10 Crazy Video Game Spin-Offs You Won't Believe Exist

3. Mesal Gear Solid: Snake Escape

Mesal Gear Solid: Snake Escape
Sony Interactive Entertainment

You know what Metal Gear Solid has been missing for all these years? Playable apes. Fortunately, Mesal Gear Solid: Snake Escape exists, so fear not! We never have to worry about that problem ever again.

An Ape Escape spin-off that plays like a Metal Gear Solid game, Mesal Gear Solid was included on the Ape Escape 3 disc as an unlockable minigame. Your job is to control simian spy Pipo Snake, stealthing your way across a variety of stages with the aid of your banana pistol, watermelon bombs, and a couple of other gadgets, with the goal of stopping a mischievous group of monkeys.

Is it a dumb idea? Yes. But is it hilarious? Also yes. The game parodies and riffs on Metal Gear Solid in so many amusing ways (one of the best touches is when you hide under a cardboard box, the blue light on Pipo's head will poke through the top), and since it's only an hour long and is bundled with the main game, it won't cost you any extra and the joke doesn't outstay its welcome.

Interestingly, Snake Escape isn't the only time these two radically different franchises have crossed paths, either...

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!