I'm getting it for sure. Reviews are really good and have got me psyched.

EDIT: I think I'll disagree with Penny Arcade's take on the game but it really made me laugh:

"First of all everything Tycho said about MGS 3 is right on the money. If you want to know what the game is like but you don’t want to buy it, here’s what you do. Go out into your backyard and lay down in the grass for fifteen hours. Every twenty minutes have a friend come out and step on your balls. That will give you a pretty good idea of what MGS 3 is like."

I just got past the first mission and i'm loving it so far. People thinking of buying the game should definitely keep in mind that you need patience to enjoy it. I'm just now getting the hang of sneaking around.

Can't wait to get back-- game of the year for me so far.

I thought something was wrong with the PStwo I just bought!!!

I'm glad I read this. Sometimes during the cinema's the audio skips

BTW: It kills Halo 2 in terms of originality and fun factor!!!

rented MGS3, it starts off quite slow but then picks up, its really a great game. The game looks amazing, something i would never picture coming out of Ps2, the story is quite good too, one of my favorite games this year for sure.

wow, i can't believe how much trouble i'm having with this first level. i just can't seem to get through it without getting caught.

anyone have any tips/strategies?

well said



I would guess many will experience this as you are just getting used to the controls and what you can and cannot do early on.
I think you have to dismiss the impression that you are going to be able to/have to get by 'all' obstacles in stelth mode. There are going to be confrontations.

One tip I guess that can be offered is when sneaking up on someone from behind don't use the analog stick but use the d-pad.

Well, Ive had it since thursday and am having a ball. Currently I'm at the boss fight with The Fury. He's the first boss to give me any trouble since Ocelot (the first boss), though The End took me an hour and fifty-two minutes to defeat since he is so good at stealth. It took me ages to find him every time.

I have the skipping but it's nothing extreme. Not as bad as the GameFAQs folks made it seem. Basically, if you have a 3001 model PS2 (like me) or a PStwo, the game will have some skipping during the audio and video segments of the radio conversations.

Oh and the audio is to die for. I'm also glad they kicked up the gun sound and explosions in general (though I still wish they had just a tad more "muscle"). And the score is far better than what Greggson-Williams (and the in-game composer) did in Metal Gear Solid 2.

Oh and try using the option "I like MGS2" for a neat suprise. I tried "I like MGS1" for now and was gonna wait until I finished the whole game to try the other option but I couldn't wait.

I played it, and I like it. But yeah it definitely takes patience.

Just beat this one. Is it worth a purchase? Yes. The production values are outstanding and the ending is very satisfactory.

Though CQC took me a while to get used to at first (I kept knocking everybody to the ground unintentionally), I hope it's carried over to the already announced MGS4 cos it was a great addition to the series.

I'm trying to decide what diffculty lvl to play it in.
I was able to finish MGS3 in normal mode. Except for a few boss fights, the diffculty was just about right for me.

Is MGS3 about the same lvl in terms of diffculty?
Is it much harder than MGS2?

MGS3 is more time consuming than MGS2 in the sense that you truly have to sneak around and you can't run and gun as often as you could in MGS2. I wouldn't say it's harder but rather that you must be more willing to sneak around patiently.

The Boss fights are mostly a breeze, though. Ocelot was the only one to ever kill me (several times) until I reached The Fury. But be prepared for a very long and patient sniper battle with The End. It took me almost two hours non-stop. On average it seemed to take reviewers a minimum of one hour to defeat him because he's almost perfect at concealment and sunlight replenishes his stamina and sometimes the forest will replenish almost all his health (he did this once to me during the fight).

The Pain is easy to figure out

So just play in normal mode and then try hard the next time around.

already?

Actually, if you want to start playing this game next week, you should pick it up now, put it into your PS2 and by the time the cinematics and cutscenes finish and the game lets you start playing it should be next week.

Make sure you're using the digital pad to sneak, and not the analog stick. Moving with the analog stick will alert the guards everytime.

Hey, guys, glad to see other people on this board enjoying MGS3 as much as I have.

I beat this game saturday and I loved every minute of it. I got it on thurs. when it came out and had fri.- sat. off. Played almost non-stop. My end time was 25 hours. WHOA! (I did take some time off on fri. to catch the Pacers game )

I have to say this is by far my favorite MGS game. I've played since MGS1 and am a huge fan. I played the NES MG when I was younger but I was too young to actually grasp the concept of sneaking and could never understand it. I've tried playing it recently through emulators but it's just not the same. I would REALLY like them to remake the originals, that would be freaking awesome.

