately went was thematically appropriate for obvious reasons, but also a great way to make her death hurt even more. Her death in GZ was shocking and sad in its own way but this experience drove it home in a way GZ alone couldn't. Character death, to truly be felt, needs to be grieved narratively, and this side-story delivered. GZ didn't have time to grieve; this was that time. As intended, that final tape -- from the phantom, no less, now self-aware -- had me tearing me.

My next mission after that was the one where you must eliminate several tanks etc all aiming to meet up at the airport. I executed it with my face set grim, fully absorbed in my character. Where possible this playthrough I've stuck religiously to nonlethal weaponry, but for this mission... I was glad to have an excuse to just blow shit up.

I was dead inside, and loving it.

That was how I felt back then. Tonight, I learned the true identity of "Big Boss", so that reaction needs some updating.

I can start by saying that in some ways, the entire side story either isn't changed by the revelation or arguably might even make more sense in light of it. We don't know much, if anything, about the life of "Big Boss" before he became Big Boss besides his role on that helicopter, but it's easy to see how he might have developed the emotional connection that he did. Like other base personnel, he would have already gotten to know Paz the same way Snake did, but unlike them he was uniquely tasked with saving her -- and failed. More so than Snake, he had reason to feel guilt for her death, and also less reason to feel her betrayal at the end of Peace Walker quite as keenly (because he had never been as close to her as the real Snake before the operation, so the only Paz he ever got to touch was the Paz who died) and so more reason to focus on the Paz he knew from his memories of Mother Base rather than the Paz who really existed and betrayed everyone.

But having said that, the fact that he's not really Big Boss really does retroactively rob my experience of a significant portion of its power -- even if only by forcing me to reexamine it in the light of a yet further layer of lies. It means we still don't know the real Big Boss's feelings. His double certainly felt strongly about Paz, and as a member of the original Mother Base he would have actually known her too (however distantly, especially compared to the real Boss) which is totally extra points, but the fact remains that he's not Big Boss, and there is nothing to suggest that he's any kind of perfect mental clone of him given the means by which he was "cloned". If he had been created through some kind of crazy high tech or some interdiction by the Floating Boy I might have felt differently, but in fact I remember feeling odd about how distinctly all the Paz scenes seemed to steer clear of any of the experiences she and Snake shared uniquely, focusing always instead on events she shared with everyone on Mother Base. I'm still happy to have gone through the experience but now I will always wonder... would it have happened the same way if it had been Jack?

I loved Quiet, from beginning to end. I say "end" as if she died -- we don't know where she goes after leaving, but it's clear she's not coming back. The ending to her story was executed masterfully -- but who needs to state something so obvious?

Back before I met Quiet, I had read a post on here that made me think I'd stumbled upon a spoiler. It was someone's description of their sniper duel with her; I thought it was a significant spoiler at the time because I didn't know that that's literally how you meet. What I knew of Quiet was from a preview video showing her first appearance at Mother Base; in that scene, a future battle is foreshadowed, so I assumed the sniper duel would be that. (I also thought, at the time, that Quiet would be just one of a group of several idiosyncratic boss characters as had populated all the previous numbered entries in the series.)

Needless to say, I had it all wrong; though I should note that the poster might have had something wrong too -- you don't have to use nonlethal means to take Quiet down in that fight for her to survive. With reassurance from a friend of mine who spoiled the whole game for himself and operated from a strategy guide, I took Quiet down with a regular sniper rifle complete with full-on headshots and she came out of it just fine.

When the day came along that Quiet would leave Mother Base, possibly (and as we know, ultimately) for good, it was something I had dreaded. But I was glad for how it turned out -- I'm much happier with this ending for her story than any of the several alternatives that could have happened. The side-story mentioned in the previous spoilers is a great setup for the ending that happens, too -- I went into that mission fully prepared for, and hoping against, Quiet's death, potentially at my own hands. Her survival thereafter -- for however long it might be -- was all the more a relief for it.

It had the benefit of coming packaged as part of such a fun mission, too. Hard as fuck (I kept getting killed by tank shots), but that's also why I loved it.

