Video Game Review: MGSV: Phantom Pain

Developer Kojima Productions
Publisher Konami
Genre Third-Person Shooter
Game modes Single Player, Multiplayer
Players 1-16
Reviewed on PC

Available on Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One

PikeyZA

Published September 22, 2015

There are few franchises in the gaming world more enduring than the Metal Gear series. With a host of games spanning decades and multiple systems, it’s touched almost all gamers in some way or another over the years. Everyone who plays games knows that a cardboard box is the ultimate infiltration tool, and that soldiers emit giant exclamation marks when startled (although I’ve tested this on real life soldiers and they just get angry #NotRecommended).

Some, and I count myself very much in this group, have been salivating almost constantly since Konami pulled the ultimate gamer cock-tease with Ground Zeroes, and now our patience has been rewarded. MGSV: Phantom Pain is finally here, and in the last week I have poured 50 hours of my life into the game. I can only assume my son has learnt to operate the oven through necessity, and that my friends have reported me as deceased, because trying to tear my attention away from MGSV is proving tougher than even a long time MGS fan could have anticipated!

Back Story:

MGS has possibly the most convoluted back story of all time, so I’ll cut through the clutter and just focus on the pertinent points for MGSV:PP.

Ground Zeroes was set in 1975, mere months after the final events of MGS: Peace Walker. Phantom Pain picks up the story 9 years after that, with Big Boss waking from a coma after Militaires Sans Frontières/Outer Heaven was destroyed by Zero/Cypher in GZ.

Luckily for Big Boss he is being cared for by a kindly old doctor and a nurse who knows exactly what any man wants to see when opening his eyes… boobs less than a foot from his face. That’s right, the old Kojima over sexualisation that we’ve come to love (albeit slightly cringingly) makes an appearance immediately, and to be honest it is welcome. With Konami stripping Kojima’s name from promotional material there was a very real concern that they would also remove his trademark style from the game. Luckily that is not the case!

The opening cutscenes are long, REALLY long (you’ll spend a good 5-10 minutes as little more than a spectator), but they’re visually stunning, as always. They also contain a wealth of information that you find yourself poring over for clues while listening to the doctor’s explanations of your recovery. How did Big Boss get from a helicopter crash over the Caribbean Sea to an unknown hospital? Are those items on the wall related to the hospital’s location? Where’s that nurse gone, isn’t it time for my sponge bath?

Unfortunately before too long you’re forced from your life of relaxation and recovery by an attack on the hospital, starting with the murder of both the nurse (noooo!) and the doctor by a mysterious woman (more on her later), all while you’re sitting helplessly wiggling your mouse and clicking buttons to no avail. As you might suspect the real target of the attack is Big Boss himself, but he is saved by the timely intervention of a heavily bandaged man calling himself Ishmael. Needless to say this marks the start of gameplay, and we find ourselves guiding a weakened Big Boss in his attempts to escape the hospital. The appearance of Psycho Mantis (aka The Third Child) and Revolver Ocelot are undoubtedly high points in the escape, although I won’t go into too much detail in order to avoid spoilers! 😉

Theme/Literary Influences:

As with Peace Walker’s undeniable influence by the 1964 movie Dr Strangelove, Phantom Pain is themed very strongly along the lines of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. When I say very strongly, I’m not kidding. Phantom Pain was originally reported to be in production by a (fake) company called Moby Dick studios, headed by a mysterious man named Jokaim (anagram: Kojima). Big Boss wakes from his coma to find himself missing a limb, much the same as Ahab losing his leg to the great white whale. Big Boss is called Ahab by Ishmael in the hospital (Ahab and Ishmael being the captain and narrator, respectively, of Moby Dick). Big Bosses’s helicopter is called The Pequod, the same name as Ahab’s ship. There’s even a giant fire whale in the scenes following the hospital escape. As you can see, the game makes no attempt at hiding it’s influences, and actively celebrates them.

Moby Dick itself is a tale of revenge in its most destructive form, a wholly consuming need leading to the ultimate dehumanisation of the protagonist, and as such the comparison of Big Boss to Ahab is incredibly accurate, and sets an ominous tone for the rest of the game.

