Having played through two sizeable franchises thus far: The Legend of Zelda and Castlevania, it was time to pick up another little-known indie series by a very small publisher and an unknown game designer… I kid, I kid.
It was time to play the Metal Gear Solid series. For this particular playthrough, I am playing them in chronological order according to the in-game story. For those who don’t know, the release order of the games does not directly correlate to the in-game universe’s timeline, so here’s a nice infographic I found that should help:
As you can see, the first game in the timeline is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. This is the game that started it all, story-wise. The game’s story takes place in 1964 in the midst of the time of The Cold War. I will be talking a little about real life history in some of the Metal Gear Solid posts since the games are directly inspired by it. Hey, you might learn something from me after all 😉.
The Cold War was not really a traditional war at all. Instead, the two main superpowers involved - the United States and the Soviet Union - opposed each other by supporting opposing factions in smaller conflicts. It was an ideological battle between Communism and Capitalism, and it all started after World War II. The Cold War may have been one of - if not the most - impactful period of modern history. So many things came out of this era as a direct result of the conflict. The CIA was developed as a direct deterrent against Communism. In turn, the Berlin Wall was created by the Soviets. There was nuclear threat, iconic dictators died, and new ones rose to power to take their place. And so, for over four decades, this “silent” battle continued, with the US providing aid to places like Japan to combat Communism in China and the Soviets providing aid to Cuba’s new dictator Fidel Castro.
Perhaps the closest the world has ever come (so far) to a full-scale nuclear war was in 1962, in what was called the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev, who succeed Joseph Stalin as the Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, provided nuclear missiles to Fidel Castro in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy ordered essentially a naval wall to block Cuba from receiving anymore Soviet shipments. During this time, unfortunately, a conflict at sea almost spelled nuclear war. A Soviet submarine mistook a signaling depth charge from a US ship as an attack on the Soviets. The submarine’s captain ordered nuclear torpedoes to be launched. Thankfully, the decision was not his alone. The order required the approval of 3 onboard officers. 2 of the 3 officers were in agreement but the 3rd, Vasily Arkhipov refused. Arkhipov single handedly prevented nuclear war that day, which is a fascinating thing and one that we should all remember.
Alright, enough history for now. Hopefully you didn’t sleep through that very condensed summary of just a small portion of The Cold War. I think it’s important to have that context when playing Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater but we need to get back to talking about the game. I urge you to do more reading on the Cold War, it’s quite interesting.
What I Liked 😃
Field Care
In Metal Gear Solid 3, you have to take care of yourself out in the field, literally. Whenever Snake takes damage or does anything strenuous, he will need to stop and eat. Thankfully, Snake is in a jungle setting for the majority of the game, and that means there’s a lot to eat. Snake can capture or kill anything from snakes(cannibalism?), alligators and rats. If Snake doesn’t have any wildlife handy, he can eat military issued rations. But it’s not just a matter of eating the catch. If Snake leaves the food in his pack for too long it can go bad and if eaten, Snake’s stomach may not agree with it and he will throw up, losing a lot of the health benefits. I loved this idea, even though sometimes it was a little tedious to keep fresh food in my pack. It gave me something to do in between sneaking around.
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Another thing you have to keep in mind during the game is your physical health. After being shot or burned or stabbed, it’s important to apply the proper medical care to Snake’s body. When you go into the menu, it will show you the areas of the body in which Snake is injured. You must target the area and apply ointments, bandages, or even gouge a bullet out of your skin using your knife. Again, this can be a little tedious especially if you are one who tends to take a lot of damage in the game. Still, I liked this idea so much. Of course, medical care would be needed after getting into a fire fight. It’s both realistic but also lenient enough that it doesn’t become a total headache.
Silliness
While the game has semi-realistic mechanics like having to eat food and apply bandages to your wounds, Metal Gear Solid 3 has its fair share of ridiculous moments as well. But this isn’t a bad thing, especially if you like games that are a bit silly.
