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Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by FABIO 01/13/2005, 2:26pm PST
Dig the James Bond opener. "Snake Eater" sounds infinately more retarded when sung instead of spoken. Lots of kaleidescope colors with x-ray'd snake skeletons crawling everywhere and some chick singing "Snaaaaaaake Eaaaaaaaaaaateeeerrrrrr" over and over.

I gave this game one more chance. The first thing I get hit with was 2 minute radio conversation from my commander about how he's changing his codename because he picked the wrong one. The old one was "Tom" after The Great Escape movie because "tom" was the name of the one escape tunnel the nazis didnt discover, so the name was lucky. But then he explains that he made a mistake and tom was one of the tunnels that was discovered, he even ordered the film from the company and watched it again before the mission just to make sure. All the other conversations are pretty much along this (and MGS2's) line; they cross over from "amusingly silly" to just plain retarded.

Then it was on to more retarded stealth. This game takes everything that's wrong with the whole stealth genre: moving slowly and getting fucked for being discovered, and hits you with it full force. The game claims that Snake got his codename because he sheds his skin or whatever, but you'll soon discover it's because he crawls everywhere. You'll spend the vast majority of the game (slowly) crawling everywhere. Crawling is done in 1st person so if one screenshot had to sum up this game it would be lots of grass obscurring your vision from ground level.

Everyone likes to poke fun at the next generation "elite" guards from the first MGS game for only being able to see 10 feet straight ahead and not hearing you run around on concrete floors. Also the radar that somehow detected when enemies were aware of you, the direction they were facing, and their vision cone. But you know what? Considering the mechanics of the engine and gameplay, it worked. Without the radar, you're forced to constantly stop and look through 1st person to see if the coast is clear. Enemies have no such limitation and can now see you all the way across the screen. You'd think if they wre going to force you to look through 1st person so much, they'd allow you to move around during it. No such luck. The unused right analog stick would have been fine for that.

Get spotted by an enemy with 5 times the view distance as you or from making the slightest bit of noise from walking through grass and it's off to alert mode. At this point, you have two choices: reload or just run and ignore all the enemies. Trying to hide and run down the alert timer is futile. Once on alert mode, enemies instantly know where you are at all times. You can round a corner while guards are still over 100 feet behind you, go hide in a vast sea of tall grass far from the corner where you have 95% camo, but when the guards round the corner they will immediately head straight to your hiding spot and start shooting you again. Even in the lower alert "evade" and "cautious" modes, guards will still always move right to your hiding spot, only now they're walking instead of running. The only way to really hide is to go someplace where guards can't follow you like crawling (yes, more of that) under a building, so the whole camo system is pointless there. Trying to hide is made even more pointless by the fact that it's much quicker to just reset and reload than it is to wait out the alert timer which takes about 3 minutes and is reset by the slightest things like a guard discovering a footprint (I'm assuming).

And the reward for all this? Certainly not the story. I'll take everyone's word that the boss fights are enjoyable, but you have to ask yourself if they're worth this.

Like the past metal gear games, there's a bunch of amusing little things you can do with guards: shoot a beehive so it falls on them, catch a snake and throw it at them, etc. And like past metal gear games, doing these things takes 10x the amount of time and effort it would to just take the easiest path and shoot them with a silenced weapon, so you'll do the amusing things once for the sake of novelty, then never touch them again.

This game fails completely in what Beyond Good & Evil taught us. That game took a bunch of different genres and gave you only the most fun bits of each while cutting out all their bullshit. With the stealth portion they showed us that the secret was not making it so dreadfully slowpaced and putting the player in danger when discovered, but giving him a quick way out so he wasn't fucked and didn't have to wait many long minutes crouched in a corner for the alert to cancel. The only thing Snake Eater has over BG&E is that it lasts longer, which actually makes it worse.

