Thrik

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

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Is there any merit to just playing MGS3 before jumping into MGS5?

 

Yeah, probably. The protagonist from MGS3 is (probably) the protagonist in MGS5, and MGS3 is basically his origin story as a hero, while MGS5 is potentially intended to be his origin story as a villain. They'd probably work fairly well together.

 

That said, while 3 (particularly the later versions of it) have decent gameplay by MGS series standards, it's still a fairly far cry from modern. You might find it somewhat difficult to get into if you never played any of them at the time.

 

Edit: As Smart Jason said, though, MGS5 basically seems to be a pretty direct sequel to Peace Walker.

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I would at least watch a Let's Play or something.

 

*cough Metal Gear Scanlon 3 cough*

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If you can enjoy MGS3 then it'll be a very rewarding experience, considered by many the pinnacle of the series and still reasonably pretty (for a PS2 game). Peace Walker is quite a grindy game of unremarkable bite-size missions designed for mobile. MGS3 might suffer from age, but Peace Walker suffers from just not being many peoples' cup of tea.

It's true that Peace Walker is the direct predecessor to MGS5 and some things won't make much sense without at least a plot summary, but various important returning characters — including who is assumed to be the antagonist — don't feature in Peace Walker at all, and it looks like a lot of MGS5's emotional heft will come from tearing apart the morality of those characters that were so lovingly built up in MGS3.

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The Legacy Collection does indeed have Peace Walker though I didn't really know that was considered part of the main series, thought it was just a little PSP spin-off, I'll maybe take a look.

 

I would at least watch a Let's Play or something.

 

*cough Metal Gear Scanlon 3 cough*

 

When they played the demo for MGS1 on some stream, that was the impetuous for me buying the Legacy Collection. It interested me and I was going to play along, but that didn't pan out. I could watch their series, I like GiantBomb's stuff but there is still something about watching a full let's play for a game (especially one sitting on my shelf) that I'm not quite into. 

 

Though maybe I'm just taking it a little too seriously. After playing ~3 hours of MGS1 last summer the series tonally seems to lean more towards weird anime bullshit than a Tom Clancy novel, which is kind of what I was expecting.

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but various important returning characters — including who is assumed to be the antagonist — don't feature in Peace Walker at all

 

I'll eat my hat snake if he's the antagonist.

 

 

After playing ~3 hours of MGS1 last summer the series tonally seems to lean more towards weird anime bullshit than a Tom Clancy novel, which is kind of what I was expecting.

 

You signed up for fast food and got filet mignon! There's a Call of Duty game released every year, and there were like twenty Tom Clancy games at E3 this week, if you want boring military fare. With Metal Gear, you're in for the wildest, most emotional, character-driven series of game plots ever. I would cherish the opportunity to play through the entire chronology from now to Phantom Pain's release.

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I'll eat my hat snake if he's the antagonist.

 

 

 

You signed up for fast food and got filet mignon! There's a Call of Duty game released every year, and there were like twenty Tom Clancy games at E3 this week, if you want boring military fare. With Metal Gear, you're in for the wildest, most emotional, character-driven series of game plots ever. I would cherish the opportunity to play through the entire chronology from now to Phantom Pain's release.

 

Don't get me wrong, Tom Clancy isn't exactly high brow but I think the thing that put me off MGS1 after a few hours are the weird tonal shifts between super serious and things like snake chatting up every girl on the other end of his radio, its weird. Maybe its a game of its time, and maybe if I don't like those shifts I'll never "get" Metal Gear but I kind of want to get it, because people like you describe it as "the wildest, most emotional, character-driven series of game plots ever". It sounds awesome when you put it like that, I wanna love it!

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Don't get me wrong, Tom Clancy isn't exactly high brow but I think the thing that put me off MGS1 after a few hours are the weird tonal shifts between super serious and things like snake chatting up every girl on the other end of his radio, its weird. Maybe its a game of its time, and maybe if I don't like those shifts I'll never "get" Metal Gear but I kind of want to get it, because people like you describe it as "the wildest, most emotional, character-driven series of game plots ever". It sounds awesome when you put it like that, I wanna love it!