These are just a few moments that I enjoyed very much:
Ocelot can swat bees out of the air by twirling his Colt revolvers in the air very quickly
A very old sniper named The End is one of the boss fights. During one of The Ends speeches, his dentures will fly out of his mouth
When Snake gets a 1911 pistol, he goes on a nerdy tirade about the gun while his attractive companion looks at him quizzically
In the codec, you can talk about old movies with Para-Medic
There’s a character named Johnny Sasaki who has a recurring role in the Metal Gear Solid games. In each game, he always had intestinal problems and ends up soiling himself or running off to find a bathroom.
Those are just a few, but the game is littered with things like this. Some are more subtle than others, but it keeps the game lighthearted in the presence of some of the major themes and the backdrop of the mid 60s tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.
Camo, Can’t See Me
Yet a third mechanic that was introduced with Snake Eater was the camo system. At any given time, Snake can view his camo meter. If he’s standing out in the open with no camo or face paint on at all, his camo meter is close to 0%. If Snake has the appropriate camo and is in a prone position (or standing against a structure of a similar color), he can get close to 100% camouflaged. Whenever Snake moves too quickly or changes position, the camouflaged percentage will go down. It becomes very important to move slowly, wear the right camo and be in the right position (usually crawling). With the right camo, enemies can literally be right next to Snake and not see him. This provides great opportunities for stealth kills or even just sneaking past entire groups of enemies. There are even some camos that aren’t very useful but are fun to mess around with like a Tuxedo camo or the Kabuiki face paint. This goes back to the silly themes of the game.
What I Didn’t Like ☹️
Terrible Controls
Controlling Snake hasn’t aged well in Snake Eater. This was one of the most frustrating parts of the game unfortunately. The issue is that there’s so much that Snake can do movement and attack-wise that I found myself doing things that I didn’t mean to do.
Example, I am crouched, and I needed to move forward quickly. Sometimes I would push the wrong button and go prone instead of getting up and running. This got me into trouble more than once. CQC (Close Quarters Combat) scenarios were also fairly clunky. Some of the actions are pressure sensitive based on the same buttons. So, when you grab an enemy, you can interrogate them or kill them or put them to sleep. But it’s very easy to accidentally kill them because the button to kill them is the same button you are using to keep ahold of them. Press it too hard and it’s a knife across the throat.
Menu Woes
All of the cool stuff that you can do in the game is made worse by how everything is accomplished. Need to change your outfit or face paint? Go into the menu. Need to eat or heal yourself? Go into the menu. And this isn’t a snappy menu like a modern game. Each load of the menu takes a few seconds and so it slows the game down and make everything you do tedious.
Thankfully, there is a Snake Eater remake on the horizon which could end up resolving my above issues with the game. With the addition of the updated graphics, this could be a nearly perfect experience if done well. Time will only tell, however.
Overall Thoughts 🤔
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a great experience. It’s a story that blends fantasy with real life history. It has quirky Japanese anime-esque characters like Boss, Volgin and The End. There are some really cool game mechanics such as CQC, the camo system and healing yourself after a battle. It has some great music (the main theme is a homage to Bond films) and is filled with cutscenes like any good Metal Gear Solid game should. It is unfortunately brought down by some dated gameplay controls and having to swap between the game and menus a whole lot. But I do not regret my time with Snake Eater, and I had a lot of fun with it. I’d recommend playing through the series in this order.
Where Can I Play This? 🕹️
Depending on when you are reading this, the best way to play the game will likely be with the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater remake. The current release window is 2024/2025.
Other than that, there is the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 which released on all modern consoles.
I played the game physically on the Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection on PlayStation 3.
Did you enjoy the history lesson? What do you think of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater?
While 4 is ultimately my fave of the entire series, 3 is a close second. Like you, I love the survival aspects all around and hunting. Your write up gave me good mmrs of this game!
I remember the big hype around this, mainly because it had to rise to the iconoclastic MGS 2. I'm not sure it managed to do that, but MGS2 was lightning in a bottle.
I think I still have the soundtrack on vinyl - Konami gave it away during its marketing blitz.