MGS V: Phantom Pain

[Blade]

Thanks Hero

 

Could anyone confirm whether the past games are on PS Now? It probably is quicker watching some kind of recap on youtube. I have Ground Zeroes sitting on my PS+

[Hero-of-Time]

Thanks Hero

 

Could anyone confirm whether the past games are on PS Now? It probably is quicker watching some kind of recap on youtube. I have Ground Zeroes sitting on my PS+

 

According to this LINK from IGN the HD collection and MGS4 and available.

 

To be fair, you can just get away with watching/playing MGS3 & Peace Walker as these are the games that contain the story of Big Boss. Highly recommend you at least play through 3 though. It's one of my favourite games of all time. @drahkon and @killthenet you guys also rate MGS3 highly, yes?

[drahkon]

@drahkon and @killthenet you guys also rate MGS3 highly, yes?

 

To me, it's the perfect video game. Impeccable gameplay (them boss fights...that one boss fight!), great setting, engrossing story, amazing characters, incredible music...everything just works.

 

So yes, I rate it very highly

[Blade]

Worth seeing if I can get it cheap for 3DS?

[drahkon]

Worth seeing if I can get it cheap for 3DS?

 

Never played the 3DS version but I recommend playing it on a big screen with good headphones or a great soundsystem. The graphics are a bit dated but it's still an incredible audiovisual journey.

[Hero-of-Time]

To me, it's the perfect video game. Impeccable gameplay (them boss fights...that one boss fight!), great setting, engrossing story, amazing characters, incredible music...everything just works.

 

So yes, I rate it very highly

 

Dat ending. One of the GOAT, IMO.

 

Worth seeing if I can get it cheap for 3DS?

 

Nah. The 3DS version is a mess compared to the console one.

[Happenstance]

I'm still waiting for MGSV to go on sale on Steam again. I've been in the mood to replay it on PC for months now but it hasnt been on sale for a while.

 

Amazing game. The incredible gameplay makes up for the lackluster story.

 

Now I just need Konami to release a full collection on Steam!

[Blade]

Damn it. I'm going to have to subscribe to PS Now aren't I.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Damn it. I'm going to have to subscribe to PS Now aren't I.

 

I had a positive experience with PSNow and can only say good things about it. It was easy to sign up, straightforward to use and simple to cancel when I didn't need it at that time. I found the whole thing quite impressive and exciting that the technology worked at all.

 

I don't remember seeing the MGS games on there, but that was months ago and might have changed.

 

I stream music (Spotify), I stream film and TV (Netflix, NowTV), so I have no problem streaming games.

[Shorty]

There's a 7 day trial right? Just have to knuckle down

[Blade]

I just wish they would re-release the HD Collection on PS4 to be honest.

[nekunando]

I finally started Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain after all this time and finished it at the weekend on PS4 after what felt like about 50 hours..

..oh wait, that was just the prologue..?! 

For me, the series has been on a downward spiral since the wonderful beginning on PS1. You can obviously see that the scope, flexibility and level of control has unquestionably increased over the years but the franchise has kept drifiting so far away from what I enjoyed about the first entry that it really isn't for me any more.

I think I actually hate The Phantom Pain

The intro went on forever but I crawled slowly around that hospital and finished the prologue in the hope that maybe I'd start having fun when the real missions finally begin. So, I rode along, scoped out the area, sneaked up on a couple of guards, rode a little more and didn't even want to scope out the next area  so just tried to sneak around without planning as I followed the waypoint and.. I really just don't want to do it

I think I already knew I wouldn't like it, hence why I've waited so long to finally give it a go, but it's even less appealing than I ever imagined!

[RedShell]

Wasn’t sure where to post this, but it’s ending up in here:

So good. And that title... genius. 

I totally just did a Marge from that episode of the Simpsons with Cypress Hill.  

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Sounds like some kind of 70's porn music.  Clearly I have zero appreciation for jazz...except when Ron Burgundy unleashes.

Speaking of Metal Gear, as soon as I was able to make my island tune in AC I made it this...

 

 

[Julius]

Kojima has taken up comedy classes since leaving Konami 

or is this Liquid Kojima..?

Edited September 2, 2024 by Julius

[Julius]

Towards the end of March 2020 I bought a PS3 as lockdown started to help me finally get into a series I'd wanted to for the longest time, because it wasn't available on modern platforms as its publisher decided to pop out and get milk. 

