Sniper Wolf

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Sniper Wolf
Metal Gear character

Sniper Wolf (left) in Metal Gear Solid, as drawn by Yoji Shinkawa
First game Metal Gear Solid (1998)[1]
Created by Hideo Kojima
Designed by Yoji Shinkawa
Voiced by (English) Tasia Valenza (as Julie Monroe)[2]
Voiced by (Japanese) Naoko Nakamura[3]

Sniper Wolf (Japanese: スナイパー・ウルフ Hepburn: Sunaipā Urufu') is a fictional character from Konami's Metal Gear series. Created by Hideo Kojima and designed by Yoji Shinkawa, she appears in the 1998 stealth game Metal Gear Solid (as well as its 2004 remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes) as one of the game bosses opposing the protagonist Solid Snake and his ally Meryl Silverburgh.

The character is a ruthless and skilled sniper belonging to the renegade U.S. military special operations group FOXHOUND. "Sniper Wolf" is a nom de guerre pseudonym and her real name is undisclosed. She is of Iraqi Kurdish origin and her backstory is connected to the series' chief protagonist/antagonist character Big Boss, who had rescued her in Iraq when she was a child. Sniper Wolf is widely regarded as one of the most popular characters in this game as well as in the entire Metal Gear series, as well as one of the top female antagonists in all video gaming.

Conception

According to designer Yoji Shinkawa, the idea of creating Sniper Wolf came about when the series' writer/director/producer Hideo Kojima originally asked him to draw a "a guy", but Shinkawa suggested that he should instead design "a young lady with a sniper rifle."[4] Shinkawa designed her with green hair,[5] but she appears as a sandy blonde in the game;[6] he also made a topless picture of her.[7] Kojima said a part of an inspiration for the character came from the female Viet Cong sniper scene in the film Full Metal Jacket.[8][9][10]

In 2012, Kojima recalled he had a hard time "trying to explain the concept of MGS' Sniper Wolf battle" to his staff.[11] Shacknews wrote about the game's GameCube remake Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes: "While critically acclaimed thanks to its improved graphics and smarter AI, the addition of an MGS2-inspired first-person mode was blamed for making the game too easy and ruining the Sniper Wolf boss battle entirely."[12] Asked about his favorite Metal Gear character in a 2003 interview, Solid Snake's voice actor David Hayter said: "Wolf. Very hot. Very dangerous. She’d be Snake’s girl if she wasn’t so focused on killing him."[13]

Appearances

In Metal Gear Solid, Sniper Wolf is a member of FOXHOUND and an elite sniper capable of going without food and staying still for up to a week. She typically forms an emotional connection with her targets before killing them with her favoured weapon, the Heckler & Koch PSG1, and uses mercury-tipped hollow-point bullets to poison her victims.[14] She is also addicted to the drug diazepam.[15]

Born in the Iraqi Kurdistan in 1983 during the Iran–Iraq War, she witnessed the death of her family and thousands of others from a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's government troops against the rebellious Kurds when she was five years old. She was captured by Saddam's forces and taken as an orphan by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, who brainwashed her and brought a famed Gurkha sniper to train her to be a child combatant for the government. Three years later, during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, she fled to a Kurdish refugee camp. There, the legendary U.S. Army Special Forces veteran known as Big Boss noticed her extroardinary abilities and brought her with him to the United States, where she received counselling and deprogramming to remove her Iraqi brainwashing, leaving only her fighting abilities with her. Extremely grateful, she thought of Big Boss as a modern Saladin and followed him in whatever he did, until his mutiny and later death at the hands of FOXHOUND operative Solid Snake (depicted in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake). She was then found by Solid Snake's brother Liquid Snake, who convinced her to join a FOXHOUND splinter cell under his command.[15][16]

