Last week my Xbox 360 decided to die in the middle of a heated session of Brutal Legend so instead of sitting around waiting for it to get repaired I decided to dig out my PS2. I know it's crazy but up until last week I had never played Metal Gear Solid 3. Having beat the original PSX game and MGS2 for review in the early 2000s, I never really felt the need to see the series through. Last year I decided to fix that when I purchased the Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection for the PS2.

In 2009 I revisited the original PSX title (which is still an amazing game) and MGS2 (I don't care what anyone says, it's a great game) but got a little burnt out and decided to take a break after close to 25 hours of tactical espionage action. Feeling the need to see what all the fuss was about I booted up MGS3 for the first time last week and a few nights later I found myself watching the credits roll. My only thought? What a great game.

MGS3 did so many different things and while I don't think any elements of it were executed perfectly, I would say that it's one of the most enjoyable games on the PS2. It's strange how Kojima can create a game that isn't a ton of fun to actually control and play but when you get to an end of a sequence you feel the need to continue moving forward. Like something is pulling you to see these characters through to the conclusion even if it means setting off a hundred "alerts" and getting killed over 4 dozen times.

I'm definitely going to play through Metal Gear Solid 3 again at some point in the future. I don't really feel that my initial play through was how the game was supposed to be experienced and my next time through I'd like to try my best to be stealthy. Also, I really have a thing for EVA and her.... umm... b... bike.

[I actually also played and finished MGS4: Guns of the Patriots this week but I'm going to take a couple of days to really let everything set in before I write about it.]