With the second release of Metal Gear Solid 3, Konami gives us Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, the highlight of which is online play. Online play offers us a lot of different features such as eight player online play, and three different match types including Capture Missions, Rescue Missions, and Team and FFS Deathmatch.

Multiplayer Snake:

The capture missions are a lot like classic "Capture the Flag," only in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence the object is placed in the center of the map. Players rush for the object and try to rush it back to their capture position. The player with the object is also revealed on everyone's radar.

In the rescue missions we are again placed into two teams, only this time we have one side defending and another side trying to capture the object the other team is defending.

Team and FFA Deathmatch is pretty self explanatory. In team DM we have two teams with a counter on how many times each team has died, or how many lives each team has left. In FFA DM we have a set amount of time to kill as many people as possible.

Snake in the Grass

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence offers us many different ways of play both the original game and multiplayer. One of the most diverse and unique ways of play would be the ways you can play tactically, using the AutoAim, Stealth, and Stun abilities. Though quirky, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence offers us the ability to AutoAim with everything but our sniper rifles. After locking onto an opponent (by facing them) we can hold down a key and AutoAim at them - although this doesn't guarantee accuracy but it does allow us to follow the player with our weapons. Accuracy goes up if you are standing still, kneeling, or crawling.

Another tactical aspect to Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence would be the feature to become a box to go into a semi stealth mode. By selecting the box item we are able to transform into a box, giving us the ability to potentially avoid being seen long enough to work our way behind an opponent, or laying in wait for someone to run by to pop out and take them down.

And as always in every Metal Gear Solid game, we have the ability to ambush our opponents by using a diverse style of stuns like the grab, grenade, knock down, or tranquilize techniques. By grabbing our opponents we are able to throw them to the ground, giving us just enough time to get a couple of pop shots off, or sometimes even killing them. We also have the ability to use grenades to stun our opponents. Grenades work a lot like the flashbangs of Counter Strike, giving us the ability to stun our opponents from around a corner, or in a ditch, or even to take out a sniper. We also have the ability to knock down the enemy. By running and rolling on to another player we basically do the same thing we did in a grab situation. Stunning them for a few seconds, we can get a few shots in before the get back up. Finally, we have the tranquilizer weapons, with tranquilizer pistol and rifle we have the ability to put our opponents to sleep. However, the effect seems delayed, and breaks when they take any form of damaged, making it the hardest form of ambush in a multi player environment.

Now, that doesn't mean that Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence doesn't give us the ability to play as an action orientated game. With the ability to go in to first person view to achieve headshots, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence definitely didn't leave us without the feel of an action game. First Person mode puts us in the front seat of the action, removing the AutoAim feature and giving us the ability to achieve headshots. However, there is a downside to the first person mode. The main issue for me was the amount of keys you had to hold down to get into fire person mode. First you had to hold down the first person key, to get your gun to come up you had to hold the fire key, and to aim you had to hold the aim key, now this wouldn't be a huge issue if you didn't have to hold the fire key down, but because you do have to hold it down you also have to release it and hit it again to fire, which it doesn't always seem to do. Now this problem does not affect the sniper rifles, the sniper rifles automatically go in to first person view and brings up the weapon, completely removing the issue of having to hold down the fire key.

There are a few bugs with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence's online play. The random telefrags on spawn, and taking damage from behind walls due to warping player models make the game a little confusing to play at times. It seems that sometimes when you spawn your client will lag up and you end up killing yourself randomly, almost like a telefrag only you're killing yourself not someone spawning on you. Another problem is what seems to be warping player models on laggy clients, and I don't mean your laggy player models, but other people's laggy player models able to shoot you while you stand behind a wall. Which makes for some forms of play very annoying, like when you're waiting to ambush someone and get shot through a wall from half way across the screen by a player that looks like they are frozen.

With all the extra features including multiplayer, new additions to the camera and the classic MGS games, Metal Gear Solid 3: Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence is a must buy for the MGS series faithful.