Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/6/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Stealth, Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: November 17, 2004

Every Metal Gear Solid story revels in a hypothetical scenario involving the potential destruction of the world with burgeoning nuclear technology in the close future, but remember a time in history when this scenario was a reality? For those of you, whose high school history education needs a bit of dusting off, the Cold War was a long, tumultuous period from a few years after World War II to the very early 1990s. Relations between the western world and the eastern world during the latter half of the 20th century couldn’t have been more contentious, a feud between economic and political ideas with two massive oceans in between both sides. Several famous wars like the Korean War and the War in Vietnam were notable marks in the Cold War timeline, but there is one aspect that most people associate when the Cold War is discussed. Usually, discrepancies between nations would be resolved violently with a bloody, debilitating war, but there was a certain unforeseen factor that prevented this. We as human beings had progressed our weaponry to the point where they would not only clear away an entire battalion of troops but would annihilate all of mankind as we knew it, using the instances in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as grim references. The looming threat of nuclear devices kept any bloodshed at bay but only escalated tensions between opposite sides and scared everyone shitless. However, there were most likely tons of covert operations involving espionage that could have resulted in imminent death for us all that we mere citizens are not privy to. World history used to be the plot of a Metal Gear Solid game. The third entry in the acclaimed franchise offers us a prequel set during the Cold War period as what could be loosely described as a historical fiction piece that revels in the lore of Metal Gear Solid.

Metal Gear Solid was in desperate need of taking a few steps back after the disastrous endeavor that was Metal Gear Solid 2. One would think that Kojima’s clueless ambition from that game would lead him to attempt conveying the fucking Fibonacci sequence in the video game medium for the third Metal Gear Solid title, something that I cringe at the thought of. Fortunately, a prequel set in a time before modernism grew, that pesky “post” prefix potentially showed a sense of self-reflection on how to approach Metal Gear Solid’s narrative. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater moves things back a few paces, and thank god for the inherent past setting of a prequel keeps the series from plunging even deeper into the rabbit hole of technological progress. Snake Eater is the most modest of the Metal Gear Solid titles, using the eccentric espionage story that defines the series and somewhat trimming the convoluted, bloviating fat. It sounds like Kojima has gone soft here but considering the praise Snake Eater receives over every other game in the franchise, this proved to be for the better. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a more refined, mature Metal Gear experience because it tones down all of the properties associated with the series.

Metal Gear Solid 3 still grants the player a thrilling introduction that sets the scene and scope of the operation. It’s the height of the Cold War in 1964, with the disastrous Bay of Pigs ordeal in recent memory and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War still yet to become a decade-defining event. A helicopter flies above the clouds with the sun radiantly beaming on the horizon. A group of American mercenaries, including a familiar voice in a tight leather uniform and pilot’s oxygen mask, set a course over a remote area of the enemy’s territory in the USSR. As the man stylishly lands on the soil of the dense jungle floor, he unmasks himself to affirm to the player that the voice does indeed match the face. For the first time in the Metal Gear timeline, this inconspicuous soldier is dubbed “Snake” by an older British man. Snake's mission is to rescue a hostage by the name of Nikolai Sokolov, a Russian rocket engineer who is essentially an older, foreign Otacon building a weaponized tank called the “Shagohod.” Upon retrieving Sokolov from his containment cell, GRU commander Volgin and his sensei, The Boss, storm the rickety bridge they’re running across. To Snake’s unpleasant surprise, The Boss has defected to the Soviets and gives Volgin enough firepower to blast Sokolov’s lab to kingdom come. With Snake mortally injured after falling off the bridge and his “virtuous mission” a bust, he merely has more on his plate now in the hopes of preventing another cataclysmic war.

