Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

A new review! A couple-a days late mate, but that's ok. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a remaster of one of the best games of all time. One of my favourite games ever, it sits in my 'pantheon'. People ask me all the time what 'the best game' is, because they figure I must know. MGS3:Snake Eater is among the Top 5, so it often gets a mention. There has been a spate of great remakes and remasters lately, so I was excited to see what could be done with one of my favourite games ever. I bought the super special 'play it early' edition despite my general abhorrence for that sort of thing. I went and found my old PS2 copy of the game, and the soundtrack CD I own. The Snake Eater theme song, which I know all the words to, looped over and over in my head for days. It's looping there now. It is an earworm I am familiar with, an old friend come back to visit once more. So let's review it. And because I enjoyed the format last time, let's do it as a chooseable path adven-Fuck it. Let's do it as a Choose Your Own Adventure again. [[How would you like your review today?]]

[[Just give me the score.]] [[Your usual horseshit please]] [[Gameplay only!]] [[Story only!]] [[Letterboxd Review please]] [[Why are you doing the same thing again?]]

7/10 [[Wait no cool options this time?]] [[LOL are you meming with this number?]]

I live to serve, master. [[Joaby's review of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater]]

Straight to the point! Here you go! [[Joaby's Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater Review: Gameplay Only Edition]]

Ahh yes. Did you endure my Death Stranding 2 review? [[No.]] [[Yes, unfortunately.]]

# ''Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater'' 2025 ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ finally a game about a war between russia and the united states [[🩶 Like review]] [[ Three Stars Seems Low?]]

What do you mean? Writing a review? That's what I do baby! I write reviews. What else would I do? [[Oh yeah, right. Carry on then.]] [[No I mean why are you doing another Choose Your Own Adventure review? Why not do something original?]]

If you liked it how come you didn't follow me on Letterboxd? [[I only follow my friends on Letterboxd, sorry. No offense. We just don't know each other. Sorry.]] [[Begging for follows feels beneath you.]]

I actually can't work out how to do half stars if I'm being honest. [[Wait would it have been three and a half stars or two and a half stars?]] [[Why would you choose to do this when you appear to be kind of bad at it?]]

No it's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm sorry I asked. I just-it's just really hard to establish a platform and I don't really ask for much but a follow would be huge. I'm trying to get this single sentence zero punctuation thing off the ground as a career and when people actively say they like my work but then they don't even have the decency to click follow it just feels like I'm doing all this work for absolutely nothing. Like I can't pay my bills with "likes" you know? This isn't some fucking Hideo Kojima game, this is the real world. I need follows to build my platform you know? Hitting follow is literally the least you could do. [[Oh fuck, i'm so sorry. How do I follow you?]] [[Jesus you're pretty aggressive! What kind of platform is 'single sentence zero punctuation' apart from a tik tok version of that Yahtzee guy anyway?]]

Honestly, thank you. Genuinely. That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long, long time. But I can assure you it isn't. Here's something I think you haven't considered. If I get your follow, my follow count increases by one against the population of the world. But if I remove you from the population of the world, my follow count //relative to the entire population of the world// actually goes up. [[Wait is that a threat?]] [[Um I don't think your maths is correct.]]

Wait that worked? You fell for my trap! Your vulnerability has left you wide open to attack! Take this! And one of these! And also this! [[You Died]]

Um I don't know who "Yahtzee" is but your cynicism has given me a second wind so I will explain this to you. Single sentence zero punctuation reviews are the only way to fight against the AI that is taking over and annihilating the written word. By devolving language and forcing real human beings to parse meaning through subtext and inference we can render the AI obsolete and stave off the impending stagnation of the collective mind of humanity. [[Um you're writing dumb one-liner jokes, you're not raging against the machine.]]

Ahhhhh heck. I hope your journey here was not too depressing. If you want to give it another try, feel free to try again. [[How would you like your review today?]] Otherwise, if you've had enough of my bullshit and you'd just like to leave, here's some other spots where you can find me. * <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/joabyjojo.com" target="_blank">@Joabyjojo</a> * <a href="https://joabyjojo.com/" target="_blank">Joabyjojo.com</a> * <a href="https://thegapodcast.com/" target="_blank">The GAPodcast.com</a>

You don't know what the FUCK I'm doing Jack! The last time you raged against the machine was when your fleshlight broke you sack of shit. You don't even jerk yourself off anymore. That's how fucking far gone you are man. It's over for you dude. Fuck outta here. Take this! And one of these. And how 'bout this! [[You Died]]

If the number is that important to you, why didn't you go to [[Just give me the score.]]? [[Because I wanted to see your pithy one-liner as well as the score. Why would you give me an option and then be rude to me when I take it?]] [[I actually don't care about the number I am specifically interested in the binary option presented in my question. Higher or lower?]]

I dunno. Gotta do something. [[Fair call.]] [[Write a normal review?]]

Don't start asking me questions in the responses field. I can never keep track of how I'm supposed to write these things once I start strawmanning the player. As soon as I stop being in charge the entire thing falls apart. Here. Let's let fate take charge. [[Roll some dice.]]

Oh shit. That's some good semantics. I... I think you beat me. [[You Win!]]

You feel the blade enter your thorax and you gasp as it wrenches its way up through your carapace. Blood—your blood, thick, grey and syrupy—slowly seeps from the wound as the blade slides back out again. You look in the eyes of your murderer and you see remorse. A small smile drifts across your face as it occurs to you that you 'gasp'ed. You have no need for breath, no use for air, and yet you mimicked the impotent reaction of the being you were sent to replicate. Decades on this planet trying to learn what it means to be a "homo sapiens" as they call themselves, and it has only just now occurred to you. The charade is everything for this species. All of them, each one, is simply pretending to be. Faking it. Putting on a show for the others, acting and reacting as they think they are supposed to, in a manner that will garner them the correct response. In some ways, by knowingly pretending to be a person this whole time, you were the most human of all. [[You Died]]

No. It's a promise. Take this! And that! And one of these! [[You Died]]

I'm fairly sure it is. [[No, if you have eight followers (and you do I just checked) and I became a follower, that would be nine. That would be 0.0000001125% of the world population (if we call the population 8 billion, which I am. If you killed me, you would only have 0.0000001000000000125% following you. That's fewer people.]]

But I didn't say my follower number relative to the population of the world without you in it would be higher than my follower number relative to the population of the world after you followed me. I just said my follower count would be higher relative to the population of the world. And it would be. With eight followers out of the eight billion people on the planet, 0.0000001% of the population is following me. Obviously 0.0000001000000000125% is more than 0.0000001%. [[Oh god, I just went back and checked and you're right.]]

Of course I am. So will you follow me? [[No. The only honorable action left for me to do is... is...]]

[[You Died]]

We've both established I'm not great at this. Do you wanna just head on back to the start for me? [[Sure thing chicken wing.]]

There is no normal review Sally. What could possibly be normal about a review. Every person is different. Not just from one another, but from who they were before. Before this year, before today, before this game, before lunch. How could I write a normal review when I'm not even a normal version of myself? I wasn't even born normal, lady. I am a twin. Is that normal? Not even a little bit. A normal version of me would have a different name. He'd live a different life, he'd have a different job. He wouldn't write reviews. Why would he? They don't make money, nobody reads them, nobody likes them. What's normal about writing reviews for no money for a bunch of people to not read and if they do read them they hate them anyway? [[Ok I get it, I'm sorry.]] [[Nah just because you're weird doesn't mean there's no such thing as a normal review. If you're so bad at this, why not write a review that could be published on a metacritic-listed website that already does things like half-stars so you don't have to worry about it?]]

[[You Lived]]

Hey! You're alive! That's awesome! Well, I guess all that's left to do is for you to head over to my Bluesky and tell me how you survived my dumb little game. * <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/joabyjojo.com" target="_blank">@Joabyjojo</a> Think you can find an even better ending? I assure you you can't, but feel free to try! [[How would you like your review today?]]

