As a person who desired to play the Metal Gear series, many claimed that the best game in the series is Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. So after buying the HD collection for the Xbox 360 and finished the game nearly twice ,
Story: The story of Metal Gear Solid follows the CIA agent, Naked Snake, during the 1960’s when the Cold War was ensuing, whom was on a mission to save a SovietAs a person who desired to play the Metal Gear series, many claimed that the best game in the series is Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. So after buying the HD collection for the Xbox 360 and finished the game nearly twice ,
Story: The story of Metal Gear Solid follows the CIA agent, Naked Snake, during the 1960’s when the Cold War was ensuing, whom was on a mission to save a Soviet scientist say they may halt the creation of mass weapon of destruction. However it seems as though Naked Snake’s mentor Big Boss has defected and is helping the GRU organization who is attempting to overthrow the current Soviet government. They had managed to capture the Scientist themselves, capture the weapon, and destroy a Soviet research facility, the destruction of the facility led the Soviet government to believe that the U.S was the one who destroyed the facility and has given the U.S a week to prove their innocence by saving the scientist, destroying the weapon, and killing the defected traitor, The Boss. All of which is up to Naked Snake as he must traverse the jungle so he may complete the mission.
The story of MGS3 is actually very good but has some severe inconsistencies with it’s tone, luckily you don’t need to play any of the other games in the series considering this is a prequel so this is a perfect starting point for players wanting to play the series. The game is of course, historical fiction, taking place during the Cold War so you may expect to see actual realism taking place. However don’t expect such a thing, the historical context of the plot quickly diminishes and becomes it’s own individual story with it’s own fictional characters and plot, even taking some liberties in terms of things that don’t exist like supernatural characters and events that is taken as normal by the characters. Including many moments that make little sense if you were to apply real world logic. Not to say it’s a bad thing by any stretch, just something to keep in mind for those expecting an accurate historical fiction plot. But what plot there is, is in fact excellent. The large cast of characters both hero or villain were memorable and entertaining, the tension of the situation at hand was great including many fun action set pieces, and the relationship between Naked Snake and Boss, which may be considered the story’s strong point, felt real, which only added to the feelings felt during their final confrontation. While the story is great, a severe issue stops it from being better, it’s inconsistent tone. Though one may think the situation at hand during the story would infact be very serious consistently throughout the entire story, but no. There are far too many bizarre and goofy moments that leave you perplexed on how it’s even there leading the entire story experience to become over the top. One moment you’re given a serious exposition on the destruction of the potential world, and the next moment someone is touching another man’s testicles. Or some ridiculously bad puns made by the villains, or how stupid and pubescent enemy soldiers sound and act like. There are far too many moments like that for the game to be taken 100% seriously which can single handedly ruin the story for some people. Though if you were to ignore it and treat it as it is, as I myself have done, you can get a fantastic story filled with many memorable moments and a solid ending. It just takes ignorance of the previously mentioned out of tune moments of the story.
Gameplay: The gameplay may be considered one of the games weakest point, not to say it’s bad, just outdated by today’s standards. But the gameplay has some of the best mechanic and ways of playing I ever seen, and that is where the game truly shines. MGS3 is an action adventure third person stealth game, which allows you to play any way you choose, play silently without killing a single person, or play guns-a-blazing murdering everyone you see. The doesn’t punish you for choosing one or the other as some would expect, allowing an easy leniency for new players not into the stealth genre. Though there is an incredibly prevalent problem for someone that is new to the series, it’s controls deviate from traditional games. The controls are vastly different from what you would expect from a game of this nature, the manner of shooting involves pressing the Left analog stick, holding down the R1 or RB button, and pressing X or Square to shoot. Considering that is what you’ll be doing for the entire game, it does seem problematic for those who think that this is far too complicated and tedious. Including the fact that this is only one mechanic in which players must understand. It also doesn’t help that the game feels stiff and awkward, lacking the polish to make it great. Shooting itself is stiff, hand to hand combat is stiff, and sneaking around also feels stiff. Though, if you can deal with such processes, the game becomes a decent experience that unfortunately lacks polish. However there are several mechanics, specifically two, that provides the game with a fresh and innovative manner of player. The Stamina bar and Camouflage are ingenious ideas that make the game’s stealth