Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater opens with Snake aboard a secret military plane
tearing across the sky above an undisclosed area in the Soviet Union. Donning a
futuristic looking air suit, Snakes jumps out of the plane and skyrockets to the
ground. Once landed, he receives a message on his handy Codec. It seems that Snake
needs to investigate the area around and him and neutralize an enemy encampment in
his general vicinity. From that point on, “Operation Snake Eater” has begun.
Snake, having landed from his drop, is smack dab in the middle of a lush and
expansive jungle. As a result, you’ll be surprised to see that gone are your typical
Medal Gear crates and lockers. Essentially, you’re new hiding place is everything
that you see around you; the trees, the ground, the grass, the water, and everything
in between. First of all, all costume changing is done via a menu, not in real-time.
A press of the Start button will open up a special menu that lets you change your
camouflage, organize and manage the contents of your backpack, as well as view and
eat any stored food you may have. The camouflage menu is pretty straight forward and
has a selection for changing your outfit and one for changing your face paint. A 3D
model of Snake is also shown to give you an idea of what he’ll look like after you
make your outfit and paint selections.
Overall, the camouflage system seemed to work pretty well. Faced with a patrolling
soldier, I did manage to successfully hide against a tree while wearing a treebark
pattern outfit and some black face paint. But, other times, I found the system to be
a bit too hit and miss. Sometimes, I seemed to be completely hidden and
undetectable, with a camouflage index of 95%, only to be immediately spotted and
shot at. Other times, I managed to actually remain undetected while possessing a
much lower index. I realize that the game is still in development, so hopefully
there will be a bit more balancing in the overall effectiveness and reliability of
the stealth system.
Control-wise, however, the game has been shapen up pretty well and from the get go,
Snake Eater plays feels like you would expect it to. The analog control felt silky
smooth and Snake now has a few new moves to help take on the evils that await him in
the jungle. The new stalking move is performed easily with the PS2 D-pad, allowing
you an easy and fool-proof way of switching between normal analog stick control to
more stealthy and calculated movement while stalking. Stalking is also used for more
precarious actions, such as when I turned Snake into a tight-rope walker as he
inched his way across a very narrow steel girder that had enemy soldiers stationed
underneath it.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game is the food and stamina system.
Underneath Snake’s health bar are five blocks, each one signifying a level of
stamina. As you play through the game, you’ll lose stamina, which results in Snake
losing the ability to heal from his wounds as well as maintain a steady aim while in
combat. Snake’s health bar now continuously refills, granted that he has a high
enough amount of stamina. While the pace of the healing is pretty slow, it still
proves helpful, especially during those times when you just want to lay low and
remain unseen for awhile. Since the game supports a first-person viewpoint, great
loss of stamina will be reflected in the fact that your aiming while in first person
will be greatly hindered by a bad case of the hunger shakes.
The actual method of gathering food is even more innovative. At any given time,
you’re literally surrounded by a smorgasbord of tasty vittles. On the ground you may
find some mushrooms or a snake slithering around the ground. Up in a tree you may
spy some birds or a hornet’s nest. Even more dangerous things like crocodiles prove
to be a good meal. Collecting food comes in two forms: live captures and killing. A
live capture requires that you shoot any food item (as long as it’s an animal) with
a tranquilizer gun. Once tranquilized, a small animal cage will appear on the ground
for you to collect. Killing any animal simply requires the use of any lethal firearm
or explosive device. One you’ve killed an animal, a small can will appear for you to
collect (much like the Rations from previous Metal Gear games. While going around
and blowing up crocodiles with grenades may sound like a good idea, there actually
are some considerations to keep in mind when going after live or dead kills. First
of all, live animal provide more stamina than their dead counterparts simply because
of the fact that they’re alive. Metal stored in cans will eventually rot and turn
foul, which can result in making your even weaker or even sick. The ability to tote
around your food live and eat it at your leisure proves to be a bit more helpful
than toting around a bunch of cans that could go bad at any moment.
The actual means of filling your belly with food is pretty varied and allows you
utilize some interesting means for tracking down your prey. Since all animals
register body heat, you’ll be able to use thermal goggles for tracking down the more
elusive prey, like snakes and frogs. Running around in thermal view and trying to
catch a tiny frog may sound a bit odd for a Metal Gear game, but the execution of
doing it is surprisingly fun. Overall, the feature of collecting and eating food is
a nice diversion from the combat that you’ll usually be dealing with and is a nice
way to break up the action if you’re feeling overwhelming at any given point.
The next feature that really impressed me was the close quarters combat. While the
system came across as a bit complicated, seeing it in action and actually pulling it
off was impressive. All close quarters combat is utilized through the Circle button.
When sneaking up behind an enemy, a press of the button will cause Snake to grab an
opponent and slam them to the ground. Approaching an enemy from the side will result
in Snake grabbing an enemy and holding them around the neck. At this point, you have
a number of options at your disposal; you can interrogate the enemy by pressing the
Square button (which results in you getting some handy gameplay hints), you can use
them as a human shield by moving Snake around, and you can slit the enemy’s throat.
Each option serves a unique purpose while you’re playing and being able to correctly
identify which action you should perform can ultimately affect just how successful
you may be in the game. For example, say you take an enemy hostage. If you slit his
throat, he’s dead and his body will not only be useless, but could also alert other
guards to your presence. Using the enemy as a human shield, however, helps to give
you a bit of insurance in the event that you are spotted. Enemies won’t usually fire
on their comrades, so as long as you have a soldier in your grasp, you’ll be
relatively safe from any damage.
Since the game has no real radar, actually locating enemies on the sly seemed a bit
too unforgiving. While Snake does have a sonar device that allows him to see any
living objects in his general vicinity, it makes a great deal of noise, which isn’t
too helpful for when you’re trying to sneak up on someone. Having to constantly
switch to the sonar device was a bit annoying and the gameplay crawls down to a
pretty slow pace as a result. The stalking move does prove helpful for when you’re
trying to both scout out your location and sneak up on an enemy, stalking is so slow
that it brings the game to a screeching halt.
All this new things is going to come in handy as you play the game.