Wow, just like that? You're too easy. Hey, look over there! A grue! [[Oh no! A grue!]] [[There's no grue?]]

Oh right. Well that's easy. Because I don't want to. Anywa-wait! Behind you! A Grue! [[Oh no! A grue!]] [[There's no grue?]]

Made ya look! Take one of these! And this! And that! And another one of these! [[You Died]]

[[You Died]]

Cheers ring out across the globe as you read these words. With one small trick, you defeated the mighty sorceror who had trapped you and everybody else within a narrative torture device, a self-referencing, looping nightmare of tedious wordplay and half-clever gags. You used his own trick against him, and it worked. Somehow it worked. But deep in the recesses of the skinner box you call a brain, you knew something was off. Not quite right. 200 million people had perished so this egomaniac could simplify some maths, and you'd defeated him with a minor quibble about higher or lower? All too late you realised the trick. You were still stuck in a linear narrative. You had won only because he had allowed you to win. The blade plunged deep into your mantle as you came to terms with the fact that there was no way to actually win in a construct dictated by a madman. The sharp metal wormed its way through your posterior salivary gland and your limbs flailed frantically to find purchase on the hilt, to stop what you already knew was coming. They failed. Of course they failed. The tip of the sword nuzzled, almost gently, against your brain, and you succumbed to reality. There was only one way this could ever have ended. Winning? Losing? There's no such thing. Just the inexorable march of time, the unavoidable truth of being. Only one outcome was ever possible, and you can see it now. The moment you opened this page, [[You Died]].

Thanks for the permission? As if I needed it? [[No wuckas.]]

Look I could give you any number of reasons right. Like the last game I reviewed was a new Kojima game and this one is an old one and there is a poetry to that element that I appreciate. Or I could say that nobody else went ahead and started doing this en masse, which means this idea remains pretty original. But the truth is I actually really appreciate this format. I get to do some creative writing. I get to do more of the thing I love (reviewing games). I get to share all my thoughts, including the ones that wouldn't normally fit the format of a traditional game review. The truth is I kind-of like it. If anything I'm sad I didn't do it earlier. [[So are you going to keep doing these?]] [[Ok cool nobody cares.]]

I was being sarcastic. [[Okey dokey.]]

<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/ds2-lunchlady.gif"/> [[How would you like your review today?]]

I am leaning, at the moment, towards yes. I will probably keep reviewing games in this format for the rest of the year. But we'll see. If it starts to feel boring or tedious narratively, in the sense that I feel like I'm retreading similar ground, I'll probably quit and go back to the usual thing. I don't think that will happen though. [[I'm actually happy for you bro.]]

You're the one who brought it up. Fuckin' retreating to apathy as a defence because you lack the wit to carry this conversation any further. Unbelievable. [[I'm a strawman, dingus. You're the one who lacks the wit.]]

Thanks bro. You know what? Because you're so cool, I'm gonna do you a huge favour. Take this. And one of these. And also this. But no exclamation points because I'm sad about it. [[You Died]]

Maybe so, maybe so. But have you considered //this!// [[A strange feeling overwhelms you.]]

You look down and you see a forearm thrust deep into your chest cavity. You follow the arm up to the shoulder, past the neck and to a face, a grin slathered across it wide and wild, its eyes bulging, its nostrils flared. The face wrenches away and you see the arm go with it. You look down at the forearm and see a hand on the end of it now. In its white-knuckled fist is a handful of yellow-brown wheat stalks. Your eyes train down to your chest and you see then your shirt tufted open. More straw is spilling out of the hole the hand punched its way into. It is cascading out, tumbling like an avalanche of discarded plant matter, a strawvalanchce. You clasp your hands at your belly, trying to catch the straw as it escapes, your focus locked on the cavity in your torso. Out of the corner of your magical eyes you see the grinning man reach with both arms towards you, but you don't dare look away from your shirt. You fumble with the buttons, the flannel slipping in your gloved fingers as you try to repair the damage and stop the haemorrhaging. You finally get a grip on both sides of the shirt when you hear a terrible rip all around you, a surround sound tear, assaulting your left and right at the same time. Your fingers go limp on the shirt front, your thumbs let go, and your chest cavity opens again as the flood of straw resumes. Your focus broken, you look up at the man before you and you watch as he cackles maniacally. He raises his arms high in the sky, and gripped in each hand are your own arms, his trophies, torn directly from your shoulders. You look sadly at the spaces where your arms had once been and watch as straw ekes its way from two new holes, but the pace at which your lifeforce escapes is nothing compared to the terrifying volume careening from your front. The man claps his hands together in front of him then, and your vision blurs. You can't see it, and you feel nothing, but you know he is beating you with your own arms. You fall to the ground. The world around you dims. The man continues to rain blows down upon you. You, apathetic as ever, do not care as your vision closes to a pinprick point of deep black. [[You Died]]

What are you, my editor? No. No cool options. Unless you go back to look at all the other cool options I put, ya ungrateful pile of marshmallow. [[How can I do that?]]

I am not. [[But 7/10 is such a lame score. Surely you're meming.]]

I already said I was not. [[What if you said you were though. Just for me.]] [[Ok well that sucks.]]

Alright, it's true. I was meming. [[😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂]]

You wanted the score home skillet. That's it. If all you want is the number, there's only fucking 10 of them. You can't get mad when it's not the one you wanted. What number did you want anyway? [[1]] [[2]] [[3]] [[4]] [[5]] [[6]] [[7]] [[8]] [[9]] [[10]]

Out of 10? You wanted me to score it a 1 out of 10? [[Well it doesn't run on my PC so yeah it's kind-of shitty isn't it?]]

You think this game deserves a 2/10? [[Uh the character named "The Boss" is a woman? She's the boss of all the guys? It's pretty fucking WOKE bro.]]

How did you get to a 3? [[I kinda figured you'd never scored a game a 3 before so I wanted to help you out.]] [[3 is the magic number, duh.]]

Ok, I've gotta ask. Why a four? [[I hate Kojima and this will send a message!]] [[It's my favourite number :3]]

Ahh the 5. Love a good 5. Doesn't really fit this game in my opinion, but I appreciate the impetus. [[Cheers big ears!]]

Yeah fair enough. It can be a six. Six is basically seven anyway. [[Really? Just like that?]]

Yeah fair enough. It can be an eight. Eight is basically seven anyway. [[Really? Just like that?]]

Why do you want it to be a nine? [[I'm in this fantasy league thing.]]

A 10? You think this game deserves a 10? [[It's in your pantheon! It's one of your favourite games of all time!]]

You said 7/10 is a lame score, but it turns out it's the score you wanted? What's the go there, home skillet? [[I guess I'm lame? Why do you keep calling me home skillet?]]

What kind of PC do you have? [[A pentium II with a Riva TNT graphics card.]]

You know what? That's a fair complaint. This game should definitely run on your antique roadshow hardware. Fair enough. I give MGSD:SE a 1/10 [[Thanks cobber!]]

What was that sound!? [[My computer! Somebody cut the hard drive at the mainframe and now it's exploding!]]

[[You Died]]

That is such a fantastic point. How did it get higher than a 1? [[Well you do get to ogle some boobs at one point. I guess SWEETBABY INC was asleep at the wheel on that day!]]

You know what? You've really brought me around on your line of thinking. I give your analysis a 2/10! [[Victory!]]

How do you want to celebrate this amazing victory!? [[I've never tried it before, but I'm going to inject myself with Ivermectin!]]

