Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

So the world will be free when everyone speaks the same language?

....

But this game is going to be translated into more than one language.

Here is the newest MGS5 trailer from Gamescom!

From what little I've played, I like this game a lot. The Motherbase concept adds a whole new layer of gameplay. Instead of just rewarding you for not killing, you can extract those that you knock out to join your R&D team back at motherbase. You can upgrade your armaments, your chopper, and horse among other things. I also like the play the mission like you want aspect. I was tasked in taking out a Russian officer at a heavily guarded base. There were multiple ways to go about getting him, but I took the cheap way out by having sniper rifle developed and shipped to me. I shot him through the window of the base and rode off in my horse... of course I only got a C rank for the mission, but oh well. Scoring better in missions gives you more currency. Developing technologies is not free, and maintaining funds is important. Just about everything costs money from killing people, to extracting them.

Recruit ppl instead of killing them.. Oh man.. I love killing ppl in these games tho.

How much currency does it cost to do this?

The upgrade to make your horse's crap super slick must cost some money to do something this hilarious. Maybe the crap can get upgraded further to make a tank spin out of control too.

Its very minor compared to the overall picture. its 300GMP per extraction success or fail. Heli extractions are the safest 100% success rate at the cost of inconvenience so I rarely use it. 300GMP is childs play since you can get 100,000GMP at least for a mission.

Killing people during the mission with deduct from your final earnings, but I've learned it doesn't wreck your grade as much as alerts and getting hit by bullets does. If you get caught you might as well slaughter the whole base and finish out your mission in peace. I got a B rank doing that the last mission, when I've scored Cs for only killing one or two people.

Free roaming for side ops allows you to do as you please. You can kill indiscriminately with no penalties... but getting spotted will hit your Heroism score... which is basically a reputation system similar to any sandbox game (Infamous, Red Dead Redemption, etc). The hit isn't very much however, as you can negate it by eliminating/stunning everyone at an outpost which is worth your time. Every time I am on my way to a mission or side op and I cross an outpost, I always knock everyone out and scout for supplies. Harvesting plants, and collecting materials from bases and outposts is important for developing technologies from motherbase. They put a lot of MMO type stuff in this game, and it works well. I've played 6 missions and 5 side ops and I've barely broke 1% of game completion.

Recruiting every soldier you come across isn't ideal as they all have crappy ratings for each field of study. Instead interrogation is key. Most of the time you get info on where valuable resources are, but sometimes they will tell you who is a specialist on base... these guys are the ones you want to knock out and extract. I generally just knife everyone else after they tell me what I want to know.

After reading this article I'm sold on this game. I'll pick it up later this year.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/8/9275393/metal-gear-woman-lead-character-secret

A silent protagonist

I was confused when David Hayter tweeted that he wouldn’t be returning as Snake. As a hardcore fan of the series, I couldn’t imagine long codec monologues with anyone but Hayter. Now that I’m 30 hours in, this design decision makes total sense.

 

Wanting to capture a wider audience, Metal Gear has gone the Portal route with Snake — our now near-silent protagonist. The story happens around him, with imaginative characters like Ocelot, Master Miller and Skull Face providing much of the personality and voice acting. Snake watches everything unfold around him.

 

Goodbye, long discussions about nuclear disarmament. Hello, adrenaline-filled setpieces and systems that hint towards for-pay DLC. Just like the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Call of Duty franchises, Metal Gear is going for a more mainstream appeal. For that to happen, the angst-ridden, talkative version of Snake had to go.

 

In fact, Snake himself barely even matters in this version of Metal Gear. That’s why the game teases you with changing Snake’s character’s race and face in the opening, a feature that delighted my Asian husband. As the online component comes next month, players will represent themselves as their custom avatar. The technical term for this in gamedev parlance is "player agency," giving you control over your game world.

 

No 20 minute conversations about anything and everything? hell yes. Lady can play most of the game as a woman? hell yes.

