"I raised you. I loved you. I've given you weapons, taught you techniques, endowed you with knowledge. There is nothing more for me to give you. All that's left for you to take, is my life, by your own hand. One must die, and one must live. No victory, no defeat. The survivor will carry on the fight. It is our destiny... The one who survives will inherit the title of Boss. And the one who inherits the title of Boss will face an existence of endless battle."

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater sempre foi para mim o melhor jogo de PS2 e sem dúvidas um dos melhores jogos da história, entretanto, a câmera dele sempre foi um impasse para decidir se ele realmente era meu top 1 jogos dentre todos os outros e jogar Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence respondeu todas as minhas perguntas. Metal Gear Solid 3 é sem dúvidas o melhor jogo já feito. Isso é, obviamente, uma análise dos dois jogos como uma coisa só, logo, levo em conta toda a experiência original, junto à experiência aprimorada com uma câmera magnífica que apenas soma ao jogo, finalmente permitindo que este alcance seu máximo esplendor.
Metal Gear Solid 3 não é um jogo apenas, ele é uma experiência absurda, cinematográfica, musical, tudo nele é simplesmente um espetáculo. Desde o início, os personagens são trabalhados com um esmero magnífico, desde Snake, o personagem principal, até os personagens mais deixados ao fundo da narrativa possuem uma personalidade própria, é impossível não notá-los e tudo isso somado à história genial construída por Hideo Kojima é simplesmente incrível.
Eu amo tudo nesse jogo, desde sua ambientação que realmente coloca o jogador na pele de um sobrevivente, tendo que passar por todo tipo de cenário, enfrentar todas as adversidades e criar estratégias para passar pelos inimigos despercebidos, ou, caso queira e tenha os recursos, simplesmente sair igual uma máquina de guerra em meio aos inimigos, aliás, você controle ninguém mais, ninguém menos, do que o grandioso Naked Snake (futuro Big Boss), o herói dos Estados Unidos da América (ou será que não? Heróis realmente existem?).
Graficamente esse jogo é espetacular, dentre tudo no PS2, acredito que seja o jogo com melhores gráficos, todos os detalhes são muito bem feitos, além de que deve-se aplaudir a obra-prima que são os personagens, todos possuem animações extremamente bem feitas, para a época, as animações faciais são extremamente à frente em seu tempo.
Musicalmente, eu não tenho do que reclamar também, a trilha sonora é uma das coisas mais belas de todos os jogos, subir uma escada se torna em uma mistura de emoções, até mesmo os créditos são emocionantes devido a escolha magnífica das músicas presentes durante o jogo.
Sua jogabilidade, como já citada anteriormente, é incrivelmente bem feita, cheia de mecânicas diferentes que expandem suas possibilidades e o único problema do lançamento original que era sua câmera travada em Snake Eater, algo que não fazia qualquer sentido após o lançamento do segundo jogo, visto que a Konami já possuía conhecimento e tecnologia suficientes para desenvolver uma câmera livre ao jogar, algo que é presente por sua vez em Subsistence.
Sendo assim, eu não tenho o que dizer além de que esse é o meu jogo favorito de todos os tempos e estou extremamente animado para o remake, mesmo com todos os problemas da Konami.

"You're a soldier! Finish your mission! Prove your loyalty! Face me!"

MGS3 is by all means a great follow up to the masterpiece that was Metal Gear Solid 2 doubling down on all the things that made the gameplay fun while also coming up with new ideas that feel incredibly welcome, and a perfect way to end off the trilogy while also get gears turning for more.

Level design is pretty strong with the levels feeling like these jungle environments and military bases while still being linear enough to consistently know where to go, and every single part of the level is designed with all the mechanics in mind and are full of secrets to look for.

New mechanics like the CQC, Camo, Stamina/Hunting and durability all work quite well, CQC (outside of control issues that come with the PS2/3 versions exclusively) feels great to use and feels a lot more natural than just slamming the guy to the ground and then moving him every time.
The Camo system is absolutely stellar albeit it'd be nice to have some more exact numbers on what the percentages mean for enemy visibility ranges,
Stamina works surprisingly well and feels totally natural for the series and the hunting is a really fun mechanic especially due to how game-like it really is, no handicaps due to realism or anything.
The durability just works fine, It prevents the game from being entirely cheesed if you just hit tranq shots over and over, adding some sort of punishment for spamming shots and not looting at all, It can feel a bit frustrating losing all suppressed weapons though as looting becomes vastly harder and can feel very tedious.

Boss fights are really fun, challenging you to master certain mechanics of the game such as stealth, aiming and general weapon handling, though the final few are a bit more frustrating and dull.

Story is just amazing, you can really feel the Bond style coming from every little beat, but still keeping the military espionage, plot twists, emotional moments, politics symbolism, and humor that makes the series so great.

