Metal Gear Solid V

[SphericalCrusher]

This game is incredible. I'm a few hours into it so far. I've played every game in the series and I'm so glad that even after all of these years, the game series still feels amazing. I'm going to complete the main story first before I dive into the online play. I am currently playing this on PS4. I'm going to try to balance this with Smash the best I can, haha. Who else picked this up?

 

[finalark]

I'm planning on picking up the PS3 version once my paycheck comes in this friday. I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS.

Before I do, anyone know is the PS3 version runs like crap or not? My biggest fear is that by going PS3 I'll be getting a horribly gimped version of the game instead of a slightly less amazing version.

 

[Minato]

Logged in 17 hours already on Steam version lol. Loving the gameplay. I feel like the open world might be a double edged sword for me in this game, but the gameplay is definitely the best in the series. A lot of stuff feels intuitive and pretty comfortable. It's a bit of a shame having Big Boss speak less outside of cassette tapes and that the game has less goofiness, but it's justified with its story.

I'm planning on picking up the PS3 version once my paycheck comes in this friday. I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS.

Before I do, anyone know is the PS3 version runs like crap or not? My biggest fear is that by going PS3 I'll be getting a horribly gimped version of the game instead of a slightly less amazing version.

I think it's fine? I haven't heard anything for TPP PS3, but I heard Ground Zeroes ran really well. Just lower resolution and texture difference with draw distance.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

I agree with the open world being a double edged sword. It's amazing, but I always get lost and forget what I'm supposed to be doing while roaming the world. Haha!

Ground Zeroes ran perfect on the PS3. I know this is different, but same engine. I know a friend of mine who picked MGSV up on PS3. He has not complained to me but I will ask him if he feels there's framerate issues. I would say go for it man.

 

[Burgy]

I pre ordered it on Steam and after the 21 hour download for my crappy internet I still have yet to open yet. I played Ground Zeroes however and gameplay still feels fresh and amazing.
I'm so excited to open the game finally today when I get home from work.

 

[Zink Imp]

Someone answer me this question using spoilers:

Is Quiet Chico?

 

[Burgy]

Someone answer me this question using spoilers:

Is Quiet Chico?

Spoiler

Chico and Paz both died in the helicopter crash at the end of Ground Zeroes. Sad

What's the fastest way of getting competent workers for Mother Base? The Side Ops or does anyone else have a good method? I have all these unlocked items but my teams are too low leveled too build and I just have too much GMP at this point

 

[Minato]

Leveling up through sheer numbers is a good start. Fulton everyone you can. Then after that you expand mother base by selecting whatever platform you want upgraded. This allows you to put more people on it, use less resources, and other things. Once you get further, you can send your guys on missions, enlisting more members.

 

[Zink Imp]

Spoiler

Chico and Paz both died in the helicopter crash at the end of Ground Zeroes. Sad

Spoiler

 

[radio silent]

I vowed to go radio silent until I finished the story, which I did yesterday.

Man oh man.

What a game.

 

[finalark]

I just got the game. I'm waiting for it to patch while I post this.

I AM SO EXCITED.

 

[Burgy]

Spoiler

Spoiler

I'm not very far in the game really. But I have captured her and I heard on a cassette tape that Kaz and Snake were chatting about the comrades they lost and they mentioned Chico, saying "That helicopter was no place for him to die"
But I mean who knows at this point really.

 

[Minato]

I finished the game awhile ago. I have a lot of thoughts on the game, good and bad. Going to sit on it for a bit though.

 

[Twewy]

I love this game. I ****ing love this game. THIS IS THE SHOOTING GAME I HAVE WANTED FOR YEARS. Sniping in this game is just too damn fun.

Though, Fox Engine tends to be buggy as hell. When I'm not spazzing out in a rock, well...

 

[Minato]

So now that I've sat on it for a bit, I think I'm able to judge it better with a clear head.

Starting off with the good. The game has the best gameplay of the series besides some hiccups I'll mention later. The level design is pretty great, giving you different ways to tackle an objective. The mini-bases aren't really much to write home about. They're nice and open, but I love the bigger bases. It's more linear but with definite paths and options you can find and take. It's good because each path will have a set of obstacles that are planned for you to take care of. There's a lot of creativity to be had in this game, especially with the open world and side ops. There's freedom on what you, the player, wants to do.

