Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has been something of a revelation for me. Having never played a MGS game before (I can hear cries of outrage coming from fans reading this review even as I tap the keyboard!) I didn't know what to expect. And it's fair to say that MGS3 made a lousy first impression. In fact, so woeful was the first hour of gameplay that, had I not been reviewing this game, I would probably not have played any further. Yet a few hours later and I was totally hooked, falling in love with the game for its amazing depth and unique style. I imagine that the majority of gamers, perhaps newcomers more than hardened fans, will have the same experience. But I'm here to tell you that while MGS3 isn't as accessible a game as we're used to, it's well worth persevering, because until you've played this, you haven't fully explored the stealth genre.

On the surface of things, MGS3 doesn't initially compare well to Splinter Cell (which to my mind redefined the genre with its two outstanding releases) - the graphics aren't as good, the story isn't as realistic, the controls aren't as fluid and the camera totally sucks. Whilst this seems like a lot to get over (and is at first), delving deeper you will find sublime gameplay that is more engaging, varied and atmospheric than Splinter Cell ever gets.

Our story begins in the Sixties, set against the backdrop of the Cold War, shortly after the Cuban missile crisis and assassination of President Kennedy. Our hero Jack, codename Naked Snake, is the father of Solid Snake from the previous MGS games (this is set in the past remember, a prequel as such) and is roving into the jungle for the first time. Known for its overlong cut scenes, this is one of the most off-putting and gameplay-spoiling things at the start. The initial scene, with Snake in a plane, being briefed and then jumping out for an exhilarating skydive, is superbly directed and showcases the sumptuous graphics engine. However, there is so much in the way of cut scenes and dialogue over the radio between you and your comrades back at the base, that you hardly feel like you've got into the gameplay before the next interruption comes along. Later, you fall into the flow of the cut scenes, getting larger gameplay chunks in between and anticipating the next big scene because you want to know where the story will take you. But at first it's very intrusive.

This is true of much of the game - it just takes some getting used to. The in-game graphics somehow don't look as good as the cut scenes (although they use the same engine) and whilst the forest is very detailed, it looks a little basic until you're used to it. Later areas, such as warehouses, caves, forests and mountains, look better and better. Everything looks great up close from the first person perspective, especially the wildlife, with which every environment is teeming. The animation for the guards and Snake himself is okay, looking natural for the walking and quite silly for the running, although the attention to detail in many respects is outstanding. The gameplay is very deep, varied and open-ended. Initially your hands are tied and you're not allowed to engage the enemy, making the first section very frustrating as you attempt to get through each section without being spotted (once seen, it's hard to lose the guards and you end up dying). But after the first couple of sections of the Snake Eater mission, you begin to pick up some decent weapons and the gameplay really opens up. Despite being the Sixties, you have a wide range of gadgets and guns at your disposal. You have a scope for checking out distant areas, a motion tracker, sonar sensor, anti-personnel detector and even a directional microphone, which you point around to see if you can hear nearby guards. As well as your pistol and tranquilliser gun, you'll gain access to an AK47, machine gun, shotgun, sniper rifle, various grenade types, explosives and even a rocket launcher later on. The fact that you can't steal enemies' weapons is ridiculous (you have to find a crate hidden somewhere instead) but you can take their ammo. However, you have to search each body, which seems tedious and unnecessary. There are many quirks like this to MGS3's gameplay and while some grow on you, others like the body searching do not.

One of the most fun quirks in Snake Eater is having to keep your stamina up by eating regularly. Alone in the jungle, you have no choice but to forage for food and eat it raw (smoke will attract attention) and to this end you can find a huge diversity of things to eat. Plants and mushrooms, spiders, scorpions, crabs, frogs, rabbits, fish, birds and many other animals await your tasting pleasure, plus of course a number of snakes. Occasionally you'll get to see a little animation of Snake munching on his raw, sometimes live prey and it really makes you grimace, especially with the juicy sound effects!

