METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN REVIEW:
Wednesday November 11th 2015 by WALLEYE
The eagerly-anticipated METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN has promised much; billed as "the missing link that completes the saga", fans have been awaiting the ultimate Metal Gear game that finally told the story of how Big Boss became the villain of the first two games, but does it deliver on these promises?
For this review, the game was played, at launch, in multiple sessions across 2 weeks, running the PlayStation 3 version with the day one patch installed. The iDroid companion app was only used once as it only works on the latest iOS and android devices, and failed to connect to the game until over a week after launch.
GRAPHICS & VISUALS
The PlayStation 3 version is by no means a bad looking game, but neither is it all that impressive. Upon release, GROUND ZEROES packed much more of a visual impact, but also lacked in content compared to THE PHANTOM PAIN. However, with over a year between the release of both titles it's entirely possible that the inherent lack of visual impact in THE PHANTOM PAIN stems from having simply gotten used to the Fox Engine's visuals, having spent so much time with the prologue.
"The same fundamentals are all still there, and still create a tense and challenging stealth experience"
The same issues that were present in GROUND ZEROES remain in THE PHANTOM PAIN. Shadows are still quite pixelated and jagged at times and the scenery still pops in as you approach it. Using the Int-Scope across large distances also highlights the low draw distance, with objects in the distance rendered at very low levels of detail. THE PHANTOM PAIN does however boast a few minor graphical options that were not present in the prologue, such as depth of field, though this is limited to cutscenes and first person aiming on PS3.
MUSIC, VOICE ACTING AND DIALOGUE
Building up to release, it was well documented that Snake would have less to say in this installment in the series than in any other, thanks to enhancements in motion-capture, conveying much of Snake's emotions through facial expressions instead of words. The extent of just how little Snake says was never really elaborated on though and as it turns out, Snake says so little in this game that he might as well have not bothered saying anything at all! Kiefer Sutherland's performance in the game is fine, but overall it adds nothing to the game that wouldn't have worked just as well with David Hayter because there's so little material for any actor to get 'stuck into'. You end up with a near-mute Snake who is completely devoid of all personality and the game takes on a weird shift where the player character seems to be standing in the sidelines while Miller takes centre stage. It's no exageration to say you hear the iDroid say more than Snake ever does in this game.
In terms of pure dialogue, Code Talker, Miller and Ocelot are the most fleshed out characters with the most to say. Code Talker himself has numerous 10+ minute cassette tapes where he, and he alone, fills the player in on key information and advances the plot.
The soundtrack is also nothing to write home about. Sans the vocal tracks, namely Sins of the Father and Quiet's Theme, the majority of the music fits the gameplay and the setting, but none of it is particularly memorable, especially in comparison to previous games in the series which have set such a high bar when it comes to background music. The original 1980's tracks are a nice touch, but ultimately they don't really sit very well with the tone and themes of the game, the story or the series as a whole, and therefore add little except expensive licensing costs to the game.
GAMEPLAY
To say that MGSV's gameplay is good would be a massive understatement. However, this in itself is no great revelation. We knew the gameplay would be good from having played GROUND ZEROES. The same fundamentals are all still there, and still create a tense and challenging stealth experience. Those trying to slip through areas unnoticed will have a lot of fun planning their routes and strategies, but things work just as well when everything goes wrong - and go wrong it will. Alerts, at least in the early stages of the game, are incredibly easy to trigger and equally hard to escape. I spent almost the entire first mission in Afghanistan in a state of perpetual alert as it's very easy to lose track of guards, even when you're actively marking them all.
Classic MGS features absent from GROUND ZEROES, like knocking on walls (where Snake spins his bionic hand to create a noise, and your combat staff crack their knuckles) and the infamous cardboard box, are welcome returns to aid infiltration, though the latter is next to useless, based on my experiences with it. Gone, it seems, are the days when the trusty cardboard box was enough to get you out of trouble. Previously, guards would approach the box to investigate it, but they now choose to just shoot it from a distance instead. In it's place are a number of new mechanics and uses for the box, but I largely avoided using these silly gimmicks like attaching stickers to the boxes to distract guards with bikini models and the rocket arm, that fires your fist like a remote controlled missile at enemies, and I feel the game was better for it. Using these types of items is entirely optional, and should add some fun to the game when it comes to replaying missions down the line, but if you want to experience the game in a more serious fashion you can get by just as well without them.
