Move over FFX, Snake Eater is my new #1!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Amazing story, graphics, gameplay, etc. The ending can bring a tear to your eye!

Cons: Characters could of been developed more, horrible lip-synching.

The Bottom Line: 
If you're a fan of the previous Metal Gear Solid games and you haven't already purchased this.... for shame. This is without a doubt the great game I've ever played.

Author's Review
It's been three years since the last Metal Gear Solid game from director Hideo Kojima was released for the Playstation 2 console, entitled Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The most recent, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the third installment of the Metal Gear Solid games, and the fifth of the entire Metal Gear series.

In 1987, Hideo Kojima released Metal Gear, where FOXHOUND agent Solid Snake infiltrates a fortress in South Africa called Outer Heaven, to destroy a newly created weapon (Metal Gear), a walking tank with the ability to fire nuclear weapons. While in the process of this mission, he discovers the shocking truth the the leader of Outer Heaven is acutally Big Boss, the leader of FOXHOUND! By the end of the game, Solid puts an end to Big Boss, along with Outer Heaven. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990, where we learn that Big Boss had escaped the Outer Heaven incident and fled to Zanibar Land to create an independant military regime with hopes of conquering the world. FOXHOUND sends Solid Snake to infiltrate Zannibar Land to destroy the Metal Gear prototype which had been transfer to Zannibar after the fall of Outer Heaven. Once again, Snake wins the battle between Big Boss and ensures his death, along with the destruction of Metal Gear and Zannibar Land.

Eight years later in 1998, Metal Gear Solid was released in. This game was an instant hit for the Playstation console. Col. Roy Campbell (former leader of FOXHOUND) calls Solid Snake out of retirement and sends him to Shadow Moses Island, a small island near Alaska. A corrupt FOXHOUND has seized a newer version of Metal Gear called Metal Gear REX and the terrorists are planning to detonate a nuclear device if their demands of having Big Boss's remains returned to FOXHOUND are not met. Snake must infiltrate the nuclear facility and stop this from happening. After eventually destroying Metal Gear REX, it is discovered that the leader of FOXHOUND is Liquid Snake. Both Liquid and Solid Snake's were both created by the genes of Big Boss is the 70s during "Les Enfants Terribles" incident. Snake confronts Liquid and defeats him. Three years ago, The first Metal Gear Solid sequal was created, entitled Sons of Liberty. In this game, you play both as Solid Snake, and Raiden, a member of the special forces FOXHOUND unit. For the first mission, you control Solid as he is to sneak aboard a US Marines tanker, as they have created a new type of Metal Gear called Metal Gear REX. Snake work's for a new association, called Philantropy, an Anti-Metal Gear organization. While onboard the ship, it is taken over by terrorists, and is eventually stolen by Revolver Ocelot. The second mission takes place two years after the tanker incident and you now control Raiden, a member of the newly banded FOXHOUND. His mission is to infiltrate an offshore facility called the Big Shell which is harboring a clean up for the oil spill caused by the tanker, however, terrorists have seized control of this facility and have taken the President hostage.

Although I have never/barely played the original Metal Gear games, I have played and beaten all of the Metal Gear Solids. They both had such an amazing and detailed story, along with excelant gameplay and graphics. The original definitely earns the title as my favorite all time PSX game, and the second is definitely in my top 5 list of PS2 games. It may have received a higher rank, if it was not for it's somewhat confusing and frustrating ending. But none the less, it's certainly one of the greatest games I've ever played in my life.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

After World War II, the world was divided into two: The East and West. This new era was called the Cold War. On October 16th, 1962, the United States government received information that the Soviet Union had been holding nuclear weapons in Cuba. A Nuclear War was a high possibility. After 12 days of negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Soviets finally agreed to remove their missiles from Cuban soil on October 28th. This will forever be known as the Cuban Missle Crisis. However, the reasoning for the removal of the weapons stayed as a confidential agreement that the public never became aware of. The condition of the Soviets removing their weapons was that Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov (a Soviet scientist who had defected to the West) would be returned back to his original country. However, the US government had no idea that Sokolov would have to create an ultimate weapon while back in the Soviet Union, called the Shagohad. This is a tank, with the ability to fire nuclear weapons from any turrain. The CIA realised this in August of 1964, and developed a plan to recapture Sokolov. They dispatched a soldier from FOX, a covert operations unit to carry out this mission. This man's name, is Snake....

Naked Snake to be exact. One of the biggest questions surrounding the release of Snake Eater, was who do you play as? Many people suspected it to be Solid Snake as the title suggests, but judging by the time period, Solid would either not be born yet, or be a very young infant. The character's codename is Naked Snake however, but this does change at the end of the game, and you will learn who he actually is. For die-hard Metal Gear Solid fans, Snake's true identity is somewhat predictable, and the game ends leaving numerous questions unanswered, which will hopefully be answered in Metal Gear Solid 4, which was announced recently by Konami. Either way, fans will not be disapointed that Solid does not make an appearence in this game. Naked Snake is exactly like him in everyway (hint, hint). He's tough, he's smart, portrayed by David Hayter, and an all around badass. Snake was trained by the legendary soldier The Boss, leader of The Cobras. The Cobras was the unit that led the American's to victory during the Second World War.

