Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

[manny_c44]

Man MGS1 was incredible. Using a gun in that game was really exciting. It crossed into BS pretty hard sometimes but the game was pure-- the games became much better as gameplay systems but they progressively lost the purity. Just too many complex set pieces and too many expectations have transformed it over the years.

MGSV is great, and I think it is the best open world game I have ever played, putting western games to shame, but MGS1 is actual metal gear.

Have to keep comments short, I could rant about metal gear for pages.

[Twig]

Have to keep comments short, I could rant about metal gear for pages.

Please do so I'm not the only one expressing the opinion I hold. ):

[Gaizokubanou]

One thing that could have made MGSV much better is perhaps if the world was more... functional?  I would have personally preferred to see side ops just completely disappear and instead have more 'functional' world where NPCs could be fighting each other (not just wildlife), you know how MGS4 showed some NPC combat.  Heck I actually don't like that even the missions are kinda boxed in but few missions would make it really hard to be part of bigger zone.

 

I mean it's kinda weird fighting in Afghanistan only to exclusively see soviet troops.  Or this talk of rival PMC buildup in Africa but they don't do anything?

 

That's probably mostly system oriented gamer in me talking which kinda isn't what MGS series were about.  But V feels so close to it.

[Architecture]

Also, this is probably the best game of the year of the Playstation 3.

[BadHat]

Man MGS1 was incredible. Using a gun in that game was really exciting. It crossed into BS pretty hard sometimes but the game was pure-- the games became much better as gameplay systems but they progressively lost the purity. Just too many complex set pieces and too many expectations have transformed it over the years.

MGSV is great, and I think it is the best open world game I have ever played, putting western games to shame, but MGS1 is actual metal gear.

Have to keep comments short, I could rant about metal gear for pages.

 

100% agree. MGSV is the first Metal Gear I've actually completed since 1 for this very reason. I tried most of the others and found their systems to be a clunky, confusing mess (2 was alright, I just hated the setting).

[Griddlelol]

Man MGS1 was incredible. Using a gun in that game was really exciting. 

 

I couldn't disagree more. Whenever I used a gun I was unsure if it was actually firing. It barely affects guards, and the animation is just...bland. Then on top of that, even if you do kill all the guards, an infinite stream of them come to do battle with you.

 

Gah, I hate the combat in MGS1. It's boring and ends up being pointless most of the time. Bosses that turn invincible after you hit them really soured me on the so called "best boss fights in the series." 

 

MGS1 did a lot of good stuff, but the combat was more in the tedious/frustrating pile than exciting.

[manny_c44]

I couldn't disagree more...MGS1 did a lot of good stuff, but the combat was more in the tedious/frustrating pile than exciting.

 

No no, the combat was definitely awkward but that was partly what I meant. It was exciting to even try to use a weapon because it was so risky. There was no satisfaction in actually firing the weapons because they were clunky (and the times that the game made you use them, like running all of those stairs in the tower while firing the FAMAS, those were admittedly low points) but there was a lot of excitement in deciding to use a weapon. It was always an 'oh shit this isn't going to work' moment, which is as it should be in a Tactical Espionage Action™ experience.

 

The game was essentially about necessarily crawling, cowering in corners and tapping on walls to confuse tightly patterned guards and then silently taking them down for a precious ration.  All of the 'extra approaches' added on in other games, at an increasing rate from the second half of MGS2 onward, diluted the original's tight gameplay. They're not bad, though in many ways they feel like concessions to Western game design (which Kojima has now mastered), but they make the game less sneaky. 

 

In a way MGSV feels like Kojima saying: "Ok, everyone who was griping about my awkward MGS mechanics/plot/progression-structure, here is the game you want" and it's great, but for people who want the tight, stripped down gameplay of MGS1 and MGS2 prologue it was really not necessary. He has preemptively made any future Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, or Hitman obsolete (throw the Rockstar games in there too, why not). But that's not what fans of MGS1/2p were really asking for.

[Griddlelol]

Yeah, I can agree with that. Well put. 

[manny_c44]

Another thing I love about MGS1 and Peacewalker was the incorporation of illustration into the game. That's something else that's been missing in the successive console releases. I mean, in Yoji Shinkawa you basically have one of the best concept artists/illustrators in the world.

 

So in MGS1, the 3d graphics were simple but the actual illustrated elements (codec conversations as well as some cutscene stuff) were actually much better, as illustration, than anything in the following games. The art was good enough to give the entire game a sense of visual quality that it retains even to this day. Those Yoji Shinkawa drawings will not die the way the polygons of MGS4 and MGSV will die in a few years time. Even now MGS4 looks crude compared to MGSV.  The characters are stiff digital puppets wrapped in as much math as the processor could handle at the time, but taken purely as illustration, side by side with the concept art from that same game, they are lacking-- in a generation they will look primitive.

 

So I'm thinking this is some of the Metal Gear Special Sauce that is lacking from MGSV: tightly planned sneaking action, wrapped in illustration, with the story beats in the background all of the time. And also in a way I enjoy how short the older games were as well, so you don't get the Civilization-guilt-complex while playing.

 

My dream metal gear would be a game like the MGS2 prologue with codec and cutscenes all made by Shinkawa-- with a story more like MGS1. Even throw in some FMV.

 

But all of the games are enjoyable in their own right; even one of my least favorite entries (MGS3) is considered great by other people, so the whole spectrum of games is appreciated.

 

All this talk reminds me I have a huge Metal Gear Rex model I need to paint and assemble...

[Griddlelol]

With the new patch, you can get an old buddy back. You just have to play a certain mission 7 times (although it's easily completable in like 5 minutes).

 

Pretty cool!