Diverse environments seem to be a consistent strength of the Metal Gear Solid series. A tanker facility set over the deep waters of the Hudson was different enough, but the jungle setting in the Soviet Union is the antithesis of the frozen tundra surrounding Shadow Moses Island. Kojima has formulated a fictional area of the Soviet Union known as the Tselinoyarsk, or colloquially as the “Virgin Cliffs,” a wooded area with a heaping amount of eclectic topography. The Russian jungle is a vast, humid stretch of wilderness where the shade of the lanky, disheveled, and an innumerable number of trees filters the light in their habitat like a natural greenhouse. Swamps filled with the thickest of mud will sink any unfortunate soul in a matter of seconds, and crocodiles the size of mack trucks will crush anything with just the might of their tails. Bustling sounds of chirping birds and screeching primates make up the soundscape accompanying the faint sound of Snake’s footprints rustling through the leaves and the tall grass. On the outskirts of the jungle are caves, rivers, canyons, and more temperate forest areas. One could argue that this wide range of topographic areas confined under the name of a single place would feel inorganic, but the journey-like progression most Metal Gear Solid games implement makes coming across each of these formations feel natural. Tselinoyarsk is the most beautiful setting in the series while maintaining that sense of disquiet and hostility to constantly keep the player’s guard up.

This wilderness also comes with some new stipulations never before seen in a Metal Gear Solid game. Surviving the throngs of enemy troops through stealth was always imperative in the previous Metal Gear Solid games. Still, Snake Eater builds on that initiative with a more orthodox context. Snake’s full code name throughout the game isn’t “Solid Snake,” as we’ve come to know him as, but instead referred to as “Naked Snake.” Sorry ladies, this moniker does not connote that the rugged, handsome Snake is scampering through the jungle cupping his junk with his hands like Raiden near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Rather, it refers to how unprepared Snake is and has to fend for himself to survive here. Snake is at the mercy of the elements here and needs to find the best utility of the wilderness to survive. The emphasis on survival introduces many mechanics previously unseen in the Metal Gear series, and they prove to be a constant challenge to adapt to. In the previous games, rations will be found all around the field as items that will heal a consistent amount of health, and Snake can carry up to five at a time. In Snake Eater, Snake’s health will replenish automatically, so has Konami forsaken one of the franchise's staple properties here? Not exactly, as rations will refreshen Snake’s new (or old) stamina gauge underneath his health bar. It will diminish slowly over time as Snake is active in the field, and consuming rations is the only means to alleviate Snake’s energy. But where are all of the rations? Usually, cans of god-knows-what will be scattered around the field for Snake’s convenient consumption. Snake now has to MAKE his own rations by butchering the wildlife that makes up the ecosystem of the Virgin Cliffs. There is a smattering of different animals to eat here, something expected from land as diverse as the Virgin Cliffs. The player must look meticulously in the unkempt grass and shadiest spots of assorted facilities to subdue his prey, preferably with his trusty knife. Everything from rabbits, crocodiles, vultures, and spiders, to every assortment of wild serpents will be ready to consume after Snake plunges his blade into them. Snake Eater as a subtitle is a literal instance of what MGS 3 incorporates and not a cool, ambiguous spy title, nor is it a sexual euphemism.

While the hunting mechanic is a requisite in emulating a genuine survival experience, I am still skeptical about its general utility in regard to the game. Animals are plentiful no matter the terrain, but it’s the new rejuvenation aspect of eating animals that didn’t convince me. Endurance simply doesn’t seem essential to the gameplay. The meter dwindles fairly quickly depending on how much Snake is moving, and his stomach will begin to growl once the meter reaches its halfway point. Eating each animal will provide Snake with a different amount of regeneration as he’ll naturally find some animals delicious, while he’d rather taste the vomit he expunges after attempting to digest others. The mechanic at least works, but why is it here? Endurance, or lack thereof, never seems to deter Snake. If I didn’t know any better, the amount of food Snake eats matched with how far he has to travel before his stomach starts to rumble again, makes him seem like a glutton rather than a man on the brink of his own humanity. Having the endurance meter at a lower threshold never makes Snake groggy but only makes his stomach growl as loud as the roar of a tiger. I’m not sure if it’ll alert the guards because I always kept food on my person, but keeping Snake hungry doesn’t seem to have any consequence. The food spoils quickly, signaled by a fly symbol to signify its rotten status. If Snake eats the expired food, he’ll get sick, and his endurance meter will plummet unless he takes medicine to alleviate his stomach ache. What if Snake isn’t hungry when the food is fresh? I thought preservation was the point of rations! Perhaps having these animal rations as healing items would make the game too easy, but what the developers decided to do with this mechanic proved to be kind of awkward and lazy.

