Which ending do you prefer?

[starschwar]

Ignoring canon and continuity and all that: The Otacon ending is way better. The Meryl ending is too standard, too normal, too predictable. Snake failing to save "the girl" (who's hardly a damsel) - because he was right about his own self-deprecation. He was not the legend he was made out to be. She saw a hero, he warned her he'd let her down - and does. And still beats himself up for it. I believe that's also the only ending that reveals that Campbell is her biological father - Snake has failed one of the few friends he has, even more than he had imagined to begin with. And the significance of Otacon giving Snake the stealth camo device has greater meaning. Otacon used it, not merely to avoid detection, but to hide from himself and his weaknesses and failures. For the guy whose first impression is pissing himself to now offer his high-tech security blanket to the seasoned covert operative is quite the gut-punch.

Back in the day - when the "trilogy' box set for PS2 came out, I convinced a buddy of mine to try the series that way. While he was first getting into Sons of Liberty, he thought the way Campbell (he didn't know about the AI twist yet) talked so coldly about Snake implied that Meryl had indeed died and blamed Snake for it. It was a legitimate interpretation under the circumstances.

I wonder - if things had gone differently, if MGS4 wasn't designed to be the ending, would Kojima have kept Meryl's fate ambiguous?