Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PlayStation 2) Review
~by tankMage (November 2023)
Score: 11/10
One Metal Gear to rule them all!
I know giving a game a score of 11 out of 10 is well into goofy meme territory, but hear me out. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was lightning in a bottle as far as I’m concerned. The action is on point (even though it has its flaws), it looks great, sounds great, and the story is excellent. If Snake Eater were a student taking a test it would have scored 100% even though some of the questions were answered a bit awkwardly. With the test analogy in mind, Subsistence is like extra credit that adds to an already perfect score. Not only did Subsistence add extra content to the main game, it also came with an online mode, a bonus Snake vs Monkey game, and included the first two entries in the Metal Gear saga as bonus content. See why this game got an 11?
Every so often a piece of media is made where everything comes together in a magical way to create something truly special. This happened with stuff like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings and I think MGS3 is the video game equivalent of those films/books. That said, it is easy to talk a game up so much that it cannot live up to its reputation and I urge readers to have realistic expectations. While the story, gameplay, etc are all great, there are certainly a few flaws here and there. It is also worth noting that tastes and perceptions change, so do not expect something that’s equivalent to whatever current gaming trends dictate.
Story
Metal Gear Solid 3 is a prequel, which is often bad news in my opinion, but it manages to succeed where so many other prequels fail by telling a compelling story in spite of the fact that fans of the series likely already know how things turn out. Set in 1964 while the Cold War was raging, players control the original Snake as he infiltrates a secret base in Russia. His mission is to rescue a Soviet scientist named Sokolov who defected to the USA. Things go south for Snake pretty quickly as he meets his former mentor, The Boss, who has defected to USSR. The Boss stole a few Davy Crocket nukes and joined forces with Colonel Volgin, a Russian rogue with his own agenda.
During the confrontation, The boss nearly kills Snake by breaking his arm and tossing him off a bridge. Luckily, Snake manages to get back to the states intact and is sent back to the Russian wilderness to exact revenge on The Boss and prevent the Cold War from boiling over into a hot war. As the story progresses, the player meets a compelling cast of characters that range from a femme fatale spy to the deranged Colonel Volgin. Even Revolver Ocelot makes an appearance.
The story twists and turns with plots within plots. It is often hard to tell who Snake can trust let alone who is good and who is evil, though Volgin remains the central villain throughout the narrative. MGS3 also made up for a lot of the sins of former Metal Gear titles. While the cutscenes are still long winded, they are presented more effectively thanks to good script writing and an exciting setting. Even the codec calls, which I often dreaded in MGS2, are entertaining and far less intrusive.
Another virtue of the story is that it stands on its own, so even new players can appreciate it without a ton of background. That said, no story is perfect and there are points where things tend to drag along as well as a few inconsistencies.
Graphics
I can appreciate good graphics regardless of the platform they appear on. There are Atari 2600 games that I think look cool. Unfortunately, I know this puts me in the minority in a realm where everything has to be state of the art for some reason. As PS2 titles go, Metal Gear Solid 3 looks beautiful. There were a lot of PS2 games where characters basically had mittens for hands, this one has people with fully posable fingers. The character models also look great, though there is a bit of the uncanny valley thing going on with a few of them. One of the things that truly stands out is Ocelot’s gun slinging, which puts some modern games to shame as far as motion capture goes in my opinion.
The environments are often stunning, with some of the most beautiful scenes I have seen in a game. Snake spends a lot of time in the jungle, but Kojima’s team managed to make it interesting, with stunning water falls, ruined buildings, and spooky caves. However, some of the textures are really flat and low res, though this was likely due to the PlayStation 2’s limitations.
A tremendous amount of work must have went into the various uniforms snake wears throughout his mission. There’s at least fifteen uniforms and various types of face paint. While a lot of these are just re-textures of his regular uniform, they look good. They also have a very real impact on gameplay as Snake uses camo to fool enemies, which is a great way to make all those pretty graphics mean something.
Gameplay
Metal Gear Solid 3 is a stealth action game at heart. Players are supposed to sneak around, avoiding or silently disabling foes. Getting spotted will alert the enemy and they will call for reinforcements. In such situations Snake either has to fight his way out or find a place to hide. Survival mechanics were also added into the mix. While characters constantly needing to eat and sleep has become a nuisance in video games over the years, it was fairly novel when MGS3 came out. Having to acquire food and feed Snake every ten minutes or so can get tedious, but Konami at least attempted to make it interesting by giving foods different effects. Players can even eat the things Snake kills right off the ground after he gets a fork. Yum!