Final score on a scale from 0 to 10: Play Beyond Good & Evil instead.
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Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by FABIO 01/13/2005, 2:26pm PST NEW
    Beyond Good & Evil OR Psi-ops NT by FABIO 01/13/2005, 2:27pm PST NEW
        If someone has this beaten, I'd appreciate a total plot summary. NT by William H. Hayt, Jr. 01/13/2005, 2:48pm PST NEW
        1 problem, those games look awful :( NT by Question Asker 01/13/2005, 11:14pm PST NEW
            Your loss. PSI-Ops is awesome (except for the last stage). by whydirt 01/13/2005, 11:51pm PST NEW
            beauty fades, gameplay is forever NT by FABIO 01/14/2005, 1:03am PST NEW
                Final Fantasy VI's beauty never faded :( NT by Question Asker 01/14/2005, 1:23am PST NEW
                    All the Final Fantasy games suck by whydirt 01/14/2005, 1:41am PST NEW
                    try playing the opera sequence again today :( NT by FABIO 01/14/2005, 1:59am PST NEW
    Re: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by Mysterio 01/13/2005, 3:01pm PST NEW
        yup NT by FABIO 01/13/2005, 3:17pm PST NEW
    You're pretty much right. Oddworld: Stranger is the best stealth game yet. by Eyo 01/13/2005, 3:12pm PST NEW
        I think it's about time the industry admitted by FABIO 01/13/2005, 3:28pm PST NEW
            Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by Eyo 01/13/2005, 3:53pm PST NEW
                Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by FABIO 01/13/2005, 10:30pm PST NEW
                    Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by Creexul :( 01/13/2005, 10:59pm PST NEW
                    Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by Mysterio 01/13/2005, 11:15pm PST NEW
                        Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by Creexul :( 01/14/2005, 12:58am PST NEW
                            Re: I think it's about time the industry admitted by Mysterio 01/14/2005, 2:37am PST NEW
                                doesn't seem that bad by FABIO 01/14/2005, 9:35am PST NEW
                                    if you REALLY want to take a look at scary MGS3 fanboys by FABIO 01/14/2005, 2:33pm PST NEW
                                        That is where no one is being ironic. IRONIC!!!!!!!!!!!!! NT by Creexul :( 01/14/2005, 3:18pm PST NEW
                                That's POE news, I don't know how much that counts as "anyone." :( NT by Creexul :( 01/14/2005, 3:15pm PST NEW
                    The stealth isnt even that hard by The Joosh 01/14/2005, 8:31pm PST NEW
                Thief 3 is bearable, and Riddick by Lurker Shoomoser 01/14/2005, 12:10am PST NEW
                    "Robbing The Cradle" alone makes Thief 3 my favorite stealth-oriented game ever NT by curst 01/14/2005, 9:26am PST NEW
                        Re: "Robbing The Cradle" by who knows 03/26/2005, 12:12pm PST NEW
                            Also try "Fallout" and "Quake" good too they much sing. NT by Torgor Thermopopopopstosholous 03/26/2005, 12:35pm PST NEW
                                Hahahaha yeah that guy was STUPID. NT by Creexul :( 03/26/2005, 12:42pm PST NEW
    great review. most accurate and succinct MGS3 review i've ever read. by Question Asker 01/13/2005, 11:06pm PST NEW
    It helps to beat the game once so you know where the guards are by The Joosh 01/14/2005, 7:13pm PST NEW
    review of the controls by FABIO 01/16/2005, 8:59am PST NEW
        Summary: Video games still too hard for Fabio. by Lizard_King 02/13/2005, 7:19pm PST NEW
    breakdown of the cutscenes for William Hayt Jr. by FABIO 01/16/2005, 9:19am PST NEW
        Re: breakdown of the cutscenes for William Hayt Jr. by The Joosh 01/16/2005, 11:07am PST NEW
            more counter-intuitiveness by FABIO 01/16/2005, 12:13pm PST NEW
                Re: more counter-intuitiveness by Creexul :( 01/17/2005, 11:43pm PST NEW
        Re: breakdown of the cutscenes for William Hayt Jr. by Senor Barborito 01/16/2005, 11:43am PST NEW
            that pretty much sums up every SB debate ever by FABIO 01/16/2005, 12:20pm PST NEW
            Excellent post NT by Mysterio 01/16/2005, 5:23pm PST NEW
            This should be archived somehow. LIKE WIKIPEDIA NT by Creexul :( 01/18/2005, 2:03am PST NEW
                I just checked the Wikipedia entry for Senor Barborito. by whydirt 01/18/2005, 2:19am PST NEW
            Ah, the memories (tear) NT by Lizard_King 02/13/2005, 7:26pm PST NEW
        Thank you. NT by William H. Hayt, Jr. 01/16/2005, 2:57pm PST NEW
    Re: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by somari 01/27/2005, 5:45pm PST NEW
        Re: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by Mister Helper 01/27/2005, 6:56pm PST NEW
    Re: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by stoli bomb 02/13/2005, 4:02pm PST NEW
        not worth $50 game purchase credit ----> Stoli Bomb NT by FABIO 02/13/2005, 5:22pm PST NEW
            Re: not worth $50 game purchase credit ----> Stoli Bomb by stoli bomb 02/13/2005, 5:25pm PST NEW
 
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