MGS>MGS3>>>>>>>>>>>MGS2

For me MGS3 is the best. The mechanic of sneaking in the jungle, along with the sheer beauty of the jungle even by today's standards, provided probably the best gaming experience I've ever had. And the boss battle against The End? Surely the best boss battle ever by a country mile. Certainly my favourite anyway.

I don't understand why people are complaining about the camera though, it seemed exactly the same to the other games to me, I 100%'d the game (except for European Extreme) and never got Subsistence.

Of the other two MGS is definitely above MGS2, which as people have said just gets silly. I only played it through once as a result. The silliest thing I remember is Snake (or is it Raiden? I forget) single-handedly fighting a massive number of Metal Gears, lol.

dabaus513 said: MGS3. Kinda hated how they took out the codac, could not stand the camera (til the rerelease at least) and seemed short. With that said it was still a great game.

 MGS3 was the longest of the three games. Each game has been successively longer for me, actually, with MGS taking 10 hours, MGS2 taking 12 hours and MGS3 taking 15 hours.

 The codec wasn't there because of the technology but he had a radio - it was the exact same mechanic.

 I couldn't stand Snake Eater until Subsistence came out, however. That third-person camera is so much better.

Yeah. As far as what actually happens in the ending, it's fairly straightforward (it's still a bad story, and extremely melodramatic, but that's a different issue). I'm talking more about the perceived depth of the plot and its philosophy. The meaning behind it. It's so convoluted that you might imagine you missed something, and there was some genius beneath, but that's just not the case. It tries to bring in all these high postmodern concepts, but all it does is bounce insanely from one disconnected idea to the next. It's nonsense.

Of course, some of the plot events are pretty much gibberish too. (Spoiler) For instance, the whole mission being a reenactment of Shadow Moses makes no sense whatsoever, considering it didn't remotely resemble Shadow Moses except in very stupid, arbitrary ways ("The guards! The guards were wearing the same colored pants!")

I'll tell you what would have made MGS2's story good: if Snake really had been the leader of the terrorists, as the Colonel claimed for some reason at the beginning. It would have made for a much more interesting plot and would have tied in thematically with the Big Boss story (Snake was similarly sent in to stop Big Boss, and it later became doubtful who was really the "bad guy" in that case). Instead it was a red herring, a throwaway plot point that was debunked 10 minutes later without any apparent reason for including it in the first place -- and we got this douchebag Solidus Snake, the cheesiest excuse for a B-movie villain you could ever ask for. I wonder if the entire MGS2 story was hastily rewritten a couple months before launch.

never played any of them.

you should try rating the FF games. All 12 of them. (not including spinoffs)

there were some points in MGS2 that I really liked.

Vamp is easily the coolest boss, though some bosses like Fat man or lady luck were just downright stupid.

The swordfighting was kind of cool, but it doesn't reallly *fit* into the context of MGS. It felt more like Kill Bill or something at the end.

My favorite part is near the end when you throw snake a clip and he throws it back to you and you ask why he doesn't need any and he just points to his bandana. "Umlimited Ammo"

Hmm, lists are always perilous, but here goes a letter grade version:

A+ (console)
MGS3. Astounding characters, fleshed-out environments, gripping gameplay. One of the classics of the 21st century media.

A+ (handheld)
MGS: Portable Ops. Terrific storyline and characters, the anime art style works, great gameplay innovations (collecting soldiers) and works perfectly as a handheld game. Kojima's scriptwriting has been honed to perfection.

A (console)
MGS: Amazing how well it's held up. Most of the classic themes - anti-war, strong female characters, surprising plot twists - are all there. Sniper Wolf's fate has lost none of its power to stun.

A-
MGS2: Storyline and characters aren't quite realized. Some great moments and thrilling intrigue, but we never learn enough about the characters or their motivations to make it stick. Gameplay also has a few issues - the sheer complexity of the control scheme gets in the way of the action.

Sniper Wolf... I didn't like that boss fight so much... I always end up cheesing it. I run to the lower right-hand corner, where she can't see or shoot you from her sniping positions and then just launch Nikita missiles at her. There's nothing quite like flying a missile into somebody from the first-person view.

I much preferred fighting The End in MGS3 - though with him I usually don't even bother sniping - I love sneaking up on him and holding him up.

MGS1 awesome
MGS2 not so good. stick with snake.