It's been a while since we touched it, but we finally completed Soiled laGer Mat 3 yesterday. We had previously left it at the obligatory torture scene (in which I was very surprised they didn't include a traditional "Hit the O button repeatedly until your hands fly off" challenge) and I thought it was near the end, but it seemed there were several huge set-piece sections still to go, including what might be the longest period of time in which you think you're fighting the final boss that ever existed.

I'm not really sure what to make of it, to be honest. The Metal Gear series has always been incredibly clever, but it seems that some of the magic of it's gone now. Part of it might be that I'm too used to thinking in the way that normal games do - there are things that are non-interactive, predictable ways that the AI behaves, and so on - and when confronted with a game that thinks so differently I've no idea what to do with it and miss all the unlikely brilliant solutions until I look them up. The first game (in the "Solid" line of the series, that is) was incredible because it did things that you never expected from a game. The second and third games took this to extreme levels so that I ended up missing most of them - however, I'm not sure if this is just my own incompetence.

I did enjoy (well, "enjoy" isn't the right word, but "appreciate", I suppose) the token section where the game goes mad. This time you're slogging down a waist-deep river being prodded by ghosts, faced with a boss that has an empty health bar on account of being dead. Occasionally there'll be a flash of light and you'll get a silhouette of a screaming face on the screen. Calling your contacts makes it clear that they think you're dead. So that was cleverly done, even though I was disappointed at how quickly I managed to work out the way to escape. I don't think I would have ever managed Psycho Mantis' fight in the first game without help, and that was just unfair and wonderful at the same time.

I've mentioned before that I had huge difficulty with playing the game because of my colourblindness against it being entirely made up of shades of brown - the thermal goggles sorted that out during the sections that I could use them, but many of the sections seemed patently unfair to me, particularly without the use of a radar. Unless you're fortunate enough to want to look into the screen, you have the option of either being able to move or see where you're going (and by the time you've had a decent look round you've been spotted anyway).

This may be something that I'm alone in experiencing as well, but I really needed that display in the top right giving me a wider view of where everyone was and where they were pointing. This meant that for me, the game (ironically for a stealth series) improved immensely once it threw subtlety out of the window and turned into Time Crisis, with a giant motorbike chase comprising most of the end of the game.

And... I don't know if I'm just getting more impatient as I get older, because I know that the series has been known for long cut-scenes for ages, but... the cut-scenes. Do I really need to hear everyone's life story when I meet them (or alternatively just before they're killed)? It's like listening to Bianca Jagger sometimes. But I didn't dare skip them because it's Metal Gear Solid, and you're playing it for the story - and besides, I may have missed something vital at any time. The beginning is particularly guilty of this, putting you through an endless series of "One more thing..." reassurances in the two hours it takes for you to actually get up and do anything. And it besets you with tutorial sequences right up until the last boss fight, too.

When they're good and not just huge barrels of exposition, they're very good, though. Particularly the scenes around the middle of the game (at the point where you think you've nearly finished it) are very powerful (i.e. painful). But they never get more emotional than that - even the giant sequence of plot reveal at the end had me looking into the background and thinking "Ooh, those trees are rather nice" (or alternatively "She's been talking for about four hours, shouldn't those MIGs have turned up by now?). Sometimes they push the whole mystic element too far and it becomes silly, even though it's been around in the series for ages.

So I can appreciate its cleverness, but it's often too clever for its own good - especially when it could do better concentrating on things like being able to see and being able to aim. Realism isn't always a good thing!