May 04, 2012 If you have yet to play Metal Gear Solid 3, you are doing yourself a great disservice. But fear not, it has been re-released in the form of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, and now it.
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Snaking OnlineThe really, truly massive addition to Subsistence also resides on the bonus disc - and that's Metal Gear Online, a selection of game modes using characters, weapons and environments adapted from MGS3 to create a number of online arenas. Now, before we start, let's be clear - this runs on the PS2 Online service, and as such it experiences many of the frustrations with the setup procedure and so on that all PS2 Online games do, for some users at least. However, we're reviewing MGS3 Subsistence here, not Sony's online efforts - so we're going to dispense with all mention of the time it took to get the online service set up, and so on, and just talk about the experience of playing Subsistence online.That experience is worth talking about, too - because it's almost uniformly excellent. You may not expect it from a Japanese developer - and we have to confess that we didn't, really - but what Kojima Productions has created here is actually an extremely competent and well-balanced online shooter, which successfully combines the sneaking and manoeuvring of Metal Gear Solid with the kind of action that we've all come to expect from online shoot-'em-ups.There are five core modes to the online game, each of which supports up to eight players.
Deathmatch and team deathmatch are the two most basic modes, and by far the least interesting - they offer little opportunity to play around with the additional movement and sneaking abilities which Metal Gear offers over other shoot-'em-ups, and the action feels very random and disjointed due to the realistic levels of damage inflicted by weaponry. The other three modes are Capture Mission, Rescue Mission, and Sneaking Mission - each of which offers a very different style of gameplay and a very different challenge to players.Capture Mission and Rescue Mission are both team-based games; the former sees each team trying to grab an objective item (a cute toy frog, actually) and drag it back to their base for as long as possible, while in the latter, one team is tasked with defending a rubber duck while the other team attempts to grab it and bring it back to their base. Although the two play modes sound quite similar, the tactics involved in each one are quite different - rescue mission is particularly interesting, because not only does it clearly define an attacking and a defending team, it also adopts the Counter-Strike mechanic of killing players permanently, so if you die, you sit out until the next round.In each mode, you have a variety of very typically MGS moves available to you. The new camera (the third person one we talked about only a few brief paragraphs ago) is the default view, but you drop into first-person mode to aim and fire - an interesting mechanic which slows the game down appreciably and makes everything a bit more tactical than the frantic bullet-spray of something like Counter-Strike. You can also crawl around in the lush foliage which the game lifts from MGS3's various jungle stages, flatten yourself against walls to reduce your profile, camouflage yourself (which works surprisingly well against human adversaries, actually) and even hide in a cardboard box (which doesn't, because everyone just develops a psychotic habit of shooting the hell out of every cardboard box in sight) or drop porn mags to distract enemies (actually, this worked more than once, which is an unexpected bonus of the 'my god, is everyone in this game a 14-year-old with ADHD and Tourettes?' Online gaming syndrome).The final mode in the online game is particularly interesting, because it pits one player against all of the others in a sneaking mission - where one player is 'it', and plays Snake, while all of the others attempt to prevent him from grabbing a roll of microfilm and escaping with it before the timer runs out. Sounds a bit unbalanced, but actually, the odds are stacked quite evenly, because Snake is capable of camouflaging himself so effectively that he appears to be invisible when he's not holding either the film or a weapon.
Obviously, you can all take turns at playing Snake in this scenario, and it's a particularly fun one to play if you can't get the numbers together for a decent team game of Capture or Rescue.One crucial element of the multiplayer which Metal Gear Online gets very, very right is the wealth of options available to players, with the setup of your matches being incredibly customisable. If you're settling in to play with friends for a while, for example, a really useful option is the ability set up a playlist of scenarios which you work through - thus saving you from setting up a new game every time the old one finishes.
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The ability to see persistent statistics of your various accomplishments is also nice, and the game tracks everything in minute detail, giving reams of stats to look through when you're finished playing. Snake EatenThe final disc in the box is the least interesting - included as a bonus disc in the special edition of Subsistence in the USA, but available to everyone who buys it in Europe, it's a DVD with re-cut versions of the cut-scenes of the game, allowing you to effectively watch it as a somewhat disjointed movie. You also get the MGS4 footage from TGS 2005, which is nice - but then again, if you're a fan of the game you'll have seen that a dozen times already. Not terribly exciting, in other words, but a nice bonus disc to have.The real question, then, is whether all of this justifies going out and buying Metal Gear Solid 3 again - to which the answer is 'probably not'. If the online modes appeal to you - and they really are very good fun, although obviously it helps if you have some friends to play against rather than hunting for pick-up games - then it's not a bad investment, and if you've never played MGS3 before it's a must-buy.
That's what we've made our final judgement based on; while this may not be great value for someone who paid full price for the game previously, for collectors, online gaming fans or people who haven't played MGS3, this is absolutely the definitive version of one of the finest games on the PlayStation 2. If MGS3 scraped very close to a nine, then the addition of online modes and the vastly improved camera in Subsistence easily pushes it past that point in pure quality terms - but as a caveat to the dizzyingly high score, we would point out that the original game can, of course, be picked up cheaply now.
