Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is an action-adventure stealth video game produced by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan for the PlayStation 2. It is a prequel to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the entire Metal Gear series. It was released in late 2004 in North America and Japan, then in early 2005 in Europe and Australia. An expanded edition, titled Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, was released in Japan in late 2005, then in North America, Europe, and Australia in 2006.

Why It Has Loyalty 'Till The End

 * 1) Instead of the indoor settings previous games had, this game mainly has a Soviet jungle setting. It also starts you miles from the enemy base, which is more realistic.
 * 2) Amazing graphics for 2004 standards that hold up very well today.
 * 3) Amazing voice acting especially David Hayter as Naked Snake and Lori Alan as The Boss.
 * 4) Amazing plot that stands as a prequel to the entire franchise and the origin of the Metal Gear and Big Boss. The former is shown to have been inspired by a contraption known as the Shagohod which is a combination between a tank, ground effect craft, IRBMs, and booster rockets. The latter is not known as Big Boss but instead as Jack/Naked Snake who is sent into Russia to bring back a defected Russian scientist before being betrayed by his master: The Boss. He's then assigned to destroy the Soviet Union's new weapon, the Shagohod as well as The Boss and her squad: the Cobra Unit.
 * 5) This game introduces "The Boss", known as "The Joy" and leader of the Cobra Unit, and the mentor to Jack "Naked Snake". Upon her undercover mission with the depraved Colonel Yevgeny Volgin going terribly wrong, The Boss resolves to take the blame and die at Jack's hands, manipulating him with her brutal mentorship to guide him to best Volgin before engaging him in a final battle to the death to pass the title of "Boss" to him and pass into history, even if she will be reviled forever as a traitor to the country she has sacrificed everything for. Because of all this, many consider her one of the most badass females in gaming.
 * 6) A really depressing ending that's consider one of the saddest moments in gaming. Although Snake succeeds in defeating Volgin and destroying the Shagohod, he was forced to kill his beloved mentor. After spending a night together with EVA, she leaves. The next morning, Snake listens to a recording she left behind. It reveals EVA's true colors and the true nature of her mission; that she was actually a agent of the Philosophers and sent to retrieve their Legacy and kill Snake. EVA then reveals that The Boss wasn't a traitor and died for her country as the whole mission was staged by the U.S. government so they could get their hands on the Legacy and destroy the Shagohod. The Boss made a deal that she wouldn't be allowed to come back home alive. And her life would be ended by Snake. Later, Snake is awarded and praised for killing The Boss and even given her title, but is practically dead on the inside for going through with it. Armed with the fact that he now knows the truth of why he had to kill her, and that she will go down in history as a traitorous scumbag, the game ends with his salute at her unmarked grave while Big Boss sheds a single tear.
 * 7) The codec calls are really entertaining to listen to as there's lots of funny banter between Snake and his allies. One of these include using the Cardboard Box for the first time as Snake will fall in love with it, claiming that he feels at peace when he is inside of it, as if it was his destiny for him and the box to meet. What clinches it is Sigint's disbelief at Big Boss using the box as a means of camouflage and saying that he doesn't wanna know what he means when he says that he feels safe inside the box, promptly ending the conversation. Furthermore this gives a hilarious insight into why Snake (and even Liquid, according to Super Smash Brothers Brawl) likes the Cardboard Box so much, it runs in the family.
 * 8) The camera can now be fully controlled, however, the player can switch between the new camera or the traditional shifting camera from past games any time they'd like.
 * 9) Though the members of the Cobra Unit don't add much to the story, the actual boss fights more than make up for it. The boss fights with The End, The Sorrow, and The Boss are considered to be some of the best in the series.
 * 10) *The End's fight features a cat-and-mouse like battle as The End is the best sniper and a master of camo, meaning you have to tread softly and carefully so you can sneak up on him and take him out.
 * 11) *The Sorrow's "fight" isn't actually a fight. The Sorrow, who comes to you during a near-death experience, and takes you on a nightmarish trip through a river filled with dead fish and human skulls. Disturbing pictures occasionally fill the screen, accompanied with a scream. This "fight" mainly addresses the violence of the game (you don't have to kill any of the enemies along the way since you can just knock them out by using CQC or your tranquilizer gun) by making the player confront everyone whose lives they've ended so far. They're depicted in the way you killed them: If you shot a guy in the leg, his ghost will be limping. If you slit his throat, his head will be hanging back, his neck spurting blood as he shambles towards you. If you've been taking the Rambo approach to the game, indiscriminately gunning down guards and innocent scientists alike.