"The series has been packed with memorable boss fights in every single game. MGSV has nothing particularly special in this regard"
Weirdly though, things seem to get easier and easier as you progress through the story and develop better weapons and equipment through R&D. Once you have access to either D-Dog or Quiet as your buddy (probably D-Walker too, but I never really used it), the two will essentially play the game for you. D-Dog automatically sniffs out any guards, mortars, gun emplacements, vehicles, land mines and prisoners within around 100 meters of you - which automatically marks them, while Quiet can be sent ahead to which ever outpost you're intending to infiltrate to scout the area. This involves her marking all the enemies and gathering all of the supplies and leaving them on a nearby rock for you to collect when you arrive before going to the nearest sniping point to provide cover fire, which often doesn't work the way you would want it to, or have ordered her to do. During one particular mission, I was tasked with finding a highly skilled enemy soldier and eliminating them. My intention was to sneak in, find the soldier, interrogate him for intel and then extract him back to Mother Base. Quiet, apparently, had other ideas as she took it upon herself to shoot him in the face as soon as I grabbed him in CQC, resulting in me restarting the mission from the last checkpoint.
This isn't the only issue with using Quiet, either. While she is incredibly useful as a buddy, when she's not off doing her own thing, she is also incredibly irritating. For whatever reason, she hums over the radio constantly. Since she doesn't speak, I'd be fine if she were humming to indicate she's spotted an enemy or is waiting for orders, but when the entire outpost is already marked and I'm sneaking my way through the area, fultoning the guards with the highest ranks, I don't need Quiet providing her own soundtrack by humming the same short section of her theme ad nauseum.
Another of Metal Gear's staples is it's array of classic boss fights. Be it the sniper fights with The End or Sniper Wolf, mind games with Psycho Mantis, the fist fight with Liquid Snake atop Metal Gear REX, the race against time to defuse Fatman's C4's in MGS2 or the final showdown with The Boss, the series has been packed with memorable boss fights in every single game. MGSV has nothing particularly special in this regard. There are a few encounters with various forms of the Skulls (which are often incredibly tedious) and an early battle with Quiet. The latter felt like an epic battle the first time I played through it, without the proper equipment to effectively hold my own, as I was left to sneak my way through the silent sniper's blindspots and escape the area. I recall at the time stating how it was quickly shaping up to be my favourite boss battle of the entire series. However, returning to this mission later on with the correct tools sucked the encounter of all that made it great the first time. Nearly all of the boss battles can be avoided entirely by escaping the area once the battle begins leaving just 3 that are required.
"Classic MGS features absent from Ground Zeroes, like knocking on walls and the infamous cardboard box, are welcome returns to aid infiltration"
Foward Operating Bases have been implemented into the game as a way for you to invade another players base and compete in online battles with one of you acting as the attacker, who has to sneak through the opposing player's mother base and reach an objective, while they try and stop you. Early reports suggested this feature was locked behind a microtransaction pay wall and was unavailable to those not willing to spend extra money to buy the resources needed to build an FOB. The good news is that this is not the case. FOB missions are available to everyone who wants to try them as your first base, and the waters you need to purchase in order to build one, are both free. Expansions upon that base cost you in-game money and resources and not real money from your wallet. You will have to pony up some additional cash if you wish to construct more than one FOB, though.
Disappointingly, however, Foward Operating Base construction is in no way optional. At a certain point in the game, you'll unlock the ability to create an FOB, which you can initially ignore if you, like me, have no real interest in partaking until you've at least finished the story. Eventually however, you'll arrive at a point where you'll try and use the iDroid and the game will lock you out of picking any other option, and even backing out of the iDroid altogether, until you construct an FOB. This, coupled with the fact that you can be attacked at any time, even if you're not playing the game, leaves a rather sour taste and left me feeling like FOB missions were something I didn't want to do. Things are worse for players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox formats, however. In addition to being attacked when you're not even playing the game, if you do not have PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live, which are required to access the game's online features, you are also left completely unable to defend your own base, or retaliate against those who have attacked you. You can, however, have your friends and allies defend your base on your behalf but for something like this to be a mandatory gameplay feature when there's people who do not have the required subscriptions to be able to defend themselves seems entirely backwards. I feel it would have been much better for the entire FOB system to be unlocked within the story, and to have then been up to you to choose to build a base or not. At the very least, players should be able to choose if they want to take their base online or not.
