Metal Gear Phantom Pain Review First Person Perspective

Game Info

Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox 1

Publisher Konami

Developer Kojima Productions

Release Date Sep 1, 2015

It's fitting that one of the recurring themes of Metal Gear Solid five: The Phantom Pain is virtually the loss of a part of your being. Phantom limb hurting is the sensation that flesh once a office of your body can nonetheless be felt, can cause you suffering, after information technology'south gone.

Series creator Hideo Kojima has been making Metal Gear games with publisher Konami for close to xxx years, creating sequels and prequels that bounce back and forth between the time to come and the past of a labyrinthine fictional world of spies, cold wars and walking nuclear weapons begetting the series' proper name. The Phantom Pain, an open-world stealth game about the adventures of Big Dominate, also known as Snake, seems to exist his unexpected swan song. The Phantom Pain closes the loop on the three decade-long Metallic Gear saga and the result, warts and all, turns out to be one of the best entries in the series.

Players who haven't touched final year's Metallic Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes will find themselves thrust into a conflict that can be pretty confusing

Set between the events of 2010'southward Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and the original Metallic Gear, the 1987 stealth game progenitor in which Big Boss plays the part of chief adversary, The Phantom Hurting serves as a sort of "missing link" between those two games, an opportunity to acquire how Big Boss transformed from a sympathetic hero to an iconic villain.

Players who haven't touched last year's Metallic Gear Solid 5: Footing Zeroes will detect themselves thrust into a conflict that, without similar knowledge of previous Big Boss-starring games Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker, can be pretty confusing. The Phantom Pain doesn't waste product much time getting players up to speed, but tells them that they're on a mission of revenge, a mission to rebuild Large Boss' one time-thriving private ground forces.

In an effort to grow that force, named Diamond Dogs, and expand the grouping's stronghold, Female parent Base, Big Boss takes on paid mercenary missions to fund his private military machine group. These missions include exfiltrating prisoners; eliminating military commanders either through assassination or kidnapping; dismantling the infrastructure of occupying forces and more.

Big Boss has a wealth of weapons, tools and tactics at his disposal in stealth and combat situations. He tin sneak in quietly, knocking out foes with tranquilizer darts or keep a murderous binge, unleashing air strikes and sniper fire at bases until everyone stationed at that place is expressionless. I establish both tactical options to be valid in The Phantom Pain, sometimes depending on the mission at hand, though taking a stealthier approach I found paid dividends over fourth dimension. As a stealth game pacifist, I preferred to proceed my impale count low, though I rarely flinched when required to shoot some poor young soldier in the face. Occasionally, I felt better most just shooting them in the knees to disable them, then hoping that they'd survive a trip back to Mother Base.

One of the almost effective tools in Big Dominate' purse of tricks is his gear up of binoculars. As in the game's prologue, Metallic Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, observation of the battlefield is vital to your success in The Phantom Pain; Large Boss tin mark enemies and track their location with a godlike clairvoyance. Unmarked enemies can often surprise y'all and ruin your perfect stealth streak, simply I prefer information technology to the radar arrangement and vision cones of Metallic Gear Solids past.

The 2d best piece of tech in the game — certainly the most fun to utilize — is the Fulton surface-to-air recovery organization. It lets Big Boss attach a airship to enemy soldiers, trucks, tanks, weapon emplacements, fifty-fifty wild fauna, then extract them back to Mother Base via aircraft, where they'll become role of the Diamond Dogs regular army. Using the Fulton system to its fullest is one of The Phantom Hurting's about enjoyable challenges: Successfully extracting, rather than killing, high-ranking commanders and recruiting them into your army are some of the game'due south best moments. It'south gratifying to completely clear out an enemy outpost and ship everything safely dorsum to Mother Base, thereby increasing the power of your own private military force.

Managing Female parent Base is one of The Phantom Hurting's surprising highlights. Every bit you lot bring in new recruits to Diamond Dogs, you'll assign them to diverse teams (Combat, R&D, Intel, etc.), capitalizing on their specialized skills to develop new technologies for Big Boss to utilise on missions. There's a long list of enquiry upgrades and contract missions yous can assign staff to, significant there's always something new and interesting to practice from the Mother Base card. Visiting the base in person, notwithstanding, isn't very rewarding. Yous're required to return to Diamond Dogs headquarters often, sometimes for narrative reasons but also to continue staff morale high and requite Big Dominate the occasional shower, lest his performance in the field suffer. Merely Mother Base of operations feels empty and sterile. Once y'all're there, there's just not enough to exercise.

The number of firearms, explosives and other tools that Female parent Base can research for Big Boss to utilise in the field is staggering. Access to those tools and a vast number of upgrades for each unlocks over time equally players develop Mother Base and recruit a long listing of specialists hidden throughout missions.

