B3yond the Special: A Look at Metal Gear Solid 3

Posted by Mark Salmela on 06.04.2008

In part 4 of the special counting down to the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 on June 12, 411’s Mark Salmela takes a special look back at Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Hated by some, loved by many, find out about the controversial Snake Eater in the full article.




Welcome back everyone to B3yond the Special. In part 4 of this 5 part series, I will be taking a look at the PlayStation 2 title Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. In case you've missed the previous entries in the series, here they are.

Here's the link to part 1: A look at Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2.
Here's the link to part 2: A look at Metal Gear Solid
Here's the link to part 3: A look at Metal Gear Solid 2.

Next week will feature the final edition of B3yond the Special as I give details and opinions on Metal Gear Solid 4. I will not be writing about any of the other titles in the Metal Gear franchise, such as Metal Gear Acid. So sorry in advance in case anyone is disappointed that I won't be talking about them. I may be doing a quick look at Portable Ops next week, due to high demand. Also, for the people who've been asking, I have no idea who will be reviewing Metal Gear Solid 4 for 411mania.com. Any who, it's time to get back to our regularly scheduled program. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this detailed look into one of the PlayStation 2's finest titles.



Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)



Story

Warning, this video is loud.



Despite being called Metal Gear Solid 3, MGS3 takes place at the beginning of the Metal Gear storyline. MGS3 occurs before Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, or Solidus Snake were ever cloned. MGS3 takes place before the events on Outer Heaven, Zanzibar Land, and Shadow Moses Island. MGS3 puts gamers into the role of Big Boss *named Jack*, Solid Snake's former mentor. Now of course this is Metal Gear, so the relationship digs much deeper than mentor. Big Boss is technically Solid Snake's dad, since Solid Snake was cloned from Big Boss' DNA. Big Boss is referred to as Naked Snake in MGS3, and looks mysteriously a lot like Solid Snake *then again Solid was cloned from him*. Metal Gear Solid 3 takes place when Big Boss is nothing more than a patriotic soldier, as he has yet to turn to the dark side. Naked Snake was trained by The Boss, one of the world's greatest fighters. Naked Snake is a first field operative for the newly formed FOX unit. Along with his mentor The Boss, Naked Snake helped to invent Close Quarters Combat or CQC for short.

The game's introductory sequence begins with Naked Snake being dropped into the jungles of the Soviet Union during the Cold War *1964 to be exact*. Snake's initial mission is to extract a defecting Soviet scientist named Sokolov, who is being forced to design a new weapon called the Shagohod. Snake is being aided via codec from Major Zero, Para-Medic, and his mentor The Boss. Naked Snake's mission starts off well, making his way across the jungle undetected, until he discovers that his mentor, The Boss, has double crossed him. The Boss in turn defeats Naked Snake in battle, heavily injuring him, and provides her new comrade Colonel Volgin with two Davy Crockett miniature nuclear shells. The Boss, who is now in control of special forces unit "Cobra", consisting of The End, The Fear, The Fury, The Sorrow, and The Pain, captures Sokolov and escapes with the Shagohod and Sokolov. But Volgin, in an attempt to cover up his theft of the Shagohod, detonates one of the nuclear shells, and blames it on The Boss.



The Soviet Union, who detected the American aircraft which deployed Naked Snake, blames the United States for the nuclear strike, and nearly leads to a nuclear war between the two countries. But the United States reacts quickly, and proves their innocence to the Soviet Union before a war started. As a part of the deal, the United States promises to stop Volgin and Cobra, and redeploys Naked Snake *who survived the nuclear strike* back into the jungles of Russia on "Operation Snake Eater".

Naked Snake is now aided by an American defector named EVA. With EVA's help, Naked Snake encounters and defeats the elite Ocelot Unit. The Ocelot Unit, led by a young Revolver Ocelot, was working directly under Volgin. Ocelot wasn't actually referred to as Revolver Ocelot yet, as it wasn't until his fight with Naked Snake where Ocelot gained his preference of Revolvers. It is also implied that Revolver Ocelot is the son of The Boss and The Sorrow. After defeating the Ocelot Unit, Naked Snake then encounters and defeats one by one the Cobra Unit minus The Boss.