OPEN WORLD
THE PHANTOM PAIN does a great job of giving you freedom to tackle missions in any way you see fit. You can sneak in and put people to sleep, you can go in all guns blazing, you can opt for total stealth and leave everything untouched with no traces of your presence at all. Where past games (GROUND ZEROES included) would put you in the mission area and give you somewhere to go, PHANTOM PAIN lets you get there however you want to. Take the chopper, steal a vehicle, ride in by horse, go on foot - the choice is yours. This is where the open world format of the game really shines. Giving you complete control over how and when the missions take place is great and allows you to strategically plan ahead. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. As you progress through the game by completing missions or sideops, or just by exploring the map in free roam, you'll quickly find yourself infiltrating the same places over and over. You arrive, you mark all the enemies, you proceed to clear them out of the outpost before moving on to the next one. Things can get quite repetitive surprisingly quickly, but when the game plays this well it's hard to complain too much.
It must be said that the majority of the enemy locations aren't very big though - there are only a handful of large establishments in each map and very few of them (if any) actually match up to the scale of the Camp Omega site in GROUND ZEROES, so although the game locations may be physically much larger than GROUND ZEROES, as promised, it's not quite how I envisaged THE PHANTOM PAIN; the overwhelming majority of the maps is unoccupied territory and as such, there aren't any very big or daunting bases to infiltrate that would equate to a Shadow Moses or Groznyj Grad.
The maps all look very samey too, and when you get into it they're pretty barren. Aside from a few big bases and various guard posts dotted between them, there is nothing out there in the wilds besides medicinal plants to collect and occasional encounters with animals - overall, MGS3 did a better job of creating an immersive ecosystem.
Despite almost constant talk of rebel forces and the like in the early stages of the campaign, there is no sign of them in the game -there are no bases for them, nor any events that randomly occur within the world for you to discover. With a game structure like MGSV, having rebel forces engage with the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan would have been the perfect way to flesh out the battlefield infiltration angle that GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS tried to include in the game, and ultimately failed. In fairness, it was always billed as an 'open world' game, and with the lack of spontinaety out in the open spaces, that's precisely what it is - it's certainly not a sandbox game.
Afghanistan is also quite monotonous to look at, with very little in terms of variation around the map. Africa is a little better in this regard with open savannah, shanty towns, and a dense jungle to the north.
The jungle itself is a perhaps the best of MGSV's environments, with dense vegetation and low visibility, which makes for a very interesting location to sneak through. It is, however, only used once or twice in the main campaign, and a couple more times for various side ops. In my opinion, it is severly underused and easily stands out as the best area of the game. Beyond the jungle lies a mansion, which also provides for a great location to sneak through when you first encounter it in the story, simply because it is so vastly different from anything else you've had to sneak through up to that point. It's a refreshing change of scenery, but again, it isn't actually as sprawling as you'd hope for once you get there.
The day and night cycle and dynamic weather, while great for replay value and adapting your strategy on the fly, do very little for the game in terms of narrative. GROUND ZEROES locks your mission to a windy, rainy night, and this only enhances the story by creating an atmosphere. Cutscenes in THE PHANTOM PAIN could take place at any time, depending on when you get to them. For example, you could arrive at a critical cutscene in the middle of the day in clear weather, which is likely to have a completely different auora to the same scene at night and/or in bad weather. Different times of day convey different narrative atmospheres and it's quite likely you'll encounter a scene that didn't have the impact it perhaps should have done because you arrived there at a time that detracts from the overall mood.
