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"This sucks"! I exclaimed as some no name videogame journalist shot me in the back.

The scene was Konami Gamer's day in downtown San Francisco and the game was Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, another entry in the beloved series from fan boy hyped master mind Hideo Kojima. There were four kiosks set up on a stage and each one featured the much anticipated online component, but I wasn't having any fun. The rest of this impressive package is cool enough to open my wallet, but the multiplayer stuff is downright ugly.

The problem is it plays exactly like Metal Gear Solid, a style of play that works well during single player skirmishes but horribly bombs once the death matching begins. Controlling the camera while exploring really cramped environments leads to disaster because said camera cannot be turned fast enough, so enemies were constantly shooting me in the back. Even worse, the aiming is all off and I've yet to figure out exactly how it works, but all I do know is it works the wrong way. There's just no logic behind why a character targets X instead of Y when Y is a hell of a lot closer than X. And then there's dying, which doesn't take all that long to do. A few well aimed shots will drop someone quick as hell and that's fine. I'm ok with a realistic shooter, but what I'm not ok with is taking a single shot to the belly, falling to the ground and being unable to get up while my enemy riddles my soon to be corpse with bullets. A Konami rep informed me that it's possible to roll out of the way but that's BS. Once I was down I wasn't going anywhere.

As for the juicy details, up to eight people can play online and there are a few modes of play. Death match and team death match should be pretty self explanatory, but more intriguing are the three modes Sneaking Mission, Capture Mission, and Rescue Mission. Sneaking is by far the best of the three ideas because one person plays as Snake and has to sneak past the rest while trying to steal select objects. Capture is pretty much capture the flag, but instead of trying to make off with the other team's flag you'll be attempting to swipe their frog piggy bank. And finally, Rescue Mission is a capture the flag spin off where teams alternate defending a cargo piggy bank. It's all good stuff, but nothing that particularly excites me.

The online play isn't so hot but the same cannot be said of the rest of the product, which is definitely packed with value. Naturally, it includes the full version of Snake Eater, except this one features new camera angles. But more exciting than that is the inclusion of the classic MSX games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and it's good to see that Kojima's elected to resurrect these beloved classics, though I do find it a little disappointing that the NES title Snake's Revenge (which is considered the black sheep of the series) hasn't been included, but I seem to be the only human on the planet who actually likes it.

Also cool is a new Duel Mode that allows you to battle against any boss from Snake Eater as well as more Snake Vs Monkey shenanigans, levels where Snake will battle against the primates from Sony's Ape Escape series. There's also connectivity between this game and the upcoming PSP title Metal Gear Ac!d 2, which lets you view your pictures from Sneak Eater on the PSP's 16:9 screen and in 3D, probably in collaboration with the Solid Eye, an included and boxy pair of 3D glasses that come with Ac!d 2. Finally, if you purchase the limited edition of Subsistence you'll receive Demo Theater, a movie comprised of edited scenes from Metal Gear Solid 3.

Since the game doesn't come out until March there's still some time for Kojima and his crew to fix the multiplayer issues but I have a really bad feeling that that's not going to happen, a shame since it'll partially ruin what is otherwise an incredibly enticing package. But as I listened to a Konami rep discuss the game with someone, he mentioned that the reason why the online play is this way is because that's how Kojima wants it. He's certainly entitled to develop how he wishes since it's his franchise, but then again, George Lucas is proud of the way the recent Star Wars trilogy turned out.