Naked Snake then continues on his mission and locates Sokolov and the stolen Shagohod. But before he could rescue Sokolov, Snake is captured inside of Volgin's fortress which is named Groznyj Grad. Naked Snake is then tortured, where Naked Snake's eye is injured by the hands of Revolver Ocelot. This is where Naked Snake receives his trademark eye patch, and while Naked Snake is imprisoned Sokolov is apparently murdered *it is revealed that Sokolov survived in Portable Ops*. Ocelot fails to kill Eva, and Naked Snake eventually escapes.

After Naked Snake escapes he returns to the facility to destroy the Shagohod. It is here that Snake learns of The Philosophers, a group of men representing each world power who secretly control the world. But after WWII The Philosophers broke apart, and all of their money was hidden in bands across the world, which Volgin illegally inherited. Snake, knowing now that the United States is attempting to retrieve the money back from Volgin, continues his mission, destroying the facility and the Shagohod tank. Volgin confronted Naked Snake in the Shagohod tank, but is killed by a bolt of lightning during the battle.



After defeating Volgin and the Shagohod, Snake and EVA return to the jungle, where a ground effect vehicle is waiting for them. But while EVA readies the plane, Naked Snake has one final confrontation. While in a bed of flowers, Snake and The Boss have a close quarters combat showdown. Naked Snake prevails, and in a sign of Naked Snake's training being complete, puts The Boss out of her misery. Before Snake finishes her off however, The Boss reveals that she has the same scar that is on Ocelot, which was made while The Boss gave birth to Ocelot.

While Naked Snake and EVA fly off in the ground effect vehicle, Revolver Ocelot makes one last attempt to assassinate Naked Snake by getting into the plane. After having a standoff with Snake, it is revealed that both guns are filled with nothing but blanks, and Ocelot retreats. After Snake and EVA land in Alaska and spend the night together, EVA flees during the middle of the night and leaves Naked Snake a tape. In the tape it is revealed that EVA is actually working for China, and stole all of The Philosophers money for China. The tape also reveals that The Boss didn't betray the US and Naked Snake, but rather she was working under cover for the US in order to learn the location of The Philosophers money from Volgin. The final part of The Boss' mission was to die by the hands of Naked Snake, to appease the Russians over the nuclear attack at the beginning of the game.



When Naked Snake returns home he is given the Distinguished Service Cross. It is here that Snake is also given the title of Big Boss. Snake then leaves his celebration early, and leaves The Boss' gun and some flowers at an unmarked grave. Snake salutes, and sheds a single tear for his fallen mentor. It is also revealed after the credits by Ocelot that EVA stole a fake microfilm, and didn't have the money from The Philosophers after all.



Here's the ending to MGS3.



Boss Fights



You can't fight The Pain by traditional means, as you'll be destroyed by his waves of hornets. Instead, to avoid The Pain's bugs, you'll have to dive underwater, before resurfacing and popping him with your shotgun. The Pain does have a tommy gun for self-defense, although he's no match for your shotgun. While I wasn't a big fan of the fight with The Pain, I can see why some of my friends claim it to be one of the better fights in MGS3.

I've always found the fight with The Fear one of the funniest ones in Metal Gear. The Fear is basically a giant rat *figuratively, not literally* as he will shake fruit off of a tree and slither down to eat it before retreating back to his post. The trick to beating The Fear is to drop any poison food you have on the ground, as The Fear will eat it and almost immediately after vomit it back up, leaving him vulnerable to your attack. Avoid The Fear's poison arrows, and you'll be fine. Plus if you get hit by a poison arrow, you can heal yourself manually.