 * 12) *The last one really emphasizes the central theme of the game, and puts the finishing touches on the close mother/son relationship between The Boss and Snake, making it one of the most emotional boss fights ever created. You have to fight The Boss
 * 13) This game serves as a deconstruction of most of the standard James Bond movie tropes with the game's twenty minute epilogue completely brutalizing how those films usually end. Sure, Snake is a bit sad he had to kill his mentor and maternal figure, but he still managed to save the world, destroy the Shagohod, and get the girl, right? Turns out EVA is a Chinese spy who only didn't kill Snake because she made a promise to The Boss not to. The Boss didn't actually defect and was just the fall guy for the United States. Snake was used to dispose of her and secure the Philosophers' Legacy for the U.S. The entire event inspires Snake's descent into villainy.
 * 14) A new and improved mechanic: food. While rations were present in previous Metal Gear games, this game improves on the system. Snake can eat any creature he can find in the jungle, from rats to snakes (of course! Why wouldn't it be called Snake Eater?), to deer, which have varying stamina replenishment rate.
 * 15) *In the building areas, he can sometimes find instant noodles and Calorie Mate energy biscuits (which is anachronistic see BQ #2). These two replenish your stamina instantly. While rations do exist, they taste terrible and have decent stamina recovery.
 * 16) Along with the food mechanic is the camouflage index along with face paints, you can equip certain types of camouflage and face paints in order to blend into the environment to stay hidden from guards. The higher your index is, the more hidden you'll be.
 * 17) *You can also find other camouflage and face paints either hidden in the environment or from bosses.
 * 18) Stamina is also introduced along with the food mechanic. If you have very low stamina, you can't replenish your health, your aim is less accurate, and you make stomach grumbling noises, which can alert enemies to your presence.
 * 19) You can collect medical items, which can be used in the Cure viewer, this viewer allows you to treat your wounds depending on what they are. From burns, to gunshots, to being poisoned, and so on.
 * 20) Some cutscenes have moments where you can switch to Snake's point-of-view to first-person. Pressing the first-person button reveals something completely different going on, invisible from the third-person perspective. There are, however, several scenes where you can go to first-person mode without any prompt appearing. These secret scenes range from very silly to significantly helpful.
 * 21) This game also introduces interrogation. This is where the player can sneak up behind an enemy and grab them and start interrogating them. The interrogation responses vary from: giving info about the location, the amount of soldiers present, or targets that can be destroyed; giving gameplay hints; requesting to be spared; demanding that they be killed; or even insulting the player. Afterwards, the player has the choice of either letting them go, throwing them to the ground, or slitting the throat.
 * 22) Littered throughout the game are little frog toys called Kerotans. If the player shoots all 64 Kerotan they will unlock the stealth camo.
 * 23) There are a number of weapons to unlock, the most notable being:
 * 24) *Mosin Nagant: A sniper that fires tranquilizer rounds, which is unlocked by defeating The End non-lethally.
 * 25) *Single Action Army: One of Ocelot's revolvers; choose the gun on the right during the final duel.
 * 26) *The Patriot: The Boss' weapon, which has unlimited ammo; unlocked by beating the game.
 * 27) *EZ Gun: A small pistol with tranquilizer rounds and unlimited ammo. It can be acquired by selecting the Very Easy difficulty or find all 48 edible plants and animals in a difficulty level outside of Very Easy
 * 28) Breathtaking theme song that is similar to James Bond theme songs.
 * 29) The long ladder sequence with "Snake Eater" being played in the background is remembered for being an extra strange, yet also weirdly mundane scene in a game already having its fair share of strange scenes.
 * 30) The Subsistence version adds tons of extra content, including the first 2 MSX Metal Gear games, which weren't released internationally back then.
 * 31) There's a gag in the game of making fun of Raiden, who was the protagonist in the previous game and was disliked by many fans. When starting a new game, if the player chooses "I love MGS2" Snake will be shown wearing a mask that looks just like Raiden in the beginning only for him to take it off to reveal his face. Another is when you have to kill a major in order to disguise yourself as him, who also looks just like Raiden. (You even stuff him in a locker with a Raiden poster in it.)
 * 32) *According to Hideo Kojima, this was done on purpose to appeal to fans of Raiden since players could pretend to play as Raiden and people who didn't like Raiden since he was so well like in Japan, but not in America.
 * 33) The game takes an interesting turn where instead of fighting the Sorrow, he instead criticizes the player for killing so many people by having the player see all the enemies they've killed throughout the game.
