"No victory, no defeat. The survivor will carry on the fight."

Finally playing this after years of being told that it's a must-play for any gamer was almost surreal. I couldn't believe that it was finally time. Coming off of 2, it did take me a while to get used to the controls, but once I did, it was smooth sailing from there.

The gameplay improves upon almost everything from MGS2, and it was a pleasant experience that had me going back for more immediately after the game had finished because it was just that fun. Unfortunately, though, I do have to admit that I didn't connect to the majority of the story nearly as much as I did with Sons of Liberty. It isn't by any means a bad story; it's great. I was just personally a lot more emotionally invested in Raiden's story throughout the game than I was with Big Boss's. The last hour of the game is nothing short of phenomenal, and that entire chunk is definitely my favourite thing about the story. The story is a lot less complex than Sons of Liberty, and while I do prefer 2 for being more ambitious, I think it works brilliantly for the story that Kojima is trying to tell here, and I wouldn't change much about it.

The game does have a few problems, including, of course, the extremely annoying escorting section (need I say more?) as well as the overly-long bike chase (which coincidentally happens right next to each other). I can forgive these for two reasons, though. The first being that many game developers around this time decided to have an escort mission in their game. And two, the rest of the game is just so damn good.

In all honesty, I'm still a little stunned by how this game has somehow managed to live up to my ridiculous expectations that have been built up over the years. To all those people who have practically begged me to play this for many years, yeah, this game is actually pretty good.