Over-all the game has a very consistent quality, but continues the trope of having the final act filled with the worst moments of the game, MGS1 had the backtracking and waiting with the keycards leading up to the very irritating or boring final boss fights, MGS2 had the part where you run around naked and unarmed and then the miserable boss fight with all the Metal Gear Rays, and MGS3 leaves it off the worst with a boss fight where you just wait for the boss to turn around and shoot, then a car chase, into another fight where you wait for the boss to be spun around and shoot him in the back, but this time with 2 separate phases, and THEN the horrible escort with EVA, and THEN finally the worst boss in the game, The Boss, who throws away everything you've learned about the game to instead force you to run around in circles, attempt a counter that you're not even told exists, and then spam buttons if that doesn't work and then shoot when they're on the ground, rinse and repeat (as well as being not only one of the few areas in the game with a forced fixed camera, but a bad one at that!) thankfully the game has about an hour left of story afterwards to settle any frustrations from that point though, and leaves you off with some of the best scenes in the series.

Overall, as with everything in the trilogy, a must play even for non series fans.

Metal Gear Solid 3 takes a super different approach on the series compared to what 1 and 2 were. MGS 2 was extremely innovative in its own ways, but gameplay wise, it was extremely similar to 1 in terms of its mechanics. Obviously some of the game's structure is meant to be similar to MGS 1 as part of the plot, but mechanically it's just 1 with more depth and more attention to detail. Guards don't have the intelligence of a mole rat anymore, they can spot you if your foot is poking past a wall, they call for backup, they notice if you downed/killed their comrades and make everyone go on alert, etc. It’s a natural evolution of the stuff that was in 1.

MGS 3 ups the ante a little bit in terms of stealth mechanics. The first thing any first time player will notice is that they took away your soliton radar. When i was playing it thought that this would just be for the beginning couple of hours before they said sike and gave you the real thing, but once the game got into full swing i started to get really confused why they took my radar away. “How do they expect me to sneak around if I can't see anything coming my way?” was my first thought, and I was stuck in that mindset for the first couple hours of playing. I was using the top down camera angle that the original Snake Eater used rather than the third person free roaming camera that Subsistence added, and I was frequently getting annoyed and upset early on in the game. I was trying so hard to play it like the old games that I was limiting myself. Playing MGS 3 like 1 or 2 will get you nowhere, and once you realize this, the real beauty of MGS 3 starts to be clear. The environments are ridiculously detailed, and demand the player pay attention to their surroundings. The camo index is a wonderful mechanic, because it just serves to make the core design of the game more prevalent. Snake has to survive in this place. He has to use everything at his disposal to stay on top. You don’t heal with rations anymore, instead your health automatically regenerates relative to your stamina meter, and Snake has to hunt for his own food to keep that meter up. You have to rely on first person mode a lot more to see where your enemies are, and, overall, you have to be a lot more methodical when it comes to your stealth. Enemy AI sees even more improvements from what was in MGS 2 as well. They’re a lot more aware of your footsteps now and in general give you a harder time. There's also a lot of improvements present in the boss fights. Metal Gear boss fights have always been kinda zany, and MGS3 keeps that tradition up, but I feel that their design philosophy fits the series a whole lot more now. A lot of them actually require you to use stealth now. Most of the time, you can get the leg up on a boss if you stay hidden. Even in a boss fight like The Fear where stealth isn't an option, you still have to use your knowledge of the new mechanics to your advantage if you want a chance at winning. Of course there are outliers, Volgin’s first fight feels kind of like an MGS 2 boss, and the fight against the Shagohod is pretty clearly just for spectacle (which isn't a bad thing). This design philosophy is best realized in the final fight, though. As far as final bosses go, MGS has had it pretty good. Metal Gear Rex was climactic and interesting enough for a conclusion to MGS 1, and Solidus was cool in MGS 2 because you got to use the sword. However, despite both of these fights being cool, they don’t fit the gameplay of the rest of the game particularly well. That doesnt mean they’re bad, (same for the rest of the bosses in MGS 1 and 2) but they don't even come close to a final fight like the one vs. The Boss. The Boss has it all. A beautiful battle arena, emotional weight and buildup, and a decent challenge. The fight against The Boss perfectly encapsulates the design philosophy of MGS 3, and it's easily one of the best final bosses in gaming. Even if the fight wasn't a perfect blend of stealth and close quarters combat, it would be up there for the build up alone. I'll say more on that when I talk about the story, though. The only significant complaint I have about this game is that it really does not run well. I played this on my ps2, and there's A LOT of frame rate issues. Anytime there's a lot of shit on screen I feel like I can hear my ps2 begging me to just put it out of its misery. MGS 3 is VERY good looking for a ps2 game, but it definitely doesn’t come without a price. Fights like The Pain and The Fury are particularly bad. It’s not quite a powerpoint slide show, but it's pretty bad at times. I also can't help but feel like MGS 3 is most likely best experienced in HD. The game looks great, but when the stealth so heavily relies on seeing decently far ahead of you and paying attention to your surroundings, the 480p resolution of the ps2 starts to become a real hindrance. I don’t mean to undermine how good MGS 3 looks though, because it looks amazing. There's a lot of beautiful work here, and honestly im almost impressed this shit runs on a ps2 at all. The fight against The Sorrow, looks INSANE for the hardware. I definitely don’t think you'll have a bad time playing the game on hardware, i did it and it was just fine, but if you have a ps3 I think it's best to pick up the HD collection there, or to play the game on an emulator or something.

