Introduction

Metal Gear Solid is a huuuuuge franchise owned by Konami. It's the pioneer of stealth games and it's also probably the pioneer of games being interactive movies. It's a very popular franchise that's generally heralded as one of the best video game franchises ever. The main games are fantastic, with some side titles that are a little more hit or miss.

This September marks the release of the fifth title in the franchise, The Phantom Pain, which currently seems to be the final good Metal Gear game since Konami is currently imploding. The prologue to MGSV, Ground Zeroes, was released last year and it was absolutely amazing and I am super excited for the rest of the game, so I figured it'd be a good time to look back at the series' current high point, Snake Eater.

MGS3 is the story of Naked Snake, who infiltrated Soviet Russia to extract a scientist developing a super-weapon certain to give Russia an edge in the Cold War. This is the earliest point of the Metal Gear timeline and was a prequel to the entire series when it was released and has since branched out to its own mini-series within the franchise, following Naked Snake, as opposed to the other titles that generally follow Solid Snake.

Snake Eater, like I said, is almost universally agreed to be the best Metal Gear game. Following the confusing mess that is Metal Gear Solid 2, MGS3 brought the story back down to something sensible and not convoluted, by virtue of being a prequel and having a mostly blank slate to play with. MGS3 also refined the controls from MGS2, which were already a refinement of MGS1's controls, and allowed players more ways to sneak through maps or take out guards. Chief to this was the addition of CQC, or Close-Quarters Combat, which gave players more options for handling enemies.



I'll be doing cut/uncut co-commentary for this. Joining me is my partner-in-timecrime, Jobbo_Fett, who knows the general story of this game, but has only played the Metal Gear games that came out after this one. As such:

No unmarked spoilers!

I don't mind black bars, since this game's like 11 years old, but please be mindful of the few people who haven't played this game. It's great and deserves to be unspoiled.

I'll try to make one update a week, but I make no guarantees since updates are going to be really dense.

Now, without further ado, let's get this show on the road.