I have a few beefs with the villains that I'd just like to share over here.

1.) Metal Gear REX - was supposed to be "the most powerful weapon ever made", but it gets destroyed by one man and a portable missile launcher. How much does it cost to make a REX, and how much does it cost to make a stinger missile launcher? I guess, with this example, we better manufacture stinger missiles instead of this big hulking piece of crap.

2.) Liquid Snake - i get why he didn't kill Solid Snake all that time, coz he was needed to input the detonation codes. But why did Mantis, Wolf, and Raven, along with the hundreds of Genome Soldiers, have to get in his way and die? Why did they all have to put Snake in traps that *could* have killed him, and therefore eliminated their chances of launching the nuke? Were they just sacrificing themselves, coz they knew that they weren't allowed to kill Snake, or were they just plain stupid?

3.) Big Boss - he ordered Snake to infiltrate Outer Heaven and Zanzibar, only to reveal himself as the bad guy in the end, that he was using Snake for his motives.. same as Liquid, had hundreds of bad guys and comrades die in his way, and gets all his plans foiled in the end. Weird strategy.

4.) The End - everytime you lose to this guy, he just grabs your lifeless carcass and throws you in a woodshed. Then you can keep fighting him again and again until you kill him. Isn't his job supposed to be stopping Snake?

5.) Sniper Wolf - i get that perhaps, she went rogue, and wanted to kill Snake due to her obsession with the wolf and it's prey thing. But she had two opportunities where Snake was completely oblivious of her presence, but she didn't bother to shoot him properly. Instead, the first time, she shoots the girl, when Snake was perfectly visible. Second time, she shoots him in the leg. Idiotic woman.

6.) Metal Gear RAY - another piece of crap. Raiden takes his portable missile launcher and slaughters nine of these in a row. Amazing.. and this guy isn't even a "legendary hero". 

because mgs is awesome but final fantasy villains are cooler imo

I actually thought about this the other day...

I know.. but almost all games have unanswered questions...

@soriku

kefka of ff6

Maybe this is a theory why things happened the way it happened(SPOILERS!!):

They could kill Solid Snake all along. They didn't need him to input the detonation codes, they just needed the 'key card' that Solid Snake was carrying. So in the whole game they tried to kill Solid Snake, to get the 'key card', but they didn't succeed. In the end they decided to clear the way to let Solid Snake put in the detonation codes himself.

Besides, in the end the whole 'Shadow Moses Incident' was just a test, organized by The Patriots' and 'watched over' by Revolver Ocelot.

Maybe RAY was designed to defeat REXs, but it comes down to the one who is controlling the thing. If you put Michael Schumacher in a BMW M5 and me in a Formula 1 Ferrari, then i'm sure Michael Schumacher will still win the race, even though my car is WAY quicker. So, at the end it appeared Solid Snake was better with a REX than Liquid Snake was with a RAY.

It's all about the driver...not the machine

Hmm...I wonder if that (REX v RAY) was done on purpose and meant to show that old doesn't neccessarily mean help/hopeless to fit in with that whole aging business in MGS4.

Then again, Liquid was also aging same as Solid Snake...so idk

The explanation is really simple.

If villains actually played the smartest game, the player would always lose, making for a rather retarded gaming experience.

It's much like the way a typical horror movie would be if all the characters/victims showed any common sense in taking the smartest action possible in a "horror film situation." You'd have either a very short (they all avoid the horror situation before the first act was over) or a very boring movie (nobody dies).