The good parts of the story. I loved some of the tapes. The ones I've enjoyed the most goes into spoiler territory. There's some fantastic stuff to be had in some of the tapes, especially the ones after beating the game.

The bad, the gameplay isn't perfect. There's replayability, but it gets hampered by the same thing over. Call a chopper, select a mission, same zoom out of your face, credits roll, spoiling any possible surprises, wait for the chopper to land, exit the chopper and run 400+ meters to your objective. I really wish I could skip some of this since you see it so often.

Another problem is the pacing. Lots of gameplay is nice, but you have to balance it out a bit. Cutscenes are like a reward to show the player progress of what you've accomplished. Too much and it'll hurt like MGS4, too little, and well, you get this. Once I got to the second map, I felt pretty burned out, but pushed on. Cutscenes to this game are like towns in JRPGs for me. Those short little breaks when you need it after knowing you went a certain distance. This is a game that concludes Big Boss's arc and should lead to the series' beginnings. I want some exposition there.

The rest of the problems I had was the story.

Spoiler: Huge MGSV Spoilers

The game is unfinished and cut short. You get Eli and Psycho Mantis running away with Metal Gear and the 3rd strain, and you get no conclusion. You have to watch the rest on Youtube from the LE that they gave out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u45Z4QpP-g

The game clearly was planned for more. You have chapter 2 which is filled with old missions on higher difficulty to fill the void. The problem is we'll never know how much was originally planned. Ending it at Mission 51 on the Eli and Psycho Mantis fight could work, but it sounds like they wanted to go even further. There's the whole thing with Konami firing Kojima due to money issues. Exhausting the budget and wanting the game out the door, it's unfortunate that it ends this way. There's other cut portions that were shown in trailers. Even data mining, we found unused dialogue for the ending among other things.

Venom Snake twist. A lot of us saw this coming if you watched the trailers and followed the game closely. This was an MGS2 twist done poorly. MGS2's twist at least expanded on the implications of what's real and what isn't after the revelation. It was a plot point. You being Venom did not get expanded on. Just something that retcons parts of the series and says here's the twist.

You play through a series of rehashed episodes in chapter 2, but a great episode 43. You're excited to see what's going to happen in chapter 2. You get a chapter called the Truth. One altered cutscene at the beginning, new cutscenes at the end. That's it. No build up, no proper final boss fight. I had to check the internet to make sure I really did beat the game. Even worse, this mission featured all the tutorials in the "final" mission of the game. Every other MGS ends with this epic boss fight to celebrate the game and series, this ends with a same tutorial you played 50 hours ago.

Venom Snake being a near silent protagonist. I get that he's you, but it really hurt the narrative. If you're not going to show Venom as a character after the twist, at least give him more dialogue so we can see him as his own thing. The little dialogue he has is actually really great. The whole mission with the strain and you killing off your soldiers along with the ashes scene, I liked it. We got to really see Venom. Instead, we ended up with a lot of moments where you expected Venom to speak. In the entire game, Venom spoke to Skull Face once.

Real Big Boss was underutilized (along with the twist). I would've liked to have seen the descent into madness by at least one of them, but we got none of that. Medic seemed like a pretty chill guy. Big Boss's only descent was making Medic lose his identity and pass exactly like what happened to Skull Face (this is actually pretty cool) and leaving Kaz. I don't see any of the events explaining why they are the way they are for MG1 and 2. It's one of the things a lot of us wanted answered.

The retconning with explanations. Parasites are the new Nanomachines for the series. Having the need to explain the powers of Cobra Unit and such was really unnecessary. The whole story of parasites on a scientific level just didn't work for me. The whole ethnic cleansing with it was an interesting angle though. They also retconned the organization's name from Patriots to Cipher. The name for Patriots was already established in past MGS canon, but now they designated Patriots only for the AI that Sigint works on.

Last but not least, Episode 45. You permanently lose Quiet after this ending. The ending is actually really good and touching, but not being able to use Quiet as a buddy anymore was a terrible idea. MGSV only allows one save file, so you're stuck with having her gone after you trigger the events where Quiet leaves.