Surviving the harsh elements of the Russian wilderness doesn’t connote having enough food. Once Snake falls from the bridge after his first encounter with Volgin and The Boss, his grievous fall introduces the “cure” mechanic also found in the pause menu. While not initially strapped with either food or weapons, Snake’s first-aid kit is quite abundant. Snake’s first wound as a tutorial operation will mend his broken bones, but the player will keep reopening the menu to use this feature for various wounds. Once Snake gets injured, a red sliver of varying size on his health bar indicates that he needs medical attention in the cure menu. A smattering of supplies will be at Snake’s disposal, and depending on the nature of the wound, fixing Snake up will either require a single tool or a whole operation. The “cure” mechanic is a relatively engaging feature that fits perfectly with the survival initiative but like with eating, its flaws aren’t as apparent as the eating feature. Sometimes, it’s uncertain what injury is severe enough to warrant pausing and mending. I’d get shot, stabbed, burned, etc., and sometimes need to pause and patch it up, and other times I could carry on with my business. Secondly, medical supplies might run low because of common afflictions like gunshot wounds and broken bones requiring many to heal Snake. Other than these minor nitpicks, the “cure” mechanic remains engaging after repeat instances. Bandaging up Snake’s boo-boos in the name of survival tactics is like a mini-game in itself. My only wish is that I wouldn’t have to play doctor with Snake so often and disrupt the gameplay.

The player will have to familiarize themselves with these new mechanics because Snake Eater, in many ways, is the hardest Metal Gear Solid title. In the Metal Gear timeline, Snake Eater is a prequel set several decades before any preceding title. 1964 feels like ancient history compared to the advancements of 21st-century technology. Naturally, this comes with connotations relating to Snake’s typical bag of gadgets. Because much of the technology Snake uses are inventions of a hypothetical 21st-century future, the tools Snake uses in the mid-1960s Snake Eater are either more primitive versions of familiar items or are omitted completely. The radio Snake used to conduct codec calls with various operatives functions, but the talking heads on parallel sides of the call were obviously a feature of a more advanced model. Instead, the person on the other end is portrayed by a set of four different pictures, and a blurred outline of Snake is seen crouching down to take the call. Cigars are in Snake’s inventory as the smoking apparatus to slightly illuminate dark areas as his health dwindles, now without a surgeon's warning because it’s 1964. Why is it a single cigar now instead of a whole pack of cigarettes? It’s not as if cigarettes were invented after 1964 as less compact ways to smoke, but I digress. Truly, setting a Metal Gear Solid game in the distant past makes the game harder because of the glaring absence of one essential feature seen in the previous games: the radar. In a series where stealth is the most vital aspect of gameplay, the omission of the radar that details the trajectory of each enemy’s sight inflicts the player with a massive handicap. Navigating around enemies must be done with extra precaution in Snake Eater, with the player scoping the entire field before making even one move to their objective. It doesn’t help that the AI is as sharp as usual and will sound the alarm at the first instance of Snake’s presence if the player isn’t careful. I understand that something like a radar would’ve been a glaring anachronism in 1964, but I could say the same for Snake's radio. Couldn’t they have produced a more primitive version of the radar with some reasonable suspension of disbelief?

The final section of the “virtuous mission” where Sokolov is held serves as the first major roadblock regarding the lack of a radar. Several guards roam every corner of the dilapidated facility, and Snake must sneak around them with only a tranquilizer gun at his disposal. The cavalry will come if Snake is spotted, so the likelihood of Snake defending himself with a paltry weapon is low. Snake also cannot run from the guards as the ones from the previous area with the bridge will also be on his ass. Rescuing Sokolov will also not take place if there is even a slight alert level. Stealth was never as crucial to one of Snake’s missions before this moment. Patience is a virtue and a more vital component in Snake Eater. The margin of error in getting caught is much smaller and will happen more frequently. While rescuing Sokolov for the first time took some time to get used to, the section of the “virtuous mission” was perfect for familiarizing the player with the changes.

