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