[Aptorian]

MGS 5 Phantom Pain will be available on PC.

As for the story, yeah, MGS Revengeance/Rising is pretty typical of the MGS series. You sort of need to have played MGS 2 and 4 to appreciate what they were doing with Raiden. Rising probably had one of the best endings I have seen. Really over the top and awesome.

However Raiden has no connection to MGS 5, not unless his parents show up or something like that.

[Aptorian]

11 days left until the release of MGS: Phantom Pain.

I am so god damn excited for this thing. I've been following the playthrough of the MGS series on Giant Bomb and just finished watching the ending of MGS4 and a cut together movie of footage from Peace Walker. There's so much set-up for this game it's ridiculous. Every new trailer just makes this game look more amazing.

I've been worried about the first impression from industry people who say the shown footage lacks story and that Big Boss isn't talking much. It sounds like something about the story telling has changed, especially considering David Hayter has been replaced by Kiefer Sutherland, but the more I think about it the more convinced I am that Kojima is going to pull a fast one on me.

I'm sort of considering going into a video game forum/site black out for fear of spoilers. Supposedly there are already copies out there and game guides are being sold early. And at the same time there's so many great trailers.

If anyone wants to get caught up on the trailers, Giant Bomb did a watch through of all the Phantom Pain trailer:

http://www.giantbomb...ers/2300-10620/

Don't watch them if you want to go in blind but there is so many crazy hints and foreshadowing in these trailers it's crazy. But I thought it would be interesting to hear what people think is going to happen in the game.

Based on what they've shown so far I think:

Spoiler

As we know this game will bridge the gap between MGS3/Peacewalker and the first Metal Gear games where Solid Snake defeated Big Boss (for the first time). The cloning program "Les Enfants Terrible" happened between Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain, so the kids we see in the helicopter/riding Metal Gear Zeke are probably Liquid Snake and or Solid Snake.

The question is how far is the game taking us? At the end of Peacewalker, Big Boss has severed ties with the US, so unless they retcon the first Metal Gear, some how Big Boss has to once again become an operative of the US.

Considering that Zero, whom we assume is Cipher, is probably the main bad guy in this game, and Zero and his Patriot buddies are practically in control of the US by the 90s, then some really weird convoluted things has to happen for all these pieces to fit together.

My guess about the beginning of the game is that, as of the ending of Ground Zeroes, Paz blew up and damaged Big Boss and Kaz and then the helicopter crash landed on the platform. 8 or 10 years later, Big Boss wakes up in a hospital missing a hand. But what about that piece of shrapnel in his face? He doesn't have it in the opening scenes, so... does he get those later? Or maybe it is from the initial attack?

This leads to the speculation about the mention of there being a Punished Snake and Venom Snake. We see in the trailers that Big Boss is, one assumes, halucinating and seeing ghosts, dead comrades, flying burning whales, etc. Which suggests that the shrapnel is fucking with his brain and his mind might be splitting.

Is this the explanation for how he becomes the bad guy in Metal Gear? Or is it all a faint and is there TWO snakes? Big Boss and an evil clone?

And what the fuck does "V has come to" mean?

This post has been edited by Apt: 20 August 2015 - 07:15 PM

[Aptorian]

The Metal Gear Solid 5 reviews are coming in. Here's a review thread on the current scores.

https://www.reddit.c..._review_thread/

10/10s, 9/10s and 5/5s. This seems to be a really solid year for video games (ha ha see what I did there, I'm clever).

[Illuyankas]

*chugs gravel* Clever?!

[QuickTidal]

Goddamn this game looks phenomenal. I've loved this series for years...but the IGN review where it mentions how going off-script and just getting the job done...designing HOW you get the job done yourself...is something I've waited years for in a video game. Can't wait to play this.

[Aptorian]

Illuyankas, on 24 August 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:

*chugs gravel* Clever?!

They fired that guy. Now it's just Snake Sutherland sounding sort of confused and drunk.

[Illuyankas]

A TV series themed around one really long really bad day, with terrorists!?

Beating a dead horse!?!?

[Defiance]

Apt, on 24 August 2015 - 10:39 PM, said:

Illuyankas, on 24 August 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:

*chugs gravel* Clever?!

They fired that guy. Now it's just Snake Sutherland sounding sort of confused and drunk.

They didn't even fire him, he never got the job for Phantom Pain (or Ground Zeroes) in the first place. Apparently they wanted a big-name Hollywood actor for mo-cap. Still kind of sucks that David Hayter didn't get to do the voice. That's the voice I grew up with, I can't disassociate it from Snake/Big Boss.

