"I Give My Life, Not For Honor, But For You."

Survival is the name of the game.

The gaming industry changed forever in 1998 when Metal Gear Solid brought a combination of stealth, state of the art graphics, game play, and a strong story line to the original PlayStation. Ever since then, only Hideo Kojima and his team have been able duplicate the success and quality of that formula (Splinter Cell may be the sole exception to some gamers) in their celebrated series Metal Gear Solid. The sequel came years later on the PlayStation 2, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, and despite some negative feed back, most fans of the series embraced it with open arms. Then in 2004, the third instalment was released, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

Many fans were sceptical (including me, mind you) because it was based over 40 years before the previous games in the series, in 1964 to be more accurate. Now let me point out, this little fact may seem daunting to the hardcore MGS fans, but among firing up the game in your trusty PlayStation 2, and starting the game, you will be overcome with relief to find that “Snake”, code named “Naked Snake” for the mission, is the character you will be using. That’s right people, no more shocking characters like Raiden for you to use, but for the Raiden fans (there is a minority of them, I’m sure), the makers of the game put in a Raiden reference or two for you, so don’t break out the water works.

As for the story of the game, all will be revealed among playing it, but I will tell you some of the things you can expect to be doing. There is a key character that you have to rescue, a weapon of mass destruction you must destroy, and a character you must eliminate. Easier said then done…

A lot of people in the games world have been saying the game play in MGS 3 is out dated. As a fan of the series, I’ll tell you right now that I was 95% happy with the way it works. It plays very similar to MGS 2, which played very similar to the original MGS. So in other words, since 1998, the game has been kept true to itself, just with some fine tuning every instalment. You still move, crawl and attack much the same way, but it has a fresh feel to it with the addition of CQC, stalking, eating to keep your energy up & of course camouflage.

We’ll start with the basics, Stalking. It is very similar to walking except it is silent, and makes you harder to spot by the enemy at a distance. It is done by using the directional buttons (NOT the dual sticks). This is an important technique if you want to sneak up on your foes without them hearing you and calling a whole squad of trigger happy troops onto you. In Previous MGS games, you could RUN right up to the enemy and dispose of them, providing you weren’t on a specially designed “noisy floor”. Stalking may be a little slower then walking, but it beats fighting 10 maybe even 15 guards. Unfortunately, it uses up stamina more quickly, so choose the right time to use it. CQC (close quarters combat) is a very handy new offensive aspect of the game. It allows you to grab the enemy, and then do any of these following options:

NOTE: Remember, you must have already grabbed your opponent for these situations to work, to grab an enemy press and hold circle softly..

Choke the enemy out and/or break his neck – repeatedly tap circle button.
Throw him face first to the ground – press forward with L3 dual stick then press circle.
Threaten him with your knife to get info out of him – Press and hold L3
Slit his throat – Press down on the circle button hard.

I won’t lie to you, this takes a little getting used to, about 1 – 2 hours, but once you have it down pat, you will get the most out of this game.

Speaking of Stamina, it is another new aspect to the series. Stamina depletes as time goes on in the game, pretty quickly if you don’t plan out your movements and spend your time needlessly running and rolling all over the place. To keep up Snake’s energy you must find him food. With the game being set in the jungle, you have to be careful what you eat because there are more then a few things that will have an effect on you besides giving you a full belly. Animals like the Poison Dart Frog, obviously shouldn’t be eaten but can be used against the enemy if they are hungry. Sadly for Snake, every poisonous food item doesn’t tell you that with its name, for example, I picked up a mushroom called the Fly Agaric early on in the game. I quickly looked at it, didn’t say it was poisonous and then promptly served Snake his gourmet dinner. It turns out the innocent enough looking fungus was a close relative of the death cap mushroom. Luckily for Snake, he had some digestive medicine on him (it’s easily obtained, don’t worry). But enough on the damn mushroom, other sources of food you will find are various snakes (king cobras and giant anacondas sound pretty gross to me, but luckily, Snake loves ‘em), birds, wild mountain goats, rabbits, instant noodles (you find these in buildings, NOT on trees) and even crocodiles. That is not by any means a complete menu, just a quick sample to give you an idea. Everything Snake eats will raise his stamina at least marginally, some things you find will completely fill him up. It’s up to YOU to determine what Snake will or won’t like. Luckily you have a contact on your radio (don’t forget, 1964 was many years before the codec came along) who has a guide with info on nearly all the local flora and fauna, and she just happens to be a well respected medic. Her codename is Para-Medic. A word of warning, she is a movie nut and will regularly inform snake on recent movies like The Great Escape & the early 007 James Bond movies, whether Snake wants to hear it or not.