Everything I've stated so far about it has been obvious, so here's something a little less obvious, a nice little touch: the use of clothes in this scene as a symbol of disempowerment. Usually it goes the other way; stripping someone naked is depicted commonly as a way of stripping them of their power. But the Soviet soldiers who capture Quiet do the opposite, putting clothes on her for the practical purpose of suppressing her power (notice that she doesn't turn the tables until after some of her clothing is removed), and the spiritual purpose of dominating her. Sexiness-as-empowerment she-dances-for-her-pleasure feminism is all over this scene. Her revenge against her captors even includes her stabbing a guy in the crotch -- repeatedly.

Unfortunately, I never quite got the same experience as ZapX as a result of Quiet's departure, because the final mission was the very next thing I did because I already felt like I was playing catchup with EGF. I never experienced a single mission both without Quiet and where I wasn't preoccupied with the game's final big revelation. You might say I had no time to grieve, and in light of the final ending I'm grieving for something else entirely. But I did have a significant break in between -- I ended a night's play on Quiet's final mission (by which time it was morning, and fairly late into the morning at that because it took me so long to beat the mission but I was determined to do so before going to bed), and so had a chance to at least sleep on it before experiencing the game's surprisingly sudden ending tonight.

By the way -- I assume I'm not alone in not noticing that Quiet was the same woman who tries to assassinate Big Boss at the beginning of the game. In fact, the revelation in the torture scene that she was was quite a shock, as much for the fact that I hadn't noticed as for the intended shock value, because she didn't wear a mask or anything, and you even see her face up close, but the difference in hair and clothing was enough to throw me off completely, as well as all the other action that happens during that first "mission" of the game. The game expects you to not pick up on that and it worked on me to a T.

I feel you're looking at it the wrong way if you say "I'm not BB" or "Venom isn't BB." The point of it, to me, is that legends are bigger than soldiers and that Venom now IS Big Boss just as much as the real thing. The man says as much on the tape when Venom is in that Outer Heaven Bathroom and Solid Snake is killing his men outside. The meta-narrative isn't that "you never were Big Boss" it's the opposite. It's that YOU are just as much Big Boss as the real thing. The relatively silent protagonist, the freedom and choice of what to do and how to handle things in so many situations, the fact that it's "you as you've lived today vs you as you'll live from now on". It fits perfectly into the themes the game has already explored, ie "Anyone can become a legendary soldier given the right situation and people around them" or "Under certain circumstances, someone can be made to play a specific role... Act like someone else." I can understand the gutpunch and the feeling of disconnect (A Hideo Kojima Game), but for me the ending was beautifully executed, and fits in just fine with the rest of the series lore. I think it cheapens Venom by calling him "that guy who isn't Big Boss". Just as much as it cheapens Raiden by saying he isn't really Solid, or Ocelot by saying he isn't really Liquid. There's much more to it than that.

The best thing to come out of this game is the discussion. And the gameplay, of course -- that was 125 hours of gameplay that I enjoyed from top to bottom, possibly minus some overindulgence fatigue every now and then. The surely controversial ending at least gives me a whole lot more to talk about, even though as my above huge spoilers having nothing to do it with show that there's plenty to talk about even without it.

So here's an obvious thing that comes up when an ending is not to one's liking: How would it have been better? In particular, how could it have been better executed without changing its direction entirely?

As I mentioned in my initial reaction, I took the revelation hard. I tried to be as unfiltered as possible, letting the sheer rawness of my reaction out, and I hope it shined through as brightly as it burned within me. My reaction to the revelation was less shock and more a definite, bored "Are you joking?" followed eventually by a flat "What" when it became clear that they were not. But I also began healing quite quickly, and I take note of what helped, and have explored within myself what I think would have made that bitter pill easier to swallow, or might even have turned it into the kind of stealth brilliance I posited earlier.

