The view doesn't change much, but at least it isn't gunmetal gray.

Without a doubt, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is one of the best PS2 games I’ve ever played. This isn’t very impressive, considering I have played a grand total of eight games for the PS2.

With all the controversy over Metal Gear Solid 4:Guns of the Patriots in the Game of the Year race, and remembering that I actually do have a PS2 now, as well as once playing through Metal Gear Solid:The Twin Snakes for GameCube, I thought I might as well give the third installment of the series a try. I understood it as a successful game that used stealth gameplay well, as well as having a plot that didn’t involve arms containing souls of dead people possessing whoever got it for a transplant.

For those who are uninformed, Snake Eater is the earliest Metal Gear game chronologically, taking place in 1964, and tells the story of Jack, code named Naked Snake, who bears a striking resemblance to Solid Snake, the protagonist of the rest of the games, which are set 40 years in the future. Those who remember plot details of the previous games will pick up Naked Snake’s true identity fairly quickly, and it’s nice to see the plot unfold around this.

It’s true, Snake Eater’s plot isn’t nearly as preposterous as MGS2, but it does have its share of oddities, as well as inconsistencies. The game tries to get away with taking real events from the Cold War and twisting them to the plot’s advantage. The problem lies in that it attempts to play the “I’m a game, suspend your disbelief and just play me” card at the same time as the “Take me serious!” card. It uses the former to place some very impressive bosses, but uses the latter after the fights, which ends up feeling plain silly.  Ultimately, the plot succeeds, but just barely.

Another annoying aspect of the story as it unfolds is the constant redundancy of certain terms in the game. When playing, you’ll get to know the term “Philosopher’s Legacy” very well. Likewise, the game presents you with sepia-tone still image exposition that will make you roll your eyes every time you see it. And it happens often. Twice in the first hour, and any time a new “word” is brought up. However, the ending saves the plot, throwing in a few twists that you may or may not see coming, but are still rewarding to see happen in the final moments after the last confrontation. Like a movie, the schizophrenic plot is eclipsed by an excellent beginning and ending.

However, as much as others may complain, EEM GEE ESS three is not a movie, but a game. And it really does succeed as a game. The sound design and original score are both magnificently executed. Voice acting is fantastic, especially from Eva and The Boss, and there are more easter eggs than I’ve ever seen before, including a dream sequence that involves saving at a particular point and then reloading the game.

Boss fights are mostly fantastic, with only a few week points. The greatest  being the Cobra Unit, which consist of: A man controlling hornets, A spider-man lacking spandex suit and packing a crossbow, A century-old sniper, and a cosmonaut pyromaniac. Each of these manage to be engaging, challenging and equal. THAT’S RIGHT, these bosses are not difficult because they knock off half your life bar from one hit, but because they have skills and patterns. I can’t say the same for a few of the other enemies.

You might think this is a picture of a brick wall, but look closely and you'll see Snake.

The basic gameplay succeeds in design though, allowing you to approach a situation and choose whether to go in guns-blazing, poorly-camoflauged moving target, to sneak in and slowly eliminate each guard with deadly accuracy, or just to walk right past them. In the end, it bottlenecks you into the next story element, so you never can go too far off-track. The game uses a camouflage system that grades how visible you are based on the surroundings, allowing you to switch camo and face paint to blend in better. It works most of the time, but there were moments when I wondered why my black and red suit would blend well in grass.

Realistic yet annoying is the “Cure” menu. When you sustain injuries in battle, they’re reflected in this menu. You’ll slowly lose health unless you fix yourself up. This feels sadly more like an answer to politicians against violent games than a game mechanic. It’s embarrassing enough to get perforated like a Subway punch card by an enemy, but going in the menu and using medical supplies just to stop your health from going an extra pixel down is ridiculous.

Where the game succeeds, it truly does, going above other games in the genre, and where it fails, it becomes a minor annoyance at worst. You certainly could do a lot worse for your PS2 library, and despite its problems, it’s worth playing. Unless you hate being told not to shoot people, but if that’s a concern, e-mail me so I can know when to hide from you.