After Snake lands in the jungle, he is to rescue Sokolov who is being held in a research facility. After surviving an encounter with a young Ocelot, Snake finds Sokolov and escorts him to the extraction point. However, Snake's mentor (and best friend) The Boss arrives and attempts to murder Snake, and re-recaptures Sokolov. She has defected to the west. As Snake falls from a bridge, The Boss along with Sokolov, and Volgin (the head honcho) fly away in a helicopter. One week later, the president receives word from the Russian prime-minister (Kruschev) that a nuclear war-head had been detonated on the countries soil (by Volgin) but he believes that it was the Americans. Kruschev threatens to place the military on high-alert unless the American's can destroy Volgin and the Shagohad, and prove that the US government had nothing to do with the nuclear weapon detonation by terminating the Boss. Snake returns to the Soviet Union once more, and this is where Operation Snake Eater begins...

Other than Snake, this game introduces many new and interesting characters. The evil villain in this game is a man named Volgin, who somehow carries an electrical charge of millions of volts through his body. He is unbelieveable strong, and can electricoute things at his own will. He's definitely more powerful than both Liquid and Solidus from the previous games. He is the head-honcho, the man incharge of the research on the new Shagohod weapon, and the man Snake has to destroy. He's goal is basically to conquer the world.

There is a character who does bring much light to this game. It's Tatyana, AKA Eva. She is an American who defected to the East, but must rendez-vous with Snake at a certain point in the game, and she is with him the rest of the way. She's a tall, pretty woman with long blond hair and whenever you see her, her shirt is open exposing her bra. She's also an amazing driver, especially on a motercycle, which she can do just about anything with. Eventually, the two fall in love, and Snake feels much emotion for her. There is some comedy which comes from this, because during most cut scenes, you can hold R1 to look through Snake's eyes. During almost every scene involving Eva, if you look through first person mode, Snake will be focusing directly on Eva's (exceptionally large) chest.

Quite possibly my favorite character (after Snake) in this game is Ocelot. I'm sure you all remeber Revolver Ocelot from the previous games. In Metal Gear Solid 3, we are introduced to him at a younger age of around 17-25. He is still just as good with gun slinging back in the 60s. In Snake Eater however, we get to see much more of Ocelot demonstrating his talent, as many key points in the game involve him spinning, twirling, tossing and juggling guns. Ocelot is second in command under Volgin, and his head of the Ocelot unit, an elite group in Volgin organization. There are many incidents in which the two do no get along, and at some points, Ocelot actually sides with Snake. Near the beginning of the game when Ocelot first confronts Snake, Revolver is left unconsious. After this, there is some respect shown from Ocelot to Snake. The two enemies have a strange relationship in this game, very similar to that of Max Burdett and Stan Lloyd in the movie After the Sunset. They don't really hate each other, but one must terminate the other because they are ordered to.

Besides that of Ocelot and Volgin, the boss fights consist of each one of the Cobra members, who have defected to the east. The first of these who you must fight is The Pain, a strange man with some type of relationship with hornets. He is surrounded by them all the time, and can tell them to attack any person. He can even shoot them out of his body. He was one of the easier bosses in the game, since you fight him near water so whenever the hornets are attacking you, you simply dive in to avoid them. The next member of the Cobras you fight is The Fear. The Fear has the ability to completely camouflage himself in any environment. You fight him in a forest, as he jumps from tree branch to tree branch. You can only see the outline of his body. This wasn't the toughest fight, since he is fairly week. You can kill him with a few shotgun blasts. Besides being relatively easy, this bought fight was somewhat time consuming since you can hardly see him. You'd have to search through the small forest area, until you get a glimpse of his outline, then follow him with your gun. He's also fairly fast, so he can easily dodge some of your shots. Quite possibly my favorite boss in the game remove the dart. After The End, you'll move on to one of the harder bosses in the game called The Fury. The Fury was an astronate who was severely burned during a re-entry. He is now a member of The Cobras, and wears a jet-pack and attacks with a flame thrower. After coming out of this battle, you'll have numerous severe burns on your body which will need to be treated. The Fury was definitely the hardest Cobra to defeat, besides The Boss herself. You will later encounter The Sorrowwas The End. The End is an extremely old man who wrote the book on snipering. He is quite possibly the best sniper in the world. He is hiding somewhere in a very large forest area, and you must find him and kill him. Each time you shoot at him, he will run off to another place, and you'll have to find him again. This was probably the funnest boss battle in the game, since you'd constantly have to use your stealth techniques since The End has practically no chance of missing you with his shot. A shot from him will cause a drastic decrease in stamina, and you'd instantly have to, who may be extremely difficult for some, but once they realize what to do, it's a joke battle. The Sorrow is a dead person, with the ability to speak to the dead, and bring their souls to Earth. As he floats over you in a river, your bullets can not damage him, and numerous lost souls are attacking you. You can't actually beat The Sorrow, instead you must die via any means and revive your self using the Revival Pill (which will be discussed later). This boss battle, isn't actually a boss battle and was somewhat of a let down. The only real thing I didn't like about this game was the character development of the Cobras. Why does the Pain shoot bees out of his mouth? Why is the Fear invisible? There was no actual questions answered of the Cobra members, and we learn nothing about their past.

