This new version of Metal Gear Solid is an improvement from its predecessor's mediocre camera and lack of online play.
This new edition changes all that. Now, there is a third person camera rendering the camera right behind you, and it is movable to your please with the right analog stick. The gameplay is basically a tactical shooter, although most people believe it as a stealth action game. Towards the boring beginning, you start out with a stealth tranquilizer where you can only knock out an enemy and walk past them to get to your destination, so if you get caught, you'd better run because you would die very quickly. Very soon, you would have your hands on some of the most powerful artillery in most shooting games such as an RPG, Shotgun (M63), SVD, numerous pistols, the AK -47, and well, many other countless weapons that would not require you to hide. Not much of a stealth game now is it? Well, even further, by pressing square on a body, you can loot them for ammo. Although there are some stealth commands in the game such as putting your back into a wall, close quarters combat, choke holds, interrogations, sniping and many other ways of getting past your enemy. Sometimes it would be best to use stealth, although it may just be half the game. The problem is that the game feels too much like a trial and error game, particularly if you are trying to sneak though the mission. If you get caught once, there isn't many places to hide and you have to just die so you can start from the checkpoints. Checkpoints are frequent and loading times can be galling and some people will get impatient. You can shoot through a third person just by firing a gun towards an enemy, although the most fun (not the easiest) is to go to first person mode and shoot from there, where you cannot move and just point your gun and shoot via first person. There is no crosshair which gives it a realistic feeling but it isn't hard to aim. The gameplay is fun, but unpredictable at times. There are camo masks and suits to further hide you whether you are standing, crouching, or laying down and the closer the camo is to your environment, the easier it is to get through enemies as they will not sight you. You also have stamina in which keeps you running, but is not your health. You can replenish it by eating something, where most of your food can be killed and obtained in the wild. When you are hurt, you cure yourself to rid of the cuts and the bullet wounds or your health will no longer replenish. Your health replenishes as you wait or by life medicine which is quite rare and given out sparingly. As you can see, there is plenty to the gameplay, it is not as complex as it seems, but it is quite fun and really great to play.
There is also an online to this game. The online is not the meat of the game, as the single player is, while this game is just to keep players waiting for the next and final game of the series. It is not innovative, just sneaking missions, where there is one snake and a few guards and snake must steal something and get to the goal. This doesn't seem right, it is not much of a sneak unless the guards in first person, they can simply see whats going on behind them and beyond in third person, rendering stealth useless. The stealthiest part of the mode is that you are invisible. There is another mode where one team must obtain a hostage, which is a toy duck or frog, and one must keep it for a certain amount of time. This mode isn't as cooperative because mainly, you wouldn't want to help your team, but get the points and get the kills. There should have been an overall point distribution to the winning team rather than the top people, because then instead of cooperating, they will go ahead themselves to get the points, which doesn't seem as fun. Then there is the team deathmatch and the deathmatch, pretty self explanatory, fight til your team wins or until you win. There is a ranking system, but it doesn't matter, since you'll probably not play the Online or get bored of it overall. There are no headsets but there is a keyboard capability, which isn't worth investing in, because theres no need to communicate at all with the players, since most of them don't have keyboards either. There is a manual way to talk but would take way too long. Online may keep you happy for 5 hours or it may keep you for 20-50 hours, depending on your tastes. This is a hate it or love it mode basically. There is also a duel mode where you can go back and fight any boss under restrictions or just fight them again for a high score. This time, there is a theater mode which has modded cutscenes to make you laugh, but while some may be funny, most are just not. You can also rewatch the regular cuts scenes. There is even further value of a Snake Versus Monkey where you fight Ape Escape Monkeys in certain fields for points. This mode is suitable for all ages. As you can see, this game is chock full of minigames and new modes as well as some fun cut scenes to watch. The single player is pretty long averaging at around 15-25 hours and you might just play the online mode for longer, or less. Minigames are a must, they are fun and just improve the replayablility much further. Battling old bosses is great and under restrictions change the difficulty and it's like playing an entire new boss. This game is certainly worth every penny of $30.00 and especially if you haven't played Snake Eater. It's been said before: it's like playing a new game with the new camera angles - and it's safe to say that it is. The graphics in this game are superb, very well detailed and the facial design of main characters are over the top. Everything is well detailed around Snake. There are very good looking plants and animals around him and it feels very like a jungle and when there are interiors, it really looks great. Guns look great, they all have a unique design and the character models look over the top. There are no blocky hand models and the cut scenes look even better with a minor change, making them look more resolute. They look great, just as much as they are to watch, as they are action packed and perhaps you'd be ooh'ing or ahh'ing while watching them. Yeah, its that good. The game is also coated with a top of bloom effect, where every single thing in the game appears shiny and beautifully rendered x2. Everything will look contrasted and a bit more shiny, which makes it look so fantastic. The game's sound is excellent. The game has birds chirping in the background and the regular sounds of jungle life. If you have surround sound, you'd definitely be impressed as it would feel like the game is in your room, yet you just can't see it - unless you are playing it via progressive scan and on a big screen HD TV, then your experience would be complete. The guns shooting sounds excellent and realistic, just as a regular sniper or an AK would sound like. The voice actors and actresses were superb and interesting to listen to, as the story line was excellent, easily on of the top ten of all time. The game follows you, Snake, a top secret CIA agent trying to rescue a man named Sokolov who has files that can create a super nuclear launch tank, although he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't want to die either. Throughout the game, there are twists just making the game more exciting and by the end, you'd wonder, did you just play a game or did you live it, or did you do both and then see it as a movie? The musical score is excellent and fantastic to listen to. Overall, this game is great, there are some gameplay issues here and there, it is highly memorable and replayable and you will love every minute of it. Its music is excellent, its storyline is past superb, its gameplay is left for improvement, but mildly enjoyable and finally, it is a must have game for every PlayStation 2 fan, and any who hasn't experienced Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence should invest in a PlayStation 2 and check it out.