"Guy Savage" is the name of the nightmare sequence in the PlayStation 2 versions of Metal Gear Solid 3. The minigame was written and directed by Shuyo Murata. The game is a basic hack-and-slash affair where the player encounters a vast amount of enemies, and must press the attack buttons repeatedly to defeat them.
Witnessing the dream
When Naked Snake is placed in the jail cell in Groznyj Grad immediately after being tortured by Colonel Volgin, the player must save their game before escaping from the cell. When that save is loaded, the player will be in Snake's dream.
During his conversation with Para-Medic while saving, Para-Medic will talk about the movie Dracula as Snake starts to fall asleep, much to his chagrin, as he is secretly afraid of vampires. After waking up from the dream, Snake chastizes Para-Medic for giving him nightmares about vampires.
A "Dream" save can be distinguished from a normal save on the memory card: the flower in front of the gun is normally white, but in a "Dream" save, it is red. If the player saves over the "Dream" save (either by progressing in the game after escaping from the cell, or by overwriting the save with another save), the flower on the save file will again be white.
Overview
Snake's dream consists of a large warehouse with destructible walls, zombie-like characters wearing police uniforms, and a player controlled character holding two hook swords. The zombies, who also each wield two hook swords, will always be chasing after the player.
The player can do a variety of attacks. For example, pressing 
will make the player spin around with the two swords sticking out, while pressing 
will allow them to jump where they can press to do a downward slash, the player can also perform a dash with the R2 button with the option to kick at the end of the dash with the slash button. At certain points during the dream, the character will suddenly undergo a transformation where he turns into a monster himself. In this feral state, the character's strength is amplified and he performs more brutal attacks on his enemies. The player seems to have to kill a certain number of enemies in a certain amount of time in order to transform. This is characterized by a change in hair color from brown to white, where he then becomes a monster. The game will last for roughly five minutes.
There is no objective other than killing the zombies. The zombies will always respawn, resulting in the dream never ending until the player kill a certain amount of zombies or time runs out and Snake wakes up.
Inclusion in Metal Gear Solid 3
It is unknown why the game was included in Metal Gear Solid 3 other than as an Easter egg for players to find. When Hideo Kojima was asked why it was included in Metal Gear Solid 3, he simply responded with "what game?" In a later interview, he stated that the dream was originally going to feature Gradius, another classic Konami game, but decided that he would rather include an original game. He later reiterated this in a Twitter post.[1] Guy Savage was originally meant to be developed later on into a full standalone game, but the project was eventually cancelled.[2]
Guy Savage was not included in the Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection and Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection versions of Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D. Consequentially, any radio conversations relating to the minigame/nightmare were omitted in these versions.
The scene featuring Snake waking up from the nightmare was included in some early trailers for Metal Gear Solid 3, albeit framed in such a way that indicated he woke up from a nightmare relating to The Boss torturing him.
External links
- YouTube video of Guy Savage