You've been terrified that it would come to this ever since you heard of it. Everyone in your circles is convinced it is the absolute tits. It cures all kinds of stuff. That's the last thing you want. You watch in panic as you load up a syringe full of the stuff and then you jab the needle into your thigh. It hurts like the dickens, but pain is temporary baby. It takes a while before the effects take hold, but when they do, they happen quickly. Quickly and terribly. Pure agony grips you as the dewormer does its thing. It barely seems fair that this should happen to you. Of all beings, you deserve it least. And somehow you know this pain is anything but temporary. Somehow you know this pain will endure for the rest of your life. Your life. You think back on it now. You started out as a tiny little thing. An egg in some cat dander, sent adrift on the winds of fortune by a leafblower at a pet friendly cafe. You landed innocuously enough on one of those little cookies people sometimes get gratis alongside their flat white, and a moment later you were ingested. Your brothers and sisters were there too, but you watched as they perished in the stomach acids of the person you now called home. You were lucky. Somehow you survived. Thrived, even, escaping by chance into the blood stream through an ulcer that must have been five years old already. You remember your adolescent years as a young worm trying to make it in the big brain of your host. You didn't want much. A warm place to sleep, a decent amount of blood to eat, and to take control of a person so that together you could collectively become known as 'the stupidest cunt alive'. They started out normal. They had empathy. Rational thoughts. A basic understanding of cause and effect. But being a young go-getter you quickly went to work. You latched onto the part of their brain that recognised patterns and you just shit that all the way up. You obliterated the medial posterior parietal cortex, making any self-reflection an impossibility. You leaned on the anterior cingulate cortex to cause them to constantly doubt their own intelligence—and to respond to that doubt with anger. Soon they saw conspiracies everywhere. And when they found something they couldn't explain, they angrily searched the internet for answers—and all they found were the conspiracies of others trapped in the same spiral. They latched on, they found a community. Somewhere along the way that community got really into two things. Being mad at something called SweetBaby Inc and a parasite eradication drug for some reason. You manipulated as hard as you could, but you just could not shake the desire they had to try this Ivermectin stuff. You thought of Icarus, who flew so close to the sun and then injected himself with 'horse deflying-close-to-the-sunnitus'. "I'm a worm you dunce!" you scream at your host from within their brain, but they can't here you. You haven't any mouth. Not in the Ellisonian kind of way, more in the literal 'you're a brainworm and the opening you have isn't what most people would call a mouth' kind of way. [[You Died]]

I appreciate the gesture, but I have used all 10 digits in the 10 point scoring scale. Including three and 10 and four and even five. Six too. Seven with some regularity. Eight a fair bit. Nine not so much, but still I have used it. Two I've only used once, and One I've used more than twice. [[What did you use 3 for?]]

You know that's right. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pxkOWjZAPLs?si=Wqpg2y08Xk2Dyeim" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> [[Hell yeah dawg.]]

You move to 'dap up' as the kids say and I, recognising the motion and all manner of other social cues thank you very much, go to return the gesture. However I am goofy as fuck and I thrust my hand towards yours I miss clumsily and slap you across the face. You comedically overreact, pretending the force of the slap was so grand and terrible that it knocks you out where you stand. You hold one hand to your chest, thrust the other in the air like you're Ted Theodore Logan about to start a class presentation, and then you fall straight backwards onto the ground. You fully commit to the bit, which is incredible and admirable, but the back of your head strikes the ground first. A jolt of pain shoots into your body, but it quickly dissipates—as does all feeling, sensation and awareness as your brain stem is obliterated inside of your skull. [[You Died]]

I reviewed Hitman: Absolution and, after it forced me to hard reset my PlayStation twice (that is unplug and plug the thing back in again) I deemed it so broken it deserved a three. Why a three and not a two? I don't remember. I also remember not liking the game very much. Or thinking it was very good. Or in the spirit of a Hitman game. If it had worked well and not tried to brick my console, it wouldn't have scored much higher anyway. [[Well how about that! Hey. Were you always bald? What are you doing with that piano wire?]]

[[You Died]]

I actually don't think it will. A few reasons First: He's never gonna see this. It's kinda crazy that you saw this, to be honest. Kojima definitely isn't gonna see this. This isn't even his game any more, it's a remake of a game he made decades ago. Secondofly: The guy gets off on being controversial. A four is totally controversial. The only message a lone four amongst a sea of higher scores would send is "hey, your game got some free advertising thanks to the controversy". C: I don't have a third reason actually. [[How can we send a message then?]]

It's my favourite number too! [[Did we just become best friends!?]]

No. Take this! And one of these! And get your own favourite number! That's mine! [[You Died]]

Great question. Here's my idea. You and me, we team up. We make a movie. I don't know your skillset but I'm going to assume you're not a visionary cinematographer. I'm also going to assume, based entirely on knowledge of my bank balance, that you have more money than me. So you're the Producer and I'm the screenwriter. I write a movie fit for a very cool, suave kind of character. Maybe it has light satirical tones, it's definitely set in a warped version of the real world. While I'm doing that, you schmooze some hollywood types and get us two things. An up-and-coming director and a world class cinematographer. We make this movie. It's got smash hit potential. It stars someone cool who smokes. I loathe it, personally, but it's important. Then we reach out to Kojima and ask him if he wants a cameo in it. He leaps at the opportunity because more than anything what Kojima wants is to make movies. This is his in. He has one scene. He shares a cigarette with our cool protagonist. They don't speak to one another, they don't have the language. Just a cool nod of acknowledgment and then that's a wrap on Hideo Kojima. Then you beat him to death. [[Wait that wasn't the message I wanted to send!]] [[Perfect!]]

Well it's a bit late to say that now, what with his blood on your hands. [[I just wanted to give him a 4/10 for a game he made a long time ago! I didn't want this!]]

W-what? [[That's exactly what I hoped would happen when I tried to give him a four out of ten! That through a series of unlikely circumstances I would get to beat Hideo Kojima to death.]]

But that is his blood on your hands, right? And you killed him, right? Say it. Say you killed Hideo Kojima. [[I... I k-killed Hideo Kojima...]] [[I want my lawyer.]]

I don't think you should be admitting that outloud to be honest. [[That's ok, it's just you and me here. And you'll never tell anyone.]]

What? No! Don't advance on me! First you killed Hideo Kojima and now you're attacking me while making it //sound// like you're giving up and you just want your lawyer, but the camera is pointed away now so all it hears is the fear in my voice as I clearly act in self-defence!? Take this! And one of these! And a couple of those! [[You Died]]

Did you get all that? Yeah? Send it to the cops. Wait. Is that Judge Dredd? That's him there Judge! That's the guy! [[Judge Dredd?]]

"For the capital crime of murder," says Judge Dredd. "I sentence you to death." He raises his Lawgiver and places it in front of your face. You lower your head sadly, resigned to your fate for your crimes. Judge Dredd sneers as he pulls the trigger. [[You Die->You Died]]

That's true! I won't tell a soul! I'd never tell-wait! The cameras! The cameras are on! And all the crew are here! And the cool guy actor who smokes! They saw the whole thing! [[Drats. Well, I guess I die then!->You Died]] [[No, this is just a hypothetical! None of those things have happened yet!]]

Oh... right. I get the timelines confused sometimes. I experience all timelines at once you see. There is no forward or backward, no future or past, only the present. [[You're right about one thing.]]

[[You Died]]

What's that? [[There's no future. FOR YOU!]]

Ahh! My bones! Wait! Don't you see! I have already seen the future where we make the film! If you kill me here and now, how will I help you write it! [[I don't care! I'm a producer, not a writer! Plotholes are not my problem!]]

Snake! What are you doing! You've changed the future! You've created a Time Paradox! [[<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/timeparadox.jpg"/>->You Died]]

I, uh, I would prefer if you didn't talk about my ears. [[I'd prefer it if you warned me before turning your head so I didn't get slapped in the face by your giant fuckin' elephant ears.]]

