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Whoa, thanks that lessens my confusion and organizes the story in my head. biggrin Thanks a lot!

MGS3's Snake is Big Boss, as in the 'father' of Solid Snake, who we see in MGS1 and 2.

Yeah, in MGS3, they take you back to 1960's and make you play as Big Boss, before he became Big Boss. See, when you play the original Metal Gear games, Big Boss is old by then and is missing an eye... And you're playing as his 'son' but more of a clone, really. You later find that out, etc. etc. etc. But I don't think they intended for people to know that you play as Big Boss in MGS3 until the end... I knew ahead of time, which made a lot of sense... I honestly don't know how I would have taken Snake Eater otherwise, like, "Why is Snake in the past, before he was born, and why does he seem even older? And how could they take out his eye!?" Honestly, it would have confused the hell out of me until the end... Umm.. Did Konami officially reveal that he was Big Boss before the game came out? Or how did the information leak?

I started with Snake Eater (Awesome birthday Gift!) so he didn't have the eyepatch on that cover... But I was making a little too much money the next year, so when Subsistence came out I quickly picked it up for what... $40 that it was... And since not enough people pre-ordered, they gave me the Special Edition DVD with it.

Yea, it basically outlines the storyline of every MGS game (excluding Portable Ops), in Chronological order, and includes various interviews with Hideo Kojima.

Well, it started in MGS3. After finding out that the U.S. government send The Boss on a suicide mission, he felt somewhat betrayed by his country. Afterall, if they can take a national hero like The Boss and turn her into a traitor in the eyes of the world, then who's to say they won't do the same with Big Boss?

PORTABLE OPS SPOILER BELOW!!!

In Portable Ops, at the end, Gene gives Big Boss the resources to build what Big Boss called Outer Heaven. A nation that doesn't reject soldiers after the war. He gave him the plans, the money and everything else.

So basically, Big Boss builds this nation, Outer Heaven, training soldiers as well as saving wartorn kids and making them into soldiers. So it's not really that bad of a cause. But he also decided to build Metal Gear which is a nuclear, walking battle tank, so I guess that's what stirred up some trouble...

Now, I don't remember if it was ever really explained, but my theory is that the U.S. Government found out about Outer Heaven, probably through satellite photos and hired FOXHOUND to dispose of Metal Gear. So since Big Boss is running Outer Heaven and at the same time is the leader of FOXHOUND, he needs to keep his secret safe.

So Big Boss sent Solid Snake on a suicide mission to show that he's actually, doing something about it. So it was as he and Snake always preached. There were no bad guys or good guys, it was about the mission. Just so happens that we're introduced to it from Solid Snake's point of view, so from that point of view, Big Boss is the bad guy.

Done.