Another quirk that is sometimes novel but more often tedious is the need to heal your injuries in a very specific fashion. In your inventory you'll find a cure screen, showing a model of you (with full x-ray facilities) that marks any injuries you've gained, including burns, breaks, cuts, gunshot wounds, leeches and more. You have a range of first aid supplies and each injury requires a different combination of items. For example, gunshot wounds need a knife to get the bullet out, disinfectant, styptic and bandage. While this level of depth for healing encourages you not to get injured by being stealth and skilful, when you do go all gung-ho and face off a small army, having to keep healing yourself mid-battle becomes a real chore.

One of the best aspects of MGS3 is the choice of approach. You can be ultra stealthy and sneak past all the guards without even being seen. You can do this by making a noise to draw the guard away from their post then double back round, or shoot a beehive so it lands nearby, or just by crawling through the undergrowth in your camouflage. You can tranquillise the guards or grab them from behind and slit their throats (with a suitably bloody and vicious animation to accompany this!) Or you can simply shoot them, using your weapons to fend off the many guards that attack you until there are no more left to kill. This diverse range of styles, each of which allows you to progress, gives you real freedom and I found myself being sneaky sometimes and going gung ho when I wanted to let off some steam.

If you get badly injured, you can find a good hiding place and wait the guards out - there are three stages of alert, the worst being red alert when you've been spotted. Once nearby guards are killed or out of sight, the alert counts down from 100 (at varying speeds depending on the situation) and then goes to evasion, where the guards are still looking for you actively, then to caution, where the guards are back on patrol but extra aware, then finally back to normal. This is another double-edged sword aspect to the gameplay, as the realism is great to have and the enemy behaviour and AI is possibly the finest I've ever seen, yet it's a real pain to have to keep hanging around for the alert stages to reduce, only to be seen again and have to either hide and wait or slaughter the guards until they stop coming.

Those guards really are smart though, so watch yourself. If they see you, they jump and go "what was that?" or something to that effect, then walk over to investigate. If you can hide yourself in time, they'll think they were imagining it. If not, they see you and start shooting, before taking cover and radioing for back up. The fact that you can hear these radio conversations is excellent, at each stage of the alert going up or down, really adding to the tension and atmosphere. At these times the music becomes dramatic too, further enhancing that feeling of excitement and action. The guards are good shots, they take cover when wounded and they investigate if they see an explosion or fallen comrade, so hide your bodies if you want to remain unexposed.

On the subject of being exposed, the use of different camouflage outfits is key to the stealth; you have a range of outfits and face paints for each kind of terrain, be it jungle undergrowth, rocky paths or urban environments. The fact that you have to keep pausing to select the different outfits is something of a nuisance but Snake looks very cool in each new pattern and the on-screen display tells you the percentage you are hidden against the scenery - crouching and crawling making you much less likely to be spotted. Movement speed affects things too, so take care to crawl slowly past guards that are close.

The controls and camera do their best to spoil the experience and they seem really clumsy at first. Oh hell, they are clumsy, but you do get used to them. So many things could be better - crawling around can be awkward sometimes, the camera is set at a really annoying overhead angled viewpoint and can't be rotated (like Resident Evil's set angles but somehow even more restrictive) and you have to hold down a button to go to first person view, in which you can only look around. It's terrible really and if you had the ability to switch between a full rotatable third person view and first person view at will (like Ghost Recon 2, say) it would be so much better. The firing system is odd too - it's accurate but you have to depress the fire button to aim, then release to fire a bullet! Whoever heard of that? The weapons are lovely, so the fact that you have to stand still to use them in first person is a real bummer - they look and sound great, especially the shotgun, rocket launcher and sniper rifle.

The story soon degenerates from what looked like an intelligent, political thriller into a bizarre fantasy, with a group of bad guys with crazy supernatural powers, like The Pain who can control bees and spit bee bullets from his mouth, and The Fear who can cloak himself and dislocate all his limbs to climb around the trees like a spider! Then there's The End, a very old man with bulging eyeballs and a propensity for hiding and sniping, who is at one with the forest. And there are more equally strange enemies to come! Whilst at first this all seems very silly and some of the action sequences are so ridiculous that they far outstrip even the least believable Bond scenes, once you get into it, you can't help but enjoy the storyline, become attached to the characters and lap up the John Woo style direction, regardless of the fact that the surrounded loner just took out all seven machine gun guards with his pistol before any of them could so much as fire the guns they had trained on him. The plot does twist and turn, with plenty of good developments before the end and the voice acting, which is very clichéd at times, as is the script, grows on you too, as you grow accustomed to the at times comic book feel.