That's actually kind-of hurtful. It's a sensitive subject. I don't even know if my ears //are// big, I just remember being made fun about it when I was growing up. I look at my ears and they seem average-sized, maybe a little large, but not like comically oversized. But then I wonder if maybe I just perceive them to be average-sized and they're not. And comments like yours make me wonder a little harder. [[No need to wonder, Dumbo, your ears are ginormous.]]

Too mean guy. [[Want to know what's not mean? Your ears.]]

Oh, ok, that seems a bit nicer. Thanks I guess? I don't super get it. [[That's my bad. When I said 'mean' i meant it in like 'statistics' terms. Like your ears aren't average. They're outside of the 'mean'. They're abnormal.]]

Oh. [[And when I say they're abnormal I mean they're bigger than is typical. Just in case you thought I meant they were smaller than average, I did not. You've got big fucking ears kid. You look like a wingnut with a face drawn on it. If you'd lent Caesar your ears he would have said "alright the rest of the Empire of Rome, I'm sorted".]]

You can't say that! He's the King now! Look! The SAS is coming! [[I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO ESS AYY FUCKING ES->You Died]]

Yeah dawg, just like that. [[Huh. I was hoping for more of a reaction to be honest.]]

Sorry to disappoint. (if:$marked is "marked")[Hey wait a second! I've been here before! [[This is really lazy stuff!]]] [[That was my whole reason for being is the only thing. It's why I was put on this earth.]]

It do be like that sometimes, dawg. (set: $marked to "marked") [[I've lost my appetite for... for everything really. For all things. Food, drink, lusting after hotties, none of it matters any more.]]

Yeah... I... like, I already said it do be like that sometimes dawg, I'm not sure what else you want from me. $marked [[No it's cool. I just... I dunno. I guess I'll catch you on the next one.->You Died]]

I guess I'm lame too, home skillet. [[Cool. Wanna fuck?]]

I do not, home skillet. [[Right. Well then. What should we do?]]

There's kind-of only one way out of this. [[Oh damn. Is it like, one of these? And a bit of this?]]

Oi, I'm the one who does the stabbing around here! Take this! And one of these! And a bit of that! And a touch of home skillet! [[You Died]]

Fantasy Critic League? I'm playing too. Not in the same league as you though. Because if we were in the same league, you'd know that MGS Delta SE getting a nine wouldn't save you from me winning. Nothing can save you (or anyone else) from me winning. [[We are in the same League actually and I still think Metal Gear blah blah WHATEVER getting a nine from you would help.]] [[I'm not in the same league as you but it would really do me a solid if you gave it a nine.]]

A nine from me would not adjust the score a meaningful amount even if my reviews //were// listed on OpenCritic, which they are not. But to be fair, you are in my Fantasy Critic League and I guess that should have been a fairly strong indicator that you had little-to-no concept of how the game worked. That's why I'm going to win, despite rampant cheating from my opponents that I, as commissioner, have fully endorsed and supported. Instead of engaging in the futile effort of trying to explain to you the mechanics of Fantasy Critic League //again//, I will instead simply smite you from existence, which is my right as king and forever champion of the Fantasy Critic League. Take this. And one of these. I feel no enthusiasm in doing this. Perhaps I am merely putting you out of my misery. I am a kind and wise and gracious king, after all. [[You Died]]

Look that's not how Fantasy Critic League works, but I'm gonna do it anyway because you seem cool. Unless. Wait. Is your name Morkai? Or dre3money? [[I'm not those dudes, dude.]] [[Yeah, I'm Morkai.]] [[It's a me, Dr. E3 Money!]]

Fair enough dude. You know what. You've got it dude. I give Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater a 9/10. Tell your League Commissioner to contact me and I'll verify it for them. Enjoy your points dude. [[Thanks heaps dude!]]

I saw you post non-Movie related chatter in the movie-spoiler-chat channel on the discord mate. I know you did it. And you betrayed the fantasy league when you opted out this year. That's two strikes, and if I know anything about baseball, that means you're outta here. [[Nope, in baseball you get three str->You Died]]

Drew, drew, drew, dre, dr, d Can't believe you'd bail. And then you get in the Kleeb's ear and try to poison him against the competition? And what about lovable, sweet, dull Goofball? You'd try to turn him against me? Well how about this. The JackJumpers had a worse season following their championship season than the 98-99 Bulls. Yeah, I said it. Now cop this! And one of these! And a little bit of Monica in my life! [[You Died]]

Think nothing of it dude. And think nothing of one of these! And a bit of that! And a chunk of cheese! [[You Died]]

Woah. Careful. I think you're overstimulated. You're laughing too much. You need to calm down. [[😂😂😂😂->You Died]]

That doesn't make it a 10. And that's Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on the PlayStation 2. Not Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater on PC. These are different games, achieving different things. [[Wait so you wouldn't give MGS3 a 10 either?]]

Probably not. Would I have back in 2004 when I first played it? Maybe? I don't know. I didn't much care for the last sequences even then. Every time I replayed the game, I'd generally stop when I reached the motorbike chase. What I loved about it was the interaction of systems. That's what it was good at. Did I absorb the story anyway? Of course. I couldn't avoid it. But I didn't love it. Even by Metal Gear Solid 4 I'd tired of a lot of how Kojima used the contract between the player and the game as an excuse to force his bloated writing upon us. But it was generally worth it for those sequences where the brilliance shone through. In MGS4, it was the Microwave scene. In MGS2, the final boss fight. //Quelle surprise// that he ripped both of those off for Death Stranding 2. What made MGS3 great was that it wasn't about setpieces. It had them, but they were the shittiest parts of the game. But they were worth it for the opportunity to play in the playground that was the rest of Tselinoyarsk. [[How is this game in your pantheon?]]

I... I just explained that. Flaws can sometimes make the brilliance shine that much brighter. Grand Theft Auto Vice City is the same. Not a perfect game, but a spectacular execution of an idea. The other games in the pantheon are Deus Ex and Slay the Spire. Those games are a case of the brilliance making the brilliance shine that much brighter. [[Yap yap yap. Whatever. So no 10 then?]]

Why do you care? [[I spent one-hundred-and-twenty dollarydoos on this bloody game and I want to know it's good.]]

Uhhhh, if you own the game, why don't you just play it and tell me? [[Because it's your job to tell me?]]

Right you are ken. [[<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/right-you-are-agree.gif"/>->You Died]]

Great question! Just close your eyes and have... One of these! A bit of that! A hunk of this! Ha-cha! [[You Died]]

Oh, well that's cool. How do you feel about "Spoilers" in your Story Only review for a game from 21 years ago? [[You've worded that passive aggressively but I am with you. Who cares about "spoilers"?]] [[What!? No! I don't want spoilers! I haven't played the game yet!]]

So you already know what's coming then right? Do you care about spoilers in this 21 year old prequel to a now finished series? [[Of course I don't]] [[Oh god, you're not going to do that dumb thing where you blank out a bunch of letters again are you?]]

