Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review – a pretty but dated hit of nostalgia

Following in the footsteps of Demon’s Souls, Final Fantasy 7, and Resident Evil 4, Kojima’s much-fawned-over Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the latest to benefit from the remake treatment. It even has a fresh name – Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – reportedly to symbolise Konami’s desire not to deviate from the original while still souping up the graphics to modern standards. It’s rather apposite titling; Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is faithful to the 2004 original almost to a fault.

For the uninitiated, MGS 3 plays out as an origin for the series, more specifically for Big Boss and the Les Enfants Terribles project. You play as CIA operative Naked Snake, who’s dropped into the Soviet jungle to rescue scientist Sokolov, the reluctant brains behind a nasty-looking tank with nuclear capabilities. It’s 1964, so the Cold War is in full swing – it’s all shady ops, conspiracies, double-crossing, and the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis looming large. Things don’t quite go to plan as Snake’s former mentor, The Boss, swoops in to announce her defection to the USSR while the snarling Colonel Volgin fires off a tactical nuke and nicks the tank. With a bit of a mess on his hands, Snake must crawl and grumble his way through the jungle to avert nuclear armageddon, using stealth and infiltration techniques to get past AK-47-toting goons and a special forces unit with esoteric powers known as the Cobras.

As a technical piece of work, Delta is impressive, visually enhanced and upgraded to look like a game at home in the year of the lord 2025 while still retaining the original’s palette. Water droplets cascade down Snake’s ripped torso. Individual leaves float woozily down to the jungle floor while piercing light pours through the canopy above. The hulking Shagohod gleams with metallic detail. You can see individual pores on Ocelot’s face as he finger guns. 3D audio has been thrown in for that stifling, humid jungle atmosphere. Animations appear more natural, whether that’s enemies patrolling or Snake reloading a gun. Peering at now-iconic areas and characters from the original rendered in rich and polished visuals will have you wondering how we ever thought the 2004 version’s sharp angles and stodgy visuals looked any good. It’s night and day.

Performance largely follows suit. At least it did on my 3070, hitting 60 FPS on the second-highest preset with only the occasional drop. Indoor areas when you reach Groznyj Grad in the latter half of the story seem to be the culprit. It’s never enough to pull you out and force you to jostle and fiddle with graphical settings, though. Other than an initial stint of shader compiling when the game is first launched, load times are measured in a handful of seconds.

So what’s changed other than the way it looks? Well, not all that much. We’re not talking a Dead Space or FF7 kind of remake here. This isn’t a grand re-imagining but a like-for-like remake. Konami’s touch is a light one, and it’s taken no creative liberties. The story, characters, levels, secrets, weapons, items, cut scenes, enemy placement, and the mad boss fights are virtually untouched from what I can tell. They’ll tickle your memory if anything. The pitch and tone are intact. The nightmare mini-game, the non-lethal runs, sniping The End early to avoid a full-blown boss fight, and all of Kojima’s other design idiosyncrasies that defined the original are all still there. Instead, the focus is on making the game more ‘playable’ for lack of a better term. 

Leading the charge here is the option to play ‘New Style’; basically a modern control scheme and a free-moving third-person camera to line up with modern sensibilities. The camera switch-up in particular works overtime to remove some of the more jarring aspects of the original’s semi-overhead angle. I found it made for a far more comfortable experience overall. You can revert to the classic controls and camera if you fancy it, you masochist.

The only other meaningful change is again a very visual thing. Snake’s clothing degrades over time. Cuts, wounds, and bruises show up on his body in real time. Even after patching him up, scars stay for the rest of the playthrough, leaving Snake pretty battered by the time you hit the credits. Other than that, Delta is just a smoother and prettier version of MGS 3.

Is it worth £70 when you can snap up the Master Collection version for £16? Why not, but it really depends on how sensitive you are to the wiles of nostalgia and your appetite to relish in its nonsense. Those weaned on Kojima’s noughties output will find comfort and familiarity here. It’s unequivocally the best way to play Metal Gear Solid 3 if you’re all about modern comforts and higher frame rates. But under all the modernising gloss, it’s the same silly, daft game full of world-saving babble, over-the-top performances, surprise-stuffing, and a confounding script that’s very much a product of its time, for better or for worse. It nurses the same flaws and blemishes as the original. And there’s something to be said for experiencing it in its original form, hazy PS2 graphics and chugging frame rate intact.

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Captured by VideoGamer

Previous

Next

1 of 7

Previous

Next

Twenty-one years on, Kojima’s conspiratorial twists and spy-thriller turns just aren’t as convincing as they felt at the time. Snake ogling at Eva feels icky, devoid of the edgy, adolescent naughtiness it had back then. I was often bored by the length of the overindulgent cut scenes, David Hayter’s jarring tonal affectations, that scene where Ocelot spins his gun for far too long, and that bloody horrendous showdown against The Sorrow in the river – the most tedious boss fight in all of games if you ask me (yes, I know, you can drown and munch the capsule in Snake’s tooth). For much of my time with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, I wanted to be playing Death Stranding 2 or The Phantom Pain instead. No amount of modern graphical improvements can make up for a game that, despite being an important entry in the annals of video game history, feels dated. The Ape Escape mode is still a good laugh, though.

Code provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC.

About the Author

Tom Bardwell

Tom is guides editor here at VideoGamer.

verdict

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is unequivocally the best way to play Metal Gear Solid 3 if you’re all about modern comforts and higher frame rates. But under all the modernising gloss, it’s the same silly, daft game full of world-saving babble, over-the-top performances, surprise-stuffing, and a confounding script that’s very much a product of its time, for better or for worse.

8 Graphical enhancements True to the original Performance Feels dated