In the alternate year 2005, during the Shadow Moses Island incident (Metal Gear Solid), Sniper Wolf goes rogue along with the rest of Liquid Snake's group when they take hostages and blackmail the U.S. government with a hijacked walking tank armed with nuclear weapons, demanding the corpse of Big Boss to be handed over to them.[17] She cares for the huskies that Liquid intended to kill, as she enjoys their company, and is impressed with the hostage scientist Hal "Otacon" Emmerich giving his scarce food supply to the dogs. When Solid Snake (further referred to as Snake) infiltrates the island, Sniper Wolf wounds Snake's companion Meryl Silverburgh to lure him into a trap, capturing him so he could be tortured by another FOXHOUND member, Revolver Ocelot. Eventually, Snake defeats her in sniper duel in a snowy field by shooting her in the lung. After hearing Sniper Wolf's story of her life, and at her request to be at last "set free", Snake kills her over objections by Otacon, who professes his love for her.[15][18][19][20][21] Solid Snake also uses her handkerchief to avoid attacks by her wolves by masking his scent with hers.[15][22] Sniper Wolf's ghost can be seen if the player uses the in-game photo camera on her body.[23]

Sniper Wolf was originally planned to make a voice-over cameo appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), during a conversation between Otacon and Olga "Ninja" Gurlukovich, and appears in a short flashback sequence.[14] Her spirit shows up as a wolf in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008),[6] in which an unrelated character named Crying Wolf also appears to engage in a sniper duel against Solid Snake.[24]

A 1/8 scale Sniper Wolf action figure was released by McFarlane Toys in 1998.[25] Two 1/6 scale figures were also released only in Japan by Yamato (an action figure)[26] and Studio Saru Bunshitsu (a garage kit).[27][28] In 2012, Sniper Wolf was chosen by Konami as one of their 64 iconic characters to participate in the Konami E3 Battle event, where she lost against Metal Gear REX in the semi-final fourth round.[29] Some other developers have also given homage type nods to the character, such as with an item "MGS Sniper Wulf Mk. II" in EA Montreal's Army of Two (2008)[30] and a weapon "MG-S1 Sniper Wolfe" in the PlayStation 3 version of Visceral Games' The Godfather II (2009).[31]

Reception

The character was well received in part because of her sex appeal. For that reason, Sniper Wolf ranked as 37th "hottest babe in games" by GameDaily in 2008[32] and was included in UGO's list of the 50 "hottest babes in games" in 2011.[33] She was ranked as the tenth sexiest PlayStation character by PlayStation Universe in 2010, who added that "this character takes a special place in our hearts,"[34] and was included among the top 10 "hottest" female villains in gaming by Cheat Code Central in 2014.[35]

In the history of videogames, few bosses have brought us to our knees the way Sniper Wolf did. When Snake and Wolf finally tussled on the frozen, tree-filled lot on Shadow Moses, fans were treated to a sniper v. sniper battle that made you fear and respect your adversary. Sniper Wolf's motives were admirable, her character was brilliant, and her relationship with Otacon added yet another layer to the game's lauded story.[5]

—IGN PlayStation Team in 2008

Sniper Wolf was also acclaimed as one of the best boss type and antagonist characters in the Metal Gear series or even in all video games. In 2006, Ryan Stewart and Rich Krpata of The Boston Phoenix ranked the fight against Sniper Wolf as the 16th greatest boss battle in video game history, describing her as the best aspect of FOXHOUND and her death as "one of gaming's most poignant scenes."[36] In 2008, readers of IGN voted her at the top position on the list of the Metal Gear series villains, the staff commenting: "Who else could number one be but the incredibly beautiful, and impossibly deadly, Sniper Wolf?" and adding that "it's safe to say Wolf earned more votes than just about every other villain combined, a fact that doesn't surprise us at all."[14] That same year, IGN PlayStation Team ranked the fight against her as the sixth best boss battle in the series,[5] while the staff of GameSpy placed her seventh on their list.[37] In 2010, the staff of IGN ranked Sniper Wolf as the 92nd top video game villain of all time, stating that she "probably deserves to be higher on our list" and emphasizing the feeling of helplessness caused by her tactics in "an epic boss battle".[6]

