Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain Review
Platform: PS4, PS3, Xbox one, Xbox 360,
Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Konami
Author: R.D.
We shall all remember September 1, 2015 as the day when the world stopped and watched, with anxious eyes, as Big Boss (Venom Snake) awakens from his nine year coma. This follows the events of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zero, and he awakes to take his place as the leader of the mercenary group The Diamond Dogs. The game has a very rich story that’s heavily driven by mystery and revenge, as Snake is trying to figure out who is picking a fight with him and why. As the story progresses you gain access to the mother base where you can train troops, research and upgrade gear, or the ability to annoy everyone there. You also gain the Fulton ability, which allows you to send people, animals, and items (like trucks and tanks) back to the mother base.
Phantom Pain‘s biggest selling point is its open world game play that allows for an innumerable amount of playstyles, whether you like killing every living thing you come across, sneaking past everyone, or just sand surfing in a cardboard box. That said, Kojima Productions have taken the series’ token cardboard box and gave it a major upgrade.
Top notch stealth gear right here.
Sometimes missions are super easy when you do them stealthily, but sometimes (almost always) blowing everything up is way more fun. I personally enjoy shooting people with the tranquillizers, dragging them away, then kicking them awake, because who doesn’t like kicking sleeping people in video games? I could honestly play this game for hours and just mess around without progressing at all.
The game has stunning visuals, from the weather-cycling environments to the characters. The game is amazingly detailed and the cutscenes are like finely generated movies. The game also includes a kickin’ soundtrack that fits well with the different situations and is also attention-grabbing, so much so that I actually notice the music and, thus, can enjoy it. One of my favourite features from Guns of the Patriots returns in Phantom Pain… The music player. You can roam around the world and appropriate music cassettes from enemy outposts. The cassettes you find will contain songs that can you can listen to with the Walkman. It’s always therapeutic blowing up enemy camps while rocking out to some oldies.
Between gathering personnel and resources for the mother base, rampaging through camps, and just replaying the story over and over, this game can easily offer many sleepless nights worth of hours in gameplay. If the previous Metal Gear Solid titles are any indicator, then I foresee about six playthroughs with roughly 150 hours on record.
The game does not have multiplayer presently. However, there are two modes that are to be released Metal Gear Online scheduled for October 2015, and Metal Gear Solid themed Clash of Clans.
ScoreCard:
Story: One Star
Game Play: One star
Graphics: One star
Audio: One star
Replay ability: One Star
Overall: 5/5
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