Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

First off this is my first Metal Gear Solid game, so I went in with no expectations and no prejudices (shame on anybody who says "buy the HD collection instead", I don't own an Xbox or PS3 so hush). Don't listen to anybody who tries to tell you otherwise: if you own a 3DS this game is a MUST.

The story drives this game. Every character is believable and not once did I question the reality of the world. The immersion is excellent. The conversations using the radio are well done. The cut-scenes are excellent as is the voice acting. I literally could not put my 3DS down because every moment begot an even more intriguing moment until the very end. The humor is dead-on especially during the radio chats with Para-Medic. The scenes between EVA and Snake create an almost tangible sexual tension that contrasts well with the urgency of operation Snake Eater. The Bosses are THE best bosses I have faced in a game. Although I did curse Volgin (several hundred times :P) while fighting him on top of the Shagohod, none of the bosses felt cheaply over-powered. A lot of thought went into each boss and the fight for each is fought very differently and this dynamic feel keeps the game fresh throughout. I only had two hang-ups with my first play-through. The first was that the framerate would drop quite a bit during some boss fights, but this wasn't a large issue at all, just something to know ahead of time. The second was that fighting CQC felt so awkward. Basically any time alert phase started and I had to fight face to face it, it turned into me rolling around into the guards and running around, rather than being able to tactfully take the guards down.

The 3D in this game works well. Really well. Switching between 2D and 3D really made me see how flat the game is without that slider turned on full. While the textures aren't all that great, they hold up and overall the game in its entirety looks great. Playing in 3D enhances the immersion and makes the game look better, while 2D simply seemed to exacerbate some of the low resolution textures. There was one moment that was especially memorable in 3D. During a cut-scene there's a guard standing at the bottom of the room where the Shagohod is: you could literally see the enormity of the room in contrast to this small and almost meaningless person. The room and the guard were two separate entities: the guard was INSIDE of the room. I quickly switched to 2D and then back to 3D because in 2D it was just this flat image rather than a room full of objects and people. There were some moments where lip syncing seemed off in the animations, but that's just nit-picking and it didn't bother me at all; it's just something to know (besides I was to busy holding R to look at EVA's chest to be paying attention to her mouth XD) For me, however, I enjoyed the look of the game and felt they held up well, again especially in 3D.

I purchased the circle pad pro with this game knowing fully well that I (being a camera control freak) needed a more precise method than buttons. What a great choice this was. The second analogue stick works extremely well (I tweaked the sensitivities for all the options such as first person and third person camera speed and circle pad sensitivity). Anybody who says the game doesn't control well is lazy and didn't adjust the settings to tailor the controls to their liking. That said, the gun-play held up damn well during stealth take-downs and I never had too much trouble aiming, that is until the end. This was only because shooting fast moving objects (guards on motorcycles chasing you down while trying to escape them etc.) wasn't introduced until the very end, so I'd say it was more of an issue of unfamiliarity rather than bad controls. The touch screen controls all made sense (although it WOULD have been cool to have a trauma center-esque mode for curing injuries, but that's neither here nor there). Moving works well switching between crouching, standing, and the prone position works well (unless you panic and get flustered during alert phases as I did when I first started) and rolling works well too (just make sure you time your button press well or the Shagohad WILL hit you :P). Jokes aside, I would rate the controls as good, but not great: they work well but probably not quite as good as a console.

Don't be fooled, this is by far one of the best games I've ever played. I didn't play the original, so this is my first experience with this game. I found the cinematography feel to work perfectly and the poignant Snake Eater theme tugged on my heart-strings at the end in the epic battle amongst the white flowers. Go ahead buy the HD collection, but you know what? Buy this too. I think it'd be safe to a assume that playing in this 3D world is an experience unrivaled on any other system. Even if only for the 3D alone (the 3D is done oh so beautifully). Even more, even if only to experience the deep and engrossing story. Even if you've played this game before and ESPECIALLY if you haven't: play this game. This was an adventure that was quite unlike any other. For every flaw this game has ten great moments come.