Man, what a ride. I wasn't planning on writing anything about it at first since all I had to say was mostly negatives that I considered to be minor flaws, but this game is great. Really, really great. Sons of Liberty was an interesting game with interesting ideas and themes to explore, so maybe in comparison Snake Eater might look like a simpler game in that regard, as it's a story about a guy who sneaks into enemy territory to eliminate a team of highly skilled warriors with a lot of double-crosses in-between and… look, this is the second Metal Gear game I've played this far, but as far as I'm concerned most of them are about a guy sneaking an enemy fortress, eliminating wacky ass bosses and destroying the respective Metal Gear, so it's not like this is the most original idea ever created. I mean, all of Kojima’s work is derived from other works (you guys ain't convincing me Snatcher and Policenauts aren't blatant rip-offs of Blade Runner and Lethal Weapon respectively), and Snake Eater is no different, as this is pretty much inspired by Rambo, and in particular James Bond films but lacking the extreme misogyny.
I much prefer the stealth system in this one as it's actual stealth and not so reliant on trial and error as the previous game was. Playing this in its original form with the bird-view camera overcomplicates the game as the environments are more open and you need to watch out your surroundings, so I am thankful for getting my hands on an original copy of the Subsistence rerelease, which came with a fully controllable third person camera that made things much less tedious. Enemies' camouflage blends with the jungle and they become much more threatening than the guy-who-spots-you-from-the-floor-above-that-you-couldn’t-see enemies the previous game had. You can also wear plenty of camouflages, of course, to blend in with the foliage and go unnoticed, but going to the pause menu to change camos on the fly kills the pace of stealth a lot. Spending a few seconds to check what camo suits better for the occasion every 5 minutes or so is tiring, it would be better if switching between camos took a few seconds for Snake to change clothes so it became less frequent and made the act of choosing one over another a much more meaningful and strategic decision. But still, this is a minor gripe. The overall impression I'm left with is that this is the better stealth system, as it relies less on pattern seeking and trial and error and more on the player's skill and creativity to sneak around.
The survival element, while an interesting novelty when looked in retrospect, is mostly OK, not bad nor particularly good. Serviceable for what the game wants, which is being a power fantasy and overcoming adversity. Animals lurked everywhere I went so even if some food I carried on me got rotten, I could just look out for more food nearby (and the Calorie Mates and Ramen, best foods in the game, never rot so I had a big reserve of both), and the medical treatments you can apply to wounds would benefit more if you couldn't just hit the pause button and heal whenever you felt like, making engaging in combat more risky than it is. I don't want to be like an armchair dev, but I just don't like the way these mechanisms are done, specially in how buried beneath layers of menus they are. The combat itself is improved from the previous game with the addition of CQC and a much more useful arsenal of weapons and tools. Unlike the previous game, using stuff like thermal vision goggles is not just a gimmick used for a couple of set-pieces but a useful piece of technology to walk around the jungle and avoid enemies. The environment is full of traps and whatnot so being careful and methodical is highly encouraged to avoid landmines, spike traps and holes on the floor. The jungle is hostile and it's represented very well, not by the local wildlife, as animals are just walking around waiting to be hunted, but by how the environment can disguise anything.
The story is nothing short of amazing. It ties some loose ends from Sons of Liberty as well as doing some callbacks to previous games because this is a prequel to set how everything began. The fights against the Cobras, even if they didn't have much build-up beyond someone telling one of them to go after you in one cutscene, were memorable to say the least. The game doesn't point to them as “the bad guys” and is somewhat empathetic to them in a way, something that makes sense after one revelation you get later in the game. It's never clear who are the bad guys and who are the good guys and the line between good and bad blurs a lot to give away the message about the pointlessness of war and does it in a more mature way that just saying something as banal as “MAYBE I'm not the good guy?” as most anti-war narratives (not only games) do.
Sons of Liberty was an interesting game that had a bunch of things good and a bunch of things bad, exactly like this one, and I like it due to it being a somewhat simpler game to play. Snake Eater attempts a lot of new stuff with interesting additions and overhauls a lot of elements from the last game, and I like it because of how it expands on all the previously built systems while adding new mechanics. Both are amazing games in their own way anyhow, and wouldn't exactly say one is better than the other. I believe a good way to measure if I liked a piece of media or not is to think if what I experienced from it will still remain on me long after I finished playing, and both games are incredible adventures to remember.
