Trivia / Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

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• Alan Smithee: EVA's English voice actor is credited as "Suzetta Miñet," which David Hayter, Naked Snake's English voice actor, later confirmed was a pseudonym. Debi Mae West, Meryl Silverburgh's English voice actress, denied the rumors that it was her, while series English voice director Kris Zimmerman claimed to know the actress' true identity, though doubted that it would ever become public knowledge. Zimmerman also confirmed that this anonymity had nothing to do with Konami or any legal issue, and was rather a personal choice by the actress. Miñet reprised her role in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and to this day, her true identity remains publicly unknown.
• Creator Backlash: Done to Raiden from the previous game:
  • Zero devotes a long radio conversation to the fact that the Raikov mask irritates him, and the mask is used to pose as Major Raikov, the impulsive, despised, and ill-tempered lover of everyone's favorite homicidal lunatic, Colonel Volgin; Snake beats him up and hides him in a locker, with the option of actually killing him.
  • In the Secret Theater video Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser, Raiden goes back in time to assassinate Naked Snake/Big Boss and take the role as the main protagonist for himself. He ends up, among other things, getting kicked in the face by Naked Snake during the HALO jump, and is almost raped by Volgin, mistaking Raiden for Raikov.
  • The Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer also takes a potshot at Raiden, with the crowd booing heavily when he unmasks himself and his getting royally creamed by Snake during their fight for the main character chair.
• Fake Nationality: British-born Neil Ross and American-born Jim Ward voice Russians. It should be noted that, due to Translation Convention, both characters speak English in American accents.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Several, as follows:
  • Metal Gear Solid 3 was later given an Updated Re-release titled Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, which, besides making improvements to the main game, most notably adding a much-demanded interactive camera, also included a second disc mainly pertaining to the first version of Metal Gear Online. Of special note though was that the bonus disc also included the first two games in the series. Subsistence itself also came in two versions: The regular, two-disc version, and a Limited Edition, which included a third disc called Existence, containing a three-hour movie of Metal Gear Solid 3 created from the game's own cutscenes and playing footage. The "Existence" disc is included in all European releases of the game, however.
  • The Japanese Premium Edition threw in a CD, a DVD with all the trailers (including a "proof of concept" footage featuring Iroquois Pliskin and a few Gurlukovich soldiers in the jungle), two booklets of bonus material and a 1/144 scale painted model of the Shagohod.
• The Other Darrin: In the English version of the Secret Theater film Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser, Raiden was voiced by Charlie Schlatter instead of Quinton Flynn.
• Production Posse: Michael Bell (The Fear), Richard Doyle (The Fury), Gregg Berger (The Pain), and Neil Ross (Volgin) have all previously performed opposite one another in the Legacy of Kain series (Bell as Raziel, Doyle as Moebius the Timestreamer, Berger as Turel, and Ross as Malek).
• Recursive Import: Metal Gear Solid: Integral and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance had English voice acting with subtitles for their Japanese releases. However, the Subsistence edition of this game kept the Japanese voice acting for its native release, but still added all the other extra features from the European version.
• Recycled Script:
  • The basic plot premise of the game, and a love interest who abandons Snake in Alaska, is a rehash of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
  • The love interest turning out to be a spy but still loved the main character was already in Metal Gear Solid 2.
• The Red Stapler: CalorieMate bars are often imported by curious non-Japanese fans who are surprised to find out that it's a real thing, as they're not readily available in some countries.
• Role Reprise: In Snake Eater 3D, Heather Halley reprised her role as Para-Medic to voice new dialogue telling Snake, also revoiced by David Hayter, about the Yoshi doll.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Why the Snake vs. Monkey minigame isn't in the HD Edition and Snake Eater 3D. Ape Escape is a Sony Interactive Entertainment first-party IP, killing any chance the minigame has of appearing on non-Sony hardware by default.^note Though that doesn't quite explain its absence in the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions, except not wanting to bother putting extra effort into one version.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: During development, Kojima struggled to choose an ending theme for the game. A colleague suggested that he listened to the American indie band Stellastarr*; however, Kojima misheard him^note He explained in a blog post his friend, in Japanese, said "suterasutaa," but he heard "sutaaseiraa." and instead bought an album from the band Starsailor. It was through this accident that Kojima ended up finding what became the ending theme, as he became attached to that band's song "Way to Fall".