 

OK, well, I don't want to be flippant when it comes to the series' perpetual sexism, because that's something very ugly that it's never been able to shed. So I want to be clear that I'm not apologizing whatsoever for any problematic characterization of women in the plot of the first game (to say nothing of the actual lecherous acts the player is allowed to commit, either vicariously through Snake or as himself in photo mode or whatever; it's all gross and if I could change anything about Metal Gear it would be that).

 

I guess I have the benefit of hindsight to help me reconcile the "tonal shifts," as you describe them. Much of the charm of the series has to be found from how seriously it takes itself, its characters and their pathos, while intermittently pausing for wacky comic relief (see: the Phantom Pain gameplay demo where you're reconning jeeps via speedy balloon). Trying to put myself in your shoes, maybe the game does seem "super serious" during the first couple of cutscenes while Snake is being briefed and entering the mission via SDV, but you have to consider that despite the high tension visuals and soundtrack, Colonel is still talking about the completely ostentatious cavalcade of villains you're about to face - Decoy Octopus, Vulcan Raven ("giant and shaman"), your evil twin Liquid Snake, etc. What Metal Gear and Kojima do right in the eyes of fans of the series is getting this pitch perfect tonally - where we can take succor in this richly melodramatic scenario and keep its authenticity suspended for so long that eventually (say, by the end of Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots both) you're so swept up in it that it can bring you to tears.

 

As for "I can't believe I'm being hit on by the famous Solid Snake," I think there's something to be said for the fact that this is the only game in the Solid series in which you're playing as a young, virile Solid Snake in his prime. Again, that could very well be me speaking in hindsight, but there's something to the fact that this is the game in which the character establishes the legend that comes to define him - which is thematically extremely important in Sons of Liberty and tragically poignant in Guns of the Patriots.

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If you can't even bother finishing the first MGS (you're probably half way through at 3 hours) then probably the series is not for you. If you play the first part of MGS2 and can't 'feel the magic', its not for you.

The sexualized hyper-violence is off putting, I think mgs4 was the worst offender so far.

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If you can't even bother finishing the first MGS (you're probably half way through at 3 hours)

First time playing the game? No way. It definitely took me more than 6 hours to beat the game the first time I played it.

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If you can't even bother finishing the first MGS (you're probably half way through at 3 hours) then probably the series is not for you.

I disagree. It would be pretty easy not to want to finish that game based on gameplay at this point in time. One of the things that has people excited about MGS5 is that it's Metal Gear with modern, tight feeling controls and interface.

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I dunno, I got to metal gear Rex and rage quit, only to pick it up a month later and finish it. Was totally worth it, although I pretty much had gotten everything I wanted out that game by the time I reached Rex.

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I would argue that MGS1 is the tightest and most playable (as a top down stealth action game) while MGS3 is the worst since they hadn't figured out the third person camera very well yet.

Tho, I also hold the unpopular opinion that Twin Snakes is a down grade of MGS1 in all but graphics (fight me).

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I would argue that MGS1 is the tightest and most playable (as a top down stealth action game) while MGS3 is the worst since they hadn't figured out the third person camera very well yet.

Tho, I also hold the unpopular opinion that Twin Snakes is a down grade of MGS1 in all but graphics (fight me).

Agree on all points.

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the unpopular opinion that Twin Snakes is a down grade of MGS1

This opinion is unpopular? I'm fairly certain it's the other way around. I only ever here derision regarding Twin Snakes, which is weird, 'cause it's a fine game.

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This opinion is unpopular? I'm fairly certain it's the other way around. I only ever here derision regarding Twin Snakes, which is weird, 'cause it's a fine game.

 

Yeah, if you go onto the major Metal Gear Twitch channel, Twin Snakes is considered anathema there.

 

I wouldn't recommend it to a series newcomer in lieu of the original, but it's great for what it is.

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I would argue that MGS1 is the tightest and most playable (as a top down stealth action game) while MGS3 is the worst since they hadn't figured out the third person camera very well yet.

Tho, I also hold the unpopular opinion that Twin Snakes is a down grade of MGS1 in all but graphics (fight me).

 

3 controlled like a pile of garbage inside of a washing machine compared to 1. I think I got to the part where I figured out I had to hold in like 4 buttons to aim down the sights and fire and took the disc out.