Finally, we come to The Boss. The Boss was given her title from the American government as she is the gretest soldier of all time. She is the one who trained Snake, and taught him just about everything he knows. The two also developped Close Quarter Combat. After Boss's defection to the East, it is extremely obvious that Snake is emotionally crushed by this. He refers to her as a mother figure. On just about every encounter the two share, Snake would question Boss on the reasoning behind her defection, although we don't learn the truth until the end of the game. It also appears as though Boss still carries some emotion for Snake as on numerous occasions she tells him to simply run way, leave the Soviet Union and he will not be killed. She is the last boss in the game and definitely one of the harder ones. She's not difficult to beat as in kill, it's just that you have a ten minute time limite, before migs bomb the area. Basically, you have to kill her in ten minutes or your both dead and it's game over. Playing against her is fairly interesting, since she is nearly completely camouflaged so your Thermal Goggles come in handy. The only true way to kill her is the knock her down, and shoot her a few times while she down, as she dodges just about all of your shots. CQC comes in handy against this battle, since it's practically impossible to beat her without it. Also, if she attacks you while you are using a weapon, she has the ability to grab your weapon, and break into multiple pieces, and scatter them around the area. Definitely one of the better and possibly the msot difficult boss battle in the game.

Snake Eater introduces a large variety of new elements that really make this game great. One of my personally favorites is the Camouflage System. In this game you have the ability to change your uniform to make yourself more or less visible in certain areas. For example, in forested areas, you can use camouflages such as Tiger Stripe, Leaf, etc. You start off with atleast half a dozen different camos, and more can be found along the way. You can also change your face paint to make you slightly more or less visible as well. On the top right corner of the screen, there is a camo index. This is a percent which describes how visible you are to the enemy. The higher this number, the less likely you will be seen by the enemy, and vice versa. By lying in a tall patch of grass while wearing your "leaf" camo, you can easily attain a camo index of 90-95%. By standing in a patch of grass wearing a contrasting black camo, your camo index could be in the negatives. The game also contains a large quantity of different weapons ranging from your survival knife up to an RPG-7, your trusty rocket launcher. There are numerous hand guns, sub-machine guns, automatic riffles, shotguns, sub machine guns and a large amount of explosives. You even have some more "spy type" weapons such as a knockout handkerchief and a cigarette-shaped Narcosis Gun. You'll be carrying a particularly large amount of equipment too, such as thermal and nightvison goggles, sensors, motion detectors, sonars, mine detectors and the ever so popular card board box. The CIA and FOX has also supplied you with fake death pills, and a revival pill found in your tooth. By biting a fake death pill while in a sticky situation you will be "dead" to the enemy until you use the revival pill. However, staying "dead" for too long, can keep you in this state forever. Besides all of these weapons, you can also use CQC (Close Quarter Combat) as a survival method. It's a way of fighting enemies without weapons. Using this, you can throw them to the ground, use them as a shield, snap their neck, slit their throat, and all sorts of things like that.

Some of the other new elements that I think adds a new realm of reality to the game are the Food System and the Cure System. In this game, you actually have to eat. Under Snake's health bar, there is a Stamina Bar. You have to keep this up at all times. Once Snake's stamina reaches zero, he will pass out and the game is over. To keep his stamina up, you must eat. You will see hundreds of animals throughout your journey, and you should kill all of these. Snake will keep them in his back pack, until you decide to eat them. Snake also reacts to the taste of food. If you give him too much of something he hates, or just too much food while he's full he will throw up. Keeping Snake's stamina bar up is something you shouldn't worry about, as there are plenty of animals in the jungle and if you hunt them on an average basis, your food supply will reach it's limits. The Cure System is my favorite extra to this game. Unlike most other shooter games involving rations, in Metal Gear Solid 3, you cannot simply touch a magic box to restore your health. You acutally have to cure yourself. For instance, if you are shot, you have to dig the bullet out using your knife, disinfect the wound, stitch it up, and bandage it. If you break an arm, you have to apply a splint, if yo get burned you have to apply ointment, etc. You have numerous medical tools which you can use whenever you get hurt. Snake will gradually regain health after you fully treat him using the Cure option. However, Snake will gradually lose health if you do not fully treat him. Another interesting thing about this game is if you're running low on health, or Snake just needs a rest, you can shut off your Playstation 2 for a few hours, and during this time, Snake will "sleep." It certainly is a realistic game when it comes to these points.

