Are we playing a game, yet?
By PaulEMoz

MISSION :Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
DATELINE: The first two hours of the game.

So, here I go, dropping behind enemy lines. But wait! Must get everything clear before I parachute into my dangerous mission…

Talk talk talk… Blah blah blah… ”Snake Eater”? “Naked Snake”? There are more double entendres here than on an entire Whitesnake album.

Blah blah blah… cheesy pick-up lines… blah blah blah… this guy is the most macho sounding hero ever, what a voice-over… blah blah waffle…

Hang on… the game is actually letting me DO SOMETHING! Rustle rustle… rustle…. ah, here’s my missing backpack… shit, there’s the radio. Blah blah… more waffle… blah blah… Christ, these fuckers can talk. Can’t I just skip this and get on with it? Oh shit, here’s my old boss now… blah blah blah… yawwwwwwn… ”Why did you leave me?”... oh, the angst… blah-dee-blah blahhhhhhh… zzzzzzzzzz…

When they say ‘slide it in’, they mean your knob.

Shit, I actually dozed off during that cut scene. Knew I shouldn’t have started playing so late at night. Now I’ve got to plough through it all again.

I’m not exaggerating, here. In the first two hours, you barely touch your controller. You might as well just go and rent Platoon and watch that while the opening scenes play out. At least that doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not, and you’ll probably enjoy it a lot more. Alternatively, you could load up MAME and play Commando, which is a videogame with a similar setting, except it’s all game and shows you much more of a good time.

“Nooooooo! Please God, don’t make me play it again!”

Being trapped in cutscene hell is not the end of your troubles, either. There are the shitty fixed camera angles that do nothing but frustrate (and no, the first-person view doesn’t help). Coupled with the clunky, irritating controls, you’re guaranteed to want to sling your controller in a naked fury.

But it’s not all horrible. Some of the action is decent, but at first it’s just utterly stifled by the interminable cutscenes, and unless you really love that sort of thing, it’ll do nothing but bore you to tears and you won’t want to play it any more. If you can get past the first few hours, the ratio of action-to-cutscenes improves, but only the most ardent fan is likely to persevere for that long.

Maybe there’s hope for this bloke after all.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a fanboy’s wet dream. You’ve got to give Hideo Kojima credit. He knows exactly what his audience wants. So, if you like your games teeming with homoeroticism, that attempt to deliver moral messages through obscure ‘50s sci-fi film references, and contain 5-minute action sequences interspersed with cheesy half-hour B-movies, it’ll be right down your avenue. The rest of us can desperately hope Mr. Kojima moves to Hollywood to pursue his film-making career as soon as possible.

February 2005

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