I just hope Kojima-san gets off the drugs and stops talking about leaving the MGS series to someone else. He was born to direct this series. I don't know if you guys played Twin Snakes on GC, but I hated the direction of the cut-scenes. Solid Snake is a badass but he does not flip over doors and kick flip off of missiles... it's just not his style.

Anyhoo, here's hoping MGS4 doesn't take another 3 years to come out.

SteelgearX

Actually, I think it's better to use the analog stick than the D pad for the sneaking in this game. The D pad feels kind of cluncky when it comes to effective sneaking.

And what I really like about this game is that it's not all that cut scene heavy. Yeah, at the beginning of the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater there's a somewhat hefty bit of exposition but, for the most part, big drawn out scenes like that are rare in this game. You actually spend a whole lot more time actually PLAYING than WATCHING this game.

And as far as the story is concerned, I'm glad that ham-fisted Kojima seems to have changed for the better. The only exception was the first conversation that Naked Snake had with The Boss. I felt she expressed way too much regarding her motives so early on. Fortunately, that was the only time I've found a character to be so overly verbose.

This isn't like Metal Gear Solid 2 where, although the story was interesting, you were five steps ahead of the characters and felt nauseated by them debating everything and trying to piece together a storyline you figured out halfway through the game or Metal Gear Solid's overuse of anti-nuke statements.

He's really kept things simple in delivery but not so simple that they're not interesting. (I wonder if the third screenwriter in this game had any bearing regarding this better approach to Kojima's stories.) I'm really looking forward to another game in the series once I'm done with Snake Eater. But I do hope it takes another three years since I'd rather they not rush a sequel.

I don't think you understand.

The D-pad is used specifically for sneaking and the analog stick is not - that's why the guards will hear you if you walk around them using the stick.

Wow 25 hours! Quite a long MGS game. You could play Halo 2 twice in the time it takes to play through this MGS. Impressive. Looking forward to starting today. Also please tell me the story is a little easier to follow (no spoilers please) than MGS2 (and I love bees! Can someone please explain what that was all about? Listening to wav files and answering phones?)

Yep, 25 hours... I took my time, but this game was made for exploration. I actually gunned through some sections cause I kept getting caught. I got frustrated sometimes because I would sneak by two guards and some other guard I hadn't seen would sound the alarm.

As far as the story is concerned I consider it the best in the series so far. Intriguing, but not as convoluted as MGS2 (and I'm one of the few that actually liked MGS2). My wife watches me play, and she likes MGS about as much as I do. We both cried at the end of Snake Eater (she cried more than I did )

Like someone else mentioned, the ending is very satisfactory.

SteelgearX

Are you refering to the "stalking" function? Cos I've found absolutely no need to use it. In fact, in the 20+ hours I've been playing I've not so much as tried it.

Oh and the guards never hear me when I use the stick. I just press it gently and they never take notice of me unless they happened to see me.

Does this game have half a million cutscenes like the first two games? I hated playing for 5 minutes, then a 20 minute cutscene comes on, then play 5 more minutes, then another 20 minute cutscene.

Well I just finished playing and clocked in 26 hours and 26+ minutes (of which should be noted that 26+ minutes are from the ending since this game counts both the time you spend playing AND watching the cinemas as part of your total time spent on the game). The ending (and the whole story for that matter) was excellent - on par if not better than most films I've seen.

There are plenty of cinemas, kgrogers1979, but they're not like Sons of Liberty were your bombarded by a constant barrage of cinemas and Codec conversations that constantly interupt your actual time spent playing.

In fact, whenever I was greeted by a cinema in this game I was usually going "whoa, what the hell? How long has it been since the last one?" But, I warn you, the first five hours are the most story heavy. After that, the cinemas are brief and you rarely hear a radio conversation unless you prompt it yourself. The bulk of the cinemas is toward the end.

Oh and you'll adore the fight against the Shagohod. It's a most unique way of dealing with a giant mech in this series.

Hi

I just saw this on IGN website.

On Nov. 30th, Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa are doing signing in the LA areas.

GameStop Planet X
3216 Glendale Galleria
Space HU-3
Glendale, CA 91210
Time: 11 AM - 12 AM

EB Games - Universal City
Universal City Walk
1000 Universal Studios Blvd.
Universal City, CA 91608
Time: 6.30 PM - 8 PM