Under a less gifted studio and director, stripping the gameplay down to bare essentials would’ve rendered the game objectively worse than its predecessors, but Konami knew how to compensate for setting Snake in the past. If the player is less advantaged by the regression of a prequel, the prime solution to survival is to play as aggressively as possible. One might raise an eyebrow at my suggestion considering Snake Eater is still a stealth game, and I previously stated that the keener enemy AI means that punishment for not being vigilant is stricter. Still, I would be doubtful if I hadn’t played the game either. Using the radar in the previous MGS games allowed Snake to reference the dangerous spots and the enemy’s range of sight to passively trek past them to avoid conflict, with only a few unfortunate, nosy guards whose curiosity will get the best of them. I figured that the mark of a fine stealth game was only using combat in dire situations to prevent one’s cover from being blown, and also figured that this is what fundamentally separated the stealth genre from the action genre. I needed to change my perspective to survive playing Snake Eater and realized that I shouldn’t fear the guards: they should fear me. Snake is now a predator lurking in the grass to slowly and methodically eradicate every threat in the area. Again, that eyebrow might be raised with confusion as to how Snake can mow down enemies without too much blowback. That skepticism can be resolved by delving into another one of Snake Eater’s new mechanics: camouflage. Snake uses a bevy of face paints and colorful uniforms to match the terrain of his hiding spot like a big game hunter does to his unsuspecting prey. Selecting the various camouflage in the pause menu will inform the player on how effective each type is at concealing Snake on the field. If the player utilizes this feature to its fullest extent, those pesky, observant guards will act like a confused pack of defenseless deer. Using the most efficient camouflage, hiding in the grass, and then scoping out guards with Snake’s diverse set of weapons always proved to be a delightful excursion. Once I grew accustomed to this, the factor of not having a radar no longer crossed my mind.

I’d be remiss not to mention Snake Eater’s graphics and presentation as I do with every Metal Gear Solid game. A new entry to the series wouldn’t be the same without Kojima’s cinematic flair that redefined the capabilities of gaming back in the early 3D era. Like the previous titles, Snake Eater displays a scope of masterful cinematic proficiency, along with cutscenes long enough to where the player could finish another game during their run time. Unlike MGS 2, Snake Eater is not a showcase of the series' graphical potential on a new piece of advanced hardware. Snake Eater had nothing to prove in this department, and it’s expected that the game looks exactly like its predecessor on the same system. However, it’s surprising that Snake Eater’s presentation isn’t as fluid as the previous game because both games are on the same hardware. Graphics are not an issue, but the framerate in Snake Eater takes a complete nose dive in quality. I was floored by the silky smooth framerate in MGS2, especially for a game released in the early years of the PS2. The framerate in Snake Eater is fine, but I see no excuse as to why it couldn't have been as impressive as the previous game. The argument that a game set in 1964 should feel more primitive is downright silly. One aspect the developers retained from MGS 2 and 1 that I wish they hadn’t was the camera angles. Players of the MGS series were used to an inflexible, eagle-eyed perspective, but it doesn’t bode well without radar to compensate for blind spots. The developers maintained this angle to preserve a sense of familiarity, but all it does here is unfairly screw over the player*.

So, Snake Eater isn’t a perfect game, but this is an unrealistic standard for even the most exceptional of games, and Snake Eater is certainly in that league. Toning down everything from the mechanics to the performance fidelity might make people question why Snake Eater is often regarded as the optimal Metal Gear Solid experience, but these aspects are not the refreshing ones that I alluded to. I like each entry in the Metal Gear Solid series and admire the ambitious gameplay elements, but the bloated, overwritten narratives tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The story of Metal Gear Solid 2 went so far off the rails with so much postmodern mumbo-jumbo and a violent jetstream of different plot points that it left me with an irksome feeling like I had just watched a communist-era Godard film. Snake Eater may uphold a plot worthy of Metal Gear Solid’s standard of a convoluted political thriller. Still, the base of its story relies on emotion rather than a sputtering of obtuse philosophy.