Fitting, then, that almost exactly five years later I find myself picking up the fifth and final numbered Metal Gear Solid game in the form of MGSV. This was actually the first Metal Gear Solid game I put some decent time into, checking it out back in 2016 and getting a couple of chapters in purely because of the hype, critical acclaim, and the fact it was the only MGS game I had access to on a relatively modern system (no, we aren't going to count the possibility of playing Twin Snakes through backwards compatibility on the Wii). I've heard good things and bad things about MGSV over the years - the good being the quality of the gameplay, and the bad generally being the story - but I figured it was time to return now that I have the other MGS games under my belt and see how I end up feeling about it; this was actually a game I very strongly considered putting on my Pledge List for the year, but instead I decided to go with The Witcher 3 because this always seemed like a locked in playthrough.

I probably should've just stuck this on there anyways...ahem

So far I've dusted off the hour-long prologue to open the game, the first few missions of Chapter 1, and a couple of Side-Ops. I just Fulton'd some puppies out. 

• Yeah that prologue was...interesting. I think it's pretty astounding how much of it stuck from my first time around with the game nearly a decade ago, my favourite part probably being the customisation fakeout. That seems about as Kojima as it can get. It's less a tutorial and more the world's longest interactive cutscene. No complaints here, obviously. 
• The game is simply stunning so far, in its visuals, sure, but especially in its audio design. 
• I love the ability to mark something through your binoculars like you do in BOTW/TOTK, guess this is where the Zelda team might've got their inspiration from? 
• Loving the variety of music so far. Kids In America and The Man Who Sold The World? Perfection! 
• Mother Base has me...nervous. Obviously I already knew it was in the game but after the grating nightmare that was unlocking the true ending in Peace Walker? I'll probably need to look up if there's anything particular I should be investing in or know before getting too far in. 
• Love the return of the Fulton system, of course. The guys screaming as they launch up into the sky. It popping if used indoors. Enemies noticing their buddy flying up to the moon....good stuff 
• Already so many minor details I feel like I've uncovered, simple things such as doing something different to what Ocelot asks of you the first time you're at Mother Base, or doing it a different way, prompting what is clearly a unique response. 
• And I thought MGS4 went a bit wild with Kojima's name being everywhere. Credits after everything is probably going to get annoying at some point, but it's fine for now! 
• There's just this great tension and dynamism to every task I've attempted in the game so far which feels perfectly balanced. I'm really looking forward to seeing how far I can push things. 
• So far I've just been doing the main objectives for missions and things I've stumbled across naturally, not sure how much replaying of missions I'll do just yet, think I'll need to see how much I gel with it all first. 

No doubt I'll be back with more thoughts as the playthrough goes on  I do feel like there has been a hint or two story-wise about a certain character maybe not being a certain character, but I'll just need to see how that plays out. 

[Julius]

Just spent last night doing Side-Ops, one of which involved bailing out a sheep, another of which went pretty sideways and so I went against my preferred stealth method to Kratos-level deliverance of death. 

Yeah...I think I'm just going to go back to the main Missions for now and tackle Side-Ops as and when I feel like I've got something to actually gain from them, or am open to the distraction. They're good fun but already feel just a little bit repetitive, also not helped by the fact that they just keep adding more every time I complete a pair of Side-Ops. The potential for emergent gameplay feels great, but yeah, these early Side-Ops all feel pretty similar, and honestly while I'm impressed with the world visually, there's a lack of interconnectedness to the rest of the open world as soon as you take out their relays/radios and the game feels incredibly narrowed in scope. They feel like Peace Walker Side-Ops spread across an open world, but without much to connect them besides a continuous open space – again, at least so far. 

Also, have me a good chuckle being referred to during recon for one mission as "the Head Hunter" (funnier yet as at that point I was just putting the guys on a snooze rather than on ice) and hearing that they're considering starting to wear helmets 

[Julius]

14 hours ago, Julius said:

Just spent last night doing Side-Ops

...

Yeah...I think I'm just going to go back to the main Missions for now

Oh, you sweet summer child. 

Played up until around the same point I did when I first played the game forever ago, at least according to my trophies, picking up the Honey Bee in Episode 6 and completing all Side-Ops available up to this point. This evening, my outfit of choice was the Sneaking Suit, which paired well with a casually late approach to a 18:00 kick-off. 

Man oh man, is this game moreish! I'm struggling to put it down at times, and that feeling of just going for "one more" keeps ending up in a good few more hours sunk into the game. There are just so many unique ways to approach these different missions, and the story missions feel like they were fawned over much more than the random command posts and checkpoints dotted around the map you're typically raiding as part of Side-Ops. I think there was more of a flow to this session which really helped – drop in, complete a Side-Op, take D-Horse or the Chopper over to the next Side-Op, call in supplies for the Mission. 

