This demo has been sitting downloaded on my 3DS for quite some time and I finally got around to trying it. I’ve heard so much good word of mouth about this series but I’m not much of an action type of gamer, so I’ve mostly passed over trying it, but I thought, free demo, why not.

The first thing I noticed when playing was the camera. It does not like to cooperate. I found myself accidentally going back to previous areas because I kept being disoriented by the camera. Then when it came time to sneak past guards, I always got caught because the camera failed to warn me about a guard being in plain sight; or while I was adjusting the camera to make sure no one was there, I would get spotted. Perhaps it would have made the game too easy, but having the guards appear on the map would have helped tremendously in preventing me from making stupid mistakes like being seen in plain sight because the camera angle didn’t tell me there was a guard coming from my back. Speaking of the camera, one thing I kept wishing I could do was auto-realigning the camera. It would have helped a lot with the disorientation and during alert phase when I was frantically trying to hide/get away.

Also worth noting was that, while the game was pretty tough in the sense of not being seen, it was very lenient in terms of death. There was one point where I was frantically trying to get away from loads of enemy soldiers ganging up on me during alert phase and even though they kept pelting me with bullets, it took a lot to get Snake down to zero. Even with a game over, you don’t start at the beginning, but rather the beginning of that particular challenge, so the game is really forgiving of mistakes. (more…)