 * 34) There's a Secret Theater, which is an unlockable feature that showcases humorous alternate endings to certain cutscenes.
 * 35) There exist a minigame called Snake vs. Monkey, which is a crossover of Metal Gear and Ape Escape where Snake has to capture the monkeys from Ape Escape. Beating the minigame under certain conditions will hone rewards.
 * 36) *Banana Camouflage - Get the high score in every level in Snake vs. Monkey. Makes every item eaten taste good, however, is not good for stealth.
 * 37) *Monkey Mask- The player can acquire a Monkey Mask in the main campaign by having Solid Snake complete all of the Snake vs. Monkey missions. Surprisingly, the Monkey Mask does not affect the camo index whatsoever. However, it makes aiming and observing the surrounding environment in first-person view nearly impossible. Using the Monkey Mask is therefore unadvised, however, it does have a use in the battle with The Boss, confusing her for a few seconds.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The final cutscene goes on for a full hour. This is to be expected from the MGS franchise, as it is famous for this (The epilogue cutscenes in MGS4 go on for 79 minutes, and holds a Guinness World Record for that.)
 * 2) Historical Inaccuracy, with half of these reasons being product placement:
 * 3) * Colonel Volgin's absurd resources are said to have allowed him to develop quite a few things "early": the passive IR goggles are considered as being ridiculously high-tech for the setting, the Mi-24 first flew in 1969 (and Snake's reasoning for giving it the "Hind" callsign is based on its relation to another helicopter that wouldn't be adopted by the Soviets, much less become familiar to American forces, until 1967), and the WiG is from the early '70s.
 * 4) * The XM16E1 is about a year early to have been issued for evaluation in any significant number, though enough were delivered that it's still somewhat plausible, and they did nail the designation.
 * 5) * The Lockheed M-21 that delivers Snake for Operation Snake Eater first flew in December 1964; the first drone launch from one wouldn't occur until 1966.
 * 6) * One of the foods that Snake can eat to replenish his stamina is the CalorieMate blocks, a food that would not hit Japanese shelves until 19 years later.
 * 7) * The Sabra magazines that Snake can pick up weren't even published until about four decades after the events of the game. In the Snake Eater 3D version, the magazines in question are Hooters Japan magazines, which is even further removed from the period the game is set. The first Hooters franchise in Japan opened in 2010, nearly 50 years after Operation Snake Eater took place and even about six years after MGS3 itself first released.
 * 8) * The various Yoshi figures found throughout the game in the 3DS version. Para-Medic gives the Hand Wave that Yoshi must be getting popular in the Soviet Union. However, this is about thirty years before Yoshi was ever in a game.
 * 9) * Zero mentions the use of gadgets in James Bond films. While Dr. No and From Russia with Love had been released by the date the game takes place, the only gadget Bond had ever had at that point was the briefcase in the second movie. Given that Goldfinger, which was the beginning of gadget use in Bond films, came out a few weeks after the end of the game, it's possible Zero saw a pre-release or something.
 * 10) * While the Skorpion machine pistol acquired late in the game fits for the time period, the Laser Sight mounted underneath it is way off base. Lasers themselves were only created in 1960, with ones capable of projecting a continuous, visible beam under normal room-temperature conditions only being created in 1970 and ones designed to mount under a gun as an aiming aid not being designed until the late '70s. The model on the in-game Skorpion is also way too small, closer in size to a 2000s-onward laser sight; the first lasers designed to attach to firearms were almost as big as the Skorpion itself is, and needed way too much power to function for that kind of portability.
 * 11) The GA-KO camo is meant to help the player find Kerotan by allowing players to hear their calling but the camo seemingly doesn't do anything.
 * 12) Low framerate. Fortunately, Fixed in the HD remaster for Xbox 360 and PS3, where it was boosted to 60 FPS.
 * 13) Things like the Secret Theater and Snake vs. Monkey minigame are not in the HD Version.
 * 14) The 3DS version does suffer from low textures and downgraded graphics as well as framedrops that were previously mentioned.
 * 15) When going underwater the game shifts to a first person view, which makes it hard to see due to the FOV and the controls aren't that good.
 * 16) A common complaint leveled at the Shagohod, due to the sheer excitement generated both by Sokolov's championing of the weapon's power and the high-energy chase scene that happens before the player gets to face it head on. It's possible to immobilize it by shooting out the augers (which the player's support team will tell them to do if they happen to call them during the fight), which makes it very easy to simply snipe Volgin.