I still wish Snake talked more. He kinda just stands their like a quiet dope while everyone else does the talking. I don't miss the codec conversations, but it would have been nice to hear some dialog back and forth when Ocelot or Miller talk to you over comms. Other than that this game is amazing. I'm loving Ocelot playing the "Colonel" role as far as in the field support.

They put a ton of MMO type crafting into the Motherbase aspect. Now that I have my base built up a little bit, I've developed a binocular upgrade that tells me what enemy soldiers' skill ranks are for each aspect. This saves me a lot of time and extraction devices. If I don't see anyone with at least a B rank in anything, I'll skip the outpost altogether. I've also got to the point where I can make a better sniper rifle that the crappy one you can develop first. Its probably my favorite weapon in the game. Its just too handy when things get hot. Enemy AI is very good in this game. They shoot flares at night to spot you and then sling mortar fire in your direction or they jump on the heavy guns. Sniping them off these are crucial. Right now, suppressors for assault rifles are completely useless. They barely last one magazine before they go bad. The tranq gun can get off about 15 shots before it goes bad... its just as crappy really, but you can pick and choose your shots at least. Getting one on a sniper rifle is top priority.

And attack dog. Yay. aside from sniper rifle tech I'll throw most of my r & d money into cardboard box technology.

Gah, quit talking the game up DX. I really want to buy it but I'm trying to save money for other things right now (plus I just bought Dishonored) and you're making it really hard to resist.

I'll say this I wasn't happy with the suppressors in GZ. That one on the weapon they start you with barely lasts long enough to kill someone. Kinda sucks that carried over into MGS5. Hmmm, maybe I'll pick this up on Black Friday if it's on sale (and if I'm not too addicted to Battlefront).

From what I can gather while playing is that this game is a Mass Effect type of time sink. The side ops are too valuable to skip and the variety of them keeps it fresh. Even the redundant tasks like "extract skilled soldier" always take place at different bases that present their own challange. And what I love the most is that if you knock out the base communication arrays, they stay knocked out... even when that base is part of an actual mission.

That Easter Egg

I had to stand around and listen til the end too.

More than half way through, one of the more interesting aspects about the AI is how they adapt to your playstyle. After exclusively sniping, all soldiers wear hard helmets, armored vests, and have riot shields. If I don't shoot them in the much smaller window of the face, their helmet will fly off and they will be dazed for a second, if you don't take them out by then they can alert the base they are under attack. This took place over a decent timeline and when I listened to enemies talking to each other they even discussed the new equipment they heard was going to be issued and how they hoped it would be soon.

Now that's impressive.

The buddy system is really neat, but suffers fatal flaws unfortunately. Instead of giving each buddy a unique advantage, they mostly crossover or multi-task to the point it makes another one useless.

My rankings.

1. D-Dog: By far the best buddy in the game. D-Dog can sniff out enemy targets at a range that is an unfair advantage to the enemy... he is also largely ignored by enemy soldiers unless they tell him to shoo. D-Dog comes with a lethal knife getup and stun getup... telling him to attack will allow him to jump an enemy and either slit their throat or stun them. You can do this while hiding in cardboard boxes. He can also draw aggro a close range by biting enemies. His enemy spotting is what makes him better than any other buddy, as he spots reinforcements, vehicles, weapons, and finds harvesting materials.

2. Quiet: Quiet is a lethal sniper buddy. She can spot like D-Dog but not as effectively, and only on command. Just roaming with Quiet, she only spots enemies she has her scope on and once she moves to a new target the previous target is no longer marked. You can command her to scout bases up ahead, and she will permanently spot the majority of targets, but not all of them at times if the base is large. She also wont spot reinforcements like D-Dog can. Plus, telling her to scout ahead leaves you blind to near by enemies until you reach the destination she is scouting. She can draw aggro off you better than D-Dog by sniping loud, or she can take out targets once you develop suppressed weapons for her. Her AI has some flaws however, as she can be too aggressive when equipped with lethal weapons. I've found myself trying to knock out a high graded target only to have her pop his head off in the process. If I am not on a mission I keep the tranq rifle on her.