 

On the flipside, I'm kind of in two minds about GZ/5's controls. I feel like it'll fit the open world of V much better, but in GZ's confined environment it was almost like I had too much control. Being able to shoot accurately so easily, take as many hits as you could, and sprint everywhere at a moment's notice felt like cheating compared to the earlier games. Actually I think the thing that threw me off the most is that you don't flinch when you get hit any more, but the enemies flinch like crazy. It makes Snake feel like an indomitable killing machine, where before he felt vulnerable and human. It also takes some of the consequence out of the stealth, even if they do throw an insane amount of enemies at you it always felt surmountable.

 

Guess I'll just have to jump the difficulty up in V.

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Does the Legacy Collection include Peace Walker like the HD Collection? Snake Eater, despite being the seminal title in the Big Boss storyline, doesn't have that much to do in terms of either gameplay concepts or characters with where that branch continues, and you'd probably find Phantom Pain to be more of a direct sequel to Peace Walker than Snake Eater.

Yes, legacy has the same HD collection disc it just has the motion comics of the first two games added in on a separate PS3 application. I can't imagine Ground Zeroes/Phantom Pain will make a ton of sense to anyone who did not play Peacewalker since the events lead directly from the cliffhanger in Peacewalker.

 

As for "I can't believe I'm being hit on by the famous Solid Snake," I think there's something to be said for the fact that this is the only game in the Solid series in which you're playing as a young, virile Solid Snake in his prime. Again, that could very well be me speaking in hindsight, but there's something to the fact that this is the game in which the character establishes the legend that comes to define him - which is thematically extremely important in Sons of Liberty and tragically poignant in Guns of the Patriots.

 

Definitely thematically important. Metal Gear 2 also does this however, but considering in many ways Metal Gear Solid is just a 3D remake of MG2, it makes sense.

 

3 controlled like a pile of garbage inside of a washing machine compared to 1. I think I got to the part where I figured out I had to hold in like 4 buttons to aim down the sights and fire and took the disc out.

What? I don't remember anything like that in 3. Was this the updated Subsistence version (the one on all HD sets)? The big problem with 3 is the pressure sensitive buttons like interrogating a guard and not slitting his damn throat or the button sensitivity defining how far you throw an object.

 

Twin Snakes DID have this problem however in terms of holding up a guard and walking around the front of him to take his dog tag without either putting you gun away or shooting him, both of which you did not want to do.

 

One thing though, I wonder if anyone having a problem with the first three entries of the series have tried switching to easy mode? When an MGS game is on easy or very easy you can basically finish the game while making what should be grave mistakes at every corner.

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I'm definitely feeling syntheticgerbil here. The criticism that aiming is cumbersome in Metal Gear games comes up more than it deserves to, in my opinion. I don't want to be too defiant because I'm not about to boot up my PS3 for the first time in over a year just to test this, but just from memory, iron sights should be a matter of holding a shoulder button for first person view, pressing the face button to aim your gun, and then clicking another button to toggle iron sights? I mean, whatever, typing that sentence felt completely pedantic, but it's just one of those things for me, like playing Final Fantasy VII, that can either feel intuitive if you were there at the time or doesn't. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable saying "This is definitively unintuitive," particularly as Sons of Liberty deserves a lot of credit for what it did in the lineage of console shooting controls.

 

My only big criticism of the PS2-era games is the pressure sensitive face buttons for one action: lowering your gun. This is the one and only thing that even I find completely unreliable and archaic. Once you aim, there's no other way to stop aiming without firing (if you're not using a suppressed weapon, be ready for an alert) but by desperately carefully trying to lift your thumb off the square button one Pascal at a time.

 

You guys complaining about Ground Zeroes being too easy, by the way, I have no idea where you're coming from. Either you're prodigies or you don't play these games to feel like a miserable failure when you're not being Super Duper Sneaky. When I'm playing Metal Gear, I am perfectly silent or I am sent to the punishment shed.

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I'm playing MGS3 right now and can confirm that it's two buttons to aim down sights and fire: R1 to go into first-person view, SQUARE to raise your weapon (which when released will fire, unless it's automatic in which case it's immediate).

MGS2 is about the same, whereas MGS4 moves things to a nice modern approach of L1 to aim and R1 to fire. MGS1 has no general first-person shooting, but I do think that its inclusion in Twin Snakes makes it more fun when combined with Extreme difficulty. Like all MGS games though, self-imposed restrictions are possible, such as not using anything but hand takedowns like in MGS1.

