Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

The Good
While MGS2 was a vastly more refined edition of Metal Gear Solid, Snake Eater is more experimental. A prequel, it also serves as the beginning of the storyline for the franchise, chronicling the origin story of Naked Snake, Solid Snake's predecessor as he becomes Big Boss. It also changes around with established series conventions, while making some unique additions of its own in order to better suit its jungle setting.

The biggest change is the lack of the Soliton Radar. No longer can you play by watching a scaled-down version of the map. Now, you must rely on your sense of sight and other tools, such as motion detectors, sonar, and directional microphone, in order to sneak by enemies.

The main feature this time around is the camouflage system. Snake can gather many different disguises, uniforms and face paints that are designed to blend in with the environment. A meter in the top right-hand corner lets you know how visible you are in relation to the current surface Snake is standing on or pressed against - the higher the value, the closer an enemy will need to be in order to detect you when you’re in their field of vision. Moving can lower this value as well. You have to change both uniform and facepaint to make the value as high as it can possibly be for whatever you're standing on. Crouching and crawling can increase the meter dramatically, but at the cost of player speed and mobility. The game also plays with disguises much more than MGS2, with one memorable sequence asking you to knock out a high-raking general so you can infiltrate a hangar being a real standout.

Another major addition is Close Quarters Combat, or CQC as it is often referred to in game. Essentially, what this means is that Snake has a few more options when dealing with enemies using melee. In addition to the traditional melee attacks, Snake can now grab enemies and slam them to the floor, slit their throats, or interrogate them for information such as gameplay tips or radio frequencies. An example of this is that some guards, when interrogated, will give you a codec frequency which you can call during the caution phase to call off the search - though you can only use it once before the frequency is changed again.

In addition, MGS3 has arguably the best story for any Metal Gear Solid game up to this point. The ending in particular is one of the best I’ve ever seen in any video game, wrapping up the plot with a devastating emotional payoff and incredible final twist that honestly made the preceding 25 hours worthwhile despite my reservations.

On top of all of this, survival features have been implemented. Snake will need to kill animals and gather fruits on a regular basis which serve as rations. No longer can you simply eat rations to gain health, instead, eating rations restores Snake’s stamina, while health regenerates slowly over time. Some foods have even stranger effects when eaten, such as restoring your equipped item’s batteries. These natural rations can also rot after a certain amount of real-world time, eating rotten food will cause Snake to get sick and throw up. Eating too little food also causes Snake’s stomach to start growling, which can give away your position to enemies, sometimes at the worst possible moments. In addition, injuries must be treated regularly - leeches have to be burned, antidote must be administered for snake bites (ironic given who you’re playing as), broken bones need to be splinted, and cuts need to be stitched and disinfected.

The Bad
As interesting as these features sound, the one thing that drags them all down is the constant need to head into a different menu screen entirely to adjust them. Practically every minute, you’ll need to change camouflage, and every so often, treat injuries and eat food as well. Even the way items work has been changed. In order to use any of your items, you must first fetch them from your backpack, meaning even more tedious menuwork in order to get what you need out of a tight situation. Items have a certain amount of weight, and carrying a lot of heavy stuff causes Snake’s stamina to drain faster, which forces you to eat more food in order to keep it up. This is supposed to encourage you to only take what you need from the pack at any given time, but all it really does is slow the game down. A couple of boss fights later in the game will have you consistently entering the cure screen so you can remove crossbow bolts and anesthetic needles. The survival elements ultimately don’t complement the game so much as take away from it.

While the narrative is great, it suffers from pacing issues. It doesn’t seem to really go anywhere for much of the game, and only until the back hald do you truly start to get invested. I suppose part of this comes from the fact that there are a lot less mandatory codec calls in this game compared to MGS2, which makes the plot feel like it’s not moving along at times.

I think the thing I miss the most is the whole techno-industrial atmosphere present in the other Metal Gear games. For me, part of the appeal was sneaking through these impersonal, man-made environments. The jungle just isn’t as appealing of a setting for me, despite offering many more opportunities for stealth. Fortunately, the game gets a lot more interesting the further you get into it, as you’ll sneak through both a weapons lab and a large military base called Groznyj Grad that finally brings back that classic MGS feeling. It’s just a shame that you have to trudge through screen after screen of jungles and forests in order to get to the truly good parts.

In addition Snake Eater seems to have performance issues. From my research, the original PS2 version ran at 30 fps, which was down from Sons of Liberty in order to accommodate the increased detail in the naturalistic environments. For the HD release, Bluepoint Games has taken advantage of the next-generation hardware by trying to run MGS3 at 60 fps. I say trying, as despite this, the game still suffers from slowdown, in from what I understand is pretty much the exact same places. When too many particle and explosion effects are on the screen, the game runs like it’s going through mud. You generally don’t see the slowdown so much as feel it. When slowdown occurs, the game ends up looking not exactly choppy, but more like a slow-mo effect that you sometimes see in movies. I have found that switching to the top-down camera view mode helps the framerate somewhat when it gets hairy, but at the cost of visibility. Maybe its my PS3, but the fact that these performance issues are pretty well-documented across all versions of the game suggests that the engine was perhaps pushed a bit too far even in in its original incarnation. Granted, the slowdown really only happens when you get spotted, so if you’re really good at the stealth you aren’t likely to see too much of it outside of the occasional cutscene, but it’s still a pain.

The Bottom Line
My feelings on MGS3 are almost as complicated as the Metal Gear storyline. I started out hating the game at first, with frustrating changes from the other MGS games, and a plot that didn’t exactly grab me from the start. It was only until I got about halfway into the game that I really got invested in what was happening and figured out the flow of the gameplay. That’s not to say that MGS3 is a bad Metal Gear game, or even a bad game at all, as it's actually a very good one. But even with its great story, I have to say that it’s my least favorite installment thus far.