I'm honestly asking. I sort of feel like (except for the end boss fight) it might be the closest representation of a Bond movie translated to a video game. Thoughts?

Pretty much, the good Bond games are FPS games that share little with Bond, the ones that actually try to replicate Bond fall way short of MGS3.

Several of the Bond games have been good to great. Everything or Nothing was indeed a fun game. I remember having tons of fun using the spiders. N64 Goldeneye was freaking awesome, of course. The World Is Not Enough was enjoyable as well. The campaigns in Nightfire and Agent Under Fire were pretty weak for the most part, but the multiplayer was fun in both. I thought the Wii Goldeneye reboot was pretty good for what it was. I never played From Russia With Love, Rogue Agent, Quantum of Solace, Tomorrow Never Dies, Blood Stone, or 007 Legends. The franchise has had its hits and misses for sure, but it has had enough good moments to where suggesting another franchise has done Bond better is a real stretch, IMO. Especially when one of the Bond games is considered among the greatest games in history.

The opening was certainly bond inspired, and you can say that metal gear in general is influenced by bond somewhat, but I didn't find myself thinking much about it while playing the game.

I found myself thinking of kind of a Bond and Tom Clancy crossover while playing them. More on the Clancy side for MGS1 though.

The only thing James Bond about that game was the intro song and the few Bond references that Major Zero makes.

If there are any games that are James Bond or 60's spy influenced, it would be NOLF and Team Fortress 2, not Metal Gear.

007 is mystery in urban locations. Adventure games are more 007 than MGS3.

Nightfire was pretty fun. Dat GoldSrc Engine yo!

MGS3 is the best Bond game where you don't play as Bond, you play as the girl Bond seduces.

EVA is Bond. THINK ABOUT IT.

Yes.

No, it's the best Metal Gear game!

i don't think i'm going out on a limb here, but it doesn't remind me that much of james bond, except for the one song

I think it "being a Bond game" is maybe stretching the importance of the sixties spy movie stuff.

While the game has Bondish influences it's so, so intensely a METAL GEAR SOLID TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION game those influences are, like all the others in the game, mostly in the background.

short answer: yes.

What? There is absolutely no similarity between James Bond and MGS3 aside from both characters being spies during the cold war. Even so, Snake's brand of spying is more of the spec-ops variety, like a one-man Navy Seal team.

I liked Bloodstone a bunch. Not the best shooter, but gets its Bond-yness right. Car chases, gunfights, stealthing around etc. That's the best Bond game I have played. It's not as good as MGS3, but it's a much better Bond game.

no

Don't understand the JB comparisons MGS 3 gets.

007: Everything or Nothing was my favorite.

This. There are a few Bondish nods but I don't find it all that Bond.

Whilst I want to say yes, as a kid I really really enjoyed Tomorrow Never Dies on the Playstation and I am pretty sure that game was fairly Bondy. I also enjoyed Agent Under Fire on the PS2, but that game never felt very Bondy.

It's the best game of all time, so yes.

We will never get a true James Bond game unless somebody works out how to include a suaveness meter and a baccarat mini-game.