Regarding her personality issues, sometimes perceived as complicated, Sniper Wolf was ranked as the 25th top "chick behaving badly" in all entertainment by IGN's Scott Collura in 2008,[38] featured as one of nine "bad girls of videogame land" by Gelo Gonzales of FHM in 2009,[39] and ranked as the seventh top "bitch in games" by Gavin Mackenzie of PLAY in 2010.[40] Complex ranked her as the ninth "most diabolical video game she-villain" in 2011, describing her as "the exact type of woman that you wouldn’t marry for any rational reason."[41] In 2012, Complex ranked her as ninth on the list of some of the most evil women in video games, commenting that even as Sniper Wolf "actually ends up being one of the more noble villains in the game," she did exhibit "some next-level psycho behavior."[42]

The scene of Sniper Wolf wounding Meryl to set a trap for Snake was included among the top ten cutscenes in the Metal Gear series by Jeremy M. Loss of Joystick Division in 2010[43] and ranked as the seventh most shocking surprise in video games ("subverting the power fantasy") by George Reith of GamingBolt in 2012.[44] In Trigger Happy, Steven Poole noted how the "brillantly manipulative" Metal Gear Solid can make the player feel guilty, even as "it makes no sense to wish that you hadn't killed Sniper Wolf — that is, properly to regret your actions — because it is a task that the game demands be fulfilled before you can progress."[45] In 2012, Ryan King of PLAY included the character of Sniper Wolf among the six "things you didn’t want to kill (but you did anyway)"[19] and Ian Dransfield from the same magazine included her among the top "bad guys you wanted to win".[46] On the other hand, 1UP.com's Scott Sharkey placed Otacon's reaction to the death of Sniper Wolf second on his 2009 list of the series' "most awkward" moments, calling it "the world's most embarrassingly stupid case of Stockholm syndrome."[47]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Sniper Wolf". IGN. News Corporation. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  2. ↑ Valenza, Tasia. "About". Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  3. ↑ "中村尚子". Aoni Production. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  4. ↑ "The Art of Design: MGS2 & Z.O.E.". IGN. News Corporation. December 12, 2000. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 IGN PlayStation Team (June 11, 2008). "Top 10 Metal Gear Solid Boss Battles". IGN. News Corporation. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Sniper Wolf is number 92". IGN. News Corporation. 2010. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  7. ↑ "Babe Of The Month - Sniper Wolf". All About The Games. June 9, 2009. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  8. ↑ Kent, Steven. "Hideo Kojima: Game Guru, Movie Maniac". Gamers Today. Archived from mirror the original on April 2, 2005. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  9. ↑ Rea, Jared (January 21, 2009). "The 15 Films that Influenced Hideo Kojima". The Escapist. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  10. ↑ Talmadge J. Wright, David G. Embrick, Andras Lukacs (2005). Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies: Critical Approaches to Researching Video Game Play. p. 86. Lexington Books.
  11. ↑ Gregory, Joel (December 30, 2011)."The Hideo Kojima interview: Metal Gear, Rising, Project Ogre and 'ending it all'". Official PlayStation Magazine UK. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  12. ↑ Watts, Steve (December 27, 2011). "Kojima conflicted on Metal Gear Solid remake". Shacknews.com. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  13. ↑ Barnes-Spencer, Brian (2003). "David Hayter Interview - Solid Snake - MGS2". Metal Gear Solid: The Unofficial Site. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Schedeen, Jesse (June 17, 2008). "Readers' Choice: Top 10 Metal Gear Villains". IGN. News Corporation. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 UGO Team (May 21, 2008). "Sniper Wolf - Characters - Metal Gear History". UGO. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  16. ↑ David S. J. Hodgson, Metal Gear Solid: Official Mission Handbook, Millennium Books (1998).