Snake’s other contacts on his radio are Major Zero, an English commander who gives Snake info on what your next move should be (sort of like Col. Campbell from previous games) and a weapons expert Sigint, who offers advice on camouflage and whatever weapons you or the enemy may be using. You have another person you will be able to regularly contact, but in interest of not giving away too much of the story, I’ll keep his/her identity a secret. You will spend a lot of time on the radio so it is lucky that it’s easy to use. The select button opens the radio screen, press down to bring up the list of contacts, then all you have to do is select your contact then press circle to give them a call.

Camouflage plays a very important part in this game. The going will get tough very often if you don’t plan out your camouflage. Wearing the desert costume with desert face paint in the forest will make you stand out like The Undertaker at a proverbial white wedding, but if you were it in the said desert, you’ll be as hidden as a present at Christmas time. You can switch costumes and face paint at any time, and there is a good selection of both, even at the beginning of the game. There is a large amount to find as well, so whatever the situation, you will be well hidden providing you have the gear. One extra note to make while we are on the topic of camouflage, when you complete the game all your costumes and face paint will be saved for your next file. That’s definitely a relief considering how hard you have to work for some of them!!

The graphics are a noticeable yet not huge step above the previous game, which is fantastic because MGS 2 pushed the good ol’ PlayStation 2 pretty far graphics wise. The character models are really impressive, but the stand out to me was the environment. Whether it be the thick and dense jungle or the cold steel fortress of Grazny Grad, it looks absolutely magnificent. The lakes are a sight to be seen, clear water which has sun rays bouncing of it, filled with fish, crabs and other sea dwelling organisms. The forest comes alive with the beautiful thick green tree tops and plants with the ever present soft rustling of the grass caused by some of the local animals. It is a shame to have to eat these animals to survive, because they look so life like.

The music is composed by Harry Gregson Williams, who worked on the previous MGS and has built a solid reputation by working on such Hollywood films like Shrek and many others. It really adds a sense of class and not to mention suspense. Along with the superbly structured game play the music really makes this game feel like you are playing a movie. The voice acting is also very good, near perfect actually. David Hayter returns to do the voice for Snake and is in top form. Even the lowly grunt guards are voiced better then ever, and for the long time fans, the guard with diarrhoea makes another appearance, well not the actual guard but a descendant. There are many tie ins with the previous MGS games to keep the purists happy.

I will now tell you about the negatives on the game. At some points, the camera angle can be very awkward, and not to mention down right dangerous. Many times I have had to quickly switch to first person view to see if it is safe to proceed. This might not sound like much, but it makes the game feel very “stop and start”, it isn’t a huge problem, but it is very annoying when someone you can’t even see starts shooting you out of the blue.

The final gripe on the game is that it is fairly easy. For gaming rookies that is good, but for the more experienced players (who this game will most likely appeal to anyway) it will make the game go by pretty quick. The boss’s are for the most part very easy as well. Some of them will remind you of the boss’ from previous MGS’s. Like one boss, “The Fury” is very similar to the second fight with Vulcan Raven from the first MGS.

Other than that, there isn’t much to complain about. A very solid and emotional game this is. The reason I haven’t told you anything about the story is because, I didn’t know anything about it until I played it, and as a result I had one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

To finish off, here is my Metal Gear Solid series personal ranking.
#1 Metal Gear Solid: My favourite out of the series. Introduced me to this genre of gaming and offered the most emotional gaming experience ever.
#2 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Following closely behind the original game, also offered a very emotional experience I won’t soon forget.
#3 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty: A very enjoyable game, but was very awkward towards the end of it because of the bizarre story twist.

I hope you have fun playing this great game, until next time…GAME ON!!!