Gameplay:

MGSV: Phantom Pain marks an exit from the familiar linear style of MGS and instead has an open world, a welcome change in todays gaming climate where it’s the norm to spend hundreds of hours on side quests. Despite this the main story doesn’t suffer too much, although it does feel a bit looser than previous games in the series.

The open world of Afghanistan and the Angola-Zaire border are beautifully rendered and really capture some of the stark beauty of both regions. The Afghani deserts and mountains feel suitably arid and also add to the tactical elements of the game, with limited concealment on offer from undergrowth, you’re forced to rely on sand dunes and gulley’s to sneak into bases. Sometimes when these options aren’t available you’re forced to make a heart pounding dash from cover to cover across 100m of open terrain. However, with proper planning these aren’t too frequent as you can choose from multiple insertion points thanks to The Pequod, allowing you to approach a base intelligently instead of like a crazy person. Although there is something to be said about sprinting across a desert at night, weaving back and forth while screaming “run in a serpentine fashion, it’ll throw off their aim!” (thanks Generation Kill).

The bases you’ll infiltrate range from guard posts of 5 soldiers and a few static gun emplacements, to sprawling bases filled with armour, men and vehicles. Each pose their own unique threats, and the proper way to deal with them varies dramatically based on your own level of patience. It’s pretty easy to clear out 5-10 soldiers from a small base, but when you’re looking at close to 30 people to deal with (not to mention the occasional tank/APC) then you can be tempted into rash action that loses you the element of surprise. Trust me, walking blindly around a corner into a searchlight from a hovering attack chopper will have DIRE consequences! Remaining stealthy for a long period of time can be a long process however, with some of the new additions the game brings it is never boring. The Fulton Recovery System especially keeps things light as you attach a harness to enemy soldiers/mortars and watch them get whisked away. You can even earn extra money from an NGO that will pay you to Fulton Extract wildlife from the combat zones… finally those bear-napping skills will pay off!

The Fulton Recovery System is useful for everything from recovering highly skilled soldiers to stealing gun/mortar emplacements. I’ve even managed to Fulton Extract a manned enemy tank while it was searching for me, not a bad way to remain safe while also gaining a tank and a very confused tank commander! However it can be spotted by alert enemies, so be careful where you deploy it.

Stealth is still very much the name of the game, as you will be rewarded highly for remaining undetected, and also for using non lethal takedowns over just shooting someone in the face. Big Boss (or Punished ‘Venom’ Snake, as he starts calling himself) can incapacitate enemies with CQC and then interrogate them for information on objectives or enemy locations, or he can stick a knife in their throat.. whichever floats your goat. Of course the ubiquitous Tranquiliser Pistol makes it’s appearance from the start of the game, giving you a method to drop people from range, although you’ll get to add tranquiliser sniper rifles, sleep grenades and even air impact shotguns to your arsenal with time. The variety of both lethal and nonlethal weapons in the game is very impressive, giving you multiple loadouts to choose from before each missions. You also have the option to resupply your existing loadout’s ammo or choose a new one via air drop while in mission (90% of the time you’ll do this just to get a fresh silencer as they wear out quickly).

Buddies:

One of my favourite features of the game is the ability to choose from a ‘Buddy’ to deploy with you. You start with D-Horse (Diamond-Horse, although you’ll end up calling it Douche-Horse more often), who is excellent for getting from place to place on the vast map, but has no other use. As you progress through the game you’ll unlock more Buddies to choose from, namely D-Dog (!), Quiet and D-Walker.

Diamond Dog is probably the most useful, as he highlights enemies/prisoners and wildlife in a certain radius of you and eventually can kill/stun enemy soldiers silently at your command. Exceptionally useful when you’re being all sneaky-beaky! Also: he has some incredibly cute and endearing cutscenes! D’Awwwwww!