Large Dominate also gains a handful of allies, called buddies in the game, who can be deployed to aid him on missions. The get-go, named D-Horse, acts as little more a vehicle to transport Large Dominate from points A to B to C. Two other buddies, DD the canis familiaris and Tranquillity the bikini-clad, ripped fishnets-wearing sniper, nonetheless, drastically alter how i plays The Phantom Hurting. Who you choose to deploy with depends on how you adopt to arroyo The Phantom Pain's missions.

DD serves as a helpful spotter in operations, sniffing out threats on the battleground, marking them and thereby extending the range of Big Boss' situational awareness, though he's not especially useful in combat situations. He's like the machine-pilot version of The Phantom Pain'south marking system and I institute his contribution invaluable during many missions. You tin can as well pet DD, by far The Phantom Pain's greatest contextual button prompt.

Placidity is too incredibly useful in missions, dispatching foes to ensure Large Dominate doesn't get defenseless or sowing mayhem to distract enemies. She'southward also central to the plot of The Phantom Hurting, more and so than any other "buddy." The game's explanation for Quiet's mute, nearly-naked presence is inextricably tied to the game'south convoluted story, and while her silence makes sense, her sexualized appearance doesn't experience earned. I couldn't milkshake the feeling that her visual design came first, with the game's ridiculous justification for her barely-there outfit coming second.

Quiet is treated differently than other characters past the direction of the game's camera, as well. During cutscenes, the camera sometimes pauses for a crush to focus — or direct upwards lingers — on Quiet'due south breasts. In 1 shot, we see it slide downwardly the barrel of her sniper rifle, accept measure of her cleavage before slowly rising up to her face. The photographic camera framing puts her exposed body on display unnecessarily more frequently than not, whether we're looking downwards at Quiet's breast or gazing up at her bottom. Worse, a game event that hints at her being sexually assaulted felt more like a hamfisted plan to remove Quiet's pants only before she metes out gory revenge confronting her attackers. The Phantom Pain treats its few other female characters in a like way, zeroing in on their jiggling breasts and panning across their asses in a light-headed, oversexualized way. It'southward distracting. It'south annoying. Information technology'south tedious.

Those sins only serve to detract from The Phantom Pain'due south finely tuned stealth-based gameplay. Each mission, and in that location are dozens, plays like a polished puzzle box nestled in a vast open-world. Solving that puzzle with the latitude of Big Boss' tools, experimenting with new weapons and technology that evolve over time, tin be tense, thrilling and and so rewarding.

The game adapts to Big Dominate' irresolute toolbox of espionage tactics, however, and as you eventually come face-to-face up with heavily armored soldiers, you'll find that your tranquilizer gun isn't nearly as effective every bit information technology was in the early on portion of the game.

Simply The Phantom Hurting offers a counter-strategy to that counter-strategy. Some of the game's deployment operations, in which yous tin can ship Diamond Dogs off on remote missions, are designed to intercept enemy shipments of, say, helmets and riot armor — the kind of stuff that neuters your tranq darts and headshots. It'southward but 1 example of the interlocking systems and incredibly fine details that makes The Phantom Pain so impressive.

While The Phantom Pain excels on its stealthy side, some of the action-heavy set pieces — intense battles against the super-powered, supernatural Skulls soldiers and mechanized forces — are often more than frustrating than they are fun. But I was able to hand over responsibility for killing Skulls and Metal Gear Sahelanthropus to support helicopters, Quiet and aeriform bombardment runs, at least.

Elsewhere, The Phantom Pain'southward story is captivating, oft a chip messy — and almost wholly absent for a good portion of the early on game. After an extended, surreal intro-cum-tutorial mission, the game simply meanders for a few hours as Big Dominate takes on odd jobs. Once the story does become going, its narrative is doled out in nicely shot cutscenes that thankfully never edge on the ridiculously lengthy. The residual is fleshed out through cassette tapes, primarily conversations between Big Boss, Revolver Ocelot and Kaz Miller. Curiously (and suspiciously), Big Dominate, voiced past Keifer Sutherland, has very little to say during the course of the game. He'll often stand there oddly silent as Ocelot, Miller and other supporting characters regale him with dialogue yous'd expect at least some sort of response to.

Wrap Upward:

The Phantom Pain is a bittersweet but impressive send-off for the series' creator

At that place'due south no denying that Kojima has a vision, a singular style that touches every facet of The Phantom Hurting. Missions brainstorm and end with credits that name the supporting players and the Kojima Productions employees responsible for writing or designing each chapter. I estimate I was told no less than 100 times that The Phantom Pain was directed and produced by Kojima. It's a charming pattern quirk that regularly reminds you of the people who crafted this assuming, weird, impressive game. And if this is where Kojima does finally go out the series he created, it will be a bloodshot ship-off, both for Big Boss and ane of gaming's most intriguing auteurs.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Hurting was reviewed on retail PS4 code at Konami'southward Los Angeles studio over the course of four days with equal time spent playing that retail copy at dwelling house. You lot can find additional information about Polygon's ethics policy hither.

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/27/9207599/metal-gear-solid-5-the-phantom-pain-review-ps4-xbox-one-PC

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