Snake Eater


Snake’s back in MGS3. Or is he?

The latest Metal Gear game is almost upon us. Once again, players will be injected into the combat boots of super agent Solid Snake as he once again takes on a mission of utmost importance, international espionage, impenetrable conspiracy gobbledygook, eccentric villains and the titular giant mech waiting in the wings.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater takes some different roads from the past MGS games. For one, the game is set mostly in the outdoors, specifically in some pretty thick jungles. In addition to battling balaclava-clad soldiers, Snake has to deal with the local wildlife, deadly booby traps and the challenge of keeping alive and regaining health by hunting and eating some of the local fauna.
But of course, despite having new gameplay mechanics gleaned from some survivalist handbook, MGS3 still has your requisite heavy-handed plot, complete with hours of codec communications, non-interactive cinematics and dramatic dialogue.


The beautiful and mysterious Boss.

There’s a new cast of characters, including new main villain Volgin, a beautiful but cold female soldier known as The Boss (who seems to be Snake’s former mentor), new love interest Eva and the token scientist in peril, Sokolov. Snake Eater’s equivalent to Foxhound is Cobra group, an odd group of misfit characters which include guys with names like The Fear, The End, The Sorrow, The Pain and The Fury. The HELL? Who does these names? Well, lucky for us ol’ Revolver Ocelot makes an appearance, as his younger self. Yep, since MGS3 is set in the 60s, Ocelot is a young, arrogant Soviet soldier who has a particular affinity for pistols. How he eventually starts liking six-shooters and cowboy boots may be explained in this game.

Now, with the game being set in the 60s (with Snake being sent in to stop a planned coup by Volgin and The Boss to upset the balance of power in Russia with nukes and the new/old Metal Gear), we therefore are wondering WHY Snake is there. Is the Snake in Snake Eater the same Solid Snake in the previous MGS games? Or is the main character actually Big Boss, the father of good ol’ Solid, Liquid and Solidus Snake?

I am thinking perhaps Time Travel may have something to do with the whole thing. Or maybe I could be wrong. Well, anything is possible with MGS, that’s for sure. The only way to find out is to play the game when it comes out on PS2 in the next couple of weeks.