Easy baby, here you GO! [[Joaby's Story Review, Untouched by the redact-a-pen]]

Ok mon frere, you asked for it! [[Joaby's Spoiler Free Story Only Review of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater]]

It's hard, playing this game 20 years later. Forcing myself to sit through cutscenes I've been skipping for decades already. I've played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater dozens of times now. I know the story inside and out. If you asked me to describe it to you before playing MGSΔ:SE, I'd probably have told you it was good. Broad strokes, it is, I think. As a prequel it's fan service through-and-through, but well-crafted and generous in what it offers up. Essentially, it tells the story of how Big Boss became Big Boss. If that means nothing to you, MGSΔ:SE's story will mean very little to you—and that's fine. It's the third game in a series. It harkens from a time when games didn't feel the need to cater to every single fucking person whether they'd done the requisite reading or not. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse04.jpg"/> To tell the story, it sets the player up nicely. It places us in a fictional part of the Soviet Republic tasked with escorting a defecting scientist back to the United States. Classic Cold War era spy-action. And in classic Cold War era spy-action fashion, we're double-crossed and the mission goes awry. Snake is intercepted before he can escape with Sokolov (our quarry) by The Boss—his mentor/mother surrogate/groomer—and thrust into a brand new mission. To destroy the ==Metal Gear== Shagohod Nuclear weapons platform. And if you zoom out far enough, this story is pretty good. It features some amazing beats. The overarching theme is the same as always—Anti-Nuclear Weapon—but Snake Eater also digs into problems with Bureaucracy, the challenges of Motherhood and a confrontation on the nature of suffering. It's a smart story, I think. Honestly. And it makes me appreciate the Death Stranding games more, ironically. Because I think they too have intelligent themes and they share a few similar motifs. And like Death Stranding, the closer you get to MGSΔ/3, the worse it gets. There's an endless hand-wringing in Metal Gear Solid 3 as Kojima and his other writers, Tomokazu Fukushima and Shuyo Murata, try to talk around some of the less congruent elements of the game. Codec calls attempt to explain around how camouflage works, or why you need to talk to someone to save. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse10.jpg"/> Cutscenes go on-and-on trying to justify themselves for single moment pay-offs that don't really land. There's a melodrama in the action that was fine when each character was made out of 16 triangles, but in glorious 4K it undercuts the tension. Crashing zooms and camera pans ahead of pithy puns are entertaining, but inserted in the middle of serious scenes they imply a degree of insecurity that begs a single question: Are Kojima and co embarrassed by the story they're telling, or embarrassed by the audience they're telling it to? Back in 2004, I'd have argued more the former than the latter. MGS3 felt like peak anime storytelling. Weird characters with long tongues, cleavage without nipples—if you told me this was a PG version of Ninja Scroll, I might have believed you. Then, juxtaposed against this was the serious deconstruction of a world trapped in the grip of Mutually Assured Destruction. A guy who talks to hornets is our stand-in for the torture soldiers put themselves through to protect our way of life. We examine the serious subject of PTSD by walking down a river dodging ghost fish. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse09.jpg"/> In 2004, I thought maybe they knew it was dumb, but they were trapped by the format of a video game. Gotta have boss fights, right? Maybe Kojima and his writing team felt like Lauryn Hill, doomed to <a href="https://youtu.be/F0wUF-ngNPo?si=Wpu4pQ7MBYbovBdz&t=124">add a motherfucker so the ignorant… neighbours… would hear him</a>. But in 2025, having seen an unrestrained Kojima in Death Strandings 1 and 2, I no longer think that is the case. I think the insecurity stems from a disdain for the video game playing audience. There's simply too many cutscenes. So much of it is exposition, literal lecturing on details of the world that are specific only to Metal Gear Solid, momentum dickpunches as the Colonel or the Boss stop everything to explain something at you while you sit there and shut the fuck up. And while Death Strandings 1 and 2 exhibit a better grasp on exposition through conversation, the same thing occurs. The player gets to play for a bit, and then they have to watch a cutscene. But I think, having witnessed the trajectory of what 'play' means in Kojima's games, that the action/reward sequence is reversed in his mind. The player has to play for a bit and then they //get// to watch a cutscene. The only exception to this rule is the codec call, a mainstay of the Metal Gear Solid series. MGS3 has some of the best in the franchise, as Naked Snake is chattier and funnier than his son/clone or the blonde guy everybody hated. While there are a number of 'main path' codec calls that serve as clunky exposition, MGS3/Δ really gets to shine when you call up your colleagues to play with them. Paramedic talks about old movies, of course, whenever you save your game—and Δ has tastefully updated the Godzilla chat for 2025—but she also comments on everything Snake eats. She and SIGINT hotmic chat about whether Snake is making things up when he claims eating a Glowcap mushroom charged his batteries. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse11.jpg"/> Wearing different costumes gets different responses from all the different characters, as does calling after in-game events, and it's funny—I've always loved the playfulness of this but it does remind me of Visual Novels (<a href="https://thegapodcast.com/2022/07/05/neon-white/" target="_blank">a genre of game I don't like</a>). For some reason it doesn't count to me here. Maybe the interactivity is heightened to a point where I can dig it? There's another Kojima classic riddled through Metal Gear Solid 3 that becomes impossible to ignore once you're aware of how the trick is done—the surprise double-cross. Kojima has a bag of tricks, but it's many variations of the same trick. This character is a double agent. This one is a triple agent! Why didn't this character just shoot you? Because they're a quadruple agent! You thought they had one agenda, but really their objective was the opposite of that (and actually it was the opposite of that too, which means they did have the agenda you thought they had). It's actually a neat trick when you aren't aware of it. You relish the exposition dumps because they feel like buoys in a sea of uncertainty, rare moments of clarity amidst an unending barrage of the exact same twist repeated with different characters. The story isn't difficult to parse or challenging to understand—it's just convoluted, like a knotted mess of cables under my desk that I can't be fucked untangling. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse08.jpg"/> But if you keep it all at an arms length, and only ever dip in to really zoom in on something specific, the story is good. Well, it's definitely good enough. Maybe Kojima does have another trick up his sleeve. A meta trick. You play—actually interact—with Metal Gear Solid 3 for about 12 minutes out of the first hour. A fifth of the runtime. And maybe that works as a specific friction point. A patience gate. If you can't get through that, you're not going to get through the rest of the game. And then the second layer to this meta trick is that if you finish it, you're not going to talk about all the garbage parts of what you just watched. When someone asks you how MGS3 is, you're going to talk about the rad stuff. The awesome bosses and the funny codec calls and the wildly over-the-top parody of James Bond films. You already pushed past the hurdle that challenges your capacity for tedium. For exposition. If you continue to play Metal Gear Solid 3 through to the end, you've self-selected to be a fan. There's a survivorship bias at play here—the people who can't stand the significant flaws in the writing of the game have already bailed long ago. Is the story in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater—and therefore Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater—good? Yes? No? Maybe. I don't know. You don't need to repeat the question, because it's irrelevant. What is good? What is bad? Can a story be both good and bad? If Metal Gear Solid 3 is a parody of Cold War Era spy thrillers, does that excuse its faults? This is a review, so I guess you're owed an answer from me, but I don't think it matters. I don't think the story of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater is good, but really, I never have. I adore parts of it, I think it contains actual genius, but I wouldn't call it good. That doesn't make the game not worth playing though. [[Ok so it's good but you hate it? Or it's bad but you love it?]]