The story itself, so far...eh. I genuinely forgot Kiefer Sutherland voiced this Snake with how long the game can go without and real dialogue. But the Tactical, the Espionage, and the Action? Awesome! So many moments I've clipped because of close-calls, off-the-cuff tranq darts flying through the air, or diving for cover from an enemy Chopper doing recon. There's such a great tension to the general gameplay which captures the essence of MGS so purely and with such potency that it's a real shame it doesn't feel like part of a truly cohesive package at times. In terms of the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay, this already feels like it's my favourite MGS. 

I want to draw attention to one of my biggest things I want to keep an eye on moving forward with MGSV, and that's the objectives, or lack thereof and of the tracking during some Side-Ops and Missions. I 100% understand that this is an MGS, they want things to be ranked, but man is it so easy to end up with an outcome which you don't intend.

For example, the Honey Bee mission – I went to this big relay base on the way to secure any intel I could which might help me out when trying to get the Honey Bee. Prisoner spotted who might have potential intel on the Honey Ber's location, okay cool, I clean the place up in 5 to 10 minutes, all comms equipment destroyed, one guy spotted me for a second but I put him to sleep and Fulton'd him out of there, and...wait, where the hell is the prisoner?? Oh he's suddenly now over by the main objective for the Honey Bee, over 1 km away. I guess they move him at some point or maybe it's because someone spotted me briefly and they decided to get him out of there, but I wasn't a fan of was how poor a job the game did of keeping me informed – why isn't Kaz screaming at me that the guy I've gone to this relay base to secure, have ID'd through the Int. Scope and tagged with a marker, to get intel from vital to the main mission is being sped away?! 

Okay, so I eventually catch up, clear out most of the caves and base around the Honey Bee, next up is freeing the prisoner. It's getting light out, though, and more guards are coming into rotation, and I'm in my all-black Sneaking Suit...I hide in the toilet and smoke a Phantom Cigar to pass the time until it's night-time. Prisoner died. 

Look, again, I know it's an MGS, Kojima likes his realism and he is a prisoner that could be killed at any point they decide he's worn out his usefulness, but I didn't get the vibe from the game or what Kaz had said - and how little he cared about the prisoner being so hastily transported away before - that there was any great urgency to the situation at hand with the prisoner. Especially so early on in the game, how about a little "Snake, you can pass the time, but I don't think that prisoner is going to make it through the day" from Kaz to just hint that, hey, it's now or never? It's just one of those where this idea of "realism" seems to be brushing up against the actual fun of the game, which is a shame because the game is actually fun. With the time I took to plan out my approach at both bases to then be met with what felt like a bad outcome makes it feel like the rating system is coming first, and that finishing the missions ASAP comes ahead of finding your own fun, completing side objectives you don't know exist, and so on. 

Same sort of deal at the end of the Honey Bee mission, too. Mist Boys turn up, this is clearly a situation where I'm surrounded and so I should run, right? I CQC the first Mist Boy, break out into a sprint and...am shot down very quickly by other Mist Boys. Okay, cool, Miller said we can use the Honey Bee when he said we shouldn't before, so I go to use it and...it doesn't really do much to improve the situation. I try running again; I die again. "Man, I swear the first time I played this I escaped on my horse..." I call in D-Horse and get the hell out of there, first time. It's just so weird! Game is telling me in the story and with the vibe and being in an MGS game surrounded by enemies to get out of there, Kaz wants me to put up a fight, and the solution was...to call in my D-Horse because I remembered that's how I got away last time? 

The push and pull of this game so far has been unrelenting 

Just a couple more smaller nitpicks I've come across while going along in this latest session, then:

• The time to develop things - especially the hour or so it takes to build out new parts of Mother Base - is going to be a pain, I know it. 
• When interrogating enemies and they offer up details on, say, a specialist and point out where he is on the map...I seriously wish opening the map in a certain window of a few seconds of receiving said intel or being able to cycle through such intel was an option, because I end up needing to zoom in and out on multiple points of interest in a region to try to figure out where they were talking about. And half the time I still can't find what it is they're talking about! 
• Speaking of which, gained intel on a prisoner being stowed away nearby on a Side-Op. Complete the Side-Op, mark the prisoner on my map to run over to next, start going with D-Horse, and... we're clear of the Side Op, mission complete, and dude has now just vanished without a trace from the map? 
• I love the iDroid visually and audibly. I hate that it feels like it's constantly connecting to the internet with the slight delay between some screens. It probably is, too, which honestly makes it even worse. 