  17. ↑ Shoemaker, Brad (October 22, 2006). "GameSpot's The History of MetalGear". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on October 18, 2006. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  18. ↑ "Sniper Wolf - Metal Gear Solid Character Guide". UGO Networks. December 30, 2008. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Ryan King (2012). "6 Things You Didn’t Want To Kill | PLAY Magazine". Play-mag.co.uk. Retrieved February 17, 2013. 
  20. ↑ Otero, Jose (December 17, 2012). "The Essential 100, No. 16: Metal Gear Solid". 1UP.com. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  21. ↑ Places: Metal Gear Solid’s Shadow Moses. Edge Online. May 7, 2012. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  22. ↑ Cook, Dave (January 31, 2012). "Metal Gear Solid Secrets: 50 Amazing Things You Need To Know". NowGamer. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  23. ↑ Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition. Guinness World Records (2008). p. 69.
  24. ↑ Jeremy Parish, The Snake and the Wheel: The Cyclical Nature of Metal Gear, 1UP.com, 2012.
  25. ↑ "Sniper Wolf Figure". Metal Gear Collection.com. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  26. ↑ "Metal Gear Solid - Sniper Wolf - 1/6 (Yamato)". MyFigureCollection.net. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  27. ↑ "ガレージキット スナイパーウルフ". 2.plala.or.jp. Retrieved 2013-11-06. 
  28. ↑ "Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - Sniper Wolf - 1/6 (Studio Saru Bunshitsu)". MyFigureCollection.net. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  29. ↑ "Konami E3 Character Battle". Konami. Retrieved August 3, 2012. 
  30. ↑ "Army of Two Cheats, Army of Two Cheat Codes, Army of Two Xbox 360 Cheats". GamesRadar. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  31. ↑ "Premium DLC announced for Godfather II". VG247- April 1, 2009. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  32. ↑ "Top 50 Hottest Game Babes on Trial: #37. Sniper Wolf (Metal Gear Solid)". GameDaily (2008). Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  33. ↑ UGO Team (October 27, 2011). "Video Game Hotties: Who's The Hottest?". UGO.com. UGO Networks. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  34. ↑ PSU Community (October 28, 2011). "Top 10 sexiest PlayStation game characters". PlayStation Universe. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  35. ↑ "Top 10 Hottest Female Villains in Gaming - Cheat Code Central". Lists.cheatcc.com. Retrieved 2014-01-13. 
  36. ↑ Ryan Stewart and Rich Krpata (October 13, 2006). "The 20 Greatest Bosses in Video Game History - #12: FOXHOUND". The Phoenix. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  37. ↑ GameSpy Staff, GameSpy's Top MGS Moments: Boss Battles, GameSpy, June 13, 2008.
  38. ↑ Scott Collura, Top 50 Chicks Behaving Badly: Round 3: From Elektra to Angelina, our list of law-breaking ladies continues., IGN, April 2, 2008.
  39. ↑ Gelo Gonzales, The bad girls of videogame land, FHM, September 11, 2009.
  40. ↑ Mackenzie, Gavin (September 23, 2010). "Top 10 bitches in games". PLAY magazine. Imagine Publishing. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  41. ↑ "Bad Girls Club: The 25 Most Diabolical Video Game She-Villains". Complex. June 30, 2011. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  42. ↑ Welch, Hanuman (March 23, 2012). "10 Of The Most Evil Women In Video Games". Complex. Retrieved August 27, 2012. 
  43. ↑ Loss, Jeremy M. (July 26, 2010). "10 Incredible Metal Gear Solid Cutscenes". Joystick Division. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  44. ↑ Reith, George (May 7, 2012). 10 Shocking Surprises And Secrets In Video Games. GamingBolt. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  45. ↑ Poole, Steven (2005). Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade Publishing. p. 225.
  46. ↑ Ian Dransfield (2012). "Top 8 Bad Guys You Wanted To Win | PLAY Magazine". Play-mag.co.uk. Retrieved February 17, 2013. 
  47. ↑ Scott Sharkey (2009). "Metal Gear's Top 5 Awkward Moments". 1UP.com. Retrieved February 17, 2013. 

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