Under the Knife Retrospective – The Metal Gear Solid Saga, Part 1

by Beeslo

(he’s naked under his clothes)

Let me set the record straight. I never was that big into the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Sure I remember when I got my PlayStation, I bought me a copy of Metal Gear Solid because I had heard that it was awesome. I’ll admit, I was entertained…but soon I grew bored of it and stopped playing it. That’s right, I didn’t even finish it. So soon the sequel was released for the PS2 and I gave its release a shrug of my shoulders followed by a “meh.” And after not much longer, its sequel (prequel, I eventually learned) hit the shelves and my enthusiasm for the series hardly fluttered a beat. Up to this point the only things I knew about the series (after listening to the discussions between my friends) was that the plot was confusing and the dialogue was super lengthy. In fact, I believe that was one of the things that made me bored with the first one was its plot. Making references to older games, talking about Big Bosses…I mean, what was a newbie like me supposed to make out of all this?

And then of course, with the Playstation 3 not too far off the horizon, talks about a Metal Gear Solid 4 were already circulating the rumor mills. Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the series, I knew this would be a pretty big game for the console and that it would look pretty damn spectacular. Then everyone and their mothers saw the first footage for Metal Gear Solid 4 and we were blown away. Even though this game apparently had gigantic metal walky, leggy things…I found myself impressed and (gasp) even intrigued. Months turned to months and years into years, and MGS4 wasn’t a reality just yet. It wasn’t determined whether it was going to be a release title for the PS3 and once that became obvious, it wasn’t entirely concrete on when it would be released. However speculation turned to knowledge when the release for MGS4 was slated for June 2008.

Well June has come and gone, and MGS4 pushed more black paper weights (that were also known as PS3’s) off of the store shelves faster than you can say “We got a Wii shipment in!” It was an unsurprising hit and I sat thinking to myself, perhaps I missed out? Well I decided not to wonder any longer, for I have started to play through the entire MGS series ending with Metal Gear Solid 4. So, last Monday I dusted off my dusty PS2 and began to play:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

First of all, yes I am aware that I started with the third installment in the series, but I figured the best way to tackle this series was to play it chronologically and with MGS3 being considered the prequel installment, I felt what better place to start off?

Set in 1964, you play as Naked Snake, a CIA operative who has been given a mission of the utmost importance and secrecy. Snake is tasked to jump (literally) into the Soviet jungles (of a fictional satellite country) to find and secure a defected Soviet weapons specialist and transport him back to the West. Needless to say not everything works out for the best when Snake’s mentor, The Boss shows up and reveals that she has defected to the Soviet Union and won’t allow you to reclaim the weapons specialist. After nearly dying after being thrown off a bridge and witnessing a mini nuclear explosion, Snake is sent back in to rescue the weapons specialist but also put a stop to the building of a super nuclear weapon called the Shagohod, eliminate the coup leader Colonel Volgin and kill The Boss.

Along the way, Snake comes into contact with a Russian double spy called EVA, who helps him along with his mission despite never knowing her true intentions. Another person Snake runs into on numerous occasions is a cocky Soviet Major who has a particular fancy for spinning his guns, named Ocelot. For those of you who aren’t aware…he’s a pretty big character in the entire Metal Gear Solid franchise. In order to complete his mission, Snake faces off against 5 members of The Boss’s elite group known as the Cobras. Named for the particular emotion they bring into a battle, Snake battles with The Pain, The Fear, The End, The Fury and the mysterious The Sorrow before he can reach Volgin, his Shagohod, and finally The Boss. The Pain commands an army of ferocious hornets; The Fear shows none as he leaps around like an acrobat throwing poison tipped knives at Snake; The End is exactly that, as he is a skilled sniper at the end of his 100 year old life; The Fury is essentially a pyro with a jet pack and a big case of the crazys; and finally The Sorrow…well, he will just give you the willies…let’s just leave it at that.

