<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Metal Gear Solid 3 is fucking hard.</div>
<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm not sure if I should mention upfront that I liked Metal Gear Solid 1&2 not just as a game but as a story. If it means you decide not to trust me when I say MGS3 is the best yet in the series, and you decline to play the game, well, da well your loss! But I probably shouldn't worry. Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good enough game that there are plenty of ways to praise it without having to selectively ignore the bad stuff, and the gameplay advances it makes over the first two games in the series make it hard to believe you're using the same controller as you were back then.
The forest environments compared to the industrial settings of the previous games are like the difference between playing hide-and-seek in a library vs. out in the park: it's more FUN! In a way, there's an even greater abundance of hiding spots in the jungle: in a building, you have to be behind or under something, but the outdoor setting of MGS3 lets you be above the action in a tree or just out in plain sight if you're camouflaged well enough. So your range of choices is greater, but at the same time, if you're caught out in the open, you're gonna have trouble hiding again(Try hiding behind a tree when they're searching for you, it's not gonna work! Run far, get in some tall grass and camo up!)
As strange as this is to say for a Metal Gear game, the focus is much more on stealth this time around, no really! The number of pure combat situations is fewer, and while there are the same number of diverse tasks as in previous games, stealth is still a primary concern when going about them. It's rare when staying hidden on an area on the map isn't a factor, it changes the pace of the game to do everything while remaining in the shadows. Metal Gear Solid 3 is longer than the other two -- this is certainly due to larger environments and more of them, but it's also because you spent much more time than before on your belly crawling around.
The camouflage system and different types of "radar" -- the vibrating APS sensor, the motion-tracking device, and the sonar -- also play a part in making sure you play more carefully than before, it makes things more intense, so you don't miss the old rader system THAT much. However, the camera is the huge gapping down side when it comes to adapting to the new system...You can move the camera around with the right thumbstick for a glimpse ahead right? This does tend to help when it comes to the areas up left or right of you. However, for some reason the camera barely budges when you try to swing it to the south, which can become extremely deadly, not to mention annoying when you have to make Snake face South and constantly switch to first person view to see enemies. Also when you've been spotted and you're attempting to run you're not exactly able to see if you're running into the path of enemies due to the lack of sight, and the lack of a constant radar.
There's also some camera wonkiness when it comes to hiding in the grass; when Snake is belly down on the ground(as he often will be) and the grass is tall enough, it defaults to a first-person view, with no way to regain the overhead camera except to crawl back out of cover and expose yourself(sometimes you can still stay exposed but this is goes about 50/50). Some sort of allowance should have been made there for a more flexible camera, and the lack of such is the game's main weakness.
If (or when) the camera does let you down and you're spotted, MGS3's combat comes into play. There are more guns available than before, but if you're anything like me, you won't want to use them very often: CQC(Close Quarters Combat) is where it's at! Reaching out and grabbing a guard lets you do a surprising variety of things, from taking them as a hostage (which is gratifyingly effective in getting the enemy to stop shooting you, cause they DO shoot...alot...fast...with damaging weapons), you can also interrogate them for information, and there's a variety of quick takedowns that can be as bloody as you want them to be.
Health for this game got a major overhaul. You're gonna take damage during a firefight, which is where the Stamina system comes in. Instead of the familiar rations refilling your health in MGS3, it will automatically regenerate over time, but your rate of recovery depends on how much Stamina you have left. Lots of other things stem from your stamina level, too -- how much your hands shake when holding a weapon in first-person view, the amount of time you can stay underwater or hanging onto a ledge, and more. Hence, it's good to keep your stamina as high as you can, which means making sure Snake is well-fed. Hunting is easy enough never to be a chore, and it's fun to experiment with the vast array of wildlife there to chow down on to see what Snake likes(He'll tell you, and there are small cut scenes showing him eating).
The rest of the non-stealth portions of the game are brilliantly polished. It's hard to tell whether people who disliked MGS2 will appreciate the return to form in the boss encounters or the story more, but in both respects, MGS3 serves almost as an apology to those who were let down by Raiden in part 2. I've only been up against Ocelot, and a gun fight against his unit. But taking down his unit was interesting because you get a first person glimpse of what it's like to be hit by one of those stun gernades, as well as all the CQC fun. :) There's also Ocelot, who's just as annoying as ever, he's even tougher at a young age then he was in MGS1. It's nice to note that Snake goes extremely easy on Ocelot, just because he's young, and you also notice how much Ocelot admires Snake's skill.
So far, plot's neither as adrenaline-fueled nor as twisty as previous games, but what it lacks in wow factor it makes up for in coherence and emotional impact. A lot of the cutscenes are pretty painful to watch, the more so because it's happening to characters who are resonant and well-drawn. Series veterans will get a chill down their spine during certain scenes which prefigure future events, especially when the occasional dialogue exchange recurs almost verbatim, 40 years prior to the main series timeline. Kojima seems to have drastically reduced the radio transceiver's role in the proceedings and the storytelling is all the better for it. I only had to use the codec 2-3 times in the 3 hours I was playing. And the transmissions I did have to sit through were fairly quick.
I could go on and on, and I really I already have(So much for a small review, heh), but that's because there's so much game here to talk about. I haven't even mentioned the Snake vs. Ape minigames(Funny stuff), or the Curing system, or the item degradation, for example. If MGS1 had you and then lost you with MGS2, then all will be forgiven here. It's killin Splinter Cell for best Stealth game of the year, now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna start playing again. :)</div>
