Thrik

I am sick of this SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

I did find that the truck method was extremely effective, although I only discovered you could do that when replaying it on hard. The first time I played Ground Zeroes I extracted the female prisoner all the way out to the cliff you started at, which I can definitely say wasn't easy but just required a lot of good timing. Your toolbox is pretty limited in GZ, but you can still make use of distractions. For example, set some C4 somewhere and detonate it to attract enemy attention over there. Magazines are unbelievably useful and make up for the lack of being able to knock on surfaces like in previous games. I find that GZ is at its best when you're not overthinking things too much and think fast, maintaining stealth but only just. The game seems to allow for lots of edge-of-seat moments like this due to cars unexpectedly driving by and patrols changing, which is but a taste of what to expect in The Phantom Pain's much bigger world. In previous games you can plan out a whole section and execute it quite perfectly, but in GZ you can totally have a solid idea of what you're going to do and some spanner will almost certainly be thrown in the works. Also, in previous games you could 'clear' areas by taking everyone out. This isn't really possible in GZ so you need to embrace using CQC (or if you must tranquilisers) to temporarily get through areas. As reviews have highlighted, the gameplay mechanics and systems in MGS5 are the star of the show. Unlike any previous MGS game, you can have bombastic experiences that resemble scripted set pieces occur out of absolutely nowhere. With so many options and ways of playing the game, I think that self-imposed restrictions will be a more fun way then ever before to play (or replay) these games. That is, challenge yourself to only use certain pieces of equipment, no weapons, no alerts, etc.

With the reviews for this game I don't think that Kojima will have an awful lot of trouble finding someone to back him, even if it comes down to what will surely be the most successful Kickstarter on the planet. A friend of mine had his MGS5 preorder come today. What an absolute git. Sounds like Simply Games is the place to go for UK preorders.

Oh yeah, I totally missed that. Building GMP should provide a really nice sub-game, especially if you can earn it through base assaults and stuff. All of that could become a way you spend your evenings on MGS5 in itself, like Destiny except with a fleet of fortresses to show for it rather than just a piece of shit in your inventory.

I haven't seen anything making that clear, as for demos they seem to use cheats. With Peace Walker there was an upgradeable per-mission limit, so if TPP continues the trend of discrete missions as opposed to one long stretch of game then I expect the same to be the case.

http://youtu.be/_8dIOyvuiqI No words can be added.

Probably for the best I never bothered unlocking that last tape, as is probably the case for the majority.

Yeah the alert thing saved me from a few spots that would have been really annoying, forcing me to re-infiltrate the area after escaping. I know that a lot of people disable it for that more traditional experience, but the scale and unpredictability of the environments in MGS5 is unprecedented in the series, and it's a balancing tool that I think was very wisely put in. Of course, for replays I will inevitably disable it as I work my way up to the most difficult possible experience as I always do with these games. One thing I really like about GZ is the way you can do each mission at different levels of difficulty and challenge, unlike previous games where you have to slog through the whole experience with maximum pain. It's quite nice being able to do a rock-solid version of a mission you've already completed if you're not in the mood for doing something new. I look forward to TPP expanding on this.

I'm not sure if MGS5 is the kind of game where a walkthrough is that useful because it does seem to be built quite strongly around unpredictability, which is about as far removed as it gets from the earlier games but extremely refreshing IMO. Some of my best MGS moments from the whole series have been when I've had to think very quickly while retaining my stealth after unexpectedly being spotted by an enemy, which MGS5 causes to happen a lot. It does make the game more tense though, so hopefully there'll be 'palate cleanser' indoor sections that simplify things a bit. Heck, the Mother Base intrusions could provide some of that more linear traditional gameplay. It really put the wind up me when I first experienced the 'let's mix things up' moments in Ground Zeroes because never has an MGS game really robbed control of enemy states from you, however the large playing areas do allow for escape in ways that the previous games just didn't. For example, running from alerts and creating distractions is far more viable now due to the enemies having a more developed sense of your (perceived) location. Consider laying C4 and such not just to destroy, but to attract attention while you escape. The Phantom Pain is clearly going to give you a much broader arsenal of stuff to use creatively so that should be superb. Anyway, yeah I was pretty irritated by the making-of stuff only being in the top edition, but I've resigned myself to hoping that it appears online — even if I have to buy it — before long.

I think I'll preorder it from my local Game because mail is really unreliable when you live in an apartment you're never in as far as the postman is concerned and you can guarantee Amazon or whoever will put it in a big-ass box. I noticed there's a 'day one edition' there that comes with a camo box and some other shit. Am I missing out on some super-sweet pre-order bonus that some specific retailer has?