The gameplay is pretty intuitive and is fairly easy to get used. In fact the classic gameplay element of sneaking that the franchise is known for has been improved. You still have crawling as one of the motion mechanics that you will be implementing the most along with the ability to hide in the shadows to get the drop on your unknowing victims, but the franchise is re-invented with the use of multiple camouflages. Considering that this is the 1960’s, you won’t see any flashy electronic equipment here but instead you will be dealing with some pretty low tech means of concealing yourself from the enemy. Here is where MGS3’s camouflage system comes into play.

In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you will notice a number percentage that gauges the effectiveness of your camouflage. If you are at 0%, well you might as well post a sign above your head that reads “Here I Am!!!” You choose your camo depending on the type of your surroundings. Is it a thick jungle? Better go with some “Tiger Bark.” Is it a base at night? Go with classic “Black.” The highest I ever got my concealment percentage to was about 85%. Is it possible to reach 100%? Well starting out, most likely not. But as you procede through the game, you can find new camos to add to your collection and if you meet certain requirements upon beating the game, you can get the active-camo (you know…the kind that makes you invisible) and I imagine that would garner you that 100% concealment percentage.

Well this just seems too easy right? Using camo’s to conceal yourself, all one has to do is just lay low and keep an eye on the enemy with that trusty radar that’s always on the screen, right? Wrong. Did you forget? This is 1964. Sure you have a portable radar, but it runs on batteries that don’t last long and fresh batteries are pretty hard to come by. So most of the time, you have to be pretty aware of your surroundings because those Russian soldiers just love to hide around corners and they are usually wearing uniforms that match their surroundings as well.

Another new feature to the franchise is the need to keep your stamina up. Not your health, but your stamina. Lose stamina and it becomes harder to move uniformly, makes aiming troublesome and just slows Snake down. How do you combat this? By eating, eating, eating. Eating like you are at a 24 hour all-you-can-eat buffet. What you eat varies from MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) that Snake can find, snakes, fish, toads, rats, crocodiles, goats, mushrooms, spiders, scorpions…basically if something moves, you can eat it (oh yeah, bats too). Course, not everything you catch will exactly be healthy for you or tasty. There will be some items that Snake finds mighty tasty and will practically replenish all of your stamina and sometimes there are items that Snake finds absolutely horrid and very little stamina is filled. But be careful, some animals or plants can poison you…eating scorpions and spiders equals bad idea.

While the eating system is pretty much a nuisance (a la Niko’s friends calling you every second in GTA4), its a rather fun nuisance. I would often find myself sneaking around soldiers only to come across a new animal to capture and later eat. It was fun trying to guess which items Snake would find tasty and which he would find gruesome. Something that I learned was that its not a good idea to keep something in your backpack to long because it will eventually start to rot.

Overall, the pacing of the game is rather fluid although there are a couple places that bog it down slightly. The ending is probably one of the longest drawn out endings to any game out there and at times you start to just shake your head when you think you’ve won only to realize there is more to come. Another moment that brings the gameplay to a standstill is your confrontation with The Sorrow. Not to spoil anything about this confrontation, let me simply put that the confrontation will intrigue the first time…but will grow to infuriate you when you can’t figure out how to get past it. Needless to say, its one of those “duh” moments when you finally get it.

The thing I liked best about this prequel was that it does an awesome job setting the stage for the rest of the series. Its pretty impressive that Kojima was able to pull a George Lucas and shift focus from the main story of Solid Snake and put the spotlight on Naked Snake and his Darth Vader-like fall from grace. The story has many moment that really punch you in the stomach emotionally but also balances it rather well with the good ol’ cheese factor. Its clearly obvious Kojima was a big James Bond fan as the theme of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater parallels that of a 60’s James Bond adventure…complete with a James Bond movie-like intro theme.

For someone who is starting this franchise from the chronological beginning, things are looking pretty bright.

Final Grade: 9/10

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