 * 17) There are two levels that are a pain.
 * 18) * Escaping Groznyj Grad after escaping the torture room, as you have no form of camouflage on you nor any silent weapons and tranquilizers other than a short-ranged cigar spray (which you receive after talking with Johnny), making the entire level a matter of timing enemy movements, which can be very tedious on normal runs and downright game-ending on European Extreme runs. Your only source of hiding is under vehicles and behind crates. Because you're also half-naked, you also drain stamina faster, have a higher risk of catching colds, are much more visible to enemies resulting in a no-alert run being significantly harder, and are more vulnerable to attacks. In addition, you have to deal with shielded enemies and guard dogs, which are pretty annoying on their own.
 * 19) * Escorting a wounded EVA through the woods can be hair-pullingly excruciating. She loses stamina fast and constantly has to eat to keep it up. Knocking her out or tranquilizing her doesn't help either because she moans in her sleep, alerting enemy soldiers who might be nearby.
 * 20) While all of the bosses are great, some have issues.
 * 21) * The Fury is a pretty stressful boss to deal with, as his battle involves having to navigate a small, maze-like area full of narrow lanes while he uses a flamethrower attack that greatly damages you, inflicts serious burns, and takes up a whole lane. Combined with being a Blackout Basement level, it's pretty difficult to tell where the hell you're even going. He can also be be pretty unpredictable at times giving you the constant fear of him showing up in front of you or blasting you with fire out of nowhere, which makes it downright anxiety-inducing for those with a dislike of jump scares. He can also fly, making him able to hide anywhere in the arena forcing you to search for him.
 * 22) * Volgin can downright obnoxious in your first battle with him. Like The Pain, he can make himself invulnerable to attacks, but unlike The Pain who gives you plenty of time to shoot him while unprotected, Volgin gives you less than a second to shoot before starting up his protective electric shield again. You can shoot him in the back, but that's also difficult as he has the tendency to turn around to constantly face Snake. You also can't keep your weapons equipped as they will cause his electric attacks to home in on you and never miss. He also has the ability to sky punch you if you go near him which makes you throw up and lose stamina and his gun will always causes bullet wounds. On top of all that, you only have five minutes to beat him. Yes, this boss has a time limit unlike the previous bosses, and a short one at that. You absolutely can't waste any time at all on this boss. And this is only the first phase.
 * 23) * The Fear isn't so much difficult (in the sense that he can drain your energy quickly) as time-consuming and a pain in the ass. He hops across the tree branches, making it difficult to line up a shot before he moves. When he does stop, it's often to shoot at you, so that can screw up your aiming as well, since it exits first person mode when you're hit. And when you are lucky enough to hit him before he starts shooting at you, it only allows a couple hits before he starts hopping again. And the pace of his movements only gets faster as the fight continues. Worse, at certain points during the fight, he will regain some of his stamina by eating food. This is supposed to be when it's easiest to hit him, but thanks to the dense tree area that you fight in, he's often hiding behind a tree so that when you come across him, he's already on the move again. Finally, it's extremely easy to run out of ammo when trying to hit this moving target so you have to be extremely deliberate with your shots. Otherwise, you're down to the tranquilizer gun and that takes forever to whittle down his stamina bar.
 * 24) Recycling:
 * 25) * The basic plot premise of the game, and a love interest who abandons Snake in Alaska, is a rehash of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
 * 26) * The love interest turning out to be a spy but still loved the main character was already in Metal Gear Solid 2.

Game Tips

 * On the boss levels, defeating the bosses non-lethally gives you special camo. For example, if you hold up the End and point your gun at him 3 times while holding him up, you get the Moss camo. Using this in mossy/grassy environments, along with the Woodland facepaint, gives you 100% camo and is the only way to do so without the stealth camo. Defeating him with your Mk22 gives you his Mosin Nagant rifle, which fires tranquilizers, making it perfect for a no-kill run.

Reception
Snake Eater was a commercial success and sold 3.6 million copies worldwide by August 2005. Although this is considerably lower than Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which has sold 7 million copies to date, critics were pleased with the new protagonist, Naked Snake—who strongly resembles the series protagonist Solid Snake—after fans were disappointed by Raiden in MGS2. Some critics, who found the lengthy dialogues and the multitude of plot twists in Sons of Liberty to be detrimental to the game experience found the storyline of Snake Eater a pleasing throwback to the original Metal Gear Solid, with less of the "philosophical babble" present in Sons of Liberty.

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