Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Review - PS2

The Metal Gear Solid series, now well over ten years old, has consistently delivered unique stealth-based gameplay moulded upon a deep, convoluted and cinematic storyline. The original game, released on the PlayStation, proved to be hugely popular and quickly became platinum. Keeping this success alive, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released on the PlayStation 2 very early in its life, setting, like its predecessor, a benchmark that, still, has never been rivaled - until now.

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Gameplay

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater focuses upon the rescue of a rocket scientist named Sokolov from an evil band of five, the Cobras, who intend to put him to work on the ultimate weapon: a devastating tank with the ability to propel undetected missiles from Russia to any location within the United States of America. Intertwined within is an array of sub-plots involving love, betrayal and defection, and in addition the game - being a prequel to those before it - ties up a few loose ends in terms of background regarding the rest of the series. Like its predecessors, it relies heavily on cut scenes and codec conversations to deliver its story. The cut scenes are absolutely amazing and feature some excellent action and fight scenes.

Throughout the game you play as Snake, who has been plucked from his usual urban and marine environments and thrown deep into the Russian jungle. As you make progress you'll come across a variety of jungle settings, as well as caves and eventually more urban yet still open environments towards the end of the game. Fortunately, the gameplay remains essentially the same; you'll still need to avoid detection by the enemy unless you want to get yourself into long and painful fire fights. Doing so involves making use of everything around you to a greater extent than ever before; the jungle is much more detailed than the typical factory-like areas visited in previous games in the series. You'll find yourself hiding inside hollow logs, in patches of tall grass, behind and up trees, and even on open areas ... (continued next page)