(Quick side note here: there's a character that looks like Raiden and has Raiden on his name but isn't Raiden that you can beat up and/or kill as a main objective, something that feels disrespectful towards the previous game. Much more disrespectful is the fact that there's a video you can watch on the secret teather that features Raiden getting beaten up repeatedly and sexually harassed just for the sake of it. This feels REALLY out of place, and kinda homophobic.)
I much prefer the stealth system in this one as it's actual stealth and not so reliant on trial and error as the previous game was. Playing this in its original form with the bird-view camera overcomplicates the game as the environments are more open and you need to watch out your surroundings, so I am thankful for getting my hands on an original copy of the Subsistence rerelease, which came with a fully controllable third person camera that made things much less tedious. Enemies' camouflage blends with the jungle and they become much more threatening than the guy-who-spots-you-from-the-floor-above-that-you-couldn’t-see enemies the previous game had. You can also wear plenty of camouflages, of course, to blend in with the foliage and go unnoticed, but going to the pause menu to change camos on the fly kills the pace of stealth a lot. Spending a few seconds to check what camo suits better for the occasion every 5 minutes or so is tiring, it would be better if switching between camos took a few seconds for Snake to change clothes so it became less frequent and made the act of choosing one over another a much more meaningful and strategic decision. But still, this is a minor gripe. The overall impression I'm left with is that this is the better stealth system, as it relies less on pattern seeking and trial and error and more on the player's skill and creativity to sneak around.
The survival element, while an interesting novelty when looked in retrospect, is mostly OK, not bad nor particularly good. Serviceable for what the game wants, which is being a power fantasy and overcoming adversity. Animals lurked everywhere I went so even if some food I carried on me got rotten, I could just look out for more food nearby (and the Calorie Mates and Ramen, best foods in the game, never rot so I had a big reserve of both), and the medical treatments you can apply to wounds would benefit more if you couldn't just hit the pause button and heal whenever you felt like, making engaging in combat more risky than it is. I don't want to be like an armchair dev, but I just don't like the way these mechanisms are done, specially in how buried beneath layers of menus they are. The combat itself is improved from the previous game with the addition of CQC and a much more useful arsenal of weapons and tools. Unlike the previous game, using stuff like thermal vision goggles is not just a gimmick used for a couple of set-pieces but a useful piece of technology to walk around the jungle and avoid enemies. The environment is full of traps and whatnot so being careful and methodical is highly encouraged to avoid landmines, spike traps and holes on the floor. The jungle is hostile and it's represented very well, not by the local wildlife, as animals are just walking around waiting to be hunted, but by how the environment can disguise anything.
The story is nothing short of amazing. It ties some loose ends from Sons of Liberty as well as doing some callbacks to previous games because this is a prequel to set how everything began. The fights against the Cobras, even if they didn't have much build-up beyond someone telling one of them to go after you in one cutscene, were memorable to say the least. The game doesn't point to them as “the bad guys” and is somewhat empathetic to them in a way, something that makes sense after one revelation you get later in the game. It's never clear who are the bad guys and who are the good guys and the line between good and bad blurs a lot to give away the message about the pointlessness of war and does it in a more mature way that just saying something as banal as “MAYBE I'm not the good guy?” as most anti-war narratives (not only games) do.
Sons of Liberty was an interesting game that had a bunch of things good and a bunch of things bad, exactly like this one, and I like it due to it being a somewhat simpler game to play. Snake Eater attempts a lot of new stuff with interesting additions and overhauls a lot of elements from the last game, and I like it because of how it expands on all the previously built systems while adding new mechanics. Both are amazing games in their own way anyhow, and wouldn't exactly say one is better than the other. I believe a good way to measure if I liked a piece of media or not is to think if what I experienced from it will still remain on me long after I finished playing, and both games are incredible adventures to remember.
(Quick side note here: there's a character that looks like Raiden and has Raiden on his name but isn't Raiden that you can beat up and/or kill as a main objective, something that feels disrespectful towards the previous game. Much more disrespectful is the fact that there's a video you can watch on the secret teather that features Raiden getting beaten up repeatedly and sexually harassed just for the sake of it. This feels REALLY out of place, and kinda homophobic.)