As far as the story goes, MGS 3 is a lot less “in your face” compared to MGS 2. 3 is still very focused on the story, but you won't find cutscenes that are gonna last 10-20 minutes at a time as often as you did in 2. Not that this was a bad thing in 2 at all, it's just nice that they reeled it back before they got even more insane (or so I hear) in MGS 4. MGS 3 also has less mindfuck “what the fuck am i watching” type shit in it, so its a lot easier to digest. Again, not that that's a bad thing, in fact it's what I love so much about the ending hours of 2, but 3 just tells a much simpler story. There’s less thematic density here, but that's not to say there isn’t any at all. I mean fuck, its Metal Gear. You can’t get out of one of these games without at least a little bit of political/social commentary. MGS 3 tells the origin story of Big Boss, the guy who Snake is a clone of in case you forgot, and It’s really interesting to play as him and have him be the good guy since he was the villain for both Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2. One of the best things about MGS 3 that gets set in early on is Snake’s relationship with The Boss. They’re almost like Mother and Son. Snake clearly has a lot of love and adoration for her, just not in a romantic way. I also feel like it's pretty apparent in her death scene where she reveals the snake scar across her chest and says “this is proof that i was once a mother.” It makes her defection to the Soviet Union all the more painful for him, considering he just spent the last 10 years learning everything he could from her. Oh yeah, speaking of the Soviet Union, MGS 3 makes sure you know some world history in case you fell asleep during 10th grade history class or something. I always find stuff like this pretty cool, and it's even cooler that the game starts like 2 weeks or so (I think) after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anyway, Snake and The Boss’s relationship is built up throughout the entire game, and that final fight is the perfect conclusion to it all. Throughout the whole game you get shown Snake getting his shit kicked in by the Boss in every close quarters fight, and the boss fight itself doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Other than Snake’s relationship with The Boss, Eva is also super interesting. She serves as this game's love interest, but compared to Meryl in the past, she's way more interesting. I'll be honest, I'm still not quite sure what to make of her eventual betrayal, as well as her being one of The Philosophers in the end, but at least the relationship between her and Snake feels earned. A lot of the scenes with her and Snake have their fair share of horny bait, but Eva and Snake have a lot of chemistry. (I seriously devoted extensive thoughts trying to think of some sort of thematic reason as to why you’re allowed to go into first person mode to look at her tits in every single cutscene she's in, and couldn’t think of any other conclusion besides that Kojima was writing this game with this dick in his hand strokin his shit or something IDK. if this is a bad reading of the games narrative then go ahead and make fun of me but i seriously think he was just really fucking horny) The scene at the end where they get about as close to having sex as they can on the ps2 feels rewarding, because its really nice to see these two finally have their happy ending … Or so Snake thinks. Yeah, speaking of Eva’s eventual betrayal, the end of the game is pretty crazy. I’ll spare the exact details, because that's honestly not really what this review is for, but it's super melancholy. At its core. Metal Gear Solid 3 tells a story of how the Government will do nothing but stab those who respect it the most in the back. They destroy at their own convenience, and allow the ones who did the most to protect be remembered as criminals. They will use anyone and anything as a scapegoat, so long as they can cover their own ass. There’s truly nothing like the ending cutscene of MGS 3, and it makes it clear to see why Big Boss ends up going against the U.S Government in games that take place later in the timeline. I have never seen a video game character have as much emotion in their face as Big Boss in that final cutscene, even with all the technological advancements in video games today. MGS 3 really humanizes Big Boss in a way that Metal Gear 1 and 2 couldn't. MGS 3’s story is an absolute masterpiece. I haven’t even mentioned characters who are key to the narrative like Ocelot and Volgin either. I could fluff this up a whole lot more by going into those two if I felt like it, but I feel like I've said enough about the core themes of this game and what makes it so good already. If you’ve read this far into the review and you still haven’t played the game then go and form opinions on the whole thing yourself.

Play Metal Gear Solid 3 if you haven't. It’s a good starting point for the franchise (although i think you should play 1 and 2 first, it's just not the end of the world if you don't.) and a phenomenal game all around. Shout outs to the credits song for being so good too. 10/10