E3 2004: Snake Eater - Hands-On
We braved the perils of a belligerent E3 attendee and played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
This hands-on play was fairly limited, for more detailed MGS info, please check out the more robust preview we ran yesterday. With that said, here are some impressions, preceded by a horrible E3 story!
The thing about being a member of the media at E3, especially online media, is that appointments are an absolute necessity. With them, media types like us are capable of showing up on time and fulfilling our appointments with a company by seeing and playing that company's games. This seeing and playing thing that we do allows us to then scurry back to our cramped and stuffy war room where we pound out the articles post haste. Without appointments, there is total chaos.
We made our appointments with Sony, and we showed up on time because we desperately needed to play all the games, get the hell out of there, and write up everything that needed to be written up. Unfortunately, fan site morons also showed up. The dreg of society infested the boost and swarmed around the Snake Eater kiosks. After waiting some ten to fifteen minutes for one particularly inept gamer to finish watching the Snake Eater opening cinema, Sony PR led us to the front of the line and "encouraged" the gamer to leave so that the super busy media types could quickly play. He politely responded with the universal sign for masturbation and insisted everyone within earshot do all manner of foulness to his private parts. Irate, and with a nifty camera, he then turned and began snapping photos of our badges and faces (perhaps for some kind of sexual fantasy album). We were all more than happy to oblige, so we smiled in response and extended our middle fingers as a sign of mutual respect. After that we played Metal Gear and all was once again well with the world.
Guess what? Snake Eater feels exactly like Metal Gear. They are similar to the point where it could be guessed by a casual gamer that the titles were one and the same. Of course, Snake Eater is all about the addition and extension of a few new mechanics.
Camo works fairly well, in what little we've currently played. Switching between outfit types to better blend into the environment and avoid detection is an excellent addition to the experience and it helps add a little extra degree of excitement and personalization to the action and exploration sequences. Neat as camo is, we're not completely sold on hunting, however cool it may be.
Interactive animals and wildlife that populate the jungle areas we were exposed to are great aesthetic pieces, but having to backtrack or stray off target to seek out nourishment when damaged can get a bit tedious, especially if you're not the best shot in first-person mode, which is a necessary skill when Snake is hungry. From a different perspective, having to put some effort into seeking out food is a much cooler way of building stamina than just stuffing down medkits or whatever. It's ultimately a very good tradeoff.
So the game looks great, feels like Metal Gear, and adds some new coolness. Unfortunately, our hands-on time today did not include any of the wonder and coolness that was demoed yesterday as part of Mr. Kojima's presentation. It leaves us very sad, not because the game is even close to bad, but rather because it's so good and we can't experience any of that meaty goodness just yet.
One more thing of note, our very brief play test was actually largely dominated by non-interactive cutscenes and conversational pieces over the radio. We're hoping the story isn't delivered in such bulky chunks, but the opening sequences were less than promising. Press Select! Press Select! Press Select!
Now we have to go get murdered by axe wielding fanboys. See you!
-- Ivan Sulic
Quelle: IGN