• So My Kids Can Watch: The Snake vs. Monkey minigame in the game, which is based on Ape Escape, was partially made so that the developers with young children could share the game they were working on with their kids.
• Throw It In!:
  • During the scene where Snake and EVA are hiding in a mountain bolthole, when EVA leans in to kiss Snake, he pulls back. This was because Snake's motion capture actor for the scene wasn't used to doing love scenes and pulled back because he was nervous. Kojima, believing this was in character for Snake, decided to keep the scene in, and fondly remembers this as one of his favorite touches in the game.
  • Tornado Yoshida, Ocelot's motion capture actor, would make a hand gesture by pointing his index and middle fingers as if he were pointing a pair of revolvers. This was so funny that it was put into the game as Ocelot's signature hand gesture. Additionally, when Snake's watches the altercation at Groznyj Grad through the binoculars, the characters all storm off in different directions. There's no button prompt to indicate that you can do it, but using the First Person View mode during this scene and looking to the far right shows Tatyana imitating Ocelot's hand gesture and cracking up. Her motion capture actress was messing around thinking she was off-shot when she did it.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Snake Eater 3D, the Nintendo 3DS version of the game, is often said to disable the system's 3D effect in first person view after Naked Snake loses one of his eyes. This is not true — as demonstrated in this Twitter video, the game always turns off the 3D when entering first person view, even before that point.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game was originally meant to be a PlayStation 3 title, but it was released for the PlayStation 2 instead when the former's development took longer than expected. The game was eventually remastered for the PS3.
  • The credits theme was originally planned to be David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes" when space development was originally one of the game's main themes.
  • As the player goes through the game, Snake's injuries were supposed to leave visible scars on him, but the PS2's hardware capabilities were unable to handle this feature.
  • During the torture sequence, there was going to be various button prompts that would have Snake struggle and swear, but the concept was ultimately cut.
  • Kojima and Akio Ōtsuka proposed the idea of having the game be voiced in Russian. By the Japanese voice cast. Ōtsuka was so enthusiastic about the idea, he went for Russian lessons. The rest of the cast shot them down. Interestingly, Kojima decided to revisit this idea and use actual Russian in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
  • The Naked Sample tech demo for the Nintendo 3DS showcased some significantly improved graphics, an updated sneaking suit design, and new set-pieces showing off the 3D capabilities of the 3DS hardware. Unfortunately, the actual Snake Eater 3D is more of a straight port with updated textures and added game mechanics from Metal Gear Solid 4 and Peace Walker.
  • There's text strings in Snake Eater 3D implying that Side-Ops were meant to be included.
  • The "Guy Savage" nightmare Snake has was originally meant to be Gradius, but Kojima thought that an original game was better suited for that part.
  • It was originally intended that Colonel Volgin actually murdered his father which resulted in his inheriting the Philosophers' Legacy by consequence (thus making him a Self-Made Orphan). However, the still that had him murdering his father was cut from the final version. Had it been kept, it should be noted that his reasons for murdering his dad most likely had nothing to do with the Legacy, as he himself admitted that he didn't even know about the Legacy's existence, or even that his father had it, until after his father's demise.
  • Kojima looked at replacing David Hayter as Snake with Kurt Russell, who ultimately passed. Interestingly, Solid Snake was original based on Russell's character from Escape from New York.
  • Early press releases stated that the player would be able to set traps for enemy soldiers, similar to the traps that the player must negotiate in the game. Also, there wouldn't be prescribed paths through the jungle, allowing for more freedom in navigation. These features were cut when the PS2 was found to be unable to process these.
  • Kojima had considered working with Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki to include some of DOA's cast in Metal Gear Online, specifically the first iteration included with Subsistence, as secret characters. Instead, we got Reiko Hinomoto and her alter-ego Rowdy Reiko from Rumble Roses.
  • According to an interview in the January 2005 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Kojima planned to have a radio station in the game where he and other Konami staff sang karaoke so poorly that it drained the player's health, but this ended up being cut due to space constraints.

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