A vital aspect of any exceptional story is the characters, and like the previous MGS games, Snake Eater’s cast is just as varied as the regions of the Virgin Cliffs. Setting the series back to its narrative roots in 1964 means that this new crop of Metal Gear lore relics is unrecognizable to the player, but there are some familiar faces in the batch. Surprisingly, Solid Snake is not one of those characters, or at least to the few who have not been paying attention. The “Les Enfants Terribles” project did not occur until the early 1970s, so this Snake is not the one we’ve come to know and love. However, Snake Eater’s Snake is a familiar character to Metal Gear veterans who have been attentive to the long-standing exposition. This Snake is none other than “Big Boss”, the infamous American supersoldier whose warrior DNA was cloned to create Solid Snake and his less genetically concrete brethren. An endurance meter must have been the only genetic trait Big Boss passed on to Liquid and Solidus because other than that, Solid Snake is an uncanny, indistinguishable replica of Big Boss. He has the same wartorn voice, phlegmatic demeanor, bearish charm, and savant-like enthusiasm for weapons used in war. If this Snake is Big Boss, why isn’t he referred to as such? For the readily identifiable characters, Snake Eater is a “how the leopard got his spots” sort of story that elucidates certain things from the lore. Operation “Snake Eater” is the mission in which Big Boss earns his stars and stripes and Revolver Ocelot earns his place in the Metal Gear storyline. Yes, the sole recurring character in this prequel is everyone’s eccentric, spaghetti-western-loving Russian operative Revolver Ocelot. Here, he’s a fresh-faced, twenty-something-year-old whippersnapper who becomes Volgin’s right-hand man after he uncovers the weapon Volgin uses to obliterate Soklov’s lab. Snake catches him early on using Makarov handguns in the same fashion he does with revolvers, only to jam them. After Snake’s informed suggestion to use revolvers, Ocelot’s boss encounter sees him with several of his trademark revolvers looking as if peanut butter just discovered chocolate, with those cheesy cowboy spurs to boot. Big Boss inadvertently created a monster, and this revelation is great to witness for anyone familiar with this character.

Admittedly, Metal Gear Solid was never a series whose strengths relied on its characters. Most of them are only heard and seen through the visor of Snake’s radio, conversing with Snake about the mission, and Snake Eater is no exception. While Roy Campbell is probably old enough to be on a mission regarding nuclear devastation in 1964, Snake Eater treats us with a new cast of characters that Snake can only communicate with from a safe distance via technology. The role of chief commander that Roy Campbell has taken is a British bloke who can’t decide on a code name but decides on “Zero” for just this mission. Unfortunately for the player, Zero and Snake are all business. It’s a shame that the man who dubs this iconic operative “Snake” has such a bland rapport with him, unlike the Colonel in the first game. Para-medic is a young woman who serves Mei Ling’s job of saving the game and also uses her time in her cushy role to ask Snake about a myriad of different films. Her character is not as lively or infectious as Mei Ling, and she never gets the hint that maybe Snake just isn’t a movie guy. A black man named Signit, apparently the younger DARPA chief from MGS1, will inform Snake about various weapons (like gun fanatic Snake wouldn't know everything already). As neat as having another familiar character available for codec calls, I never found a need to call Signit and only heard his voice when he interrupted someone else's call. One impressive factor in the first MGS was how organically the player became attached to these characters, who were only seen through the moving still on the left side of Snake’s monitor. Still, the weaker characters in Snake Eater, unfortunately, do not efficiently uphold this.

