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Metal Gear Solid 3 (PS2) - An instant classic.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I actually played it. I decided to give the game a shot at a friend's house, and I found myself completely glued to the TV for three hours, missing Thanksgiving dinner which is arguably the best meal of the year, depending on your family and their cooking skills. It was on Thanksgiving I finally decided it was time for me to buy a PS2 and lose myself in a sea of Metal Gear Solid. After two agonizing weeks of waiting for PS2s to actually be in stock anywhere, I finally had the system and game in hand. No one heard from me for the next three days.

As you may already know, Snake Eater takes place in the 1960s, in the age of the Cold War and Cuban missile crisis, and you do not play as the same Snake from the series' previous games. I could go into detail about the story and the game's characters and talk for ages, but I won't. Metal Gear Solid, despite its failings in Sons of Liberty, has always been about a cinematic engrossing storyline, and Snake Eater is no exception. That said, the less you know about the story before you play, the better. Rest assured the classic Metal Gear trappings are all here and there are many surprises, twists, and revelations that put this a step above the other games. Don't take the fact that I'm refusing to go into the story the wrong way; I just have to ask you to take my word for it when I say that when the curtain finally closed, I found the story to be one of the most well-written and memorable I've ever encountered, videogames and otherwise. The amount of character development squeezed into the last half hour alone make this game well worth the price.

There are many new gameplay elements that will be foreign to even a Metal Gear veteran, and the first thing that's noticeably different in this edition of MGS is the emphasis on stealth. While the game has always been about stealth, your ability to blend in and stay out of sight is more focused and important in Snake Eater. You're exposed to the importance of stealth early on, and you'll spend as much time hiding in the grass as you will running and gunning. There are different camouflage outfits and face paints to find and wear, and these all affect how easily the enemy can spot you, ranging from spotting you across the play area to walking right past you without them even glancing in your direction. You're given a Camo Index to help show you just how well hidden you are, and while it's not necessary and fairly obvious which camo suits do the best job in a given area, it does help in picking out an outfit at certain points. To accent these new elements, your trusty radar is absent and you will have to rely on sight and sounds to detect enemies before they detect you, and act accordingly. This tends to slow down the pace of the game, but tuning in to the game's environments and essentially hunting foes down can be unexpectedly tense and very fun. While the constant overhead view can lead some to frustration in not being able to see ahead of yourself, it really encourages you to be more cautious and it was only minutes after complaining about it that I wound up not really minding.

The additions don't stop at the new focus on remaining hidden at all times. You also have to monitor your health and any injuries you take. To handle this, you are given a Cure option in your menu, and you treat and heal wounds using items you would use in real life like bandages, ointments, stitches, and splints; all of which you'll come across in the field. On paper, it's a fine idea, but the ability to do this any time you like (say, in the middle of a boss fight as soon as you take a hit) turns it into more of a chore than an element of realism, and when you're in the middle of an intense firefight or battle, pausing to cure yourself of bullet wounds or cuts is a drag and pulls you out of the intensity of the fight. Unfortunately, this aspect is not optional.

To make sure you keep track of your injuries and treat them accordingly, the way your health bar works has been changed as well. Your health steadily recharges over time, depending on your stamina, which is shown underneath your health and will decrease over time.. At full stamina, you recover health at a rather speedy pace, and with no stamina, you recover none. Injuries will also impede your health recharging, but the meat of the health bar is your stamina level, which you keep up by eating animals you catch in the wild. Snakes, elk, birds, crabs, and fish are all on the menu, among other things. Some food will give you more stamina than others, and as you catch and try out the different foods, you'll learn what to stay away from and what to stock up on. It's easy to forget about this element, especially later in the game, and if you aren't careful, you'll end up at a difficult area with no stamina, which will make it harder to aim correctly and such. While it's certainly possible to get through such a situation without stamina, recovering health automatically is the only way to recover health, so if you don't have any food you're out of luck.

Controlling Snake is pretty much as it was in Sons of Liberty and Twin Snakes. The game makes use of the Dual Shock's analog buttons, which is great since I haven't seen much use of them outside of racing games and jumping height. The sneaking, fighting, and shooting elements are all essentially the same aside from a few alterations and additions. The gameplay can feel a little dated at times, and while other series are reinventing themselves like Resident Evil, Snake Eater sticks to the tried and true methods of its predecessors, which isn't that big of a deal since it goes above and beyond in its other aspects, such as environmental detail and storytelling.

