bristle at the label that this is "the first postmodern game", not least because video games are kind of inherently postmodern. other than that quibble? simply one of the best video games that have ever been made. it never stops being cool as shit, the story kicks ass on so many levels, and the clinical psudeo-spaces of the Big Shell are my favourite MGS environs to sneak through. can't recommend it without caveats but its just one of my favourite games I love it dearly

it doesn't resonate with me like MGS2 does but it's hard to argue with MGS3 as a game design object. so full of systems and cavernous depth, but you can still bumble your way through it with naught but a knife and a box of poisonous snakes. the pacing of the codecs and cutscenes is honestly imo poor compared to 2 but other than that, this game is just a great time that gets greater and greater until it punches you in the gut and leaves you crying on the floor.

peace walker has it beat on cutscenes but otherwise this is my favourite looking metal gear. the bobbing heads are so cute. this is also probably the most tightly designed game in the series, where each encounter is expertly opposed by your comparatively limited moveset. the only MGS that demands you understand it's systems to beat it.

it is so fucking funny

personal fave of the 2D MGS games. have a lot of fond memories of bunking off revision for my A-Levels to play this on an emulator. still did well on those exams though so clearly metal gear solid for the game boy color is an excellent studying tool

i feel like a lot of the recent backlash towards this game, similar to fellow PSP franchise entry Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, comes from people who play the home console ports, and thus are divorced from the feeling of "wow, this plays very well...considering!" that came with playing this sort of thing on the hideous wonderful misshapen darling, the PSP. in the context of that system this game is a lot of fun. it really makes you feel like an international war profiteer.

plus, the best cutscenes in all of metal gear and it isn't close. the comic panels look fantastic and fit Kojima's writing far better. the story is also a fun inconsequential romp, until the postgame, which is fucking rubbish

the shine has worn off this game quite considerably but this was a real breath of fresh air at the time when the other big action game on the market was DmC: Devil May Cry, perhaps the only game more hateful towards women than Metal Gear. nowadays though, I don't see why I'd play this over any other action game i own

incredibly obtuse and frustrating but I'm glad I played it

honestly I do enjoy the main ops enough to put this game above some of the others, in the same way that others poured hours into snake eater plumbing the depths of its systems, I did with TPP. steam says I put over 100 hours into this and I can honestly say I don't really regret that time. that said it is so god damn padded with shite side ops and a weak open world. i have misplaced interest in the story due to the serendipity of playing it while on a student exchange program and thus coming up against the friction of language in my day to day life but it is Not A Good Story by any stretch of the imagination. the fact that Quiet feels less insulting than Paz in Ground Zeroes and the B&B Corps in 4 is only a testament to how completely dire MGS' treatment of women is

i just didn't really have fun with it, obviously a sick game for the time but there wasn't really anything there for me

just a trainwreck, honestly. the systems here are genuinely cool but they essentially stop mattering halfway through the second act as you get thrown into a series of increasingly tedious set-pieces. too invested in genuinely Servicing Fans in order to give the mean-spirited, frictional parts the bite they need. the beauty and the beast corps are hideously misogynistic even for metal gear. there are nuggets of gold in here which is why this isn't at the bottom but they comprise so little of the game for me to care.

honestly one of the most boring games I have ever played

absolutely wretched. a pure concentrated shot of everything that fucking sucks about Metal Gear. also Camp Omega is a seriously overrated level imo