Eva is the only significant character the player can phone in for tips, but her weight as a codec character is based solely on her role in the field. Her relationship with Snake is fairly reminiscent of Meryl from the first MGS game, but Eva is far more capable than Meryl ever was. Eva is a sly, adept soldier whose buxom sex appeal is as dangerous as her skill with a gun. Her sultry, seductive demeanor gives her a strong femme fatale role which makes her relationship with Snake and the mission all the more unpredictable. She’s my favorite female character in the series, and it has nothing to do with pressing R1 to stare at her tits once you first meet her or that scene where she traipses around a bonfire in nothing but her underwear. I never called Eva for anything over the radio, but her hybrid role only reminds me that in-person relationships are more bountiful than long-distance ones. In a series where the protagonist is alone on the field surrounded by nameless, armed droogs, Snake Eater offers some of the strongest characters that Snake encounters on his adventure. The monocle-wearing, technological genius Sokolov is like a foreign, middle-aged Otacon, complete with moistening his pants in moments of fear. Granin is another Russian weapons scientist whose fearful ambition for tanks to be bipedal makes him the godfather of the destructive Metal Gear.

The villains of Metal Gear Solid were always much stronger than the supporting characters anyways, and the villains in Snake Eater are some of the most memorable in the series. The most formidable foe in Snake Eater is Volgin, the Russian soviet commander and the main antagonist of the game. His colossal physical presence, brutish strength, cold-blooded personality, and powerful lightning abilities make him the pinnacle of Russian nightmare fuel that would make Ronald Regan fumble about in his sleep in terror. Volgin is unapologetically evil and is a mightier threat than any Metal Gear MacGuffin. From a narrative standpoint, Volgin almost seems comical as a threat, as if the developers concocted all the most outlandish depictions of Russians from pieces of anti-Soviet propaganda. However, Volgin always has The Boss tailing him on the field, and she’s a much more substantial villain. Her defection is a devastating moment for Snake, and the main objective of his mission to subdue her never ceases to upset him. The Boss, however, does not start laughing maniacally like Volgin or downing fifths of vodka in the name of Mother Russia. The Boss still seems like the benevolent mentor Snake once knew, and each interaction they have on the field retains a sense of respect for one another. The Boss kicks Snake’s ass into the dirt once in a while, but only as a means to deter him and viciously execute him like Volgin would. Her unclear disposition carries a sense of intrigue, and the player feels just as conflicted in eventually killing her as Snake does.

Villains with more narrative weight and substance in an MGS game are nice and all, but what about the group of superterrorists with different powers? Could a group like FOXHOUND and Dead Cell exist in 1964? Fortunately, yes, and the Cobra Unit is the best bunch of eccentric baddies in the franchise. The Cobras have a bit less narrative importance than the members of the other two terrorist groups as they merely support The Boss in her efforts to halt Snake in his efforts to hunt her down, but they all prove to be exceptional fights. Every member in this group is titled with “the” in their name like a flock of British Invasion bands, and the ending half of their name vaguely represents their unique quirk. The Pain wears a hive of hornets like a sports jacket and spurts these buzzing bees like projectiles as if he's a military-grade Candyman. The Fear has a distressing presence due to his long tongue, bulging eyes, and lizard-like movements. The Fury wears a black spacesuit and uses his jetpack to set anything in his line of sight ablaze with his massive flamethrower from above. The high quality of all of these bosses lies in their design accommodating Snake Eater’s hunter stealth initiative. Patience is required to scope out these foes in larger arenas and requires as much stealth as dealing with enemies on the field, making for more tense boss encounters.



This concise design is taken to the extremes with what I consider the highlight fight between the Cobras: The End. A wheelchair-bound octogenarian who is old enough to remember the days of slavery is not only the cream of the Cobra crop, but he’s one of the greatest bosses in video game history. Soon after fighting The Fear, Snake will make his way towards a sprawling, green forest with running rivers and steep cliff sides to find the old man vegetating somewhere in the grass. Before he decomposes, he challenges Snake to one last duel using every last ounce of his strength, which is more than one would think a centurion would have. The End’s fight is not for the faint of heart. The wide arena, a paper-thin margin of error, and painstaking search efforts for The End make it one of the most demanding bosses I’ve ever played. I was not sure if I could do it as it took me over two hours to put the ancient bastard six feet into the ground where he belongs, and that’s an average time for most players. I was ready to give up, but the victory I achieved after figuring out a method to take him down made me feel invincible like I could take on anything. Of course, the developers knew The End would be too much to handle, so the player also had the option of sniping him during an earlier cutscene or setting their console clock forward by approximately a week, so he dies of old age. Absolutely brilliant.

