Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain | Review Thread | Words That Kill

Petrae said:
Congrats are definitely in order for Hideo Kojima and his team for earning such critical acclaim once again. It appears that his role in Metal Gear will be ending on the highest of notes, and that's great for him.

That said, despite the superlative reviews, I'm sitting this one out. Open-world games and I never mix, and I've wasted far too much money on other critically-acclaimed open-world games just to wind up getting bored with them after a few hours and inevitably trading them away within a week. (GTA games, Oblivion, Skyrim, Saints Row games, Fallout, etc)

I have, in my own mind, a preferred formula for games. I prefer strongly scripted, more linear experiences that keep me focused and moving forward. There can be some room for exploration, but if there's no driving force to keep me playing... I get bored with side activities, lose interest in the main storyline, and just stop playing. I get that my preferred formula for gaming is gradually being replaced by the open-world/sandbox model, but I'm not personally a fan of this direction.

That said, creators have their own vision when it comes to game development... and I don't have to like it or buy it to respect it. If this is Kojima's vision, good on him for seeing it through. Sure, I'm disappointed that there's a mainline MGS game that I won't buy/play, but life goes on. It's obvious that reviewers love it, and I'm sure it'll be a hit. I'll stick with the more linear games and enjoy those.
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.

The graphics and atmosphere look great, but I've just had my fill of sprawling sandbox games. Good for Kojima for getting his vision out there but the elements that brought me into the series seem to have been taken a back seat.

I prefer a definitive Start - Middle - End structure nowadays, where I can in my own mind gauge where I am in the story with my progression of the game. MGS 1-4, in particular 1 and 2, had this perfectly. If I can spend 30 hours in a game and need to be told I'm 21.4% through the story, it's daunting and I just don't have that kind of time anymore

Being a vested fan of the series previously though it's nice to read the impressions coming out here
 
texhnolyze said:
Gotta love the grinds.
Or, you can always buy MB coins and skip them!
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KonamiRainingMoneySig.jpg
 
I'm generally not a big fan of open worlds that lack meaningful gameplay design (like GTA for example), but this looks like more of a sandbox where the player has a ton of ways to complete missions using a wide variety of tools and skills.

That sounds awesome to me.
 
I feel the story comments maybe that it isn't as heavy as a normal MGS game?

Not the fact that the game is completely light on story.
 
Are we sure every of those reviewers finished the game? Finding it weird there's so many 30 hours - no score reviews vs full review...
 
CaVaYeRo said:
Are we sure every of those reviewers finished the game? Finding it weird there's so many 30 hours - no score reviews vs full review...
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Very few will have finished it. Our guy was the first in the UK to complete the story, and he got some extra time over others.
 
Bl@de said:
It's school grades. 1 = A up to 6 = F.

In Germany you have 6 grades (From 1-6.). A 1,25 means A-.
It differs from university though. There you have 5 grades (A,B,C,D and F)^^
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What kind of school...
 
raven777 said:
That's one of the weirdest scaling I have seen.
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It's schoo marks. In Germany marks go from 1 (very good) to 6 (inadequate). If you calculate yhe average of multiple marks you get something like this. So it's mostly 1s with a few things that drag it down, but not even close to getting into a 2 (so, 1-). I believe it would be an A in America.
 
Not sure of this is the right thread to ask this in but is the vita version of 2 and 3 good to play through or should I try getting it on the 360? Really want to play these games before playing this.
 
JonStark said:
So, do you have to grind for any mission ? Are you forced to replay missions ?

(Any word about micro transactions ?)

Those are my only worries.



I don't want to... I'm torn...
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did a quick scan on the thread but earlier pages have people having a meltdown over replaying missions on hard to unlock the (true?) ending.
 
liquidtmd said:
The graphics and atmosphere look great, but I've just had my fill of sprawling sandbox games. Good for Kojima for getting his vision out there but the elements that brought me into the series seem to have been taken a back seat.

I prefer a definitive Start - Middle - End structure nowadays, where I can in my own mind gauge where I am in the story with my progression of the game. MGS 1-4, in particular 1 and 2, had this perfectly. If I can spend 30 hours in a game and need to be told I'm 21.4% through the story, it's daunting and I just don't have that kind of time anymore

Being a vested fan of the series previously though it's nice to read the impressions coming out here
Click to expand...

I was never a big stealth fan (and I'm still not), but it was the batcrap-crazy story in the earlier MGS games that convinced me to keep playing them. Now that's allegedly diminished.

MGS and its sequel are my favorite games in the series, too. They felt epic without feeling too big or spread out. The progression was felt via where you were in the story, and the extraneous dogtags from MGS2 were optional objectives that I completely ignored. MGS3 then changed things up and lost me; it remains the only one of the first four MGS games that I haven't played all the way through. MGS4 was a bit more enjoyable and I thought it was a decent ending to the series (or so I thought).

Once the move was made to huge and spread out level design with Ground Zeroes, I felt overwhelmed. I felt no attachment to the characters and the story (what there was of it) never grabbed me. I'm just running around and doing stuff because reasons-- and since I'm not so great at stealth games, having to worry about deciding which of the different paths to take to do what the game wanted me to do only added frustration. For me, there wasn't enough focus, nothing motivating enough to make me want to keep playing it. So I stopped playing it and traded it away within a couple of days.

I get that people might be tired of the "same old thing" and want change, but I was happiest and most interested when MGS was Metal Gear Solid and not Metal Gear Sandbox. But again: If others like/want the changes, good for them. I'm not so great with severe changes to familiar games. I also strongly disliked FFVIII and Burnout Paradise because they were not just sequels, but completely different games in many respects, with changes that did away with the simplicity and comfort level that I'd come to enjoy and appreciate in their predecessors.
 
What reviews are saying of the game demanding intelligence and improvisation, gets me more hyped than anything else.
 
Insane Dead said:
Not sure of this is the right thread to ask this in but is the vita version of 2 and 3 good to play through or should I try getting it on the 360? Really want to play these games before playing this.
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The 360 version is obviously better, but the vita version is still solid. The vita version is subnative res but still looks pretty crisp. Frame-rate for mgs2 is 30 outdoors, and 60 indoors. MGS3 is locked at 30, and rarely drops below that. Some people had complaints about the back touch pad controls but they are rarely used and didn't bother me.
 
Altered Juice said:
did a quick scan on the thread but earlier pages have people having a meltdown over replaying missions
on hard to unlock the (true?) ending.
Click to expand...

I hate that shit with
multiple endings - I usually play a game only once. I don't want to redo the whole game to get the "true" ending
 
So what I'm seeing is: Best New Game This Gen So Far.

Bring on Uncharted 4, Fallout 4, and Zelda U!

So far, the best game this gen is Splatoon for me.
 
ekim said:
I hate that shit with
multiple endings - I usually play a game only once. I don't want to redo the whole game to get the "true" ending
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You don't have to replay the whole game. All we know is that you have to replay some missions with specific constraints such as procure on site, no alerts etc.
 
co1onel said:
The 360 version is obviously better, but the vita version is still solid. The vita version is subnative res but still looks pretty crisp. Frame-rate for mgs2 is 30 outdoors, and 60 indoors. MGS3 is locked at 30, and rarely drops below that. Some people had complaints about the back touch pad controls but they are rarely used and didn't bother me.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I think I am getting on vita. Would be pretty cool to play it on the go.
 
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