Speaking of the game's environments, Snake Eater really pushes things on the PS2 as far as they can go in this generation of games. The soft blur over the entire game gives it a realistic touch, and everything from the grass glowing in the sun to character models look great. Face models are especially impressive, and the level of detail in the facial work is worthy of commendation. The wide range of realistic expressions all the characters show is one of those things missing in many games. A character with the same static expression or maybe two or three of them keeps you grounded in the fact that you are playing a game. But Snake Eater is full of subtle and not so subtle touches like this (in and out of gameplay) that really help you get lost in it, and much like the story, are best to be seen for yourself instead of just listening to me ramble about them and how great they are.

Rounding out the game's huge environments is the sound and music, two areas the MGS series has always excelled at. The sound effects are all very realistic aside from a few humorous touches thrown in to lighten the mood at points. The music, done by Harry Gregson-Williams, is on par with that of a big budget Hollywood film. No matter what situation Snake is in, the music fits with it perfectly and does a lot towards heightening the mood and action. I even ended up liking the game's main theme song I initially hated, and its use in a few moments of gameplay wound up feeling right. And of course, who could forget the voice acting. Again, following in the footsteps of the first two MGS games, the game's characters are voiced by top-notch performers. David Hayter is back as Snake, and all the newcomers do a good job with their roles, particularly the stars of the show.

Now, before I go off on a tangent for the next few paragraphs about how much I love the game, I will go into the problems I have with it. First of all, there's the codec transmissions. More specifically, the people on them. Characters like Major Zero and Paramedic aren't as interesting to talk to and identify with as in, say, MGS1. In the first MGS, Campell and Naomi were not only helpful, but important elements of the story. Indeed, Zero and Paramedic are both involved in the big picture, but I ran into no character development while talking to them and hardly ever felt like contacting them, as opposed to MGS1 where I would call my contacts all the time to hear what they had to say.

There are also some parts where the gameplay drags a bit. While each area is certainly beautiful and interesting, some of the indoor sections really magnify the game's quirks, some of which people may find unforgivable. Considering how polished the outdoor environments are and how it requires a completely different strategy that you've spent hours fine-tuning, being back inside a building was a complete switch from laying on the ground in the grass, and it really put me off.

Another issue I had was the boss fights. While the fights themselves were all different and fairly interesting, only one of them really stood out in my mind, which is the sniper battle against The End. It's clearly a love it or hate it situation, considering it's a very long game of cat and mouse. This was one of the times where hunting the enemy approached a zen attitude, where patience and clever thinking pay off. The other fights are all fine and good, but not nearly as memorable. None of the Cobra Unit bosses got very much development either, which led to you becoming detached from the fight and not really caring about it or outcome. While that isn't a lot of complaining, these few things really did bother me during the game, and continue to in retrospect.

Snake Eater has a good amount of replayability, mainly because there's so much to do in the game. There are a dozen of ways to take down an enemy, and over two dozen ways to approach it. Experimenting with different items in your inventory and the environment, when coupled with your imagination, created an endless amount of possibilities, and that's easily the best part about the gameplay. The forest is your sandbox, and you're free to tool around in it however you please. Want to sneak by everyone undetected? Go for it. What about just running into the open, guns blazing? A little blunt, but it works. You could also find a different way to dispatch every enemy in the game, whether it's blowing them up, tranquilizing them, slicing their neck, knocking them out, holding them up, sending a swarm of bees after them, tossing a poisonous snake in their direction, distracting them with a book, surprise the lot of them by manning a gun turret, or just shoot them until they stay down. You've got a lot of freedom in the game, and its top notch presentation makes any decision seem like the best one.

So, since I've mentioned the storytelling so much, let's actually get into it. This is truly where every aspect of Snake Eater shines, from its graphics and sound to the choreography, motion capture, and voice acting. The main draw of the game (and to some, what makes them shirk away) is really the story being told, and the game's beautiful cinemas rival that of a Hollywood production. While there are times when it feels like you're watching more than playing (and often it's true), it helps that the story is so good, and sometimes that will even be the motivating factor of getting through an area. MGS has always felt like an interactive movie, and Snake Eater accomplishes this in spades. That may be a turn-off to some people, but it isn't for me. The story is rich with intrigue, interesting characters, over-the-top action, and great design overall.