It's unfortunate I feel this way because I think the gameplay is the best it's ever been asides from the pacing issues. Like past MGS, there's a huge attention to detail on what you're able to do in a game. Kojima's very similar to Sakurai in this aspect. Replayability, there's some good and bad. Completing all the missions, getting a good rank, doing all the objectives, there's a lot to do. I wish it was streamlined a bit better since there's a lot that can feel repetitive.

The story takes a big hit for me in the series, and story is a big thing on why I replay the games a lot. When things get very sparse, when the game only gives you one save file, when there aren't that many cutscenes to bridge things, it hurts.MGS4 had the problem of too many cutscenes, but I felt like it was a great closing to the series.

If I'm ranking only gameplay, MGS has only gotten better and better. When I factor in all the little things that make MGS what it is to me, I might rank it fifth out of the MGS series (with Peace Walker at the absolute bottom).


Edit: I really enjoyed the game though. One of the games I've enjoyed most this year. I am being harsh on it, but I really expected something more in some areas.

 

[radio silent]

I guess I'll write down my thoughts, too.

Gameplay-wise, I already knew this was going to be my favorite Metal Gear before it was even released. I loved Peace Walker, so the idea of playing a bigger, better Peace Walker was really exciting. The missions start to get pretty repetitive after a while (especially post-game), and I do wish that we had more outlandish missions like the Pooyan or Monster Hunter ones, but the core gameplay is satisfying enough for me to feel okay with going for 100 percent.

Spoiler: Story stuff.

While I did enjoy the story, it definitely lost steam after Chapter 1. Barring some great moments, which were some of my favorites in the entire series, that creeping feeling of "this isn't finished" got worse and worse as it went on. Finding out about all the cut content was unsurprising, especially given the state of Konami (and Kojima's apparent falling-out with them), but still really disappointing. We can only imagine what this game could have been, but I still feel satisfied with the product we ended up with.

The twist seems to be very polarizing. I am in the camp of people that liked it. I don't think the twist had as much meaning behind it as the Raiden twist did but, after thinking about it some more (and reading what other people thought about it), I don't think it's without purpose.

What I liked about it was that it showed Big Boss becoming the villain in a way that most probably didn't expect. At the end of Peace Walker, Big Boss feels betrayed by The Boss (or her AI, I guess), and decides to take a different path. This point marked the beginning of the end for Naked Snake, but we didn't really see the extent of the damage until now.

As we all know, Les Enfants was the final straw that prompted Big Boss to leave the Patriots, and it soiled the friendship that he and Zero had. The fact that Boss goes with the whole V plan (which is essentially Les Enfants 2.0) alone shows us that the Snake we knew is gone. The Snake we see at the start of Peace Walker - the one who denies his legendary status, insisting that he's only a man - is now completely on-board with preserving his legacy. Even if it means robbing one of his most trusted men of his entire being.

There's also the final cutscene, where Big Boss is like "Hey, let's build up our legacy together." A bit of a time skip happens once he listens to a tape labeled Operation Intrude N313 (seeing as though the Diamond Dogs logo in the background turns into an Outer Heaven one), and the contents of this tape seem to piss Venom off a bit. Maybe Big Boss was telling him that Solid Snake was going to go kill him, and that he needed to die so he could worm his way out of Foxhound to work on Zanzibar without everyone noticing. Or maybe he just told him about David, and Venom was super pumped about killing him. Or maybe he said something bad about his mom.


Regardless, I think it's a cool story overall. But again, it is a shame that we couldn't see the full experience that Kojima envisioned.

 

[RespawningJesus]

Excellent game, but I really cannot play it super hardcore, because I fear I may just burn out on it, so I have been taking my time. Which is why i am not even done with the story yet.

 

[Burgy]

Excellent game, but I really cannot play it super hardcore, because I fear I may just burn out on it, so I have been taking my time. Which is why i am not even done with the story yet.

Same for me. Only 25% complete

 

[Twewy]

Same for me. Only 25% complete

50 or so hours in, 16% complete.

I am almost ashamed...

 

[radio silent]

Excellent game, but I really cannot play it super hardcore, because I fear I may just burn out on it, so I have been taking my time. Which is why i am not even done with the story yet.

I'm sitting at around 70 percent completion. I really wanna shoot for 100 right now, but I'm afraid I'll just burn out on it. Though, the fact that that hasn't happened yet after almost 90 hours is kinda surprising.

