MGS 3 was my first metal gear game and truth be told I really like the whole healing, backpack and camo system. Maybe it was my naive kids brain at the time. However the whole healing system seem immersive rather than annoying even when I last played it back in '09. So it's kinda surprising for me when I hear people hating them nowadays. Something mentioned in the first part of Metal Gear Scanlon 3. So who hated it and anybody else enjoyed the system beside me?

I enjoyed it. It isn't nearly as distracting as some people make it sound.

It was fine. It could have been done better but jesus the game is old, things have made progress since then. MGS3 is still the best MGS of the entire series and while some parts of it "could" have been better I have to say... I can level that same comment at every game ever made so it doesn't really mean much.

I don't remember a time when I found it annoying, but I can see why people think it's clunky. I'm so used to it now though that I'm in and out of the menus in a flash. I'm not sure how they would streamline changing camo like that on the fly these days. In MGSV you have to order camo from motherbase with your iDroid, which is an in-game menu, and then you have to wait for it to arrive in a box attached to a balloon, and then you have to go to the box to change your outfit. But there's no camo index mechanic in MGSV.

I remember disliking it at the time.

Having to deal with the Camo system, batteries, (perishable!) food, degrading silencers, the CQC system and the menus was a bit too much at the same time for me.

Then again, I vaguely remember basically strip mining every map? Maybe that had something to do with it.

I loved it. I loved screwing around with the camo and everything. I really thought the extra constraints made finding a way to play much more creative.

The one time I hated it was fighting Volgin. Every time he hits you he breaks a bone or more often gives you a bullet wound so you're constantly opening the menu, going to cure, knife out the bullet, disinfectant, styptic, bandage and then backing out to continue the fight. It ruined the rhythm. I'd rather they'd just made it so you couldn't cure yourself in the middle of a fight.

I also just remembered the incredibly annoying and injury prone Eva escort right before The Boss. I think I had full medical supplies at that point and came out the other end with less than half of it left. The traitorous bitch kept antagonizing idiots I could have otherwise just swept right past without a fight.

When it was used more moderately, I thought the injury and cure mechanics were pretty cool.

*approved*Liked it, wanted to rip Drew's throat out for not adjusting his camouflage when moving from leafy forest to urban ruins in the first episode.

Was baffled to see some people stopped playing just because of the mass of injuries you get at the end of the virtuous mission. I actually wish it was a little more restrictive like it punished you for doing the wrong order or something...or for trying the cigar on every single injury.

I played the game for the first time a few weeks ago and i liked the menu system. The concept i find great but some stuff kind of feel a bit barebone and fillery. The healing stuff as an example, just adding 3 predetermined items in no particular order to heal a wound? Kojima with his sense for details can do better than that for sure...

Of 1, 2 and 3 (the ones i have played so far) 1 still has the best menus.

@gaff: Strip mining every map (as i did aswell) the only problem you would have with food is them maxing out your inventory space. I dont think i had any fooditem go sour the entire game but maybe i just missed it i dont know, they told me on the radio the icon would change if it happend but i never noticed that.

I thought it was funny and enjoyed using it. Especially when fighting the boss who shot crossbolts and you had to extract 3 foot long metal spikes from Snakes skull and then apply bandages to make it all better.

I loved it, top to bottom.

It was great. Just like the rest of the game. I really enjoyed the whole camouflage system. Id love a metal gear solid 3 part 2 lol, wouldnt that be great!?!?

i really liked it.

Yep, only issue was the load times.

Healing was super annoying during boss fights in which after every hit you take you'd have to go into the menu and deal with it. Other then that it wasn't too terrible. Thankfully they ditched all that for MGS4

It was fine. It's only a bit awkward when you're introduced to it.

I liked it, especially that they showed all the information you needed to make a choice before you exited, like camo index, weight, etc.

Only thing I didn't like was managing inventory. I know why they didn't just throw everything into the shoulder menus like in 1 and 2, but it got annoying and lead to me never using a bunch of items. (same with MGS4) It just messes with the flow of how I like to play MGS.

Everything else was fine.

I really liked it and really didn't like the streamlining in MGS4 then again I'm generally fine with tedium being used as a balancing mechanic.

MGS3 was my third Metal Gear Solid game and I have always been fine with the menus. You don't spend that much time in them if you play smart.

