Still in a Dream - Looking back at Metal Gear Solid 3

Among the Metal Gear games, Snake Eater (and its enhanced version Subsistence) are somewhat anomalous. Metal Gear games have always fetished technology and embraced barmy futurism, but Snake Eater on the whole curbs these tendencies, creating a much more insular Metal Gear than any that had gone before.

The key factor here is setting. By placing the game in 1964, firmly in prequel territory, Kojima continues with his usual nuclear message, but allied as it is to real Cold War era paranoia, it feels much more cutting and pointed than usual. Winding the clock back also allows in a single swoop the ditching of the dreaded Metal Gear continuity, allowing the story and characters to stand on their own and develop without the need for referencing. The result is a much leaner, sharper Metal Gear, one which feels very focused and intimate. The jungle setting is also a clever inversion of the normal Metal Gear environs, allowing a more open and freeform play style while adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the game. Atmosphere isn't something the game lacks either, the combination of these changes giving a much more naturalistic, creepy vibe to proceedings, accentuated by the seemingly supernaturally powered Cobra Unit.

Speaking of the Cobras, Snake Eater features some of the most memorable characters in the enitre franchise. The Cobras themselves are standouts, some of the best bosses in history, particularly the near legendary sniper battle against The End, while Colonel Volgin is a typically, but wonderfully overblown villain. The appearance of young Ocelot is a real treat, his evolving rivalry with Naked Snake powering some key set pieces, particularly the revolver juggling torture sequences. The Boss meanwhile remains a fascinating figure amongst videogame characters, an adversary who is tied inextricably to the hero by the bonds of duty and loyalty. Kojima maintains his theme of soldiers as pawns here, but because the cast is much smaller and again because of the real world ideal of double agents and defectors the ideas of patriotism, the often overblown dialogue and the rammed home points here work much more effectively.

Ultimately, like the character it portrays, the game is a stripped back, bare minimum Metal Gear. But what this does is allow the fundamental  qualities that have always made these games great shine through. From its iconic opening through to its famous, heartbreaking finale, this is an example of a developer and storyteller firing on all cylinders. Although surpassed in technical and gameplay terms by the extraordinary Guns of the Patriots, no game will ever speak to the hearts and souls of gamers about soldiers and patriots quite like Snake Eater.