much more fun and enjoyable. The Stamina is a necessary meter which essentially determines your overall efficiency in combat. To have a high stamina meter, you must capture food while in the jungle or steal it off of enemies and of course eat the food you’ve received. In doing so, you retain a high Stamina meter which determines many factors including aiming, health regeneration, and speed. If you were to retain a low stamina meter these stats will become insubstantial hindering your efficiency in combat. This makes it so that you are properly prepared for each encounter in order to succeed, forcing you to be on your edge at all times. Yet another absolutely ingenious feature is the usage of the camouflage and it’s effect on the game’s stealth. While playing, you have an index which reveals your likelihood of being spotted. Depending on the terrain, you wear the proper camo that can increase your index. To give an example if it is a forest like area, wearing green attire is the smart thing to do. This feature provides what the survival meter does as well, it puts the player on edge and prepares them for each encounter. These two features may be the saving grace of the gameplay, providing unique and innovative mechanics to the stealth genre. As for the difficulty, the same can’t be said. The default difficulty is far too easy, giving the player far too much health, really bad A.I, and makes it so that you don’t even feel threatened so you don’t even bother trying to sneak around since it is more time consuming. You also hoard ridiculous amounts of supplies which you can use frivolously making the game easy as well. I highly recommend that if you were to play the game, set to a higher difficulty that way all the problems with the difficulty are gone making the experience fun and enjoyable. But the shining pinnacle of the entire game are the boss battles which are enough to make up for the game’s faults. There are several boss battles, all of which provide an amazing and fun experience. I really can’t say anything else, just play the game and see for yourself since these are some of the best boss battles I’ve faced in a while. All in all, the gameplay is decent, there are some great features, it’s the lack of polish that keeps it from being great.
Graphics: For the graphics, being a ten year old game, it’s safe the graphics are substandard by today’s releases, which is to be expected of course. The quality of the HD port is actually a huge improvement over the original released for the Playstation 2. The cutscenes look fine enough, with some awkward movements by the characters that do look outdated by today’s standards and the same applies to the gameplay. The setting of the game is set typically in the jungle and the atmosphere and quality of it feels surreal, this also follows applies to many of the game’s varying areas which provides a constant variety to the game leading to many memorable segments of the game. However when it comes to the character designs of the enemy soldiers, they all literary look exactly the same which breaks any sense of immersion when there are 15 enemy clone soldiers running at you, it does feel really unrealistic. While for the actual characters themselves look variant enough and distinct and the classic visual effect f the game does make it seem like it is Cold War Soviet Union. With that aside the game unfortunately suffers from frequent framerate drops putting the game to a severely slow, mostly if not entirely when there is absolute chaos. This is especially harmful for those who want to play as sadistically as possible, which causes the game to stop at a grindingly slow frame rate for most of the time. Though this is normally not a problem if you were to play the game stealthily, framerates are hardly an issue so don’t have any worries if you were to play like that. The graphics of HD Snake Eater essentially is a more slicker and cleaner look to a ten year old game.
Sound: The soundtrack for MGS3 is very excellent and well done, though during the gameplay you more often than not ignore the quality of the music leading most of the soundtrack good but forgettable. But for segments of the game without any gameplay, they have some solid original soundtracks having some of the best cutscene music I have ever heard like Way to Fall, Life’s End, and Snake Eater are all fantastic with their according cutscene. The voice acting is just as great, most of the characters are assigned with some very excellent voices somewhat easing the absurdity of the previously aforementioned moments of the game. While the voices for enemy soldiers are quite the contrary, there little to no variety in voice acting and there voices are just awfully bad. I stated that the enemy soldiers sound like pubescent teenagers and with good reason, their voices do not match with their roles and they are on if the things that ruin the tone of the story. But none of this is a hindrance on the game, a great soundtrack and a overall great and well done voice acting are enough to redeem the awful voice acting of soldiers.
Verdict: The game overall is great, with each individual category having something noteworthy. With the brilliant stealth mechanics, well written story, and fantastic soundtrack. Though the lace of polish in the gameplay and the inconsistent tone keep the game from becoming even better. But all of that doesn’t matter since this game has motivated me to play more in the series. That’s why I give the the game an 8/10… Expand
Metal Gear Solid 3: SubsistenceYour Score0 out of 10User Score