 

[XbusterKosmos]

have it but no time to play it O_O

 

[Twewy]

have it but no time to play it O_O

See you in 2017.

 

[XbusterKosmos]

See you in 2017.

probably LOL

I will get to it someday.

 

[Twewy]

Does anyone else find the text small, or is it just the PS3 version? I tried the game on a 32 inch TV and a 16 inch and the text always seems so small. I've played Dead Rising on the same TVs before and could read its text.

 

[Pachinkosam]

It's Metal Gear Solid so pretty much im gonna get it.

 

[Burgy]

Does anyone else find the text small, or is it just the PS3 version? I tried the game on a 32 inch TV and a 16 inch and the text always seems so small. I've played Dead Rising on the same TVs before and could read its text.

I'm playing PC version and I'm assuming you're talking about the subtitle text? It is a little smaller IMO but not too small to read for me. I hadn't really noticed this till you mentioned it lol

 

[Twewy]

I'm playing PC version and I'm assuming you're talking about the subtitle text? It is a little smaller IMO but not too small to read for me. I hadn't really noticed this till you mentioned it lol

I can usually read the dialogue subtitles fine, it's the menu text and such that always seems so small for me.

 

[Minato]

This review basically sums up everything I felt about MGSV. All of its problems, yet also the parts that were handled well. Extremely well done. However, it does have spoilers for MGSV and every other game in the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4Tusk_V2k

 

[Twewy]

I keep running into so many small bugs...

 

[Nixon Corral]

Spoiler: Story stuff.

While I did enjoy the story, it definitely lost steam after Chapter 1. Barring some great moments, which were some of my favorites in the entire series, that creeping feeling of "this isn't finished" got worse and worse as it went on. Finding out about all the cut content was unsurprising, especially given the state of Konami (and Kojima's apparent falling-out with them), but still really disappointing. We can only imagine what this game could have been, but I still feel satisfied with the product we ended up with.

The twist seems to be very polarizing. I am in the camp of people that liked it. I don't think the twist had as much meaning behind it as the Raiden twist did but, after thinking about it some more (and reading what other people thought about it), I don't think it's without purpose.

What I liked about it was that it showed Big Boss becoming the villain in a way that most probably didn't expect. At the end of Peace Walker, Big Boss feels betrayed by The Boss (or her AI, I guess), and decides to take a different path. This point marked the beginning of the end for Naked Snake, but we didn't really see the extent of the damage until now.

As we all know, Les Enfants was the final straw that prompted Big Boss to leave the Patriots, and it soiled the friendship that he and Zero had. The fact that Boss goes with the whole V plan (which is essentially Les Enfants 2.0) alone shows us that the Snake we knew is gone. The Snake we see at the start of Peace Walker - the one who denies his legendary status, insisting that he's only a man - is now completely on-board with preserving his legacy. Even if it means robbing one of his most trusted men of his entire being.

There's also the final cutscene, where Big Boss is like "Hey, let's build up our legacy together." A bit of a time skip happens once he listens to a tape labeled Operation Intrude N313 (seeing as though the Diamond Dogs logo in the background turns into an Outer Heaven one), and the contents of this tape seem to piss Venom off a bit. Maybe Big Boss was telling him that Solid Snake was going to go kill him, and that he needed to die so he could worm his way out of Foxhound to work on Zanzibar without everyone noticing. Or maybe he just told him about David, and Venom was super pumped about killing him. Or maybe he said something bad about his mom.


Regardless, I think it's a cool story overall. But again, it is a shame that we couldn't see the full experience that Kojima envisioned.

Spoiler: More story stuff

This is pretty similar to how I felt.

I had basically no problems with the story that was there, and as a fan of the MSX games, I was super pumped about the closing cutscene. However, I'm pretty morose about the content that was cut. I hate that there's no in-game resolution to the Sahelanthropus situation (aside from briefly mentioning the Kingdom of the Flies in the chronology crawl at the end). I hate to be Konami's *****, but if they released it as paid DLC, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I just want the finished game.

 

[finalark]

Finally finished chapter 1 today.

