Nomadic Fanatic said:
I tried Metal Gear Solid 3 but I was told that it is a game you have to play from the beginning or you won't get it and enjoy it.
It is a tad misleading, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is "The Beginning", when you think about it.
The game takes place in 1964, so it is as far as you can get into the beginning as possible. It has a lot of callbacks to the first two games, which only continue to be funny, even when you move on the other games. As I played MGS 1 and 2 in order, all I could do was laugh whenever a familiar situation or character or statement was made or showed up.
It's also the easiest to get into. The gameplay is refined considerably from the others. It's really hard to go from optional 1st person sighting to 3rd person sighting from 3 to 1, but if you have a Wii, you could play Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, a Gamecube game from a couple of years back. You'd need a GC controller, but the game is easier to play then its PS1 counterpart, but the voice acting is far better in the original then in the remake, so, pick your poison.
Metal Gear Solid 3 is almost entirely divorced from Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 in that except for the storyline leading up to the first game, and one major character appearing within those games altogether, you can play 3 first, and then the other two, and be more informed about the universe you are being a part of.
So, you can play MGS 3 first, technically. It might make more sense that way.