[Aptorian]

I think it's weird as well. David Hayter IS Solid Snake. However, I remain convinced that there has to be some kind of trickery involved. Surely Kojima, a man obsessed with details, would understand the importance of the voice we know and love.

My guess is that if Big Boss is having some kind of disassociating transformation/Super PTSD then perhaps Hayter is voicing "another Snake".

[Aptorian]

Kojima's last Trailer before launch:



Something in this trailer gave me a crazy idea.

Spoiler

We see The various Snakes from the different games. Then we see Big Boss going from Naked Snake, to Big Boss, to Punished Snake (?) and then for some reason Skullface appears. Now, maybe this is just symbolic but what if Skullface is the real Big Boss? The last thing we saw off Big Boss before the helicopter went down in Ground Zeroes was fire from the explosion moving towards him in slow motion. What if he got seriously burned and disfigured? What if David Hayter is voice acting Skullface?!

Then who the fuck is the Big Boss that wakes up in the hospital? A clone?

EDIT: I was discussing this on Reddit. Somebody pointed out that Skullface was in Ground Zeroes that takes place 8 years before Phantom Pain. So it can't be Snake.

But what if Ground Zeroes actually takes place AFTER Phantom Pain? What if Ground Zeroes was the epilogue!?

This post has been edited by Apt: 25 August 2015 - 02:20 PM

[Aptorian]

Played through the Prologue and am now on the hunt to find and rescue Kaz.

My thought on the prologues intro and the open world gameplay in the first chapter.

Prologue:

Spoiler

Thankfully it's not as far up it's own ass as I suspected the opening would be, what with the missing limbs and corridor crawls, etc. but still some fascinating gameplay design. Just imagine how much this prologue must have cost to design alone in mo-cap and environments.

Sure are a lot of nano-machines in this prologue. Fire demon guy seems to be the ghost of Volgin from MGS3. Not sure who the ghost girl is but I am guessing a young Psycho Mantis, perhaps? They seem to both be working together and against each other. Fire guy was hunting Snake while the girl was protecting him.

I am sort of suspicious of the Ishmael character. Looks like he died at the wheel when the helicopter ambushed the ambulance, but I wonder if the whole thing was "Fight Club" style hallucination caused by Snakes brain damage. The way Ishmael would disappear and show up again sort of suggested he wasn't real but on the other hand lots of stuff happening made me think he had to be a real soldier.

I am currently working off a crazy theory that the shrapnel in Snakes brain has given him magical mind abilities and the fire demon, Ahab and mini-Pscycho Mantis are all aspects of his brain and all the damage they caused was manifested by Snakes mind.

Opening of the first Chapter:

This is some really solid open world stealth gameplay. So far I haven't gone loud and have mostly sneaked around and avoided big clusters of soldiers. The way the game controls is extremely smooth and you feel like you have a ton of options, even here at the beginning where your abilities and equipment is quite limited.

One thing I am really loving is all the ressources that are littered in buildings or plants out in the fields. It feeds right into my collectible greed.

[Defiance]

What a fantastic opening. One of my favorite game intros ever.

I'm absolutely loving this game so far. I liked the idea behind Mother Base and all the upgrades and such in Peace Walker, but the game's world never did the best job supporting it. Here, I'm excited to get all of the upgrades and try out missions using everything at my disposal. The open world is just what the series needed.

And of course, there's nothing like running around punching people with my bionic arm while blasting "She Blinded Me with Science." Only in Metal Gear.

[Aptorian]

Defiance, on 03 September 2015 - 05:16 PM, said:

And of course, there's nothing like running around punching people with my bionic arm while blasting "She Blinded Me with Science." Only in Metal Gear.

Or doing a ride by on a horse at full speed, killing everything in an outpost without even losing speed.

I've got the classic Ride of the Valkyries blasting from my Helicopters speaker system.

[Defiance]

After quite a bit of contemplation, I have to admit: I'm disappointed in MGSV.

The gameplay is great. For those who only care about that aspect, this is a wonderful game. I do wish it had some dynamic growth to it - enemy soldiers setting up new outposts over time, abandoning ones you've captured, etc. - but overall it's great. There are countless ways to approach your objectives, and the game really rewards your creativity. There are so many absurdly awesome ways to accomplish your goals.

