MGS story.

[Gray Fox]

The lack of radar, made sneaking rather useless. In the earlier mgs games you could explore the enviorment and keep an eye on the guards. In mgs3 it's better to just kill them and get it over with. Because sooner or later some they wil discover you over some shitty thing anyway and you'll have to use a lot more bullets.

Not only that, the fact you have an incredible amount of health doesn't really encourage you to sneak, I got trough a lot of parts rambo style. Add to that the fact that the caution takes way to long to end, and just killing your way trough is much simpler.

Oh and I ****ing hate intrusion view, whats the point of it when I'm sneaking trough grass. Whats the point, when you can only see 5 inches in front of you because of tha grass. I want my overhead camera.

And then we have the bosses, not bad actually, pretty fun. Shame most of them, the only thing they do is scream and explode. There is no story behind then, no intersting motives, just aaaarggghhhh, boom.

 

[smwScott]

That's only true for Normal mode. Yeah, it's easier to shoot your way through than sneak.

Now try it on hard mode or above. The difference is they don't stop coming for a long time, and they're better/smarter. Hard mode is really the way to play MGS2 and MGS3 IMO, the game seems much more balanced/challenging than on normal. In my experience, it is much easier to sneak through on hard mode than go rambo style. Oh yeah, and including the radar for the outdoor areas would have killed it, especially with the improved camera from Subsistence. And the first person camera when in tall grass adds a lot to the gameplay. It forces you to poke your head up and look around real quick and increases tension. Also, this surprised me, but a few people I've seen play the game don't know that you can poke your head up/around by holding L2/R2 while in first person, maybe that's the reason they have such a problem.

However it's also important to remember than in a few of the stages it's more fun to go rambo than to sneak. One that comes to mind right now is the small base with the helicopter and the mounted machine guns. Assaulting that base with all the many explodable things and enemies is a ton of fun. The same goes for that cottage with the M67 in it and a few other areas. The beauty of MGS3 (and MGS2 to a much lesser extent) is that it even though it's a stealth game it absolutely excels in providing great combat.

Another feature I really like is being able to blow up the enemies food and ammunition supplies, giving you a big advantage should you be caught and forced to fight. Also it's fun to give the enemies rotten/poisonous food when they're really starving. The whole hunting/attrition/survival aspect adds a lot to the game as well.

There are flaws with MGS3's gameplay though. I prefer the faster pace of MGS2 and don't like having to constantly switch my camoflauge. Also, the fact that you can't really run around and dart from cover to cover. You always end up either shimmying across a wall or crawling on the ground to blend in with your environment. It's cool but it just takes awhile. The last thing I don't like is the tranq darts are just way too effective, the game would probably be a lot better if you never got the tranq gun.

Still though, it's one of the best games ever made. I still prefer MGS2 because of the simpler and more fun game design, but there's no doubt that MGS3 is a much deeper game. Hopefully MGS4 will blend the two together and come away with the best damn game ever made.