Fallen Hero

The first Metal Gear Solid had a quirky miniboss team called FOXHOUND. The team's popularity, in particular Psycho Mantis'*, lead to every later Metal Gear Solid having an enemy team comprised of bizarre individuals. By MGS3 Hideo Kojima must have been getting desperate because it was in this game that they made The Pain.

With the power to control bees he was destined to be the butt of the internet's jokes but I had always had hope for him. Done well, his vaguely explained abilities could prove interesting both stylistically and in game. Besides what about The Fury? He was an angry guy with a flamethrower.

As the past tense has suggested my hope for The Pain is gone. Until recently I'd only known things about him second-hand and so had assumed all the negatively had just been because he was overshadowed by the franchise's numerous badasses. Then I watched a Let's Play of MGS3.

When the player comes face to face with The Pain he immediately starts doing flips and talking about pain. Okay we get it, pain is the 'emotion' the carry into battle. That doesn't mean every second line of dialogue has to be about it.

Once the actual boss fight began any of my respect for The Pain that survived the previous cutscene died. Most of The Pain's attacks speed past clever and go straight into absurd; these are the types of things you don't need to make a joke about as they do it by themselves. In one attack he pulls out a tommy gun and fires bees out of it, in another he has his bees carry a grenade over to you, and best (worst?) of all, The Pain covers himself in his bees...as armour.
Wow.

The only real nice thing one can say about The Pain is that at least he has the decency to not explain his life story either before the fight or as he dies. But that was probably more because there wasn't much to him, as this inexplicably shrunken picture manages to summarise both The Pain's character and overall plot relevance.

He sure is.

*Psycho Mantis proves that regardless of how old a joke gets the internet will keep it alive, especially if it shouldn't.