Snake can also sustain wounds that need to be healed using first aid items. While it’s a cool mechanic that adds flavor to the game at first, having to interrupt the action to patch Snake up in the heat of battle gets old after a while. Wounds heal on their own, which makes it possible to ignore them if you can go a while without getting hurt, which makes up for the problem to some degree. It is also worth noting that getting good and not getting hurt in the first place is also a solution to the problem.
Battling or avoiding Russian troops is a lot of fun, though the former is not all that difficult if you are good at FPS games. Snake gets plenty of weapons to play with too. Pistols, automatic rifles, grenades, and shotguns are all part of Snake’s toolbox. Some famous weapons like the M1911 and AK-47 make an appearance, so combat feels based in reality even if it mimics 1980s action movies heavily.
Speaking of tools, players will also find a lot of gadgets that help Snake out. Night vision goggles, motion detectors, and even cardboard boxes (which have some surprising uses) give Snake a lot of options. Many of these items have secret uses that players can experiment with and you never know how an NPC will react to something.
I also found the game’s layout and pacing to be greatly improved over the first two titles. Snake has a lot of ground to cover, but there is very little backtracking. Objectives also feel less like busy work thanks to the fact that they were integrated into the story very competently and there’s plenty of variety to the areas. Overall, MGS3 feels a lot more focused and cohesive than its predecessors, even MSG1.
If there’s one area where Metal Gear Solid 3 struggles, it’s boss fights. Many of the bosses are really interesting and some of them are among the best boss battles I have seen, but others are just way too easy. For example, one boss is an expert sniper that Snake has to try to locate before he can even fight him, which was a great idea and one of the best boss battles ever. Then there’s another boss that just stands on an island and shoots at Snake. Lame. While some of the bosses suck, overall they are all a massive improvement compared to those from other Metal Gear titles. In fact, the bosses get better as the game progresses, with the finale being one long string of boss battles as Snake blasts his way to victory in true Rambo fashion. Kojima must have been aware of the criticism directed at his past creations and worked hard to remedy the problem; even with the aforementioned chumps cluttering this boss roster, I’d say he really outdid himself.
Sound and Music
If you are familiar with my reviews, you have probably encountered my “modern video game music sucks” tirades. I’ll skip it this time and just say the BGM is excellent just as with all of the MGS games. I don’t know who does the music and sound effects, but I hope they have won some awards for being truly talented in a field that has become swamped in mediocrity.
The voice acting is also quite good. David Hayter probably delivered his best performance, though Snake isn’t exactly a difficult character to voice. That said, Hayter’s voice is perfect for the role and he seems to understand his character. The rest of the cast (who are too numerous to list here) did an excellent job as well and I didn’t find myself cringing at melodramatic Otacon style sobbing. Ironically, Russian accents were conspicuously absent in a game that takes place in Russia, but the voice actors did such a great job at bringing their characters to life that it doesn’t matter.
User Interface
The MGS series has a very unique UI that takes some getting used to, but works great once you learn it. Too bad one of the few real complaints I have concerns the otherwise great UI, which is marred by a rather fiddly inventory system. See, Snake has to eat and treat his wounds in the Survival Viewer, which is a fancy name for Main Menu. Pressing start to snack on a ration or treat a pesky gunshot wound breaks up the otherwise seamless action. It may even be necessary to do so quite often depending on your skill level. That said it’s not all bad and sometimes a cool film strip of Snake digging out a bullet or chomping down on a critter plays to add some pizzazz to the overall experience. The devs also give players ways around the inventory system, so good on them. I also found crawling to be a bit troublesome at times. Every so often Snake gets stuck and does not want to crawl forward. I’m not sure what causes this to happen, but it’s annoying.
Final Thoughts
I haven’t played MGS4 and 5, so I could be wrong, but Snake Eater/Subsistence is probably the very best the series has to offer. Sure it hits a snag here and there, but when it does something right, it DOES IT RIGHT. The final acts are some of the greatest moments in gaming and I hope they are something future generations are able to appreciate.
Recommendations
Wait you’re still reading this review? Why? You should be playing Metal Gear Solid 3! Seriously though, this game is amazing and an essential PS2 title.
Thanks for using my Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence review!
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