Another favorite fight of mine is against The End. The end is an aging old man whom you can actually assassinate before you ever actually fight. But that'd be no fun, so it's best to let him live so you can have the epic sniper fight against him. Naturally, it's Metal Gear, so if you speed the PS2's internal clock up 1 week he'll just die of old age. But pending these cheap victories, The End actually provides for a great sniper battle that handles surprisingly like a real sniper fight. As long as you kill his parrot, you can also sneak up on The End when he doses off and can finish him any way you wish.



The Fury is really one crazy son of a gun. An astronaut who imagines the entire world engulfed in flames, The Fury is the definition of a pyro. The Fury wants nothing but to burn things, protected only by his flame-resistance suite. While fighting The Fury more and more of the level gets set on fire, and it's up to the player to throw knives at The Fury until you make enough holes in his suite where The Fury will succumb to the heat of his own flame and become torched. The Fury provides another solid fight worthy of an MGS game.

The fight with The Sorrow is probably my second favorite fight in a Metal Gear title, just behind the legendary fight in MGS with Psycho Mantis. The Sorrow, who is dead by the time MGS3 occurs, fights Naked Snake in the spiritual realm after Snake jumps off a waterfall. What's so cool about the fight with The Sorrow is how the fight is directly related to the player's actions throughout the game. You see, when you fight The Sorrow you are walking upstream in a river trying to avoid The Sorrow's attacks, but anyone who the player has killed is also in the river trying to attack the player. That means that if you didn't kill anyone in the game other than the people you have to, you would only encounter the other members of the Cobra unit. While there is little to no fighting involved, just the concept of influencing your own boss battle is really cool. And after fighting The Sorrow, I truly did regret killing all of those soldiers, which only adds to the coolness of the fight.

Despite being one of the final villains in the game, Volgin is extremely easy to beat. While he is easy, Volgin is still cool to fight however. Volgin has several really cool attacks stemming from his electric powers, such as electrocuting your gun in such a way that it discharges all of your ammo. Hell, Volgin can give you such an intense electric shock that it'll knock you across the map and make you barf. Insanely crazy with a craving for sex, Volgin is an easy but awesome MGS boss fight.



Topping off the list of great boss fights in MGS3 is The Boss herself. Naked Snake's mentor, The Boss must be killed in battle by Naked Snake in order to complete her mission and save the world from nuclear war. It is through this hand-to-hand CQC battle that MGS3 really comes together as an incredible title. Up until this point I had found MGS3 to be an awesome game, but not quite up to the revolutionary standards of the first two MGS games. Or that is until I had the showdown with The Boss. While fighting Liquid Snake on top of Metal Gear Rex or fighting Solidus in MGS2 may have been more epic, it wasn't nearly as touching or cultivating as the fight with The Boss in MGS3. Despite Naked Snake being one of the biggest bad asses in video games, I nearly shed a tear right along with him when he placed flowers on the unmarked grave of The Boss. The fight with The Boss was a great boss fight to end a great video game.


Gameplay and Development



Ever since the release of Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 fans had been clamoring for Snake to return to his roots in the jungle like in the original Metal Gear. Well Kojima was well aware of this, but due to previous console and engine limitations Kojima felt like it was impossible, and that he wouldn't do it justice. Well after the release of MGS2, Kojima felt like his team was finally ready to create a living, breathing jungle. When MGS3 was first unveiled back at the Tokyo Game Show in 2003, fans were delighted to see that Snake's next adventure would take him back into his jungle roots, but noticed that the game appeared to be set back in older times, as the other two MGS titles occurred in to the 2000's. Using a very James Bond type theme, Kojima revealed that MGS3 would take place in 1964 at E3 2004.