I think much of my distaste comes from the fact of just how "Big Boss" was made. Even having him turn out to be a clone all along would have been better, which is why Zero describing him as a "memetic clone" eased my upset. If my character is going to be some kind of impostor of Big Boss, I want him to be at least as close as possible such that I can at least reliably feel like I was still playing Big Boss throughout the game. The problem starts with the fact that the manner of his "cloning" didn't sit well with me: Although the explanation of just how deep the process was helped me, it still wasn't the same as if Big Boss's very neuron patterns or whatever had been cloned into "John" (I gave him Naked Snake's real name from MGS3)'s brain through super-advanced technology, or if the Floating Boy's psychic weirdness had somehow been involved.

Another way the problem could have been alleviated is if the game had not ended there but instead helped me work through the process of accepting this. You can't just end on something like that -- it leaves me empty inside, feeling like everything I've played was a sham. Even if it isn't true, I still need to be convinced, to be helped through it; make it not the end, but a turning point, and put in that extra legwork to help us through our resulting anxiety -- in other words, more missions. My desire to continue the game is shot, even though the gameplay was so much fun, because now I've been left high and dry with nowhere for these feelings to go (but this forum, obviously) and just an empty world of mindless objectives with no story attached (and no Quiet!) remaining for me.

Another improvement, I think, would be to have the man "Big Boss" used to be be a complete mystery. I think that having his past self be a silent, nameless, faceless first-person protag would have had far more the intended "meta" effect than the mistaken effort that was asking you to craft a new appearance for multiplayer missions and expecting you to recreate yourself (when instead I gave not half a fuck and just named him John after Snake's real name in MGS3). (Also, even if I had recreated myself, said effect is ruined anyway by having him turn out to be the helicopter medic.)

Another way to improve it, which totally contradicts the previous suggestion, would be to go completely the opposite direction and have Big Boss's former self be instead a quite well-defined character, and not just in that he was some nameless medic. This one works best with the option where the real Boss is still played by Hayter. In redefining Snake by changing his voice actor, go all-out and have it turn out that far more of what we experienced of this Snake was idiosyncratic to himself rather than a mimicry of another man's personality. Make him a true memetic offspring (as Sutherland's Snake is to Hayter's) by having everything about him that's changed that we had to get used to ever since Ground Zeroes turn out to be facets of himself rather than a change that is retroactively also true of the original, erasing Hayter's Snake even more than he's sadly already been.

Lastly, and I go back and forth on this one, maybe having the original Jack truly ride off into the sunset would have been better than the half-business that happened. Ocelot hands him a new identity and he rides off in civvies like he's going to live out the rest of his days as any other man only for it next to be said that he's just going off to do what his double was already doing, for reasons that still aren't clear to me. This option also works best with the option where the original is still played by Hayter.

I find it funny that so many people missed that, I actually noticed her right away when the camera zoomed in on her face. I was like, "Oh, hi Quiet. I like what you did with your hair and your outfit. Quiet? Quiet, that hurts a little. No, stop, bad Quiet! Bad!"

I really thought GZ Medic's guilt/pain not saving Paz, manifesting as her phantom was brilliant. Her final tape made me cry, too.

Medic/Venom seemed more than fine with his BB role if that ending smirk is anything to go by. But that punching the mirror (maybe before Outer Heaven blows up since he's covered in blood?) is so chilling...The Last Day in Outer Heaven comic is definitely our headcanon!

I'm sure seeing motorcycle Jack/BB somewhere in California eating crabs ("I want some more!") and recruiting folks for Outer Heaven would've been boring.

From a romantic standpoint, I liked how Quiet and Venom/Medic's relationship was progressing. To Quiet, she was loyal to Mother Base, her allies, to the end. A nice contrast with The Boss being loyal to the mission. And it's somehow more touching to me that the only women Jack/Big Boss romantically kept in his heart were The Boss and Eva.

Medic's face being covered in that ACC group photo, Quiet aims a gun at her throat when Venom has the choice to kill her.

Mission 51 would've been an awesome post-credits mission, but at least it's mentioned in the ending Timeline. Oh, Ending 4 (if folks actually unlock it) looked pretty incredible.

while you're en route to Huey, which we thought was pretty cool. We just dropped the supplies on her. The rainbow scene with her is super rare to get.