[drahkon]

MGS:V...

Probably the best third-person game I've ever played...from a gameplay standpoint.
And while I did enjoy the story, the fact that it is unfinished just leaves me unsatisfied  

Keep 'em posts coming @Julius

[Julius]

Mission 16: Caravan of Traitors sucked ass. 

I'll share more thoughts later but that's the overriding thought I have about this game right now  

[Julius]

Time for an update! I'm 32 hours in now, just completed Chapter 20 and have 40 Side-Ops under my belt, so according to the % in the ACC I'm currently at 31% completion. Don't necessarily think I'm going for 100% completion, but just to give a sense of where I'm up to. 

Anyways, game freaking rules. I'm having an absolute blast with it 

Before digging into what's been good, the bad or so-so...I just don't really care for whatever the overarching narrative is supposed to be yet, which is a bit wild considering I'd guess I'm somewhere in the game's second act with how it's all going. It felt connected to Ground Zeroes and Peace Walker at the start but has done barrel rolls and cartwheels to avoid broaching those topics too much, and The Man On Fire and the Skulls aren't really interesting or fun so far in terms of story or gameplay. Honestly, the game reminds me of my experience so far with the Final Fastest VII Remake project at times, where it's great when it's grounded and hitting the marks you'd expect (i.e. sticking to the script), and just goes a bit sideways for me when all of these fantastical elements start turning up. Other MGS games have similar things, though, but because there's such a greater emphasis on linearity and story in those games than there is here - just due to its open world nature and Side-Op and Mission mission structure - you can go so long without touching those elements here that it lacks the natural ping-pong between wacky and grounded that other MGS games had. It really, really doesn't help that Snake has said all of about two pages worth of dialogue the entire game up to this point (okay, I'm exaggerating a little there, but you catch my drift) and it results in a serious lack of characterisation here compared to past iterations of a playable Snake (be it Naked or Solid). 

Another sticking point for me, granted likely down to the tech at the time of development, is the lack of cohesion between the open world and mission structure – you can fly between Landing Points at Mother Base (albeit with some unnecessary showboating from the pilot) but can't fly in the chopper between Landing Points in the open world, and because it's so incredibly rare that Missions and Side-Ops are clustered together, I basically drop in, complete a Mission or Side-Op, call my chopper in to evac, load up the ACC, search for the next Mission/Side-Op I'm going to tackle, and then fly there from the ACC. It just feels so disjointed and, again, probably down to tech at the time and wanting a loading screen between some Missions/Side-Ops so that you can't clear the area first/it can spawn back in, but whatever, it just feels like such an odd choice 

Because, to talk about the good now – sweet mercy is this game so damn hard to put down! While the overarching narrative is a pretty big miss for me so far, there have been beats in the story which have had me absolutely hooked. There's one scene when freeing some kids in a Mission where my instinct was "cool, so I'll just make the choice to free them when the game gives me contr–" and Snake raises his gun, takes aim...and starts firing. I felt like the rug had been pulled from under me completely, left audibly gasping, and that Kaz - who has been a hothead the entire game so far, by the way - had got one over on me. It was such a powerful use of tension and making the player feel like they'd lost control for a second that when I had my hands back on the proverbial "wheel" as Snake next, I let out a sigh of relief. This game feels like it has something important to say in these smaller and more focused beats. 

While my average rating is an A/B, I've also picked up a few S-ranks along the way – just the three, but I was well chuffed with two of them, and the third was born of incredulous frustration because it involved those damn Skulls.

The first S-rank I got was against Quiet – driving over to check in on Huey, the last thing I expected was to get sidelined into another task, and the first time around I tried to bob and weave but she quickly shot me down. The second time I played her like a damn fiddle, drawing her fire from the opposite end of the ruins to get a visual, going prone, marking her with my iDroid, before calling in a Fulton/Ammo resupply to see if it would take her out...did it a couple of times and she was knocked out  this has become my go-to tactic for snipers and I love that it was something I just thought of and discovered worked through playing around with the systems the game presented (Emergent Gameplay™). I will say that her handling in her cutscenes and in her cage is a bit much - a lot of gratuitous angles, which doesn't really add much for me - but popping in every time at Mother Base and hearing an excellent array of licensed songs (Kojima has seriously good and varied taste) and some awesome MGS music never fails to put a grin on my face. And the instrumental for Heavens Divide just turning up out of the blue the way it did legitimately choked me up. 

