Kojima raises the bar yet again for the PS2

Author's Rating:

Pros: Amazingly interactive environments, smart reactive A.I., tons of secrets, best looking MGS to date.

Cons: some easy boss battles, alot of railed shooting near the end, little downloadable content

The Bottom Line: 
for fans of MGS this is a must buy, alternatively you can hold out for MGS3:subsistence which will be loaded with even more stuff

Author's Review
I have to hand it to kojima & co., they really raised the bar for PS2 in its last few years of shelf life, and they are showing us they really do care about the consumer in this case unlike so many other 3rd party companys producing games for sonys old platform. But when you pick up Snake Eater, you'll be in for an interactive cinematic breakthrough for the PS2, and heres exactly why.

Graphics 9/10
I think we've seen the PS2's hardware pushed to its absolute limit here, and it looks absolutely fantastic, textures are very well thought out and perfectly blended to form a living breathing forest that is so interactive you'll want to shoot everything just to see the reaction from the environment. Grass blades shuffle as you run or shoot through them, water reacts realisticly, snakes suit even reacts to the environment, as you run through a puddle of mud the mud actually stays to his camo and you end up leaving footprints if you don't change out of your dirty gear. Occasional slowdown & vsync occurs during cutscenes and very large environments (particularly the swamp) but this is totally forgivible for the PS2, and usually only occurs in first person mode.

Gameplay 8/10
If you're a MGS veteran you'll get the controls up right off the bat, but now we're playing the Big Boss so he's got some new moves up his sleeves, CQC (close quarters combat) is an addition that is VERY welcome, you can knock out/kill enemy sentrys in many different ways according to the pressure sensitive button (I.E. a hard push while holding an enemy with a knife will slit his throat, while repeated tappings will choke him out and eventually break his neck) Its so much more interactive in that area than previos MGS games have been. the radar system in this is not as intuitive as previous incarnations of the series but you have SONAR, AP SENSOR & a MOTION DETECTOR that will get you through hairy situations if you use them correctly. Big Boss is a man of the jungle, and what jungle commando would be caught dead without his backpack full of camoflauge suits!! Snake can now blend into his environment using a wide array of camoflauges and face paints, along with alot of silly camos and downloadible content (not alot of selection on the download side though :( ), this addition was really a winner for me though and I'm glad they added it into the mix. Some people have complained about the camera angles being primative and old school but I really like it that way, a few times you have to go into FPS mode to see your enemys but its a split second moment that, for me, raises the interactivity a notch, I wouldn't change the camera angles a bit here.

Sound/music 10/10
As a matter of fact, I still can't get the main theme song out of my head! The soundtrack for this Metal Gear is top notch just like previous games in the series, but in a change of pace they brought in an outside singer/songwriter into the mix with a james bond-esque main theme song which is a great song that really does the game justice. Music during the action is a mix of string music, synthesizers and even some heavy guitars, sometimes reminiscent of Rambo: first blood in areas, music does not disapoint and keeps the action going in style.

Replay value 8/10
You can get the gyst of the story through one play but there are tons of secrets and cool gear to pick up and play through with again, plus alot of secret areas that you might miss your first run through. Personally i've played the game through twice and am ready for another go, something I couldn't really say for mgs2, although I really like the whole series.