Arnold-KatayevArguably the largest game at E3 for the PlayStation 2 was Metal Gear Solid 3. Marking it's second appearance at E3, MGS3 was showed off in both trailer and playable form. The trailer was nearly 15 minutes long and houses a plethora of subtle (possible) plot revelations. One thing's for the sure, not only was the trailer long, but it definitely had the crazy MGS theorists scratching their heads. Kojima has definitely mastered the art of keeping a secret. And even though it tears us all up on the inside, it seems to make MGS games even more enjoyable.
MGS3 is no exception. The build showed off a pretty sizeable chunk of the game. Much larger than the E3 demo of MGS2 and even MGS1. We were able to use a bunch of different weapons, including the silencer, the AK, the handgun, a knife, grenades, a sniper rifle, a shotgun and possibly a few more. The camouflage system was a blast to toy around with. If you hide behind a tree your hidden percentage goes up. If you crawl into a field of grass leaves, your percentage goes up even more. And then, of course, is the game's camo dress-up feature; we don't recall being able to access it, so we don't have anything to say about that.
The A.I. was, as always, very smart. Getting detected and the consequences thereafter are pretty much identical to what happens in MGS2, so veterans of the series will be able to quickly get adjusted to the game. Visually, MGS3 looks better than MGS2 did. The character detail on Snake is jaw-dropping. MGS3 was easily one of the best looking console games on the floor, and definitely one of the most intense. Based on what we played today, we're extremely excited about MGS3. We believe it may very well be the best game of the year.