And besides theres even easter eggs in the menus haha

Now the menu system in MGS4 is awful. Fine line, that.

I like the camo/healing/backpack system of MGS3 a lot. Although even on the highest difficulty you barely need the backpack/healing stuff. If at all.

I love everything about the menu systems, it's one of my favourite parts of MGS3.The story and the systems all come together to help ground the game in reality rather than just being completely unbelievable fantasy like other games in the series. Obviously it's not a realistic game but something about all these little details adds so much for me. Managing food and camo and selecting your weapons makes you feel like a badass.

You are rarely spending more than 30 seconds in those menus at a time either. Just entering a different looking area and picking a different camo or healing a few wounds is all that is required.

I didn't know people had such strong opinions about the menus in this game. They work.

IT WAS FUN. PEOPLE LOVE TO BITCH AND MOAN TOO MUCH.

I liked the camo and healing systems, but by the end of the game it just felt like busy work constantly changing camo types. It got to the point where I knew the exact and least number of button presses needed to get whatever camo I wanted.

I played through MGS1-4 for the first time last year (started a bit before I knew about the GB series, which I sadly can't watch because my PC hates their video player + no premium =/) and I had no problems with it. Granted, I had fun making Snake puke whenever I entered the menus...

EDIT: Yea, I liked them. They worked as intended and were fun to mess around. Some areas have a lot of places where lots of different camo could be used, which was a tad annoying going back into the camo menu over and over.

Semi-professional menu designer here. The time it takes to a.) pause and b.) get through each menu is horrible, relative to the frequency at which you use them.

Imagine if pausing the game was instantaneous. If you pressed START and that menu popped up immediately, and there was no loading between submenus, the game would objectively be a better experience. I haven't played MGS3 in a few months but in my memory of playing the HD version on Xbox 360:

• Just pausing the game takes about 1-1.5 seconds
• Moving your cursor down to the "CAMO" menu takes about 1-1.5 seconds
• Changing to the "CAMO" screen is more or less instantaneous
• Moving your cursor to one of the two sub-options takes about 0.5-1.5 seconds
• Choosing the correct camouflage pattern for the situation takes anywhere from 1 to maybe like 5 seconds, depending on how full your camo list is
• Then you have to press the "CANCEL" button on your gamepad a few times to back out of all of these menus (1-2 seconds)

These times are estimates and, like I said, I haven't played MGS3 in a few months. But this sort of thing is incredibly frustrating from a user experience perspective. Imagine if, instead, you could press a dedicated button on the controller to change your camo, and from there, a series of radial menus let you choose the best camo for the situation. It would be literally the same exact mechanics, but reduce a maybe 10-20 second operation to a five-second one.

I guess it depends on how you play the game, but I changed camo a lot, and I always tended to my wounds when I got them. This made the game more tedious than anything.

Also, changing your backpack items could be so much better. As far as "menu design" goes, the MGS1/MGS2 system of "hold a damn trigger down and pick the thing you want" is pretty alright. Again, with perhaps a radial menu or something, it could be slightly improved, but when you only have sixteen or so items on each trigger, and you can change between them by holding the trigger down (which pauses the game [crucial!]) at any time, it lets the player do what they want to do in the game that much easier and efficient.

Visually, I love the look of the menus. The desaturated amber color scheme that MGS3 uses is super cool. Also, the Metal Gear games pretty much all have great menu sound effects, and MGS3 is no exception.

I love the camo system, and the survival aspects. MGS 4 tried so badly to streamline it but it completely ruined it for me. In that game you just crawl, wait at a spot, let the camo change and then go on. Kinda ruining the point of the camo, since you can have it all the time. The MGS 3 system was never meant for you to constantly have high percentage. It was intentional that you got into situations where you didn't have optimal camo and had to try and deal with it. I guess you could pause, but I found it added more to play into the system instead of constantly going and changing. Its fully possible to finish the game without using the camo at all, so I think its much better to just play the game and not change constantly. Which doesn't make it very tedious.

Played through MGS 3 about 5-6 times and never once had a problem with the system. Though I am usually pretty tolerant about stuff like that. I had kinda hoped that MGS V would bring back some survival aspects when it turned open world for real, it could fit incredibly well there.

No. The whole thing just seemed so unnecessary. Whenever I had to cure myself, I just spammed all my medkit items until the broken bone or cut or whatever it was was healed. I never really messed around with the camo stuff either. Sure, you can get some neat bonuses if you get some of the special ones… but I just didn't really care.