[Woodfella]

Played this for about 120 hours now. Still not finished it. I'm just enjoying going on adventures with my robot buddy and blasting Gloria, hunting for S rank soldiers and barbecuing the unworthy. I love it, obviously. It's one of my favourite games of the year, maybe ever but at the same time it's really disappointing. Know what I mean? Like it's potential was even greater!

Best game of the year and also the biggest disappointment.

[manny_c44]

Finally found enough time to reach the first ending (~40 hours total play time)-- should I even bother continuing? Should I just watch the story bits on youtube?

[Nappi]

If you are enjoying your time with the game, then sure. There are not that many new story missions left (you don't have to play the repeat missions if you don't want to), and the post-credit missions are quite straightforward and nice. If you run out of new missions, just play a couple of side mission and occasionally visit the motherbase and they should gradually get unlocked.

 

I can also confirm that you don't have to fully upgrade your base and all that shit to unlock the final story mission (as was claimed in multiple early walkthroughs and guides). I just finished a couple of side missions more, and it opened up.

[elmuerte]

I can confirm that you don't have to play any of the "replay" missions, or fully upgrade your base. Just do a major mission or side-op and return to the base, and another mission and return to the base. Returning to the base is the important part, in some cases you are pulled back automatically. But other times you explicitly have to go there to trigger a bit of story stuff.

[Griddlelol]

Keep going after the first ending. There are some REALLY good story missions. The replays are also excellent. Subsistence missions are just fantastic. I wish there were more of them.

[manny_c44]

I can confirm that you don't have to play any of the "replay" missions, or fully upgrade your base. Just do a major mission or side-op and return to the base, and another mission and return to the base. Returning to the base is the important part, in some cases you are pulled back automatically. But other times you explicitly have to go there to trigger a bit of story stuff.

 

Thanks that's what I needed to know!

[Dewar]

Another PC patch, but all the update information I could find relates to Metal Gear Online, which isn't even out on PC. I can only assume they patched it to make base invasions burn your FOB to the ground each time and raised the price for insurance by $5.

[Twig]

Haha, Dewar.

 

It's too bad FOB invasions are so boring, because I actually really like the concept. But when every base is actually the same thing, it's... it's just not interesting. I wonder if they had more plans for it, like planning patrol routes for your units, and more in-depth customization of the platforms.

 

(It's also too bad it's not optional once you've built a FOB, that shit's dumb, but we all know that already.)

[Dewar]

FOB could be so cool, and I had some fun with it before everyone out there got maxed bases and I felt guilty for robbing real resources from other people.

 

It doesn't help that I just can't figure out how to successfully invade an FOB. I get caught every time. The only time recently I've won one is when I sat and gunned down every single soldier on the entire base, including all reinforcement waves. It ended up being 50+ people.

[Zeusthecat]

So I've been playing the crap out of this and really enjoying most of it. I hope to post some more thoughts at some point because there is just so much good video game stuff here.

 

But my issue right now is that the Metal Gear Solid V servers go down for maintenance just about every single day. Maybe there are a few days here and there that it doesn't happen but almost every time I sit down to play in the evening, I eventually get a message saying I lost connection to their servers and when I try to reconnect it tells me they are down for maintenance. Normally I wouldn't mind since I'm not paying attention to the online stuff but I'm pretty sure when it happens I'm instantly losing like 90% of my GMP. At first I thought I was mistaken but I swear last night I had well over 1,000,000 GMP and then got that disconnect message and saw my GMP plummet to about 100,000.

 

Is this normal? Please tell me this isn't how this is supposed to work...

[SuperBiasedMan]

For reference I just started playing a few days ago and have had no internet troubles. But I haven't specifically signed up, I just know that I got bonus money and the achievement rewards without problems.

[Twig]

Is this normal? Please tell me this isn't how this is supposed to work...

It is normal and it is how it's supposed to work.

 

Welcome to FOB hell.

 

They store the vast majority of your resources in your FOB, but if you're not connected to the servers, you don't have access to it. At the very least I can tell you it's not permanently gone, and you'll have access again once the servers reconnect.

[Zeusthecat]

It is normal and it is how it's supposed to work.

 

Welcome to FOB hell.

 

They store the vast majority of your resources in your FOB, but if you're not connected to the servers, you don't have access to it. At the very least I can tell you it's not permanently gone, and you'll have access again once the servers reconnect.

 

To be honest, at first I figured people were just being hyperbolic about how terrible this online stuff is integrated into the game. But Jesus, that is just about the worst implementation of an online component I've ever seen in a major AAA release. It makes no goddamn sense. I would estimate that of the last 10 nights that I've played this game, 7 or 8 of those nights had this connection issue where the servers went down for maintenance. At least I have an excuse to use this gif again to express how I feel about the jackasses that thought this was a good idea:

 

[twmac]

I can confirm that you don't have to play any of the "replay" missions, or fully upgrade your base. Just do a major mission or side-op and return to the base, and another mission and return to the base. Returning to the base is the important part, in some cases you are pulled back automatically. But other times you explicitly have to go there to trigger a bit of story stuff.

 

 

Okay, so I have had that big battle after the hugely annoying unskippable section in the jeep. I just finished a subsistence mission, does that mean I can just return to the base and I should get pretty close to finishing the 'true' ending of the game?

 

Also:

 

I shot Quiet during the cutscene when you first encounter her in-game. That was it, she is gone. There is an amusing disconnect in the bit after the Metal Gear battle where it shows you Chapter 2 and Quiet is in it tons. Not for me buddy.

[ratamero]

Oh no. You still have a good 15 main missions in front of you (most of which are modified versions of previous ones, those you don't need to do (I haven't done any of those)). But there's at least 10h of unavoidable stuff to be done after the big battle you're referring to if you want to get the truest of endings.