Literally every aspect of Snake Eater comes together and works in unison for its massive (and perhaps a bit overdrawn) finale, brimming with confrontational battles, character development, emotion, and a sense of closure that was missing from the previous games. Never before has a game overloaded me with so much in every department all at once, and perhaps I'm a little star-struck by it all, but I loved every minute of it. There are boss fights that make the game well worth your hard earned cash, and that's not even considering the final hour or so, which is well beyond anything previously seen in the game or the two before it.

When all is said and done, Snake Eater achieves what no other game can on such a level: complete immersion into an action-driven interactive movie. I loved the story and the main characters, I loved sneaking around in the woods ambushing baddies, experimenting with different ways of using my items and the environment, and I loved just staring at the game's gorgeous visuals. While other games like Katamari Damacy (I know, we're obsessed with that game; but with good reason) may be more 'fun,' no other game in 2004 toyed with my imagination and emotions more than Snake Eater did. It had a death grip on me for it's entire 18-hour adventure, and even now I'm reliving a few favorite moments from the ending in my head. Even with its shortcomings and slightly aged gameplay, I enjoyed every minute, enough to call this my personal Game of the Year for 2004. Consider this for a moment: I bought a PS2 specifically for this game. So, I essentially paid over $200 for Snake Eater, and am completely satisfied. That's got to be worth something.

Rise of the Big Boss: A Snake Eater Review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Unknown to many gamers the Metal Gear series has been running since the NES days with the release of Metal Gear and Snake's Revenge. In 2004 we got the latest release of the series- MGS 3: Snake Eater- that shows that Kojima and company are still hard at work with these great games.
Interesting enough the story in MGS 3 takes place before any of the games in the series. It tells how a fairly ordinary but extremely well-skilled special forces/cia agent guy rose to the top of the American government's special forces. After his rise to the top, he gets a new name- "Big Boss" and will eventually form Fox Hound: a highly-skilled special forces group which his son: "solid snake" (see Metal Gear Solid Greatest Hits) is initially a part of.
Later on in the series "solid snake" is forced to kill big boss in one of his missions (I believe it is in Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge). MGS 3 doesn't tell you how big boss became a bad guy but instead paints a picture of his nature being quite similar to solid snake's; He's just a special forces guy doing his job. To use an analogy, it's like in star wars when they explain how Anakin Skywalker became the top jedi and how he was trained after explaining the details of Luke's life when they decided to release episodes 1-3 after 4-6. Kojima and co. are kind of following a similar formula here.
The story in this game also helps explain the beginning of the development of the Metal Gear machine and the beginning of the Patriots. Thus if you have played any of the metal gear games- old or newer- this game will help explain alot, without being teribbly confusing (unlike MGS 2).

Gameplay: 8.5/10
Snake Eater plays real great and it seems to take full advantage of the PS2 controller. There's plenty of variety in the gameplay, especially with the new moves in this game. It's nice that they incorporated the whole eating aspect to the game along with using your environment to your advantage. However, its worse fault is that the game (on normal mode at least) is a bit easy and it doesn't penalize you as much as the other games in the series for getting caught. Thus it seems that stealth is not entirely necessary. This is unfortunate as the MGS games are some of the best stealth games around and most people buy them with this in mind. However even if you use stealth the game is still fun and rewarding. I recommend playing it at least on hard.

Sound: 9.9/10
Everything is great here except the "snake eater" theme song. The song just sounds too james bondish and repeats "snake eater" way too much. Come up with with some better lyrics next time for the main theme song if you're going to have one with lyrics.

Graphics: 9.5/10
There's some unbelievable graphics in the game, like the character/weapon models and alot of the scenery. Only if you are really, really looking will you find some minor graphical shortcomings.

Morality Rating: 8
There's plenty of killing you can do with potentially graphical results. You can slit throats, break necks, shotgun blast to the face, snipe enemies in the head, etc. The throat slitting- which is new- is the most graphic. However you can alternatively go about without using much force at all and when you do you can resort to a tranquilizer gun that resembles a real handgun (but obviously is not lethal). You can also turn all of the blood off. Finally, when you come to meet the character "the Sorrow" he will point out how violent you have been and sort of (in an implied manner) recommend that you cause less pain/death. This really stood out and I whole-heartily commend the developers for this. I would however justify lethal weapons as that way you don't have to worry about the guard waking up when you are trying to sneak around. However I still did use a tranquilizer alot as there seemed to be more ammo for it in many areas than for many other weapons.
Also (for all who may be concerned) there's quite a bit of suggestive themes in the cinematics. However there's never any sex. There's also some open references to bi-sexual behavior. Overall, I would say this game is not for children.

