Each attempt, whether it ends in success or failure, feels unique to you.
Another guardpost heightened its security because my fumbling attempts to take it over earlier in my playthrough made enemy forces realize they would have to fortify their defenses.Įach base has numerous entry and exit points, and the various potential weapon and item loadouts create countless approaches to infiltrating a fort. In one instance, I had removed so many of a base’s soldiers that their forces were spread thin, making my entry later on a simple affair. Every action has a reaction during infiltration. That space comes from the persistence of agency players have on the game’s open world. Thankfully The Phantom Pain offers an openness unafforded by Ground Zeroes’ claustrophobic base, giving players plenty of room to breathe and contemplate a plan of attack. I was skeptical when I learned that Metal Gear Solid V would be an open world title, especially after playing the game’s lead-in released last year.
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But where missions in the PSP title fractured the narrative into pieces, The Phantom Pain’s Mother Base strings missions together by acting as a hub to ground your progress, making you feel like actions work towards a single goal, rather than being strung along, waiting for the next cutscene.Īlmost every one of those missions takes place in an open sandbox. The story unfolds over the course of separate missions, much like in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker. However, in shedding its exposition, some plot holes are left wide open that will be apparent to even the most passive observers. Part of what helps along the synthesis between narrative and gameplay is that The Phantom Pain forgoes long-winded codec sequences accompanied by even longer cutscenes for radio transmissions that supply a lot of the plot while you’re in each mission. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain doesn’t get wrapped up in making the player feel “cool,” never going against the game’s overall anti-war theme.
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Series like Call of Duty and Battlefield get more grave with each entry, while at the same time obsessing over mechanics that glorify those same horrors they try to subvert. Frankly, I have never been as emotionally affected by any piece of entertainment, video game or otherwise, as some of The Phantom Pain’s final moments.Īction games often try to convey the horrors of war through their stories, but that message is constantly at odds with the power fantasy expressed through their gameplay. It still has some of the more annoying trappings of the series, like acronym-heavy military jargon and a few unexplained plot threads, but forfeits long-winded conspiracies for a clear villain and to-the-point storytelling, while still leaving plenty of twists for players to try and unfurl. The narrative of The Phantom Pain is one of the strongest yet in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. On his quest for revenge, he gets caught up in thwarting a conspiracy to create a weapon to surpass even Metal Gear.
Taking place nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes, The Phantom Pain once again puts players in control of Big Boss as he awakens from a devastating coma brought on by an attack that wiped out his regiment. Fans will no doubt be sad to see Kojima go, but if we see that end with The Phantom Pain, then consider it the crowning jewel that stands atop the rigid structure the creative director has built over the past 30 years. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain appears to be the end of that legacy, and the moment is bittersweet. In spite of that, Hideo Kojima has managed to fashion himself as the definitive creative voice behind the storied Metal Gear franchise, an influential and visionary designer who lent his characteristic spin to every project he headed. Big budget releases demand huge amounts of time and resources, with teams of staggering size that diminish the importance of any one person.
There’s not much room for auteurs in gaming.