The only MGS I like. You can finally use camouflage to escape a situation where you’re spotted, CQC is kind of cool even though it’s basically judo with a gun, and while the boss battles here have the same innovation showcased in the previous two, what’s different about them is for the only time in the franchise’s entire history the bosses finally don’t sit there and cry for a half hour about how they used to be good and kind until someone ran over their poodle years ago, they just blow up.

Volgin is an insufferable clown who has one of the most unbearable exposition dumps the series has ever managed to thrust upon us, but the Boss is super cool, and the final encounter with her is conversely one of the most impressive boss battles in the whole series (the SNOW camo? What in the hell do I need that for? It's already kind of silly the game is suggesting that there's tropical jungle within Russian borders, but now the snow camo... oh. Oh, I see). While the theme of "we're soldiers, we have no human agency, we take orders and kill and die, kind of sucks doesn't it" is flogged throughout all of MGS like a dead horse, it's perhaps applied most effectively here.