Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
Kojima Productions' masterpiece is an absolute must-buy. Seriously, go buy it now.
Published: April 6, 2006
A New Addiction
I've never really been a huge fan of online multiplayer games. Sure, I was bit by the Counter-Strike bug a few years back, and before that LAN matches of DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D with friends were a blast, but I never understood how someone could play hundreds of hours of a game like SOCOM. I now understand. Oh, God, do I understand.
Metal Gear Online is the biggest addition to Subsistence, as the lengthy trailer that plays whenever you put in the second disc containing all the new extras makes abundantly clear. Thing is, it's good enough to play as a game all by itself. Even though there are only five multiplayer modes, it's the lobby system, the interface for joining or creating games, the simplicity and smoothness of actually playing the games and the presentation that carries over from the offline game that makes it all so attractive.
No, scratch that, MGO is hot as hell.
Two of the modes, deathmatch and team deathmatch are fairly explanatory and work exactly as you'd expect with a few minor differences. In a free-for-all match, you can pick from GRU, KGB and Ocelot forces, and the player from each group with the top score during the match will pay as an iconic character from the single-player game. In addition to having advanced CQC moves, they, well, look cooler. Team deathmatch offers the same thing, though you have no control over what unit you pick, merely red or blue teams.
Sneaking Missions are Snake against everyone else, where one character plays as Snake and everyone else tries to gun him down as he searches for microfilm somewhere in the level that he has to take back to his base. Playing as Snake is a blast, mainly because you can throw on camouflage that cloaks yourself until you equip a weapon or finally snatch the microfilm. There's nothing cooler than CQCing the hell out of guys while they all run around trying to figure out where you are. Of course, the feeling of being hunted, or the rush of actually seeing a cloaked Snake running by you as you gun him down is just as fun.
Rescue Missions have the red team trying to protect a rubber ducky (if you will, a GA-KO) while the blue team tries to sneak in and steal it back to their base. The Capture the Frog (okay, Kerotan) Missions are nearly identical; basically Capture the Flag with an adorable little green frog (the same one you're supposed to find and shoot in all the offline levels) that both teams are racing to grab and take back to base (and hold there for a few seconds). This evens things up a little more than the GA-KO variant.
Again, it's not so much the modes, which have been seen elsewhere in one form or another, it's the presentation that makes it all so fun. Little stuff, like leaving your corpse and being able to run around as a ghost, CQCing other dead players, even make waiting for the next round fun. As I said before in our preview of the game, I don't know why the game is so good, it just is. It's more than just MGS online, though, there was an obvious effort put into making the dozen maps (most of which are repurposed from the single-player game with some subtle but great alterations) balanced, of incorporating things that are intrinsically Metal Gear about the level design, and then turning it all loose.
It's amazingly addictive, and for whatever reason, I now understand why people can spend so many hours playing the same few maps and game types over and over again. The real reason why this review didn't go up sooner is because I haven't been able to pull myself away from it. That, and I really want that 50 hours of logged time so I can unlock the Rumble Roses girls.
There is more to the second disc than just MGO, of course. Snake vs. Monkey mode from Snake Eater returns with new maps, along with the Secret Theatre Mode, which collects and translates the nine online and eight Subsistence-exclusive clips of model-swapped and outtake-style cinematics created by the Real-Time Demo Unit at Kojima productions as an in joke that became too popular to keep under wraps. Duel Mode lets you play against any of the bosses and major battles from Snake Eater both in their original forms and with special conditions like low ammo or health, all under a time crunch.
The real treat, however, is getting new, updated translations of the MSX-only Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake games that were never seen in the US. These aren't MSX ports, but rather updated versions of the cell phone editions of the game. They play quite well, and feature stories that, like Kojima's current games, are way, way more intricate and complex than other games at the time. Oh, and there are Metal Gears in both and surprise-twists-that-you-knew-were-coming-but-not-that-way galore.
I've never given a game a 10 before, and I can't think of a more fitting one to give the honor to. This is the game that PS2 owners need in their library, and a perfect example of how immersive, powerful and enjoyable video games can be when executed properly. Buy this game.
