"Eleven our of eleven is what this game truly deserves"

This game is the finest Kojima's creation, and quite possibly one of the best games ever made. It is a prequel to all MGS games, and gives a gamer a perspective how the whole thing really started, as there has been 100's of speculations. It explains a lot of terms found in other MGS games that has been puzzling the gaming community for years. This game contains two disk and it is also a re-make of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater the introduces a new 3D camera, online play, the never released Metal Gear I, and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Secret Theater Mode, Duel Mode, new stages for Snake vs. Monkey mini game and game connectivity with Metal Gear Acid 2 on PSP.

Story: 10/10
This game uses a references to historical events intermingling them with fiction. You are Naked Snake, a CIA operative. The year is 1964 and the world is experiencing the Cold War. It is after the Cuban Missile Crises and the tensions between United States and Russia are inflating the world population with fear. The government have send you under the direction of The Boss to USSR to rescue a scientist of the name of Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov. He is a neurophysician responsible for Russian Nuclear advancements and why Russia put a human to space.

Graphics: 10/10
Truly amazing. Textures of environments, characters are very well defined. One can say it really pushes PS2 to its limits especially during some of the gaming that quite honestly looks like a CS. And those CSs are magnificent, and captivating. Konami also gives you an option to see them again in a theater mode.

Sound: 10/10
Magnificent, from tremendous top of the line voice acting, great musical scores, environmental and weapon noises. You feel like you are truly in a jungle and one in nature and a jungle is where most of the action takes place.

Game-play: 10/10
This game takes the wonderful sneaking engine of MGS that we got used to over the years and improves it in every way. The key addition to the gameplay is the notion of a stamina. As Snake progresses through the game his stamina gets depleted and the more tired you get, the more impaired are your motor function, for example it is hard to snipe as your hands shake a lot. Stamina also dictates your life gauge recovery and because of this the game is structured in a way that there are lots of ways to replenish your stamina while there are very few ways to replenish your health points. Same applies to the bosses in the game, you can beat them by killing them directly or by depleting their stamina bar. To replenish stamina Snake has to feed himself, and this is accomplished by gathering vegetation, by killing or capturing animals (rabbits, snakes, insects), or finding noodles, calories and alike. Some food tastes better than other resulting in better stamina recovery, and some food can actually get Snake sick. When Snake is sick, he cannot replenish is stamina. Food also expires unless it is a captured animal, and expired food gets Snake sick. Another great addition to the gameplay is the ability to heal yourself from injuries, infections and illnesses. Your backpack contains disinfects, antidotes, etc. Yet another cool addition is camouflage. Snakes sports a variety of face and uniform camouflages which based on terrain enhance his stealth ability, and in some cases half damage, prevent enemies from attacking, etc. You can collect and unlock variety of them during the gameplay. There are two 3rd person views: standard and overhead and each view gives you ability to move the camera. Snake can go into first person view for better accuracy and while crawling. When aiming in first person view Snake cannot really move, but can stride left and right. Unlike other MGS games were weapons are DNA coded, here you find and can use Russian weapons. Snakes crawls, swims, climbs trees, hangs, gets caught in traps and can escape them as well. Besides awesome weapons Snake also has accessories and some of them are a new edition to the MGS series. I'm talking about the pill where Snake can fake his own death, then there is also a remedy for that. You have 8 spots for accessories and 8 spots for weapons that you can choose your favorite ones. Besides firing weapons Snake of course has sneaking abilities and he is skilled in CQC - Close Quarter Combat - hand to hand finding technique in tight places. Enemies are smart, and when alerted to come at you in waves. Saving basically puts you on the beginning of every stage and while the game is shut off and restored based on the time expired, Snake recovers. The gameplay is tight, smooth and glitches free. Boss fights are awesome and some even gave you an epic feeling.

Multiplayer: -/-
Unfortunately by the time I've played this Konami took the servers offline. I'm talking about June 2006. But from what I've seen, the gameplay footage it looks like a lot of fun.

Final Impression
Any gamer out there should not miss this game. It is fairy long and entertaining, 20+ hours. It holds a lot of value due to the unlockables, online mode, mini games and all different types of difficulty levels.
When you beat this you will basically say WOW to yourself and sit there marveling this masterpiece.
I'll give it 10/10 but 11/11 is more worthy.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/07