But ultimately, I play Metal Gear games for the story. And the story was a letdown.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOLLOW

Spoiler

What really kills me is that this game had potential. The themes and issues it deals with - revenge, loss, language, child soldiers, and so on - are great. The story itself is distinctly Metal Gear and explores typical Kojima themes. But the delivery sucks. The game opens with one of the best openings ever seen in a game, and then after that there are very few cinematic sequences. The game should have had your typical 5-30 minute Metal Gear cutscenes in every mission. It would have worked wonders with the open world gameplay, I think - you're free to go about your objective however you want, and at the end you're rewarded with some juicy storytelling. Instead, we only get a few cutscenes, with lots of important story information being relayed by cassette tape. And that's dumb. The cassettes should have been like the optional codec calls in previous Metal Gears - fun information, sometimes easter egg backstory stuff (like Ocelot being The Boss's son), but never vital plot information. Instead, you have to listen to them to get the real meat of what's going on. The main story itself is missing its substance. Skull Face, Psycho Mantis, The Man on Fire - we needed more, actual fights with them. They needed to show up more, especially Skull Face. The cutscenes we did get were great, but the mission 31 ending felt hollow, undeserved. The game didn't feel like it had done anything to build up to this big climax. Watching Kaz and Venom blow Skull Face's limb's off for revenge was extremely dark - how much more powerful would it have been if Skull Face had been more present throughout the story?

And then there's the whole Venom identity twist. Completely Metal Gear on paper, but once again it's something that I feel could have been worked into the story better. Everything feels disjointed in MGSV.

I dunno. I feel like for a game that introduced a young Psycho Mantis and Liquid Snake, a demonic Volgin, a mastermind like Skull Face, and the broken characters of Kaz and Venom, it could have been so much more. As it stands, it's just another Peace Walker for me. Not a terrible game, but a Metal Gear I just shrug my shoulders at. 1-4 will always be the best for me, particularly 3 and 4.

[Malankazooie]

So my brother gave me his copy of MGSV Phantom Pain awhile ago because he didn't like it. I just started playing it and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I've read reviews that it's one of the better games for the current console generation but I'm just not feeling it yet.

I did experience an "awwwwww" moment when I came upon a wild puppy and attached the balloon thingy to send him back to my base. SOOOOOOOO cute! Watching him hang there for a moment before he rushed away was just such a darling moment. Something you don't experience a lot playing video games.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 24 July 2017 - 05:12 PM

[Aptorian]

Have you played the other MGS games? Specifically MGS3 and Peace Walker? If not I imagine a lot of the stuff will have less of an impact.

Personally the game left a sour taste in my mouth. I felt massively let down by the story/writing and I thought the end game was bullshit. I eventually started to tire of the gameplay but that 80+ hours into the game.

In terms of being a game of a generation, I might actually agree. Despite all my misgivings about MGS5, the gameplay is fantastic. This game just feels amazing. Incredibly polished and thought out game mechanics. controls and animations. The feedback loop of collecting stuff, capturing people and upgrading stuff is very rewarding.

[Malankazooie]

Seduce Goose, on 24 July 2017 - 05:24 PM, said:

Have you played the other MGS games? Specifically MGS3 and Peace Walker? If not I imagine a lot of the stuff will have less of an impact.

Personally the game left a sour taste in my mouth. I felt massively let down by the story/writing and I thought the end game was bullshit. I eventually started to tire of the gameplay but that 80+ hours into the game.

In terms of being a game of a generation, I might actually agree. Despite all my misgivings about MGS5, the gameplay is fantastic. This game just feels amazing. Incredibly polished and thought out game mechanics. controls and animations. The feedback loop of collecting stuff, capturing people and upgrading stuff is very rewarding.

This is the first Metal Gear game I've played, so yeah, probably not as impactful if I was with this franchise from the beginning.

As open world games go, it does some things that set it apart but it just hasn't really pulled me in yet. I'll probably play it for a few more hours to see if something captures my drive to finish the game. If that makes sense.

[Malankazooie]

Every time I sprint in MGSV, I am reminded of Benny Hill and yakety sacks playing. It has that kind of vibe. Not a major issue for the most part (speeding forward in this matter can make getting to destinations quicker), but it does create a hindrance to collecting resources in the game.

[Malankazooie]

MSGV
Damn, there's a lot of the rinse and repeat tedium being experienced with these side missions. They could have cut hours off this game and made it more interesting without these repetitive side missions.

I dunno. I'll give it another session (or two), but I may be dropping this.