Conversely, I'm hoping I can switch over into Quiet's outfit as a bearded long-haired dude and recreate Vamp:

One thing that's definitely unfair is that I can almost always get a brand new boxed copy of games for much cheaper than on in-console digital stores. Worse, whereas retail copy pricing often drops rapidly, it's not uncommon to find the digital versions still at top price months way after release, sometimes after years. Obviously anybody can go and buy them from a shop, but the digital convenience can be lovely so it really sucks to feel like you have to get ripped off to enjoy it. I've started just not checking Amazon/IRL store prices because I know I'll get annoyed and stop myself buying it if I become aware of how bad a deal I'm getting.

I've only allowed myself a few glimpses of that video, but wow. The Mother Base stuff alone makes MGS2's Big Shell look like a joke. Considering that potentially each base can be unique and kitted out with various defences, there are conceivably endless VR mission-esque scenarios here.

You just can't beat these. I think I posted these somewhere here before, but if you go through various parts of these videos there are just so many awesome little tunes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WWFEBsgfk

Wow, sounds like this game is very different from Skyrim!!!!!

Less than a month to go for this. God damn!!!!! I still haven't finished replaying MGS3 though, in fact I only just defeated The Fear. I'd better get moving if I want to have a hot transition into the likely splendour of MGS5. Kojima seems to have jumped back to life on Twitter leading up to the release, posting a picture of a Mother Base. Looks like it's going to make even Big Shell look paltry. Though I imagine that much of it will just be there but not particularly used for much. However, if they can make it all compelling to explore and interact with then that'll be absolutely terrific, giving it the same sense of life that one of the various havens in games like Fable or Skyrim had.

I did a few things in Destiny then got distacted by PlanetSide 2. If I were to give it another shot, would I find that there's much in the way of narrative/story to the quests — and if so, how many hours worth — before I get to all this endless end game stuff, or is it really not a game that has much in that regard? I'm craving some sweet sci-fi story and am finding my options limited unless I go back and replay Mass Effect.

Yeah, I watched some new footage the other day and it really does look quite poor. There's absolutely no way that a 2015 2D platformer has to look so dull.

I had the T-pose bug when playing the original game via Residual — in fact, Manny became permanently stuck in that position, even when I reloaded after saving — not to mention various bizarre bugs with characters' heads snapping into ridiculous positions and things just not going the way they're meant to. I haven't played through the whole remastered edition yet so I couldn't tell you if it's worse, but what I can say is that it was already pretty bad. Of course, in my case it was difficult to tell what was issues caused by running the game's code on newer platforms, and what was just Residual. It wouldn't surprise me if they used something like Residual for the remastered edition.

When I played Peace Walker on PS3 I don't recall there being any snapping or auto-aiming, although it's possible I turned that off. It's quite easy to see on the big screen that even if you literally miss the head, it still hits because there's a big-ass invisible hit box there that's way bigger than the head itself.

The original wasn't too buggy in terms of animations when it came out, but for some reason it's become progressively much more so over the years. I can only assume that newer operating systems/hardware/drivers are causing issues with the LUA scripting. In an old interview, the lead programmer did say that they encountered a lot of animation bugs during development. I guess that it's just a weak area of the engine, and without all that old tooling for debugging them it's probably a nightmare to improve. These quotes jump to mind:

I don't think there's much if any bullet drop with the pistols, so long as you're using them from sane pistol ranges. With that said, if you've just come from Peace Walker there is a huge difference in terms of hit boxes between that game and the rest of the series. I've noticed that replaying MGS2–4 after playing Peace Walker, it's ridiculously easy to hit enemies accurately in the latter game — there's basically no challenge to scoring headshots, which isn't how it's meant to be. Half the time I didn't even hit the enemy and it still counted. I'm definitely looking forward to the return of the Fulton in The Phantom Pain. It sounds like it'll be more tricky to use than in Peace Walker, in that you can cause alerts if enemies see/hear them and such. There's also risk of the Fulton failing and causing the subject to drop to the ground, again causing havoc. I was worried that the Fulton would be an overpowered mechanic like with its previous appearance.

Well this is just really sad.

It's the next logical step after the super-tight ass-hugging skin suit Snake had in MGS4.

I don't know which one I chose, but I went for the one with a 'very high' population. This seems to be the case as there are at least five hotspots on each continent at any one time, all of which say there are 200+ people in the area. The first time I joined there was a two-minute wait, but I can't say this bothered me as I've always ended up queuing for servers in most multiplayer games I've played, especially Battlefield. The game has been bustling with activity for me, and since my first session (pretty much when the game launched) I haven't had to queue. I'm surprised it takes you five minutes to load into a map. It takes about a minute tops for me, which again is pretty consistent with other multiplayer games I've played. I guess it takes a while to load the game itself too, but overall it's far from the slowest experience I've had. If you went for the low-population server (there was one at 'very high', one at 'high', and one at 'low'), you should probably switch. Character profiles are tied to servers, so unless lots more people start playing the game then the server populations will probably remain at those levels on average. As I understand it the maximum population of a server is at least 4000, so needless to say the ones with higher populations shouldn't be devoid of activity.