Value: 9.5/10
The game is great and the story is very powerful and moving. Few games out there really explain what true patriotism is about as well as this game does. Plus the graphics, sound, and gameplay are all great and justify a rent or purchase.
If you are really into these games though I would recommend that you buy MGS 3: Subsistence and not Snake Eater as it has alot more goodies that will expand the replay value much further than Snake Eater itself is capable of. Snake Eater in of itself though is very cheap and worth the purchase.

Amazing Game, But Recommend Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The visuals in this game are amazing! Since this game takes place in the jungle, you see everything from snakes to rats. And unlike the first two Metal Gear games, this game requires a lot of stealth. The very helpful radar is not available throughout the game, but the game does give you a human sensor that detects life forms for a few seconds. This is also by far the most complex Metal Gear game made.

Is game is great, but the camera angle is terrible for this game. I would recommend Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence for better camera angles, and possibility a more enjoyable game.

Original Metal Gear

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm a big fan of Metal Gear (When is the movie coming out?) I still play the original in my Nintendo from time to time. When Metal Gear Solid came out for PS1 I felt like my prayers had been answerd. For a while there I thought Konami had given up on this legendary title. BUT I must admit that I was a bit dissapointed with Metal Gear 2: Sons of liberty! Maybe its because I'm such a big fan of Solid Snake and Raiden was such a dork. You need someone with bigger balls to fill Solid Snakes shoes, even the President mistaken Raiden for a GIRL! Anyhow hopefully Konami won't make the same mistake twice, or can they? *grin* As per MGS3 there are going to be a lot of changes to the previous Metal Gears which is a shame, going to miss the old Radar but maybe change is good. If they are going to change anything is those looooong pauses between play action, MGS2 killed me with that. I understand you have to give the story some substance but it was over kill in MGS2. Talk Talk Talk blah blah blah,just let us play the game!

best series of game ever

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game looks unbelievable. The graphics are outstanding. And much like the first two, which are two of the best games i have ever played, this game has a great story and compared to the first two, expecially the first one, these graphics will leave you breathless. I cannot wait until November when i will definitely go buy this one. Along with the first two Metal Gear Solid is in my mind the best action game series ever.

Snake Eater!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Welcome back snake. Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater is set in the 1960's where a new metal geer is set. And Snake's job is to stop it. If you've Meatl Gear before then you'll probably get used to it fast but what's really new is that there is a camaflauge rating and well it's gonna be pretty hard to blend in with nature if you have the wrong uniform on. Well it's gonig to be impresive.

Don't believe the hype!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 20
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First off, I never write reviews for anything but after getting juiced for $50 on this t**d, I felt it was the right thing to do.

The Good: The graphics, sound, variety of weapons, level design, boss characters.

The Bad: Where do I start? The Story is terrible and the dialogue is tedious and mostly unimportant (nothing beats a 10 minute discussion about the creature from the black lagoon every time you save the game) The AI is terrible-nothing says 'realism' like killing guards in broad daylight, running and hiding in the weeds for a minute and having the guards go back on their posts. "Hey Bill just got shotgunned by some guy who popped out of the woods. We couldn't find him so I'm just gonna go back to what I was doing." The whole stealth element of the game is totally pointless on most levels because you can just blast (and choke) your way through most levels. Its even more pathetic because you will get radio messages telling you to make sure the guards don't find you. Why? i'll just take the shotgun and kill every guard in sight. Its not like you can't get shot 50 times before getting kiiled. The new camoflage system looks nice but I just can't see changing my clothes and makeup 5 or 6 times during a mission-sounds like a barbie game. The camera makes me want to rip my hair out at times and the controls are just as frustrating. Bottom line is that this game has been over-hyped and that while it does have 'new' and 'exiting' features, they are marginal improvements and I would rather play the original.

METAL GEAR AGAIN! AWSOME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: December 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

To start off,you ARE playin as Solid Snake and there
are two things that make up a metal gear game.Solid Snake
and Metal gear(hence the name metal gear solid.)
this is sort of a remake for the original metal
gear game and in that game you were SOLID SNAKE.
In three of the trailers i saw,it said how do you
like your snake,rare or well done.then it said
we like ours SOLID.Big Boss is missing an eye as
you can see from videos in the first one for
ps1,but in the trailers I saw he had BOTH of his eyes.In
the one for ps1 Snake even said that he faught in the war.Anyways i'm gettin the game as soon as it comes
out.Just get facts right before you try tellin people
about games.Go to http://www.konamijpn.com/products/mgs3/english/tgs2003.html
and see one of the trailers.You can even E-Mail Konami and
see if they will tell you.