STORY & LIFESPAN
THE PHANTOM PAIN is a massive game. Two expansive maps and your entire mother base to explore give the game a lot of places to go. Between main missions and side ops, there's plenty to do within those worlds and the main story itself will take you a large amount of time to get through. During my playthrough, I completed all of the main story missions, a large chunk of side ops, spent some time exploring mother base, left the game running while waiting for essential kit to finish being developed (on rare occasions) and spent time just listening to audio tapes. Upon completion, my game time was a little over 77 hours and 32 minutes, across 2 whole weeks, with around 40 percent of the total game completed. By comparison, I got to the end of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance in under 6 hours, and I'd finished playing the story mode after just 2 days. Just playing through the story is going to give you more than your money's worth here and your time with the game should only increase with the variables on offer. You can replay any of the main missions at any time to increase your ranking and complete numerous objectives within each mission. Outside this, you can always just replay the missions to try a different approach, experiment with new weapons or try your hand at infiltrating an outpost at a different time of day.
"Where past games would put you in the mission area and give you somewhere to go, Phantom Pain lets you get there however you want to"
The story itself, however, will likely leave you disappointed and confused. Metal Gear is well known for it's long-winded cutscenes. One of the biggest complaints many people have with METAL GEAR SOLID 4: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS is that there are simply too many cutscenes that go on for far too long. In attempting to address the criticism of MGS4, THE PHANTOM PAIN has rather thrown the baby out with the bath water, and we've gone from one extreme to the other.
Cutscenes come along every once in a while, drip-feeding you little tidbits of information here and there without really giving you anything substantial. What would have been a lengthy conversation between two characters in past games is now over in a matter of seconds. The vast majority of the actual story gets delivered to you through the completely optional cassette tapes you'll unlock as you complete missions. PEACE WALKER employed a similar system, due to being developed for a portable platform, but still gave you enough story within the cutscenes to have a clear picture of what was going on. However, given the acting talents and the advancements in motion capture, not to mention the power of the Fox Engine itself, it seems rather a waste to have so much of the content delivered on a glorified pause screen.
The game plods along for the first chapter, delivering you a very thin story line at a very slow pace, and, irritatingly, throws spoilers into the opening credits of every mission, listing off every character and mech set to make an appearance. If you don't see an important character listed at the start of the mission, you know you're not going to be given much in terms of story, but likewise when you do see them, you're left feeling unsatisfied when the story is delivered at the end of the mission, because you've explicitly been told it's coming and you're expecting it. The story picks up pace towards the end of the first chapter, and ends just when it starts getting good before delivering another spoiler reel of things that happen in the second chapter, which is completely unnecessary.
The second chapter itself delivers you more story at a much quicker rate, but that's only because it comprises very little in terms of story missions, with the majority being comprised of filler missions that are nothing more than repeats of missions you've already played in Chapter 1 with much stricter requirements and difficulty levels. Options like these should be attached to the original missions and selectable when picking to replay that mission, much like in GROUND ZEROES, not handed to you as "new" missions to pad out the second chapter. The missions themselves are not even required to advance the plot, as you can just as easily pass the time by completing side ops instead, making their inclusions as missions in their own right all the more pointless.
Not 10 minutes after finishing the game, it was brought to my attention that at least one complete chapter had been cut, the unfinished cutscenes from which can be found on the DVD included in the collector's edition, that adds much more story to the game and deals with one of the biggest plot holes presented in the final product. In light of this information, it becomes painstakingly obvious that the game has shipped in a state that is nowhere even close to being considered finished and goes a long way to explaining why so much of the story is just a complete mess.
SUMMARY
METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN is a very good game in it's own right. Enjoyable gameplay and fantastic presentation combine to create a solid gaming experience. Newcomers to the series will likely enjoy the story, while those more heavily invested in the series and it's characters are more likely to be left unsatisfied and confused by an ending that raises more questions than it answers. Coupled with the fact the game is patently unfinished, I find it hard to understand all the perfect review scores that came out following Konami's MGSV Boot Camp events and certainly couldn't score this game as highly as I thought I might.
METAL GEAR SOLID V:
THE PHANTOM PAIN
| Genre : | Stealth Action |
| Publisher : | Konami |
| Developer : | Kojima Productions |
| Platform : | PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 XBOX 360 XBOX One PC |
RELEASE DATES:
| US : | September 1st 2015 |
| JP : | September 2nd 2015 |
| EU : | September 1st 2015 |
| UK : | September 1st 2015 |
| PC : | September 1st 2015 |