Metal Gear Solid 3 launched in North America on November 17, 2004, with a Japanese release on December 16. The European release occurred nearly 4 months later, on March 4, 2005. Like Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, MGS3 did not use a free roaming camera, something that was hit hard by critics during the game's launch. With so many complaints, Kojima was forced to add in a free roaming camera for Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence, which launched on December 22, 2005, and on March 2, 2006 in America. For whatever reason, European gamers would have to wait another 6 months until October 13, 2006 before getting their hands on Subsistence. Besides a free roaming camera, MGS3 Subsistence also added a Snake versus monkey mode where players would fight against Ape Escape characters. Metal Gear Online was also included in MGS3S, the first time MGS included an online mode. MGO was the most popular online PS2 title *as far as I know, unless one of the SOCOM games did better* but servers for MGO have since been shut down by Konami. MGS3S also included a mode called Existence, where players could watch the entire game's cutscenes with a few new ones added in. Finally, people who preordered Subsistence also received Metal Gear Saga vol. 1, which detailed the Metal Gear series up until that point.



Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater played a lot like MGS1 and 2, with the emphasis being on Tactical Espionage Action. New to the series was the camouflage system, where players could customize Naked Snake's outfit to best blend him in with his surroundings. A percentage bar would appear letting players know at how times just how likely they are to be caught, with the higher the percentage *meaning you're blending in better* the less likely you are to be seen by the enemy. Also new to the series is the stamina bar, where players would have to eat food if they wanted to keep their stamina up. If your stamina bar depleted too far, players would lose accuracy and play considerably worse. Food would be kept in storage along with other items, although certain food would spoil over time if not eaten. Also contained in Snake's backpack is a medical kit, where players could heal themselves from any wounds they received in the jungle. For example if players were in the water too long they would become covered in leeches, and players would have to play doctor and burn them off. Finally MGS3 introduced the CQC, or close quarters combat system. CQC was the advanced way of fighting enemies, where Snake could take control of enemies and either interrogate them, kill them, or use them as body guards. The CQC system is very powerful and will be a part of MGS4. While I wasn't a big fan of having to constantly heal yourself, I did enjoy most of the other editions to MGS3 and found CQC to be really awesome *although a bit overpowering*.



Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater did substantially worse than its predecessors both review and sales wise. MGS3 only managed to sell 4 million copies, which while 4 million is a lot, it's a lot less than the 7 million copies MGS2 sold. MGS3S managed to sell another million bringing the total up to 5 million, but it still ranks as the lowest of the MGS titles. Review wise MGS3 only managed a Metacritic rating of 91%, which again is a very high number, but still put it below its predecessors. MGS3S did a lot better, bumping up its Metacritic rating to 94%, on par with the original MGS *but still below the 96% for MGS2*. Most gamers either love or hate MGS3, as some gamers grew tired of the camera *which was fixed in Subsistence*. While MGS1 and 2 are often to be considered masterpieces, MGS3 is often forgotten in the big picture, and MGS3 is rarely claimed to be the best title in the franchise. Overall I think MGS3 had the best gameplay and maybe the best boss fights, but I didn't really capture that epic "revolutionary" feeling that I did with the first two titles. MGS3 is an awesome title that was definitely overlooked by many, but I can't say that it's my favorite MGS game *MGS1 is*.



Metal Gear Timeline

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Metal Gear
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots






That's all for this week, hopefully you've enjoyed the series so far. I also appreciate any comments you guys have for me, as I realize there are a lot of things that I've probably missed or misinterpreted. MGS is a very hard series to understand, and I appreciate those who've made the necessary corrections. With that said I hope you've enjoyed the feature and are just as pumped for MGS4 as I am. If I would have had more time I would have detailed Metal Gear Acid, but the fact is that I just don't have a whole lot of time right now, as I really had to micromanage my time to fit in MGS3. There has been a lot of people requesting that I do Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, so I'll do my best to include a quick feature on it next week. I'll be back next weekend with the final entrée into B3yond the Special, where I'll give my thoughts and opinions so far on MGS4 *and maybe Portable Ops*. I'll also try to describe the plot as I know it so far, and I'll maybe even give my predictions for what I think will happen to our buddies Solid Snake, Liquid Ocelot, and Raiden. I'll be back in 7, cya and thanks for reading!



Of course I had to include the theme song, Snake Eater!