Game Over

Game Over is a traditional message in video games which usually signals the game has ended with a negative outcome, and that the player has failed to satisfy the conditions of a complete game.

Usage in the Metal Gear series
The usage of "Game Over" varies throughout the Metal Gear series. Sometimes a Game Over is accompanied by a cutscene, such as when Solid Snake trips the laser beams in the Tank Hanger on Shadow Moses Island, getting caught by the Marines in the Tanker Holds, and when Naked Snake cannot finish the fight with The Boss in the 10 minute time limit.

The Metal Gear series is notorious for breaking the fourth wall, and has exploited the Game Over screen in several game events.

In Metal Gear Solid, there are special scenarios that occur when a player gets a Game Over:


 * If Snake kills Kenneth Baker before/during the boss fight with Revolver Ocelot or if Snake approaches Baker during the fight (causing the C4's to kill the ArmsTech president), Ocelot will shout "You idiot!" to Snake.
 * If Meryl Silverburgh is killed by Snake, Colonel Campbell will call Snake and asks what happened to Meryl.
 * If Meryl dies in the Psycho Mantis fight, the masked mind reader will call Snake a stupid fool and laughs, the latter then kneels in front of Meryl's corpse and the Game Over screen occurs.
 * If the player dies in the torture room, Liquid Snake will berate Ocelot for "doing it again" (i.e. accidentally killing Snake in the torture room) with Ocelot apologizing to his boss. This is the only time in the game where the player does not have an option to continue, and the only way to do so is to load the player's last save file.
 * If one pays attention carefully, Mei Ling will call Snake after the first Sniper Wolf boss fight and asks Snake that "isn't this the right time to save"


 * When the bomb explodes while still in Snake's inventory, or he gets caught in the lethal explosion upon throwing it away, Ocelot will laugh maniacally.
 * When time runs out in the fistfight between Solid Snake and Liquid, the whole Supply Route will explode with the latter maniacally laughing himself.

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, several bizarre events occur. One of the many bizarre events is that during a particular battle, the game will switch to the "Mission Failed" screen. However, the player will see the phrase "Fission Mailed" in the corner. In addition, the window on the screen that normally shows Raiden's dead body will instead have the gameplay occurring in it. In the Tanker chapter, if Snake dies, the Game Over screen similar to the original Metal Gear Solid appears with Otacon crying out for Snake to get up realizing that Snake is already dead. However, the fonts for "Continue" and "Exit" are different.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater continues this tradition with a Fake Death Pill that, when taken, shows the Game Over screen, though the player can still access items and revive themselves. This can be used to inflict additional damage on unsuspecting enemies that now believe Naked Snake is dead, but can only be used a few times. This however does not work on The Boss, as she herself knows about the pill. Additionally, since Metal Gear Solid 3 is a prequel, the text of the Game Over screen switches from "Snake is Dead" to "Time Paradox." It can be cancelled by using a Revival Pill after the boss fight with The Sorrow, or if Snake uses the Fake Death Pill. The player must use the Revival Pill before the text switches to Time Paradox. Otherwise, it will cause actual death in-game, and certain game over conditions such as killing Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov, Ocelot, or EVA cause Roy Campbell to berate "Snake" for disrupting the timeline. However, for Sokolov's scenario, the Game Over screen's text is Mission Failed and Major Zero will call Snake to respond instead.

The Metal Gear games have a running meme where if the player reaches the Game Over screen, the player character's teammates will shout for them get up and continue their mission, normally to no avail (the character is dead anyway). The only exception is during the main encounter with The Sorrow. Naked Snake can call his teammates using his radio, only to hear them shout to him as though he had died. The Colonel will tell Raiden to turn the game console off at one point, for the reason that the mission is a failure when it is clearly not (a reference to the original Metal Gear). During Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Solid Snake can make Codec calls to one of his three support group members (Roy Campbell, Mei Ling, and Otacon), or Slippy Toad from the Star Fox series, and if he is knocked out during the conversation, they will shout for him to rise again. When fighting Luigi, in the middle of the conservation, Roy Campbell will start acting strangely. Snake's response is, "Colonel, snap out of it! Colonel! COOOOOOOOLONEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL!" Also in Brawl, during a conversation about Pit (from the video game Kid Icarus), Snake and Otacon will talk about Pit's trials and experiences equating to Game Overs and how Snake probably knows all about those situations. The audience's in-game cheer for Snake in a Brawl match parodies the Game Over screen from Metal Gear games (i.e. "Snake! Snake! SNAAAAAAAAKKKKEEEEE!!!").

If Snake dies in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, he can contact Rosemary and tell her about strange feelings he is having of "dying once already", followed by him telling her how he "died" in his mind. When Snake dies while fighting Screaming Mantis, strings appear attached to his body, as if he is a puppet to the player. If the player dies during Snake's return to Shadow Moses, the original MGS theme is played in the background. In the infamous Microwave Hallway, when Snake dies, once the player moves from "Continue" to "Exit", the latter becomes "Exist" with Liquid Ocelot saying "Brother, it's not over, not yet!". If the player switches back to the former option, the latter will resume as "Exit" again. The Snake Tales story External Gazer put a unique spin on failing a mission. Due to parallel universes converging and mixing with the normal world caused by the Koppelthorn Engine, every time the player "restarts" or "quits" a game, an unfathomable number of parallel universes are destroyed in the process.

In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, besides the characters calling for Snake, there is a small chance of voice actors such as David Hayter, Tara Strong, Antony Del Rio, and Vanessa Marshall to hum the Game Over sound. Also, Snake will scream for Paz or Kazuhira Miller if the date with them fail.

Behind the scenes
In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Master Miller tells Solid Snake to not picture the Game Over screen, but to instead visualize how happy he'll be once the mission is complete.

The Metal Gear-style Game Over phrase (screaming Snake's name three times, with the last one being drawn out) has been referenced in at least two other video game franchises. The first was in Final Fantasy X-2, where Rikku will say a similar phrase to the above when fighting a recoil or a similar enemy. The second is in Metroid: Other M, where Adam Malkovich, if Samus dies, will say Samus' name in a similar style to the Metal Gear game over sequence.