My second S-rank was actually for Caravan of Traitors, which I spent a few hours on. Tried a bunch of weapons against the Skulls, had no real luck, every time I went to Fulton out the mark for the mission they were on it (and me) with a moment's hesitation, and yeah, it wasn't remotely fun. Tried to climb into the marked truck and drive away, no luck. The first time I dropped in I noted that the route seemed to originate around the Airport, so figured if they're delivering something it's getting dropped off there before they go and attempt delivery...and so I staked out the airport and found the exact spot and this gap in the fence I could hop over. It then took like 5 more tries but basically I gave up on the slow and steady approach I prefer in these games and full on sprinted in before the cutscene came in and RNG'd the Skulls popping in, not noticing me in a nanosecond, and getting my Fulton off on the mark in a spot they couldn't reach before running the hell away and Fultoning out atop a nearby material crate. It was brilliant that it all came together for an S-rank, but good lord do I hate those guys 

Last one was for Chapter 18, honestly I spent over an hour on that mission taking my time because I really liked the structure of the "level", Fulton'd every enemy out, and naturally did all but one of the tasks to land an S-rank 

My typical loadout at the moment, unless a rocket launcher is needed for a helicopter or something, is a silenced assault rifle, silenced tranq. sniper rifle, and silenced tranq. pistol; been playing around with the different types of grenades and got to a point I can pretty effectively clear a room or two out with a Smoke Grenade and Snake's bare hands, which has been fun to get a hang of! Also donning the Sneaking Suit always (because why wouldn't I?) and have D-Dog tagging along with a knife – the main thing which slowed me down on missions was taking things super slow and marking every single enemy before going in, whereas having D-Dog around allows me to be much bolder in my approach. D-Dog and D-Horse I believe I've maxed out affection for, only took Quiet out into the field and just didn't gel with my gameplay style for now, but I'm sure I'll circle back around to her. I was non-lethal 99% of the time prior to unlocking the second map, at which point the AI seemed to spike in difficulty a bit, and so now I'm just careful to use my iDroid to mark anyone with A+ or higher stats, and don't mind too much if I'm killing otherwise in the name of efficiency. I also go absolutely all-out lethal if some enemy douchebags start to shoot D-Dog or my chopper and wipe everyone off the face of the planet if they push me too far – my Snake...

Spoiler

(who I'm still not totally convinced is who everyone thinks, considering the opening credits for each mission and some other things which feels like they're hinting at something. Title of the game also feels like a hint considering, well, Kojima – both Phantom Pain and V rather than 5?)

...is a vengeful one. Got pretty handy at getting headshots in this game too, which has been great fun. 

To circle back around to something I've mentioned before, the Mother Base stuff: I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Command Platform is currently developed to 3/4 (just a few thousand units of Fuel from developing to 4/4), the rest are 2/4 (next priority will be Base Development for the additional material refinement). It depending on an in-game clock rather than a real-world clock means I'd need to leave the game on to do some of these ridiculously long online events, so I've just been picking away at the events which are 90 minutes or less which I have available to me anyways. Collecting resources to upgrade platforms can be a bit of a pain, I feel like I'm always low on Fuel, but oh well, it is what it is. 

And to answer what exactly that is, is a realisation I had a few sessions in but wanted to give a few more sessions to see if it played out, and honestly my thoughts remain the same: this isn't V...it's Peace Walker 2. 

And as someone who really enjoyed Peace Walker last year and is playing V now close to a decade removed from its original launch, having heard through the grapevine about how the story is a mess and getting a mix of opinions on how the game wasn't complete and needs a Director's Cut, and so was going in with lowered expectations vs, say, a continuation of Metal Gear Solid proper (i.e. the numbered entries), I'm having a splendid time with it and don't mind that at all. But considering it's called what it is and that it is a bit messy when it comes to the story so far, I can understand why people went into this and came away disappointed – but perhaps it's more accurate to say not getting what they had expected? 

This is all to say that I'm not going to guess where this could end up in my own MGS rankings just yet considering how much of the journey still lies ahead, but in terms of gameplay, this is by far the best Metal Gear Solid of the bunch, and considering that the MGS gameplay loop of Tactical Espionage Action has become one of my favourites in all of gaming, it's safe to say that it'll be up there for me even if the main narrative comes up short. 

Hopefully the best is yet to come 

Edited Sunday at 11:28 PM by Julius