I remember playing this game on my Playstation2 a couple of years back, but then I had been thoroughly disappointed because at the end the CD failed to work and I had to abandon all hopes of continuing my progress in the game. So I gave up after trying a dozens of copies of MGS2 and finally moved over to playing the third sequel 'Snake Eater', which proved to be a very entertaining and a suitable sequel or should I say prequel to the MGS series. Well and only after a couple of months I borrowed an original CD from my long time friend, was I able to play the game. It was as I expected of a well received game, great story, great action and incredible cut scenes. Although it beholds quiet some disappointments which you will probably get through unless you are a diehard fan of this series. Well let's get on to squeezing the juice. If you've played the game you will probably know why I have used the word "Surreal" in the title of this article. In fact the truth is the game is popular for its very bizarre ending, and when I mean bizarre, I mean like 'Un Chien Andalou' bizarre. For those of you who haven't heard of this nonsensical French term stated above, it refers to a very surreal movie made in France in the year 1929. It just lasts around 16 minutes and I promise you that it will be the most surreal movie you will ever see. I'll spoil it a bit for you so that you will definitely see it. One of the scenes in the movie shows a man slicing a woman's eye into two halves with a shaving blade, which is immediately juxtaposed with a scene showing a full moon night with a cloud moving in between the full moon. The movie only lasts about 16 minutes and the title of the movie translates respectively into English as 'An Andalusian dog'. This of course, the film being surreal, has no connection to the theme or the subject of the movie. Now if you think about it maybe Hideo Kojima was experimenting his game entertainment theories in 'Sons of Liberty' or maybe suffering from a crazy idea streak at the time of its development. Well any which way he must have thought, the game still is internationally recognized. Another important feature I noticed in this game is its fourth-wall breaking sense of humor. The fourth wall refers to the divide formed between the player and the game. For example a game never mentions that its protagonist is controlled by you, or it never addresses you directly. As for in MGS2 near the end the codec transmissions starts talking to the player telling him to turn off the console, mentioning that you played the game long enough and to stop playing. At one point it starts worrying about your eyesight. Talk about wanting to play a game by yourself (especially alone), this really freaked me out. Can you imagine a game that requests you to move a little further away from the television set. No wonder the critics appreciated it. Being the only game of its kind it definitely deserved a lot. The game also has a little hard to believe facts for being a very realistic game. In a particular fact revealing part in the game, Otacon reveals that his younger sister is the architect and AI programmer of a massive futuristic ship called Arsenal gear. You've got to be serious, a child with those skills, I would rate her as the number one threat in the game instead of Arsenal Gear. But then she gets everything straightened out and dies. Now coming to Arsenal gear, I know you're probably thinking that the name sounds deadly and devastating, but Hideo Kojima took the name into a more "literal" sense. Now Arsenal is the deadliest metal gear ever made, it's so deadly that it carries a vast number of metal gear ray units. This kind of blows you off by the fact that you were just planning to fight one Metal Gear Ray. But it seems according to Kojima the more the merrier. You end up fighting dozens of Ray units, three at a time. And make things even weirder, the Ray units bleed. I think this sort of calms your mind, that the bloodlust keeps you entertained for the rest of the session, or maybe it loosens you up, thinking that it can be beaten; it is human after all. This kind of gives you hope. Or the other side of this explanation is just to freak you out. The disappointing part I mentioned about is the character replacement from Snake to Raiden. Fans were quiet disappointed of this switch, but it turned out all right in the end. The surprising part is that you get caught in this series too. Not to mention being stripped to your bare naked body. This is a big feature in metal gear solid. Kojima shows you the pain of walking around naked and dodging enemy patrols that look like Samurai's wielding a P-90. Altogether a successful make and combination of untested theories make this game even more renown, like I said what gamer wouldn't like a game that talks to you, right? http://ps2media.gamespy.com/ps2/image/article/532/532018/metal-gear-solid-3-snake-eater-20040720021852496.jpg