I didn't enjoy having to go in equip and manage items and weapons, either. There's nothing fun about that stuff, to me at least.

But I didn't actively dislike the menu system in the game. It's fine.

I think it can be pretty tedious but I like parts of it. You could do it in a different way now I think without requiring to go all the way back to the menu.

@takua108: You don't have to hit cancel to back out, you can just hit Start again.

I've had no problems with the menu system. Granted, I am playing the 3DS version, but it looks identical in function to the console menu system.

I also prefer having to equip items to the item or weapon lists from the backpack as it allows me to remove clutter from those respective menus. The healing system I am also a fan of.

In terms of gameplay (and gameplay systems), Snake Eater is easily my least favorite of the Metal Gear games. No matter how authentic it may be, I don't like not having something as key to the experience as a radar being stripped away.

Of course, the story and characters are fantastic, making it still worth playing through at least once. I just don't ever want to go back again.

I think the Backpack is great, and managing camo is fun.

The cure system I could do without but one time it bugged out during a boss and I ended up playing the rest of the game with an arrow sticking vertically out of the top of snakes head and that was pretty incredible.

I think it's a testament to how fantastic MGS3 is that the godawful menu system didn't turn me off the game immediately.

You can play through the entire first part (forest areas) with just a normal green or any type of leaf camo and do fine and switch to black or brown or something when you play the mountains/base. Switch back to green at the end. It's honestly not that big a deal.

There is a reason why MGS 3 is my fav ...... yeah if load times could be better then most peoples complaints could go away.

Loved it. It made me feel more connected to my surroundings, having to scour for battery plants/food and needing to be acutely aware of my surroundings at all times to choose the best camo. The menus could have been made easier to get to but they're literally only a few button presses in the end so no big deal.

yeah i liked it. and i really loved the healing system at the time where you had to go in and fix your injuries, mostly because you could go in to your journal and see every broken bone, every electrical burn and all that you have had during your time played. and the whole item and weapon thing was a great way of keeping your quick select someone easier so you diddent have to go thought 13 weapons to get to the one you wanted or 125 snakes just to get to your therm g

That's something i've noticed in most japanese games with inventory management. The Souls games are the most recent example I can think of. Streamlining isnt always better though. At least if you cant do it without sarificing options for the player. Which most games tend to do. You could argue RE4 had terrible inventory management if you want to time how long it takes to organise and access things, but if the solution is RE5 then I can handle wasting a little time.

Anway, to answer the OP I think all the survival stuff should have been handled in game (real time) as appose to menus. That way it would actually matter from a gameplay stand point and not just be an exercise in tedium. Obviously they would have to streamline it, and they kind of did in MGS4.

I really liked it. I didn't find going into the menus frustrating, I liked the managment of the survival mission, made me feel like I was really planning it out.

The only thing that was frustrating was healing. In combat, whether it was during boss battles or with regular soldiers, having to go to a menu every time Snake got hit was really annoying. Otherwise it was fine.

Never had a problem with it. Wasn't even aware other people had a problem with it.

@tstyper: I feel the exact way about this game and Im glad Im not the only one that thinks it was all a very novel experience

It seems pretty novel if you're playing it right after MGS1 and 2. On my second playthrough, though, I'd have to agree with the critics. It's a little annoying, but it's not a major hindrance.

I enjoyed it a lot, it was a novel experience that I had to use on occasion, unlike some people who spend more time inside of it than outside of it...

You're the best Drew, except when it comes to Metal Gear Solid controls and stealth.

In a game I dislike, the menu is just another on the list of reasons why.

But it's low on the list.

Like real low.

I love it, and the old camera.

I dont mind it because all in all you have to change camo maybe 5 times the entire game.

Tiger stripe / Splitter OP

Don't mind the systems when I got used to them, but I wouldn't be sad if they had taken it out. There are some systems that are kinda cool, like the backpack system that lets you put weapons/items you don't use into some other dimension that doesn't weigh you down and drain stamina but only because they had a Stamina mechanic.

I also like the health system where as you take more damage, your max health will increase. I'm still trying to work out how I can increase my max health without engaging the enemy. I tried smoking cigars constantly to get my health to the lowest possible point then let it regenerate over time but so far I haven't seen any difference made.