Snake Eater borrows a few new influences and accentuates some old ones. James Bond has always been a clear inspiration for the franchise, but Snake Eater revels in Agent 007’s essence. Snake Eater is set during the golden age of the Bond franchise, and Eva is practically the spitting image of a “Bond girl.” That bombastic orchestral theme and Snake Eater is the greatest Bond film title that never came to make it all apparent. However, James Bond only serves as a stylistic influence. The story and direction of Snake Eater remind me more of Apocalypse Now. Not Heart of Darkness, but specifically how Apocalypse Now shifted the story of its source to the Vietnam War setting and turned the story into a spiritual journey of the soldier on a mission to kill his boss. Along the way, the soldier becomes subjected to the atrocities of war as it gets uglier the more he ventures onward. A creative instance of using the wartorn odyssey of Apocalypse Now is the “fight” against The Sorrow, the last Cobra Unit member who was presumably dead. This eerie duel against the supernatural phantom is an unconventional hike, wading through misty waters as the vengeful spirits slowly attack every enemy Snake had killed on his journey. It artfully illustrates the gravity of war in an interactive medium like Apocalypse Now did cinematically.

Using Apocalypse Now as a primary influence also lends to the best ending in the series Once inside the hangar containing the Shagohod tank, Snake attempts to blow it sky high, planting C3 all over the place. His plans are thwarted by Volgin and The Boss, who discover that Eva has been posing as a spy and threatened to execute her. Her role as a spy was to steal Volgin’s part of the Philosopher’s Legacy, the convoluted plot point of historical fiction in Snake Eater, and a lore piece regarding the enigmatic Sons of Liberty. With the help of The Boss, Snake and Eva make their escape as Volgin chases them down with the fully-functional Shagohod tank. After thwarting him at the bridge, one could assume that the threat has been vanquished and Snake’s mission is complete. However, Snake’s mission was to kill The Boss, not to stop Volgin. Eva and Snake make their way down to a field engulfed by knee-high white lotuses near a lake, the final arena against The Boss. She gives Snake ten minutes to execute her and fulfill his role as “boss” in the best final boss of the series. Once Snake tentatively kills his sensei, he flies away with Eva to a base in Alaska. Eva leaves him with the shocking revelation that she double-crossed everyone as a spy for the Chinese government to uncover the Philosopher’s Legacy. He returns home a war hero, but the victory is a sullen one as we learn that The Boss was never a villain who defected from her country. Her name got mixed up in the media when Volgin bombed the lab, so she will wrongfully be remembered as a villain. Snake still respects her as he salutes her at her grave with a single tear rolling down his cheek. For once in the series, the ending had me choked up. The endings of the first two MGS games were corny and confusing, respectively, but this one hits the mark because Kojima opted for an ending that reflects on emotions instead of ideas.

I am relieved that Kojima listened to the vocal criticisms regarding MGS2 and used them to deviate completely from that game when crafting the next entry in the franchise. Setting the game several decades ago wasn’t necessarily vital in going off the Metal Gear grid. Still, the lore implications and inherent technological divergence did wonder for the series. The game isn’t perfect, as some new survival mechanics are awkward, and the presentation isn’t as spectacular as MGS2’s. Still, everything else is so extraordinary that the minor blemishes can be forgiven. Snake Eater has the best bosses, characters, plot, and direction in the series by a metric mile. Among all of these stellar attributes, the thing that makes Snake Eater the standout entry in the series is that it has a heart. Instead of pontificating obtuse philosophies, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a solid Cold-War era espionage adventure story with extra layers for emotional impact, and that’s all I can ask for.