3. D-Walker: D-Walker does a bit of everything... unlike D-Dog and Quiet, you can ride D-Walker for fast transit to locations.... it has a walk mode and a fast mode where it uses wheels implanted on its legs. D-Walker is unmatched for missions that you intend to go loud on. You can develop a heavily armored body along with an array of weaponry from gatling guns and flame throwers, to lock on rockets. D-Walker also has a very limited enemy spotting ability that you can command him to do when you are not on him. It's severely lacking and mostly useless. When not using D-Walker or D-Horse, you generally deploy a vehicle you stole... the advantage of buddies you an ride on however is that you can call them too you rather than having to run back to your parked vehicle.

4. D-Horse: Poor D-Horse. He is the first buddy you have access too.... he can't spot and he can't kill... The only advantage he has over D-Walker is that muddy/poor terrain doesn't slow him down. He is the most mobile and fastest way on any surface. Sadly this advantage is useless compared to the benefits of the other buddies. The only other minor advantage D-Horse could be considered to have is that when you are getting away with a hostage/prisoner/VIP, you put them on the back of D-Horse behind you, while D-Walker holds them out front for the shooting gallery.

Because "Renegade For Life" is funny.

I've been playing this the last couple days. I just finished mission 5. The combat system is nice and the stealth mechanics are good, but I'm loosing my patience quite often. I'll usually miss one guy, he'll spot me and ruin all my stealth progress or potentially get an ass load of people to shoot and kill me, thus making me loose an hour of progress. I've gotten into the habit of fultoning out a large chunk of people, running out of the area to trigger a checkpoint save and then running back in to keep going. Its all too time consuming. Now when someone sees me I say "f*ck it" grab my assault rifle, kill them, run off a bit and then snipe everyone else. I'm going to start deploying with an RPG to destroy all the radio communicators first from now on. Aside from the prologue I haven't gotten a rank over C.

Parts of this game's plot makes no sense to me. I don't get why I'm still in Afghanistan. I'm guessing the answer is in the cassette tapes I've been neglecting to listen to. I have a full crew now with excess in the waiting room. For most of these missions I don't understand the logic as to why Snake does all this YOLO style. I now have a small army but they all just sit on their asses at motherbase while I go out and do stuff. I heard that eventually they can go out on missions and make us cash, but even then it doesn't make sense to me why Snake doesn't do all these missions with a full assault or stealth/tactical team. I get spotted almost every mission, probably because I suck at this or I'm just not used to the endless enemy respawning, but considering the amount of gun fights I get into, screw stealth. lol. I'd rather have my own swat team come in.

I keep using that fulton on everything and its getting a bit tedious. I have no idea where all these sheep are going. lmao. I keep launching them into the air and I never see them again. I caught a brown bear that mauled the hell out of me on my first attempt. That was pretty messed up watching it dangling by 1 foot attached to a balloon. wtf.

The best thing you can do is destroy all the communications first to limit the back up. Mark every enemy, even the trucks that drive off stay marked when they come back or you see them somewhere else. Suppressed sniping, and blowing up radio towers and running off until alert cools down is what I did. If I got spotted  I basically murdered everyone. Upgrading your D Walker is top priority as its the best getaway vehicle. The scouting head was supremely useful. I don't think it works for hostage extraction though, You can't toss them on it and drive away if I remember correctly.

The game on a whole is very similar. Later it will get a bit tougher with large armored vehicles and the damn chopper trying to kill you. But for most of the time its your own pace. Then there was one mission that I recall that wasn't your own pace and was very annoying. I remember having to follow a truck without being seen and also not letting it get too far away. I forgot why but I just remember failing it multiple times.