Secrets: Decisions, Decisions...

Right after you select "New Game" from MGS3's title screen, the game throws a menu at you with a number of choices and no explanation as to what each one will get you. While most of them don't significantly impact the game in the long run, I thought I'd clear up the mystery for you. Here's a breakdown of what each choice means:

"I'm playing the MGS series for the first time!"

Choosing this gives you the default intro sequence. I recall reading at one point that it also makes you take a little bit less damage and lose stamina a little bit more slowly during the Virtuous Mission (the game's prologue chapter). I'm not 100% positive that's true, but it seems plausible.

"I like MGS1!"

By all appearances, this gives you the same intro as the first choice. I've heard that choosing this makes the Virtuous Mission slightly harder (take a little bit more damage when hit, consume stamina a little bit faster). As with the first choice, I'm not sure this is true... but if it isn't, then why would they even bother having this and the first choice be seperate?

"I like MGS2!"

This is a fun one. Selecting this changes the intro sequence considerably: Snake will start out in the plane wearing a mask that makes him look like Raiden from MGS2, and after he lands in Tselinoyarsk the game lists his name as "Jack" rather than "Snake." The radio conversation with Major Zero immediately following that will be different, and then Snake will take off the mask to show his real face.

So what's the point of all that? Basically, it's the first of the many potshots MGS3 takes at Raiden, the bishonen-y main character of MGS2. The joke is that, if you choose MGS2 as your favorite, the game makes you think you'll be playing as Raiden again before revealing that it's really Snake (both of them are really named "Jack," so that's why the game introduces him as such).

This was what I chose the first time I played the game, and at first it kinda freaked me out. I saw this guy who looks like Raiden in the intro, who sounds and looks like Snake when he talks during the flashback scene where he accepts the Virtuous Mission, and I got worried that the game was pulling some cheap head-swap switcharoo on me. I knew from the previews that there was someone in MGS3 who looked almost exactly like Raiden, and I started thinking: "What if choosing that makes you play the whole game like this, and those preview scenes with the guy who looks like Raiden were taken from the version of the game where you choose MGS2?"

For the record, I like Raiden. However, his head looks ridiculous on Snake's body, and I didn't think it made any sense to play as him in a game set in 1964. So I reset my game and chose "I like MGS1!" It wasn't until my second time through the game that I found out Snake takes the mask off and reveals the joke about three seconds after the point where I hit reset. D'oh!

"I like MGS3!"

This choice is only available if you're playing the enhanced version of MGS3, MGS3: Subsistence. Choosing it unlocks a ton of stuff that you'd otherwise have to beat the game once to get--the secret demo theater and boss battle mode on disc 2, all of the Snake Vs. Monkey levels, and a plethora of new camo and face paint patterns.