It's hard, playing this game 20 years later. Forcing myself to sit through cutscenes I've been skipping for decades already. I've played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater dozens of times now. I know the story inside and out. If you asked me to describe it to you before playing MGSΔ:SE, I'd probably have told you it was good. Broad strokes, it is, I think. As a prequel it's fan service through-and-through, but well-crafted and generous in what it offers up. Essentially, it tells the story of how ██ ███, became ██ ███. If that means nothing to you, MGSΔ:SE's story will mean very little to you—and that's fine. It's the ███ game in a series. It harkens from a time when games didn't feel the need to cater to every single fucking person whether they'd done the requisite reading or not. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse-redacted.jpg"/> To tell the story, it sets the player up nicely. It places us in a fictional part of the █████ ███████ tasked with █████ a ██████ ██████ back to the █████ ████. Classic ███ ██ ██ ██-████. And in classic ███ ██ ██ ██-████ fashion, we're █████-████ and the mission goes ███. ███ is intercepted before he can ████ with ██████ (our quarry) by ██ ███—his ████/████ ██████/groomer—and thrust into a brand new mission. To destroy the ==████ ███== ██████ █████ █████ platform. And if you zoom out far enough, this story is pretty good. It features some amazing beats. The overarching theme is the same as always—███-█████ █████—but Snake Eater also digs into problems with █████████, the challenges of █████████ and a confrontation on the nature of ██████. It's a smart story, I think. Honestly. And it makes me appreciate the Death Stranding games more, ironically. Because I think they too have intelligent themes and they share a few similar motifs. And like Death Stranding, the closer you get to MGSΔ/3, the worse it gets. There's an endless hand-wringing in Metal Gear Solid 3 as Kojima and his other writers, Tomokazu Fukushima and Shuyo Murata, try to talk around some of the less congruent elements of the game. Codec calls attempt to explain around how █████████ works, or why you need to talk to someone to save. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse-redacted.jpg"/> Cutscenes go on-and-on trying to justify themselves for single moment pay-offs that don't really land. There's a melodrama in the action that was fine when each character was made out of 16 triangles, but in glorious 4K it undercuts the tension. Crashing zooms and camera pans ahead of ███ ███ are entertaining, but inserted in the middle of █████ ████ they imply a degree of insecurity that begs a single question: Are Kojima and co embarrassed by the story they're telling, or embarrassed by the audience they're telling it to? Back in 2004, I'd have argued more the former than the latter. MGS3 felt like peak anime storytelling. Weird characters with long ██████, cleavage without █████—if you told me this was a ██ version of ████ ████, I might have believed you. Then, juxtaposed against this was the serious deconstruction of a world trapped in the ███ of ██████ ██████ ████████. A guy who talks to █████ is our stand-in for the █████ █████ put themselves through to protect our ██ of ███. We examine the serious subject of ███ by walking ███ █ ████ █████ ████ fish. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse-redacted.jpg"/> In 2004, I thought maybe they knew it was dumb, but they were trapped by the format of a video game. Gotta have boss fights, right? Maybe Kojima and his writing team felt like Lauryn Hill, doomed to <a href="https://youtu.be/F0wUF-ngNPo?si=Wpu4pQ7MBYbovBdz&t=124">add a motherfucker so the ignorant… neighbours… would hear him</a>. But in 2025, having seen an unrestrained Kojima in Death Strandings 1 and 2, I no longer think that is the case. I think the insecurity stems from a disdain for the video game playing audience. There's simply too many cutscenes. So much of it is exposition, literal lecturing on details of the world that are specific only to Metal Gear Solid, momentum dickpunches as the █████ or the ███ stop everything to explain something at you while you sit there and shut the fuck up. And while Death Strandings 1 and 2 exhibit a better grasp on exposition through conversation, the same thing occurs. The player gets to play for a bit, and then they have to watch a cutscene. But I think, having witnessed the trajectory of what 'play' means in Kojima's games, the action/reward sequence is reversed in his mind. The player has to play for a bit and then they //get// to watch a cutscene. The only exception to this rule is the codec call, a mainstay of the Metal Gear Solid series. MGS3 has some of the best in the franchise, as █████ █████ is chattier and funnier than his ███/████ or the █████ ███ everybody hated. While there are a number of 'main path' codec calls that serve as clunky exposition, MGS3/Δ really gets to shine when you call up your colleagues to play with them. ████████ talks about old movies, of course, whenever you save your game—and Δ has tastefully updated the █████ chat for 2025—but she also comments on everything █████ eats. ███ and █████ hotmic chat about whether █████ is making things up when ██ claims eating a █████ ████████ charged his batteries. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse-redacted.jpg"/> Wearing different costumes gets different responses from all the different characters, as does calling after in-game events, and it's funny—I've always loved the playfulness of this but it does remind me of Visual Novels (<a href="https://thegapodcast.com/2022/07/05/neon-white/" target="_blank">a genre of game I don't like</a>). For some reason it doesn't count to me here. Maybe the interactivity is heightened to a point where I can dig it? There's another Kojima classic riddled through Metal Gear Solid 3 that becomes impossible to ignore once you're aware of how the trick is done—the surprise █████-████. Kojima has a bag of tricks, but it's many variations of the same trick. This character is a ████ ████. This one is a ████ ████! Why didn't this character just ████ ██? Because they're a ████████ ████! You thought they had one ████, but really their objective was ██ ██████ ██ ███ (and actually it was ██ ██████ ██ ███ too, which means they did have ██ ██████ you thought they had). It's actually a neat trick when you aren't aware of it. You relish the exposition dumps because they feel like buoys in a sea of uncertainty, rare moments of clarity amidst an unending barrage of the exact same ████ repeated with different characters. The story isn't difficult to parse or challenging to understand—it's just convoluted, like a knotted mess of cables under my desk that I can't be fucked untangling. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse-redacted.jpg"/> But if you keep it all at an arms length, and only ever dip in to really zoom in on something specific, the story is good. Well, it's definitely good enough. Maybe Kojima does have another trick up his sleeve. A meta trick. You play—actually interact—with Metal Gear Solid 3 for about 12 minutes out of the first hour. A fifth of the runtime. And maybe that works as a specific friction point. A patience gate. If you can't get through that, you're not going to get through the rest of the game. And then the second layer to this meta trick is that you're not going to talk about all the garbage parts of what you just watched. When someone asks you how MGS3 is, you're going to talk about the rad stuff. The awesome bosses and the funny codec calls and the wildly over-the-top parody of James Bond films. You already pushed past the hurdle that challenges your capacity for tedium. For exposition. If you continue to play Metal Gear Solid 3 through to the end, you've self-selected to be a fan. There's a survivorship bias at play here—the people who can't stand the significant flaws in the writing of the game have already bailed long ago. Is the story in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater—and therefore Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater—good? Yes? No? Maybe. I don't know. You don't need to repeat the question, because it's irrelevant. What is good? What is bad? Can a story be both good and bad? If Metal Gear Solid 3 is a parody of Cold War Era spy thrillers, does that excuse its faults? This is a review, so I guess you're owed an answer from me, but I don't think it matters. I don't think the story of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater is good, but really, I never have. I adore parts of it, I think it contains actual genius, but I wouldn't call it good. That doesn't make the game not worth playing though. [[What the fuck was that?]]

That's why you're my girl, boo. [[Joaby's Story Review, Untouched by the redact-a-pen]]

You know I am. I will give you one last chance to avoid making a grave error. [[Joaby's Story Review, Untouched by the redact-a-pen]] [[Joaby's Spoiler Free Story Only Review of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater]]