Spoiler

Well, they wrapped up the main conflict half way through the game. Oops. I'm assuming that chapter 2 is going to be about Diamond Dogs taking a step back and realizing that revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be or about them feeling unfulfilled after killing Skull Face and going to more and more extremes for the sake of vengeance.

TBH the story has been a bit of a let down so far. Thankfully the game play is some of the best in the series and it's really had me hooked.

 

[Minato]

The attention to detail and the variety of ways to tackle a mission is so good in this game. My only criticism are the mission objectives for main and side ops. Makes the game a little too bloated for its own good. Anything regarding large bases were extremely good. Extract the prisoner/solder got a little old, however.

 

[Twewy]

Mission 29 is so stupid it broke my game.

 

[Prepare_Yourself]

Seeing what Minato posted above, I've given the game a lot of thought regarding its role in the series and legacy as an MGS sequel... I actually wrote this recently and think it's a decent reason to bump this thread. That said, I'm thinking of still adding a bit of discussion into the edge MGS 5 has over the other games regarding its gameplay/decision centric theming.

http://pastebin.com/trt24FM1

 

[radio silent]

Oh, yeah.

While I was satisfied with MGSV initially, I started to like it less and less the more I reflected on it, to the point where it might be my least favorite in the series now. Story and characters are flat aside from a few key moments (Shining Lights being one of my favorite sections in any Metal Gear), and while I do stand by the fact that the core mechanics are some of the most satisfying in the series, the mission/level design (or lack thereof) just doesn't hold up.

Still a fun game, though! One of the better stealth games out there for sure. Though I don't know if that speaks more to the quality of Metal Gear or the depressing lack of actual stealth games these days.

 

[finalark]

I know a lot of people have gripes with the story (or lack thereof) but I actually didn't mind it. It was actually really refreshing to see Kojima just make a game without feeling the need to dump hours of cut scenes on us. And it turns out that when he just has to make a game and doesn't worry about story he manages to come up with something really, really fun and satisfying.

On the offhand, extracting became an overused mechanic that got old really quickly. Not to mention the game's length. IMO it would have been a perfectly satisfying game had Kojima managed to cram all of the story and mechanics he wanted in the time between when you boot of the game and when you beat Sahelanthropus. I feel like the game really starts to get old in the hours after that battle.

 

[Prepare_Yourself]

5 is just really bad at what the other games are really good at, and in my opinion those things were what set the series apart. I wanted to go really in depth, and what do you know, I did. I'm even thinking of making my first YouTube video out of that...

 

[Minato]

Seeing what Minato posted above, I've given the game a lot of thought regarding its role in the series and legacy as an MGS sequel... I actually wrote this recently and think it's a decent reason to bump this thread. That said, I'm thinking of still adding a bit of discussion into the edge MGS 5 has over the other games regarding its gameplay/decision centric theming.

http://pastebin.com/trt24FM1

Yup, pretty much agree with this. Huey was definitely done right. We knew he was terrible through the other games, and we finally get to see that side of him firsthand. Out of the characters in MGSV, he definitely made the most impact on players for the sheer hatred you wanted to feel towards him. And when you hear the stuff about D Dog and "You're all just a bunch of wild dogs," I loved it lol.

MGS3 is definitely my favorite MGS game and definitely ranked high in my favorite games ever. The way they were able to blend gameplay and story with the scenarios, it kept me so engaged. I still get chills during some of the moments in that game no matter how many times I replay it. MGSV sort of lacked that feeling. I felt like the gimmick/style of cutscenes done with one cut instead of multiple cuts got old to me too.

While I'm glad the gameplay feels great in V, I don't feel the sense of progression like I did for past MGS games. I feel like that's very important in the series on what makes me want to revisit it. Multiple missions that feel pretty disconnected from the overall story don't. It feels like I was just grinding missions out until the next important event. Once I got to that event, I don't think it felt nearly as rewarding as what we've experienced in past titles.

 

[Prepare_Yourself]

I do think that other MGS games are very linear, and while that didn't detract from what made them great, if MGS 5 had done that it would have detracted from its selling points of choice based gameplay.

 

[Tino]

I had The Phantom Pain for a while on my PS4 but I didn't get to play it much until just 3 days ago. I really want to put more time into it and finish it.

I've beaten Ground Zeroes of course. Just the main mission and skipped the side ones.