Disappointingly Bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 26
Date: November 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game broke my heart for at least ten different reasons, which I describe below in no particular order.

After waiting for MGS3 for months and months I tore into the package when it arrived. Ten hours of game play later I'm still wondering what went wrong with this game and why it is so unpleasant to play.

First, the game controls and camera angles are bizarrely useless. The game forces you to watch snake from above and will not allow you to move around in first person perspective -- except when you are crawling in the weeds and then you are forced into that view. This is especially maddening when you are walking sideways on screen -- you can not see what is "in front" of Snake until you stumble on it. This problem alone makes MGS3 a failure, in my opinion.

Second, targeting enemies is ridiculous. When you are walking along and come across an enemy you have to hit a button to go into first person mode to shoot at him. Despite the fact that he's five feet in front of you, Snake does not automatically point his gun at the guy. Instead, he shoots all around until you get the gun aimed properly. During this time the enemy shoots you several times at close range but you are barely injured.

Third, the creators' attempt at "realism" with eating takes the game beyond silly to ridiculous. Everyone is all aflutter about how Snake has to eat to stay strong but the eating is very poorly done. First, the snakes just crawl around on the ground waiting to be knifed or shot. They don't ever try to bite you. Second, when you do kill one it turns into a can and then you carry it around.

Fourth, I can hardly believe how stupid the "camouflage" controls are. Snake can be lying on a rope bridge in the wrong camouflage and all you have to do is click on the right camouflage and he magically changes into it while a guard is approaching. That is just retarded. If Snake wants to change into other camo it should take time and cause movement.

Fifth, moving around on screen is fantastically difficult, due to the way objects are shaded and the fact that you can not walk around in first person mode. I spent far too long walking around the woods "looking" for a way to get out of a little area until I found that I could crawl under a log. Meanwhile, Snake is unable to scamper over the top of logs that are more than three feet high?

Sixth is the business of Snake drowning in mud. When you come to a swamp he'll walk around a bit and then . . . glub glub he's gone. No struggle . . . just gone. He doesn't try to retreat one step to a place where he was safe, he just . . . dies.

Seventh is the map. In the real world, you hold a map in your hand and look down at it when you need it. In Snake's world you have to hit the start button and then choose map. Then figure out which way you are oriented and then move a bit and then do it again. The whole thing is quite clunky.

Eighth is the unbelievably boring, ponderous, pedantic dialogue that goes on forever. When the game starts you get a long cinematic and then for the next two hours you listen to sermons and history lessons from everyone on your radio who you talk to. It sounds like it was written by a fifth grader.

Ninth is that enemies "hear" radar. This is perhaps the perfect example of how stupid the game is. When you are in a submarine in real life, and send out a ping, the nearby submarine knows you pinged it because their sonar picks it up. But people don't have sonar ears, and it makes no sense for enemy soldiers to say "what was that" when you ping your sonar as you look for them.

Tenth and last is the lack of a training mode. If I remember correctly, other MGS games had training modes where you could learn how to run and dive and shoot and throw things. MGS3 has a large number of complex moves but you are on your own to learn them. The only quasi-training is a poorly done mini-game in which you run around a small part of jungle trying to capture little apes who barely move.

All in all this game was a terrible disappointment. If you are a MGS fan I highly recommend that you rent the game before paying out the big bucks to buy it. Perhaps the flaws that bothered me so much will not bother you as much.

Metal Gear goodness all over again!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 18
Date: September 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

What can you say that hasnt already been said.....MGS3 IN NOVEMEBER WOOOOOO....anyways, Just to help people clear some things up.... You start off by playing as Big Boss, which if you play Metal Gear games you know that Big Boss is the man that Solid, Liquid, and Solidus were cloned from. People argue that David Hayter who does Solid Snake's voice in MGS2, is also in this game, say that, this means that you play as Solid Snake..not true, becuase Big Boss and Solid Snake are exactly alike, which means same voice.... (hence EXACT CLONES), and there is one thing that is not cleared yet...that I would love to find out...Does Grey Fox make another appearance??? Only we will find out in Novemeber... also everyone knows it takes place in the 60's, Cold War Era, in some Japanesse Forest, the game takes place 90% I believe out doors and then near the end you infiltrate a base, which will most likely hold the movable Nuclear launch mechanism (Metal Gear) of some sort. Alright, all we do now is wait until the glorious month of November for the release......

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