I don't know quite how to explain this to you, but the difference between Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater is best demonstrated 66 seconds into both game's renditions of the theme song "Snake Eater". Cynthia Harrell sings both—and both versions of the song are included in Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater even. The lyrics are the same, the arrangement is… different but very similar. This is the original. Listen to the way Cynthia Harrell sings the word "Crime". <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FVPaaiL_iLw?si=CtQcxlnhH8YO4lxU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> This is the Δ version of the song. Listen again, at one minute and 16 seconds, to the word "Crime". <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oOweekX6TW8?si=-GFkRxsgWJCmB0AE" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> Do you hear it? It's not just the length of the vocal note. The auto-tune warble to vary the pitch sounds deeply unnatural. Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Auto-Tune hater. I appreciate what it does. I appreciate that it's probably used a lot more than I realise in subtle, careful ways that are unrecognisable to all but the keenest of listeners. And I dig when it's used like a Wah-wah pedal on voices to alter their signature, the way T-Pain and Lil Wayne employ it. But the warble in the Δ version of Snake Eater grates on me. It's tech for tech's sake, gaudy and arguably overproduced. More than anything, it's unnecessary. And that is Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater summed up. Because playing Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater still summons the requisite emotional responses in me. My brain makes no distinction between what I am playing when I jump into Δ versus my memories of playing Metal Gear Solid 3. As a nostalgia hit goes, it's perfect. It's just that every now and then the game does something that makes my eye twitch a certain way. Take the updated visuals for example. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse10.jpg"/> Wandering through the lush Unreal Engine jungle is gorgeous. The lighting is amazing, the water is glorious, the greenery magnificent. It looks a little the same to… every other game out these days using the 'realistic' version of UE5, but you can't argue that it doesn't look better than Metal Gear Solid 3 (at least graphically speaking). But things fall apart for me when the cutscenes start. While Konami shelled out the dosh to get Cynthia Harrell back for the Snake Eater rerecording, all the other lines in Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater use the original game's recordings. The mocap used is identical to Metal Gear Solid 3. In essence, they replaced the models, and that's about it. I don't mean to be dismissive, mind you. Replacing the models is no small feat, and it's pretty much exactly what you want in a remaster—a shinier version of the old. But in Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater there's a noticeable disconnect between what we're seeing and what we're hearing. The pantomimicry of the acting marries well with the bombastic line deliveries, but both clash with the realistic character models. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse04.jpg"/> While watching them—and there are a lot of them—I found myself swinging wildly between hating the new models and hating the dialogue. Metal Gear Solid 3 was better off looking worse to me, because it made it easier to take it less seriously. It doesn't help that I think, over time, I have come to deeply dislike Kojima's particular style of storytelling. He's like a magician—now that I know how he does his trick, I don't care to view him any more. Playing through Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, I can't believe I didn't see it sooner—but it was a simpler time! I was a young warthog and all of that. Now I can't bear to watch his endless exposition dumps, can't help but roll my eyes at each new backstab or double-cross. When nobody works for who they say they do, you become numb to any allegiance changes. That said, almost all the cutscenes and dialogue are skippable. I did think it was pretty funny that the one unskippable cutscene (that I noticed, I didn't test them all) was right at the end, in the final boss fight. I won't spoil who it's against (I kind-of just did though), but it was the only time the game struggled to make it past 40 frames. And the gameplay is good. There's a Legacy mode, where you can play the game from the top-down perspective like the original. And there's a New Style mode, which lets you experience the entire thing with a free-wheeling third person camera. Both are good, and you can switch between them whenever you like—although apparently the AI is different on each, so you have to reload from the last checkpoint when you do. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse08.jpg"/> There's still the same level of playfulness, because Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater is a remaster that way. You can do all the same things you did in MGS3. And at its heart, goofing around in a jungle was what I loved about the original—the fact that I can still do it here is essentially all I wanted. It's surprising how the game feels smaller, but of course it does—I can't un-know what I do about the game. I know I need to take a detour to get the SVD if I want to snipe The End before he enters the Tunnel. I've pathed my way through Groznyj Grad a hundred times before, I don't need to explore its every nook and cranny again. But that's the experience I'm having, right? I'm replaying one of my favourite games for the umpteenth time—except this time it's (a little too) shiny and pretty. And for some reason, this leaves me feeling somewhat underwhelmed. It's a problem, but the question is— with whom? Is it a me problem? For it to be a me problem, it would be a problem with my expectations for the game, right? What do I expect a Remakester to be, exactly? A re-envisioning of a game I love that captures the same feelings I had when first playing it? I think that would make it a me problem, because A: that's an impossible ask and B: it's also an unreasonable one. But what if all I wanted was another opportunity to play a game I love? That's not unreasonable. It's not impossible. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse01.jpg"/> I think it's a game problem, to be honest. An existential problem at that. I question whether this game should exist, is what I'm saying. Here's something I wrestled with quite a bit while trying to analyse this game. Do I review Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater as a product, or as an artistic effort? Because they're not the same thing. With video games (and movies and music and books and lots of stuff) the Venn Diagram between the two often overlaps, and I often try to apply my criticism from within that overlap. But I don't know that there is much overlap with Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater. There's not a lot transformative about the experience. The New Style gameplay, sure, and they Auto-Tuned Cynthia Harrell for seemingly no reason, but outside of that the artistic expression of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater comes directly from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. That is to say, there is little of merit to be commented on here. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse06.jpg"/> What I have written on the subject of Snake Eater as a creative endeavour in this CYOA review—the parts of it that are on topic, anyway—have largely been me using Δ as an excuse to analyse 3. I didn't get to review MGS3 back in the day, and MGSΔ has provided me with the opportunity to do that. But that's not analysis of Δ. As a product, I have reservations regarding Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater's value. It's not cheap, for one thing. The basic version RRPs for $116.95 AUD. That's not a small amount of money. Obviously everybody values a single dollar differently, but simply measured against the price of other games, $116.95 AUD is expensive. And right now you can buy Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Master Collection Edition for $29.50. And you will get, I would argue, a more faithful version of the game. If I hadn't played Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater and I had instead grabbed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Master Collection Edition, my brain would do all the heavy lifting anyway. Hell, I could dig out my PS3 and play Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in the HD Collection, because I still have that on disc. I still have Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on disc on the PlayStation 2, dammit. I didn't actually need Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater to revisit one of my favourite games. It's just that it was announced and I figured I'd wait. And now that I've played Δ, I can't play any of the other versions. The version of me who would have been happy with slightly up-ressed textures is dead. Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater killed him. But I can tell you, having played through and finished Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater specifically for the opportunity to cast a critical eye across one of my favourite games of all time, it was worth it. To me. And probably me alone. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse07.jpg"/> Think of all the stars that need to align for it to be worth it to you. You need MGS3 to be one of your favourite games ever. You need to have a PC capable of running a fairly unoptimised Unreal Engine 5. You need an excuse to play it right now instead of simply waiting for a sale. That all works for me, but who else does that work for? To me, there is a deep irony in the fact that you need to be a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater fan to find $116.95 AUD worth of value in Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, because being a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater fan is exactly why you'll feel Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater comes up short in a lot of ways. It's weird. I'm glad it exists, but I don't think it should. [[Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool]]

