Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain Background and Review
There are spoilers here for the previous games in the series, however there will be nothing spoiled for The Phantom Pain.
Firstly, the Metal Gear Solid series is one of the greatest series that I have played to date, however they have been a little bit all over the place with where the games sit and how the story progresses. To help understand where Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain sits in the scheme of things I will offer these bits of advice. Ignoring the original Metal Gear Solid game from the PSOne, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will remove the story line of the different character Solid Snake. Solid Snake is not the Snake that you play as in the other games. Solid Snake is the son of Big Boss, or Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Portable Ops, Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes.



The next game in the series is Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes which is a prologue to The Phantom Pain. At the start of Ground Zeroes, the UN requests an inspection of the MSF and Mother Base due to a suspicion that they possess a nuclear weapon. MSF do have a Metal Gear unit and in preparation for the inspection, they attempt to hide it under the ocean. In the midst of organising this, the MSF receive Intel that Paz survived and is being held captive at Camp Omega. Chico, a child operative of the MSF attempts to rescue Paz on his own because of his unrequited love for her and gets captured himself. Paz and Chico are believed to be a risk to the MSF due to the information they possess, so Big Boss is sent on a mission to rescue them and upon arrival we see a new unit known as the XOF as they are just leaving. Big Boss successfully locates and rescues Chico and Paz, however on the way back to Mother Base Big Boss discovers that Paz, who is out cold, has had a bomb surgically inserted into her body. Big Boss and an on hand medic remove the bomb which is successful. Upon arrival to Mother Base, Big Boss sees that it is under attack from the XOF unit. It is now that Big Boss learns that the nuke inspection was actually a cover used by the XOF so that they could form the attack. Big Boss lands on Mother Base with enough time to rescue Kaz and get off Mother Base. Shortly after the chopper takes off Paz comes to and informs Big Boss of a second bomb within her body. In an attempt to save everyone on board, Paz makes the ultimate sacrifice and leaps from the chopper. The second bomb within Paz goes off and the blast sends the chopper spiralling into a crash. Big Boss survives but is put into a coma which he finally wakes from 9 years later. This is where The Phantom Pain kicks off.
Okay, this is the end of the spoiler section of this review. I will not be discussing any of the story from this point on, only my thoughts of the game.
Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain is a true display of what the current generation of consoles can deliver if given the right time and team to develop a game. I played this on the Playstation 4 and never before have I seen an open world with such photorealistic environments. Hideo Kojima always manages to push his games further with each iteration and this one is absolutely no exception. You start off the main portion of the start of the game in Afghanistan which is a vast open desert land which shows off beautiful rock formations and large sand dunes. I have spent a good portion of time just looking around at the high resolution 1080p graphics that have been rendered out in this game. It all looks fantastic and is easily my choice for the best looking game of the year and possibly of all time. Also packed in with the stunning visuals is a true 60 fps. This means that accompanying the stunning visuals, you are also treated to some absolutely smooth animations that just move like real life. From running, crouching and riding a horse, it all presents itself like a well-oiled machine with no frame rate drops or skips. I haven't played a game this smooth on the current generation of consoles yet.
The game play is the rich part of this game, with the controls being ever so tight you can really get into it and pretend that you're the covert expert who is infiltrating camps all over Afghanistan. I changed the control settings to the "shooter" type as opposed to the default. This makes the controls a little more like other games that I am used to. For example, it makes the circle button the crouch toggle, rather than the X button. It just makes for less adjustment when going from game to game.
The inventive way that the Metal Gear Solid games of the past have allowed you to interact with enemies is more advanced than any other game I have played is this is no different. You have the ability to sneak up behind an enemy and hold them at gun point without touching them. Pull your gun out and Big Boss will automatically say "Freeze" causing the enemy to place their gun onto the ground, leaving you free to kill them, knock them out or interrogate them. Interrogation will give you Intel on enemy and item location which is integral to your survival. Another neat part of the game early on is that Big Boss doesn't speak Russian, so you will need to extract a Russian translator to join your team so that you can understand them. Otherwise you won't get any Intel from them.
Using your binoculars you can take some high ground and scout out your mission and sight locations of enemy soldiers and ways in which you want to try and infiltrate the camps throughout the massive areas. Another amazing feature to the game is the Fulton Recovery System. This is a system which attaches a balloon to an item, animal, enemy, weapon or prisoner and launches them into the sky to be retrieved by a ship flying above. This is used to recruit enemies onto your team, or to send items away to Mother Base before you head back their after your missions. This system will ensure a good laugh from most that play.
Also along that same line is the air drop system. Sometimes you will spend a lot of time on the battlefield and you will need to replenish your items. You can call for an air drop to have ammo or different weapons sent to you while you're on the ground. This works perfectly as a container is parachuted down to a location of your choice.
Big Boss also has a horse at his disposal known as D-Horse (part of the Buddy program) and the single most impressive thing with the riding mechanic for me was the fact that while you are running away from gunfire, if you call Buddy, he will run up beside you and match your pace so you don't have to stop running to mount him. This works every single time too.
There are a lot of features that I won't have a chance to mention that you will find out on your own. Metal Gear Solid V is massive and packed with so many different game play areas that will keep you very busy without noticing the time go by.
The story is satisfying for the Metal Gear Solid fan that I am and is pacing along nicely. Like I said, I won't touch the story specifics because this is a spoiler free review but I will say that it should impress most fans and also those coming in for the first time.
That's all for now. Thanks for checking out this review.
Lucas (LewkOne)