A later level on the mountainside sums up what MGS3 has to offer quite beautifully. As I walked out onto the cliff ledge, I was greeted by the wind howling in my ears and the distant cry of a bird of prey circling high above. It's fair to say that the ambient sounds are always excellent, from the host of animal and insect noises in the jungle to the flow of a river or the dripping of water in a cave. I looked over the desolate terrain and surveyed my passage across an open area with several guards. Freshly equipped with my sniper rifle, I picked off the guards one by one, zooming in with the powerful sights, steadying my hand and then taking each guard down with one blood-spurting bullet to the brain. I was both delighted and appalled to see a vulture swoop down and start feasting on the nearest dead guard! I zoomed right in and watched it delve deeply into the blood-stained carcass, ripping out a chunk of flesh and devouring it greedily. In the interests of karma, I killed and ate one of the vultures, which turned out to be very tasty! Each of the dozens of animals you can eat must be tried - some are disgusting and give you barely any stamina restoration while others, like the vulture, restore your stamina well. Snake's chomping noises and reactions, good or bad, are laugh out loud funny.

Now full up with scavenger bird, I headed to the next area of the mountain. Here a helicopter was circling, so I picked off the guards I could see then made my way up the winding slope. I soon came across a big, empty gun turret and couldn't resist getting into it. It felt so lovely that I took a few shots at the chopper, which instantly started firing back. Imagine my delight when I finally got the bullets trained on it and it exploded in flames, wreckage strewn everywhere. Of course several guards were now shooting at me, so I took them out and then hid, as another chopper had appeared. As it slowly scoured back and forth, using a different pattern for the evasion phase than its usual circling, I zoomed right into the cockpit and shot one of the pilots, causing an internal explosion and the smoking chopper spun out of control before crashing into the mountainside - fantastic! But back to full alert again. Oh what the hell, it was worth it!

Eventually reaching the top of the mountain, I was treated to a great cut scene with Eva, the double agent in Russia, supposedly an American traitor but actually working for us. She was half-naked as usual and flaunting her bust as she flirted with Snake, even kissing him at one point, before speeding off on her motorbike. Yes, this gal's got style and is one sexy game character! From here I was treated to another great cut scene and my first view of the monstrous weapons facility, which I would have to work my way into the heart of to rescue a Russian scientist before he could finish building his giant mech tank! Yes indeed, no other game offers such a variety of gameplay or such a wacky plot as this one!

There are a few secrets to look out for as you play through the game and some extras to unlock, but I'll leave you to find those for yourself. Certainly this helps the replay value, as does the open-ended gameplay. Loading times are almost non-existent, taking just a few seconds between areas, in the style of Resident Evil and the opening doors. Manual saving is a slight pain but if you die you continue from the area you were in, so it's only really necessary to save now and again. It's a great touch that you can radio into Major Zero, Para Medic and other characters like Sigint and Eva at any time, which always yields helpful advice or useful information if you're a bit stuck on how to proceed. Para Medic even chats to you about classic movies she's seen at the cinema, leading to some great trivia and reference to films that are obviously fan favourites of the dialogue writer. There are so many nice little touches in MGS3 that they are far too numerous to mention here and it's the thought and charm of the game that helps you overlook the various flaws.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is in some ways a pioneer and in others stuck in the past. An unwieldy control system and restrictive camera view initially frustrate, but once you are used to it a whole world of deep and engaging gameplay opens up. Lovely graphics, atmospheric sounds and the freedom to choose how you approach every situation make for a compelling experience and the grand, rather silly storyline is very entertaining once you've suspended your disbelief. So don't worry about that first impression, look beyond the awkward exterior and you'll find your new best friend.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).