The gameplay itself is mostly similar to that of Metal Gear Solid 2. You still have your Gun menu which opens with the R2 button, and you still have the item/equipment menu which opens with the L2 button. These havn't changed what so ever. Once again, you can't move in first person view, but there's not much of a problem with this since it's not meant to be a first person game. The controls are have remained the same, and Snake can do just about everything he and Raiden could do during Sons of Liberty, besides the CQC attacks of course. For instance, in this game Snake can interogate enemies. You can sneak up behind them, and put a knife to their throat and you can get just about anything out of them. The AI in Snake Eater is pretty much the same as the previous as well. If they spot you, you can suspect them of instantly calling for backup. If they hear anything suspicious they will instantly investigate. Also, a command center does a routine check up with the guards, so if you take one out and he doesn't answer commands check-up, a unit will be sent out to investigate. You can play Snake Eater on 5 different difficulties; Very Easy (for those who are new to action gaming), Easy (for those new to the Metal Gear Solid series), Normal, Hard (For players confident in their gaming abilities) and Extreme (which is only available after you beat the game once.) Each of these difficulties are extremely difference, such as in Very Easy it's unbelieveably difficult to die, whereas on extreme, a single gunshot can kill you. For those questioning their ability to play the game, there is a Snake vs. Monkey Mini Game, where you must shoot at a monkey to make it fall asleep, then capture it. If the monkey sees you, it will run away. This is a great way to practice your skills, and it is also suitable for all ages.

The graphics in the game are nothing new. I really can't see a difference between these and that of Sons of Liberty. This isn't a bad thing of course, since they are still amazing. There are some beautiful outdoor settings, including an amazing forest area, and a beautiful pond with a waterfall. Facial expressions are also well detailed. The blood looks realistic, as it can spray out of the victims with force, and cover a surrounding area. The only thing I really didn't like about the game graphics wise is the absolutely horrible lip-synching. At numerous points in the game, someone could be talking for minutes, and their lips would barely move. Even if they where moving, it's highly unlikely that they were actually moving in sync to what the person was saying. Besides this, the graphics are nothing short of unbelievable, but are certainly getting old. They're not as great as the cut scenes from Final Fantasy X, but they're pretty darn close. It's pretty much the peek of the Playstation 2 console, but the Playstation 3 will certainly have much higher capabilites.

The Metal Gear Solid series is famous for it's music and sounds effects. The soundtrack of the previous games which were composed by Harry Gregson Williams were my favorite soundtracks of any game, and the theme for Sons of Liberty is definitely my favorite of any video game. Williams returns once again to write the score of Snake Eater, and does an amazing job, but I don't think it reaches as high as the quality if the second. Many of the songs found in the game are slower, which is understandable since its an emotional game. But all in all, I'd just prefer the songs from MGS2. The sound effects are identical as well. Snake Eater contains detailed sound effects of bombs exploding, guns firing, etc. The voice acting is amazing aswell. Once again, David Hayter does a stunning performence as the voice of Snake. Lori Alan, and Brian Cummings do a great job as The Boss and Sokolov, respectively. The overall sound quality was amazing, since Snake Eater was recorded in Dolby Pro Logic II, which is the best recording a PS2 game can be recorded in at the moment (besides a DTS 5.1 game, and a Pro Logic 2 game with digital cutscenes). Sons of Liberty was recorded in a disapointing Stereo, but it did have 5.1 cutscenes (which there were only two of). Substituting two 5.1 cutscenes with an enitre rating was a great move by director Hideo Kojima. If only this game also included 5.1 extras.....

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was everything I had expected it to be, and more. With an absolutely amazing story line, amazing characters, amazing graphics, amazing sounds, amazing gameplay, amazing everything! All the factors contribute to the reason on why Snake Eater replaces Final Fantasy X on my top ten Playstation 2 game list, and I'm proud to say that Metal Gear Solid 3 is the greatest game I have ever played. If you are a fan of the other Metal Gear games, I know you will not be disapointed with this one. I can't possibly recommend this enough. If you havn't yet played an MGS game, I would recommend you playing those first, as the hours upon hours of dialogue may seem boring to many people. But for MGS fans, it's the dialogue that makes this game what it is. There are only two games I've ever played that had had such a powerful effect on me, and this is one of them. The ending of Snake Eater literally brought a tear to my eye. This game had a huge effect on me, and I can't recommend it enough.