Let's kick things off with some real talk. The worst part of every Metal Gear Solid game is the chase sequence. If you wanted to argue that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was the best Metal Gear Solid game solely based on the fact that the game doesn't feature a stupid fucking chase sequence, I would be all ears. Metal Gear Solid 3/Δ:SE, on the other hand, adheres to this rule perfectly. Regularly, when I replay Metal Gear Solid 3, I stop playing when I have reached the motorcycle chase sequence. I smash Volgin's stupid fucking face in and then I stop playing. But of course for this review I did it all. I non-lethalled Volgin to get the Cold War camouflage, but even that offered little respite. The problem is that after a certain point you're no longer playing Metal Gear Solid 3 anymore. You're playing an on-rails shooter, a brainless boss fight, a tedious escort quest and then a thematically rad but boring beat-em-up. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse09.jpg"> What makes all of this taste so sour is that the rest of Metal Gear Solid 3 is //so fucking good//. Superficially it's just a stealth game. A jungle stealth game, which is different, but otherwise it's not that far removed from your typical stealth experience. Study movement patterns, wait for openings, exploit openings and then move on. Combat is completely optional and often unnecessary. A great stealth game tests your pattern recognition, your patience, your mechanical skill and your map (and game) knowledge all at once, delivering a well-earned feeling of achievement when you succeed at clearing an area without being spotted. And MGS3 is, honestly, a good stealth game. Not a great one. MGS2 was a great stealth game, an expansion on what MGS1 did well, but there are a few too many forced combat sequences in MGS3 for it to qualify as great in my opinion. But MGS3 is more than just a stealth game. It's also a murderous playground—and that's what makes the game incredible. More than anything else, what I love in video games are systems that interact with one another in unexpected ways. That's good play, to me. The game is called "Snake Eater", so of course I am going to try to eat a snake when I see one. I have to. So the first snake I see I shoot. And I eat it, and I'm not terribly shocked when I find out Naked Snake is a fan of eating snakes. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse02.jpg"/> But what about if I tranquilise that snake? I've been tranqing guards this entire time—maybe I can tranq a snake? Will that let me carry it around for longer without it spoiling? One shot from the Mk22 later and I have a live snake in my pants (ladies). Now here's where things get interesting. While trying to equip a new weapon, I notice the live snake is available to equip. As a weapon. Can I throw a live snake at an enemy? Smash cut to a guard screaming in fear as a King Cobra appears at his feet from out of nowhere and it tries to bite him. This is the juice to me. Can I throw spoiled food around to tempt hungry guards? What happens if I call people on the radio while I'm naked? Will the crocodiles react if I crawl near them while dressed as a crocodile? A great deal of my adoration for Metal Gear Solid 3 is derived directly from the wealth of options available to the player—and all of them are optional. Playing through the game on Extreme doesn't suddenly necessitate the use of more systems—if anything, it shrinks your options, forcing you to play more rigidly. It feels odd to me that the parts of the game I love the most are the least necessary. The best codec calls are external to the main path, the best systems interactions are superfluous to your progress. But that's what made Metal Gear Solid 3 so good—it gave you so much more than you thought you were getting. It was always deeper than you thought it was—at least it was in the gameplay. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse06.jpg"/> How does that change with Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater? It doesn't. As remasters/remakes (remakesters) go, Metal Gear Solid Δ is extremely faithful to the source material. The AI is as exploitable as it ever was, the quirks of the game's interactions return here. If your camouflage rating is too high and you hold a guard up, they won't drop anything until you lower it—which is easier in Δ thanks to a new camouflage hotkey system. It's a testament to the reverence the Konami team have for the original, I think, that they have replicated it so faithfully. The one main change is in the "New Style", an option you can trigger at any time during the game, which puts players behind Snake using a third person camera, a concession to contemporary games like Metal Gear Solid 5 (by far the highest selling game in the franchise). It's interesting to me how the change in camera angle alters the gameplay. It's mechanically far easier to play than "Legacy Style" which maintains the isometric-esque camera common in the series. By turning the game into what is effectively a third person shooter, MGSΔ becomes an action game in its own rights. It's very easy to aim-down-sights quickly to take out any enemies from third person—especially when certain Camo options increase your stability and improve your aim. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse01.jpg"/> It's amazing how something as simple as a camera angle change alters the mindset of the player so much, but having played MGS3 so many times in what Δ calls "Legacy Style" I understand what's happening. Your mechanical advantage comes at a massive informational cost, which makes studying enemy patterns much more challenging in close-quarters stealth play. It makes sense that the player would feel emboldened to shoot from the hip more, because they're both more capable of landing their shots quickly and more prone to being caught out of position. I played through all of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater in the New Style (obviously dipping in to New Game + to check out some Legacy Style). I also knocked out the PEACE WALKER achievement for my initial playthrough—that means I didn't kill anyone—because I figured it would heighten the challenge a bit. I was right. In New Style the Mk22 (the non-lethal pistol) has more bullet drop than a clumsy quartermaster, an apparent attempt to balance the weapon. All it did was encourage me to see just how far away I could be while landing a shot. I particularly enjoyed sneaking my way up Krasnogorje Mountainside, as I'd forgotten to destroy the helicopter earlier, and I had to time my movements around the patrol of the Hind-B. Thanks to the continuous elevation of the level, I spent a great deal of time lining up tranquiliser darts like they were mortars as I tried to plink guards from well beyond the effective range of my weapon. The next area, the Mountaintop, saw me under pressure almost instantly (the chopper spotted me when I got to the top of the Mountainside) and I had to rely heavily on my shooter skills to put a dozen or so guards to sleep. Most of them would have been off-screen in the Legacy style—and I was always pretty bad at aiming in first person with the PS2 controller. <img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/mgsdse05.jpg"/> At one point in the game, after coaxing a very unwilling Eva to follow me through the fucking jungle before our innumerous pursuers caught up, MGSΔ trapped me in "First Person" mode. It was obviously a bug, but I found myself enamoured with the idea—how much more trigger-happy would the player get if they could experience the entire game from that perspective. It would be nice to see some mods that add that into the mix, but it's not necessary. At the end of the day, Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater is, gameplay-wise, exactly what you would hope for. With some mild Quality-of-Life concessions that improve it to a point where it's transformative without being disruptive, it's a faithful recreation of the original game. Stupid fucking chase sequences and all. [[So you liked it then?]]

Oh yeah! Well shut up! [[Robust retort, Prince Charles.]]

(set: _rolltwodice to (random:1,12)) _rolltwodice (if:_rolltwodice > 6)[[You Died]] (if:_rolltwodice < 6)[[You Died?]] Hate that outcome? [[Roll again.->Roll some dice.]]

Everyone's a critic huh. Do you feel good that you worked it out? Do you feel like a big tough guy now? [[I do actually.]]

Yeah I'm awesome like that. Anyway you clever cookie, I think you're gonna have to return to the start. Here's a cyanide capsule tooth implant, why don't you take care of it yourself? [[So I just bite down like thi-->You Died]]

No doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt. [[So what now?]]

I dunno? Wanna read the other reviews? [[Of course I do.]]

Alright then, close your eyes. [[Can do!->You Died]]

I definitely liked the gameplay, yep. [[What does that mean? Why qualify it?]]

Well you chose to read the gameplay review, so you have to live with that. [[What so now you expect me to read the other reviews?]] [[Actually I read the other reviews first and I read this one last.]]

Oh right well... look, there's definitely a way for me to track that but I'm not very good at Twine and I feel like I would have had to build this entire thing with tracking that in mind from the get-go, because when I tried to retrofit some tracking into another part of this trash heap I call a review, it didn't work very elegantly. I promise next time I'll do it better. [[You better!]]

If you want to ask me questions like "So you liked it then?" yes. [[Fine, let's do it. Hurry up and kill me.->You Died]] [[I actually don't care all that much.]]

The close tab button is right there chief.

Yes that's what I said. Me, better. [[Ugh. Can you just send me back already? Do I use this knife? Will this work?->You Died]]

A redacted version of my story review. [[That's unreadable!]]

Yeah, pretty much. [[But why!? Why go to the effort? You had to redact out text! You blanked out words! You made a redacted image file for it!]]

Yeppers. [[But why even give me the option? Why not just tell me to go fuck myself?]]

In a way, didn't I do exactly that? [[No? You spent a significant amount of time and effort for a gag that I looked at briefly, thought 'well that's dumb' and then I moved on.]]

Did you move on though? [[Yeah buddy, I moved on!]]

But you're still here, aren't you. [[You're sick mate. Sick in the head. Weird and sick.]]

You're right. I am sick. Fully sick. With the ebola virus. [[What?]]

I have the ebola virus. And now, because we have spent so long together, so do you. [[Why aren't you showing any symptoms? Why... why can I already feel it taking hold!?]]

I guess I have like a 'carrier' gene or something? I honestly can't tell you. I refuse to see a doctor about it. All I know is everyone I come in contact with gets Ebola and dies shortly after. [[Didn't I see you walking out of a crowded cinema? Wait, is that blood coming out of my eyes?]]

I mean it was Outbreak. How could I not go see Outbreak like this? Those people had //no idea// what was going on. [[You're... you're a monster! Oh my god! I have to call someone! My dumb phone won't recognise my face because of the rash and the blood!]]

Yeah, it's definitely one of those things. [[Which one?]]

Maybe it's good when it's good and it's bad when it's bad? [[That's even dumber than what I said.]]

Debatable. If it is, it's not by much. [[Eh, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.]]

Ahh yes, very good. [[See what I did?]]

Yes, I see it. Very droll. [[Hmm, quite. Well, I suppose I best be off then?]]

Jolly good. [[//Hurk//->You Died]]

Looks like you should have thought about that... before you spent all that time in a room with me. [[What?! Why did you pause like that? I hate you. I hate you so, so, so, so, so->You Died]]