Put it like this - if price is a big issue for you, then buying a two-year-old game with bonus content and a better camera for full price will probably sting. But if you simply want the best possible experience of one of the best games of the current generation, then this is the only option.9/10.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience is launching this week on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and it will include both The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes on a single disc for $50. $40 on the PC!
I won't go into the argument of it not having the phantom Mission 51 and can't be considered definitive because of its absence. By today's standard practices, repackaging two games onto a single disc and selling it all over again is the bare minimum a bundle needs to be called 'Definitive.' By the standards from a decade ago, it's downright pitiful, and we have Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence to thank for setting such a high bar.For those who don't remember, after their success, former Metal Gear Solid producer Hideo Kojima went back and retooled both of his PlayStation 2 games for a much more complete package. Today, we're going to mostly talk about Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, but I just wanted to point out that he included a Tony Hawk Pro Skater inspired mini-game in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance.Anyone who complains about zombies and how they have no purpose in a Metal Gear game, I give you exhibit A.
Substance proved to be a good subtitle for this package because unlike modern Definitive Editions, this actually had it.Likewise, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence is not merely a smattering of bonus material on top of an already excellent game, it's a complete retooling from head to toe about how to approach that game in a way that makes much more sense.Released in 2004, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was met with universal acclaim and is often seen as the high point of the legendary series. However, if anybody found something to gripe about, it was the confusing control scheme.
I can't remember exactly how it worked since it's been so long since I last used it. I think it required a ridiculous combination of three buttons to properly aim the gun and rather than push a fourth one to pull the trigger, gamers had to release one of the buttons instead, no doubt leading to many unintended headshots.Sorry about that man ouch.Another gripe many had was with the camera and how it hovered above Snake constantly and never allowed players to get down and feel like they were part of the game. Sentimentalists argued that this is what separated Metal Gear from the rest of the action crowd and that it should only be played this way since it channeled the experiences from the original MSX Metal Gear games.
However, Kojima would prove each and every one of them wrong no less than two years later.By 2005, third-person shooters were a much more involved experience. Dual-analog had been standardized, controlling shooters became much easier, and rather than let his masterpiece become a relic of the past, Kojima updated it to feel more modern than ever. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence's main contribution to the game was completely overhauling its control scheme, bringing a much more up-to-date feel to the experience and being far more accessible than ever before. Those accidental headshots became a thing of the past now that aiming was as simple as if Master Chief or Leon Kennedy were doing it.The improvement provided enough clout to shut up the traditionalists about Metal Gear Solid being supposed to have complicated control schemes, and dual-analog has been with the series ever since. Some might argue that it makes Metal Gear Solid 3 easier and slightly repetitive since Snake only needs to look straight forward to properly sneak, making the game's excellent camouflage system much less important, but I disagree. Metal Gear Solid 3 only jumps up a few notches with the improved control scheme.Can you imagine such an overhaul these days?
If it did happen, the new controls would come through a major patch, and it would be involuntary so that everyone would be playing on an even keel. Half of the Internet would explode in protest. However, in the mid-2000s, we embraced the new control scheme so easily because, yes, it came alongside a full release that included many goodies.First and foremost, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence finally brought good versions of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake to North America. They are not true ports of the games, but they are close enough in their authenticity to provide the closest experience. Before that, the only game we had in North America was the NES version of Metal Gear, which is a pretty horrible port.
Some will swear by it since they have leftover nostalgia from the NES days, but there is no going back once you play the real deal.And we never even got any version of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake in North America, so this bundle granted it a North American debut for enthusiasts everywhere!Let's not forget that the bundle didn't include just simple bonus missions, either. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence invented the idea of online gameplay with the very first version of Metal Gear Online! Imagine a third-person shooter launching nowadays with no multiplayer, and it only became it available as a bonus in a Definitive Edition a year or two after the game's release! That's insane, but for Metal Gear Solid 3, this didn't need to happen.
It was just a nice gesture and an example of Kojima trying to keep up with the times.And yes, again, if zombies are too much for you in the Metal Gear Solid universe, I present you with exhibit B monkeys! Who ever thought of an Ape Escape crossover with Metal Gear Solid was a sheer genius.
It was probably Kojima after all, but still, this mini-game is now among the pinnacle of all mini-games, and other developers should be wracking their brains trying to match its creativity and excellence.Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence also included a cutscene viewer in which players could rewatch their favorite scenes when they unlocked. It's a nice feature, but as always with Hideo Kojima, it had to go to some new places not found in the main game, like this classic example of his twisted sense of humor.Man, this guy really wants that handshake. Metal Gear Solid 3:Subsistence is still available today and better than ever thanks to an HD overhaul. You'll need to play it on the PlayStation 3, and I have full confidence in saying that if Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Edition wants to use the 'D-word' in its title, it would have to include both Substance and Subsistence tucked away somewhere inside of it.Why? Because that's exactly what Subsistence did with the original Metal Gear games.I'm not disparaging Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Edition, though.
It's a product of its time, and if you have yet to play the game, it's now the best way to do so. I realize that Hideo Kojima is no longer around to pour his soul into making it truly definitive, and I understand why Konami would like to crank this out quickly and wash their hands of the title once and for all.However, given all that we've seen from Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, I can't help but feel a pang of disappointment that this couldn't be a bigger event. It's not often a remaster becomes the stuff of legends, but in its case, it truly was.
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