Savvy Metal Gear fans know that Big Boss shares his code name with another 1980s bad-ass: Escape From New York‘s Snake Pliskin. But if you think about it, there is something of A-Team leader John “Hannibal” Smith about him. Maybe it’s his confidence, or his love of a fine cigar. Nick Hawryluk, owner of Level 17 Media and host of Press Play TV took advantage of this potential for ’80s awesomeness in his YouTube video featuring Snake and his band of misfits in place of Hannibal and his fellow soldiers. It’s a parody of the well-loved A-Team TV intro featuring the Diamond Dogs from Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
Change the line “10 years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit,” to “Nine years ago, their private army was decimated by a secret organization,” and the L.A. skyline to Mother Base while keeping the military drum track and fading to red and, voilà! If you haven’t played the new Metal Gear games Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, there’s a slight spoiler alert to follow.
Then again, it’s not too big a spoiler to say Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is a prequel set nine years after Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and 11 years before Metal Gear, the first game in the series (set in 1995, released in 1987). To translate, that’s 1984, in the heart of the decade and the heyday of the A-Team‘s 1983-1987 run.
If we compare the D-Dogs to the A-Team personality-wise, Kazuhira “Master” Miller is Face, literally wanting to put a face on the organization with his own plans and ideas that don’t always jive with Big Boss’). Odd Revolver Ocelot is kooky Murdoch and Sniper “Quiet” Tixij with her charming loquaciousness is clearly Mr. T. Finally, DD (the dog) stands in for Melinda (despite the order in the parody). Ok, so Melinda got the shaft a bit, but such is life. Melinda wasn’t in ‘Nam with the A-Team, and DD wasn’t in the jungle with Snake.
The only real tweak between the two intros was the omission of aliases in quotation marks, as seen in the original A-Team intro. MGSV’s subtitle hints at Big Boss’ identity, but that’s a complicated story too long to fit into a set of quotation marks between character’s names. Also, if you’re wondering about the gunfire text, that was added in season three of the A-Team. It’s also worth noting this certainly isn’t the first A-Team video game parody, it isn’t even the first Metal-Gear based A-Team parody, but it is the tightest we’ve seen.
If someone really wanted to be sarcastic, every character in the vid would be a Big Boss clone (or body double). But that would be no fun. You simply can’t do a Metal Gear parody justice without Revolver Ocelot, and he’s a great fit for Murdoch’s crazy-like-a-fox personality. We love it when a plan comes together.
