Video Game
Title: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Console: PS2
Genre: Action-Adventure
Players: Single player only
ESRB Rating: Mature (17+)
- Blood and Gore
- Intense Violence
- Langauge
- Sexual Themes
Production Company: Konami
Release Dates:
- USA - November 2004
- Japan - December 2004
- PAL regions - March 2005
Metal Gear Solid, for those of you unfamiliar with the series, is a "tactical
espionage" game. This style of game play involves a less aggressive combat style where rather than confronting enemies "
Rambo style", the player must employ stealth to avoid an onslaught by heavily
armed troops who are alerted to your presence.
The game is set in Russia during the
Cold War in the mid 1960's. You play a character code named "
Naked Snake," a
CIA agent and ex-
Green Beret who specializes in
covert operations as well as close-range combat. Snake's mission is very familiar to anyone who has played a Metal Gear game before: infiltrate an
enemy base to save the world from an advanced tank that can launch a
nuclear warhead from almost anywhere in the world.
The first thing you notice when you pop the game into your PS2 and launch the intro scene is that the graphics are vastly improved over the previous game. They are simply outstanding! Secondly, without playing more than 3 minutes of the game you are exposed to a more versatile and visually stunning change of setting from the previous two games: a vast jungle populated with
flora and
fauna that dwarf the previous games' indoor settings to box maps.
Aside from just getting a face lift, the game play is far more immersing. It continues to further blur the lines between the game and the real world which is so important to video gaming by making you feel like you are in a situation rather than controling a computer program. The coolest of these additions, in my opinion, is the ability to
camouflage yourself with different
uniforms and face paints. There's a metric butt load of combinations that can either make you stand out like a taco at a titty bar or conceal you from someone walking by just inches away. Another fairly cool change involves the
stamina bar from the previous games that determines how long you can hold your breath, hang from ledges, and generally stay sneaky. Snake's stamina bar now decreases as time goes by due to hunger and nutrition. This means that you, as the player, have to hunt for food. While at first this seems like it would be a tedious task, there are a ton of different things to capture ranging from generic fruits and bugs to exotic alligators and snakes, and Snake has a different opinion on the flavor and nutrition of each. Simply put, it's fun to find out what tastes good and what makes you
sick. In addition, tranquilizing
animals can allow you to capture and cage living animals. These animals can then be thrown at guards as distractions, or if they are
poisonous (like the
king cobra) they can even wound or kill a guard without Snake being seen. With these and other gameplay modifications, the Metal Gear tradition of innovation and general bad-assery has been stepped up once again.
Speaking of tradition, Metal Gear Solid 3 continues with the tradition of having more of
a plot than the typical shooter. The game has outstanding character development, great voice dubbing, awesome settings, a hard hitting sound track, and intense fight scenes. I mean the boss fight between the expert
sniper "The End" and Naked Snake is just freakin' awsome, and I've never seen a video game have a more intimidating boss than "The Fury" before. The game's story is just really solid and doesn't include any of the moronic insanity that was in
Sons of Liberty. This game is a must have if you like the MGS series or video games in any way shape or form.
My Rating: 5 out of 5.
Sources include the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater game, instructional booklet, and my own experiences / opinions. Feel free to /msg me with any questions, comments, or concerns about this WU.