Each buddy has his/her/its own repertoire of abilities, and you’ll have to consider who to bring with you on each mission based on your needs and the objectives. Snake always brings one of four companions into the battlefield with him, whether its D-Horse, DD (cute-puppy-turned-big-bad-wolf), D-Walker, or Quiet. On top of the weapons, gadgets, chopper, and intel support, you also get Buddy support. If you simply can’t bring yourself to start blowing things up, Reflex Mode is a good way to stay out of trouble when trying to play things quietly but get caught. It almost feels like cheating if you’re a purist, but those are the kinds of options you have all the same. For example, in a mission where I had to infiltrate a Soviet base and steal a new weapon, I chose to call in my chopper to pick off enemy soldiers while I snuck around the warzone in my cardboard box, stepping over the fresh corpses. I even combined the two approaches together at some points. While I definitely chose to sneak around as much as possible, I found the louder approach to be just as enjoyable. But on a first playthrough (you can replay missions for better scores at any time), I encourage you to experiment with different things. Of course, if you’re a perfectionist, you’ll want to go in quietly and non-lethal in order to get the “S” ranking. There were very few situations in which I felt completely defenseless. Or if you’ve decided to play it stealthy but get caught, switching to a more traditional third-person shooter is seamless.
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Where past games and Ground Zeroesreally forced you to play it safe a lot of the time due to the closed quarters, The Phantom Pain gives you so much space that it’s suddenly feasible that you could go in guns blazing, chopper support above you, to complete a difficult mission. Speaking of how you play, much has been done to improve the many ways you can approach missions. These two parts of the game go hand-in-hand, and equal attention to both is necessary to progress in the game. By building Mother Base, you’ll also be able to get better intel and tools for missions in the field.
METAL GEAR SOLID 5 THE PHANTOM PAIN REVIEWS FULL
A lot of emphasis is put on rebuilding your base and army from a tiny platform to a giant, imposing base of operations full of weapons, men, and state of the art tech. Mother Base makes a welcomed return in this installment, offering the metagame element that made Peacewalkersuch a winner a few years ago. If there’s one sentence to describe The Phantom Pain, it’s “There’s so much of it.” There are so many objectives to accomplish, secrets to find, characters to meet, and tapes/posters to collect that you’ll find yourself lost in the deserts of Afghanistan simply waiting for something shiny to grab your attention. Countless hours into everything the game has to offer, you’ll be amazed by how little you’ve completed.
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You get a sense after being dropped into your very first mission in Afghanistan, where a lot of the game takes place, that the folks at Kojima Productions thought of everything when creating this sprawling epic.
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I dare call Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain the best action-adventure game I’ve ever experienced. Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear‘s beloved creator, obviously listened to these criticisms when it came time to create The Phantom Pain, which is the most story-lite installment in the entire saga, something I might’ve found worrisome for a chapter this important if it weren’t for the amazing gameplay held within the box. This is certainly not the place to discuss story. What I can say, if you haven’t beat it already and have managed to avoid all of the spoilers on the internet, is that, while the tale has definite presence in the game, there is an obvious shift in focus on Kojima’s part to make the gameplay the dominant force in this entry. Whether you find that story satisfying or not will depend on your ability to understand character motivations and the many twists waiting for you on the battlefield. The game tells the story of how Big Boss turned into the infamous villain of the first two Metal Gear games and the shadow that loomed over Solid Snake and his clone brothers for the rest of the series. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a very different monster, one that ultimately reveals the origins of the saga’s heroes and villains and connects two separate parts of the series.
METAL GEAR SOLID 5 THE PHANTOM PAIN REVIEWS PC
Release Date: SeptemPlatform: XBO (reviewed), PS4, PC Developer: Kojima Productions Publisher: Konami Genre: Action-adventure