It's not the smoothest, but then how many console shooters were in the 90s and early 2000s? Plus it does actually reinforce the emphasis on not using those weapons in the first place due to the risk attached, which MGS1 achieved by not even giving you the option.

As far as I'm concerned the controls of every MGS game have been an iterative improvement on the last. There is absolutely no way that MGS1 has better controls than any other MGS.

I agree that Ground Zeroes does make Snake very powerful, but that game is god damned hard nonetheless. With such a broad area to keep track of in your head, it makes managing your trail much more difficult — especially if you're avoiding lethality.

Turn the slow-motion alert warning and enemy indicators off and you'll be spending a lot of time on doing just about anything. And if that isn't enough, daytime missions and/or hard difficulty make the enemies much sharper. Apparently you can choose mission time of day at least some of the time in The Phantom Pain, which I expect will be another way of managing difficulty.

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Wasn't trying to make a big deal out of that specific detail, that was just an example that sprung to mind (which I guess I misremembered but there were definitely certain actions that required cumbersome key presses in 2/3, I remember Drew having a lot of trouble with a few things in Metal Gear Scanlon). Really my frustration with 3 was compounded by a lot of things, from the controls to the horrible camera (which I gather was fixed in the updated version) to all the arcane systems overlapping in weird obtuse ways, but ultimately I was probably playing it with the first game fresh in my mind since I skipped 2. MGS 1 had its oddities but the core of it was simple and immediate. Sneak about, stay out of the cones, snap some necks. Peace Walker, too, felt too laboured and precise when I tried it. Despite my issues with it, Ground Zeroes feels like a good compromise between that less "arcade" style stealth and actually feeling like you're in control of the action.

 

I don't know if I could cope with turning off the vision cones in GZ, it's already hard enough for me to keep track of enemies sometimes. Maybe it'll make more sense in 5, with everything being more open. Like I said, GZ is so confined being spotted feels like game over to me.

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Oh, I had some fantastic combat sequences in Ground Zeroes. Actually in previous games I always tended to just give up upon an alert, because such small areas being filled with enemies was invariably the end. I'm not sure if it was even possible to fight your way out of an alert in MGS1 like you could in later games, I recall the enemies just kept on coming.

 

But with GZ, there are so many little places to hide and the area is so big that if you can evade detection for a moment, you can use the enemy thinking you're somewhere else to slip away. I had an excellent moment where I somehow lost the enemies over near the cliffs, and got across right to the other side of the prison camp. From there I could just see little flashes illuminating the rain and distant gunshots (which had really good audio effects to actually sound distant) as the enemy tried to flush 'me' out. Excellent. :tup:

 

What works quite well in GZ is that the enemies across the whole camp seem to conglomerate towards the areas where you've been spotted, which means that other parts of the playing area will become comparatively much quieter. This means that you can figure out a nice blend of sprinting to evade the larger groups, then seamlessly shifting into a more stealthy movement once you dodge their immediate vision so that the peripheral guys knocking around the rest of the camp don't see you, sometimes taking them out with CQC. It's all quite fun! And so much better than previous games where you felt trapped in a kill room, and if you went into the next area you were treated to shitloads of new replenished enemies.

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You guys complaining about Ground Zeroes being too easy, by the way, I have no idea where you're coming from. Either you're prodigies or you don't play these games to feel like a miserable failure when you're not being Super Duper Sneaky. When I'm playing Metal Gear, I am perfectly silent or I am sent to the punishment shed.

I've always played Metal Gear Slapstick, wherein I initially try to be super sneaky, but when the shit hits the fan I try to somersault and judo flip out of harm's way and generally bumble my way to victory. It's always felt like the "right" way to play for me.

 

I sympathize with those who dislike the controls. It's like MGS had a parallel evolution to other 3D action games where it solved the various problems that came up in a vacuum, paying no mind to growing conventions elsewhere. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though, because you end up with a fidelity of interaction that is uniquely great. I had my own humps to get over with the various games, but I've ended up appreciating the different compromises and advancements that each made.

 

My fingers my get a little confused at first, but there's a greater intentionality to how I navigate a space with, say, Old Snake, than there is in how I guide Nathan Drake around. There's an analogy here with auto-pilot or training wheels or something.

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Oh hey, I played some Ground Zeroes. It really good. MGS V has now shot up my list of most anticipated games.

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