A huge crowd gathers in the Konami area, sitting around a giant screen and awaiting one of the hourly presentations of a new Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater trailer. I sit back and watch as the show begins, and the now familiar Metal Gear Solid theme begins to play. By the end of the presentation the crowd is cheering. Several old suspicions were confirmed, and some new twists were introduced.
The assumption up to this point has been that the game takes place in the 1960s, and that this Snake, who?s code name is simply ?Snake?, featured in previous Metal Gear Solid 3 trailers has been Big Boss. These assumptions have only further been supported by the E3 presentation. Gone are the days of Soliton Radar systems and nanomachines; this story takes place during the Cold War. This Snake uses a radio instead of a high-tech codec, and performs the first HALO jump in history. Also, it would appear Snake prefers cigars over Solid Snake?s cigarettes.
It also appears a younger version of Revolver Ocelot will play a major role in the game?s story. Well, unless that young Russian in spurs who was spinning his gun around and was apparently a member of a unit called Ocelot is all just a coincidence. They also showed a man who appeared to be the game?s antagonist, a vehement Russian patriot who appeared to have electrified arms. Metal Gear itself also made an appearance, though just for a brief moment.
The real question is, will the entire game take place during this time period? After all, all of the Meal Gear Solid 2 trailers and demos featured only the tanker portion of the mission, which ended up being only a small portion of the game. So we really can?t be sure whether this 1960?s setting will be for the majority of the game. Hideo Kojima, the series? creator, has said that this game will not be as heavily story based as Metal Gear Solid 2, but that doesn?t necessarily mean he won?t throw some really nutty twists our way again. Kojima has said that one thing there won?t be is any lame time travel element. While it?s probably nothing, the conspiracy theorist in me says the fact that there was one moment that they focused on a young officer who looked remarkably like Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 was not a coincidence. Meh, it?s probably nothing.
But enough about the story, let?s talk about how the game actually plays. The really big change from past Metal Gear games is that the majority of Metal Gear Solid 3 takes place in an outdoor environment. Gone are the straight hallways and sharp right angles we?re accustomed to navigating. While you will navigate indoor areas on occasion, most of the game takes place in a mountainous region located near the Soviet-Pakistan border.
The same basic gameplay scheme, don?t get seen, and control setup carry over from the previous Metal Gear Solid titles. There are three major twists to the gameplay this time around, hunting for your food, expanded close quarter combat, and the camouflage system. The first animal I ran across was, appropriately enough, a snake. Taking out my knife, I knelt down and gave it a good slash. It then proceeded to disintegrate, and left a ration shaped item to pickup. There will be many different types of animals and plants you will come across, each with their own taste and properties. If you don?t keep yourself fed you will suffer ill effects to things like healing and accuracy.
They have also expanded the close quarters combat with a new system called, get ready for this, Close Quarter Combat or CQC. It takes the basic punching and throwing from the previous titles and expands on it. It?s a tricky system and will certainly take some practice. It was modeled after a real life system of techniques used by highly trained members of the army when in close quarter combat against multiple enemies.
The final new addition is a system called the camouflage index. Snake doesn?t have a handy dandy radar system so he has to avoid enemies the old fashioned way. While you will gain some gadgets to help you detect the presences of enemies, you will mainly need to rely on your camouflage. You will have access to several different types of face paint and camouflage throughout the game. Different combinations will hide you better in different environments. For example, leaf camouflage is pretty effective when crawling through tall grass, while bark camouflage is better near trees. You are most visible when standing up and moving, while pressing up against things, crawling, and laying down help hide you better. Changing camouflages through a series of menus seemed a bit cumbersome given the frequency you?ll probably need to change. Hopefully there will be a way to quick change in the final release. You will obtain new types of face paints and camo as you progess, and apparently there will be some you can download online if you have a network adaptor.
Metal Gear Solid 3 takes the gameplay in new directions while keeping the familiar style of stealth gaming that has made the series such a success. I personally can?t wait till this baby hits stores in November.