If you watch Escape from New York, you'll notice how similar David Hayter and Kurt Russel's characterizations are, too. I don't know if that was a conscious thing on Hayter's part, or if the director/casting director pushed him in that direction.

The characters in Metal Gear have been based on various actors over the years. As someone pointed out, Snake was originally inspired by Michael Biehn's character in The Terminator. In Metal Gear 2, he became Mel Gibson after Kojima saw Lethal Weapon:

And Big Boss's inspiration in that game was fairly blatant...

It wasn't until Metal Gear Solid that Kojima really got the confidence to do his own thing rather than an amalgam of famous movies and movie characters, although obviously the inspiration was still there. Apparently Snake's face in that game (which has become his modern image) was based on Christopher Walken, though I don't really see the resemblance much.

Here's a cool one from MGS4: The numbers of the channels at the beginning of the game are a reference to the numbers from the show "Lost". 15, 16, 23, 42, 48(4&8).
Source: IMDB

Its a loose reference to that character, but honestly Plisken in that movie really isn't all that impressive. Snake's character is so much more thoroughly developed that it really isn't even funny.

Lol, Escape from NY was on TV today.. ahaha

but .... this guy >>>

is SNAKE ??!! comon he didnt found better character ?

@NNN2004
I guess Kojima's taste in American badass characters and ours are just different. He used Snake Plissken because he was impressed by him. Just count yourself and all gamers lucky that Kojima didn't find Steven Seagal or Van Damme impressive. lol

Lol.. amen to that

I think that to say that a movie could inspire a videogame is insane and anyone who suggests that is a witch. *Cackle*

yah .. afte that we will end with the cock puncher character lol. ( see the onion movie & u will understand )

now i should make a new thread & see how many game make homage for movies.