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#14

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Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater


This sneaky crawly game jungle boogies to the following awards:

‘Best camouflaged’
‘Most violent use of a fork’
‘Most original feeding options’
‘Best crocodile cosplay’
‘Best sniper battle’


Metal Gear Solid 3 sneaks past the competition into 14th place. To be honest I wish I could have placed it even higher because it does amazing things, but I also have a few problems with it.

First up, the good! The broken elbow scene still makes me cringe in a good way. The jungle setting is awesome. I love how the lack of mega technology makes sneaking more primitive. There’s tons of items to gather. I love the option of blowing up weapon and food storages and even a heli to make your journey easier. Enemies have pretty human reactions when shot or scared with a crocodile mask. The fight with the End is the best sniper battle in the series and I also dig every way you can finish or skip the fight. The Fury is another tense and atmospheric fight. I love how the game changes pace when you get out of the jungle. Speaking of which, the pacing in general is phenomenal and so is the level design for every single area - both jungle and building environments.


One of the best bosses ever:

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But now the bad. I hate the false promises this game makes. We see Snake CQC like a boss (pun intended) and take rapid shots with inhuman accuracy in cutscenes. But with the controls and mechanics as they are it is impossible to achieve the same level of high pace fighting as previously shown. The game simply doesn’t have Snake’s abilities straight and I consider it a lie. The fight with the Fear isn’t fearsome at all (why the daylight setting for the fight if you just made us walk through the same area in scary nighttime?), and the Pain is pretty lame too. I also never got the final battle, is it even possible to CQC the whole thing? It seems to be intended to, but other options are just so much easier.




Metal Gear Solid 3 does amazing things, but I can’t help but feel it never reached it’s full potential.