Quiet is an expert sniper who tries to kill you a few times, once in the hospital and again later in Afghanistan, then joins you after you defeat her. She has a range of skills such as scouting an enemy base for you and can be commanded to take out specific targets when instructed. As she doesn’t use a silencer she draws a lot of attention, which can put the base on alert but also draw soldiers attention away from you as they try to find her. She also wears next to nothing because she ‘breathes through her skin’. Yeah, okay Hideo, her incredible rack had NOTHING to do with it…

D-Walker is a fast paced attack mech that you can ride. It is outfitted with silenced tranquiliser pistols but no one I know uses it to be stealthy as it can be customised with chain guns and rocket launchers. Much more entertaining!

Side Missions:

In addition to the story based missions you have access to a variety of side missions which can net you highly skilled soldiers, extra resources, or just a shed-load of money (GMP). They range from extracting prisoners or enemy interpreters to wiping out heavily armoured troops or tank columns. Each obviously requires a different approach, and I recommend saving the tank missions for when you’re tired of sneaking as they’re almost always a straight up firefight.

The benefits of these is in rebuilding Outer Heaven, your offshore military base. You need to build and expand each section (R+D, Base Expansion, Medical, Support, Intel, Combat) in order to gain access to new weapons/equipment, lower resupply times and eventually send out combat teams to collect resources for you. The combat teams will have more success the higher rank they are, so make sure you snap up as many highly skilled soldiers as you can.

The base building is a fun aspect of the game that people who played Peace Walker will be fairly familiar with. It’s been expanded upon for Phantom Pain and there is a tie in to MP gameplay in which you can raid each other’s Forward Operating Bases online (I haven’t started the MP yet so can’t comment on it!). For that reason alone it’s a good idea to Fulton Extract as many AA guns/mortars/heavy MG’s as possible.

Humour:

As with all MGS titles Phantom Pain is packed with little jokes and ludicrous items that you can’t help but laugh at. One of my favourites is the posters that you can stick onto your stealth cardboard boxes. Either a soldier or a sexy bikini lady (is bikini lady the technical term?) that will cause enemy soldiers to either salute or drop their gun and drool over if you stand up with it equipped.

Listening to enemy soldiers’ conversations is also often rewarding, not just from a game standpoint (as they’ll give clues of item locations) but also for the occasional chuckle. Especially once you get to the Zaire-Angola border and everyone is speaking Afrikaans. I had a enemy soldier try to shoo Diamond Dog by telling him to voetsek. It was a beautiful moment, and I almost didn’t send him on a balloon ride in the sky out of appreciation. Almost.

The large amount of licensed classic 80’s songs that you can find is another fantastic touch. Especially once you unlock the external speakers on your chopper and have it come on an attack run while blaring Ride of the Valkyries at full volume. Sit back, relax and watch the enemy get mown down while reminding them that there’s nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning.

Technical Details:

MGSV: Phantom Pain runs like a dream on my PC, I have not dropped below 60fps once and I have everything set to max except for motion blur (because I don’t like vomiting on my keyboard every time I move my mouse…) I have a fairly high spec PC (i7 3770, 32gb RAM, GFX970, Corsair Force GS SSD), but it’s nothing too special and the game will run very well on mid-high range gaming setups.

I have had an occasional freeze while saving a ShadowPlay clip of something particularly amusing, but other than that it’s been smooth sailing all the way.

Second Opinion :

I was really surprised at the graphics quality of Metal Gear Solid when I started playing. Unfortunately the start really frustrated me as you start learning the game, there are so many cut scenes and forced paths that you don’t actually do a lot for the first 15 minutes. Luckily after this section the game opens up and you have free reign as to what you want to do and where you want to go. I am no Shooter expert on console, so it was really great being able to play without much difficulty thanks to the game’s “Reflex Mode” that goes into slow motion the moment you are spotted. I can’t wait to see the rest of this great game and experience the rich content that lays ahead. – Pyro

There are few franchises in the gaming world more enduring than the Metal Gear series. With a host of games spanning decades and multiple systems, it's touched almost all gamers in some way or another over the years. Everyone who plays games knows that a cardboard box is the ultimate infiltration tool, and that soldiers emit giant exclamation marks when startled (although I've tested this on real life soldiers and they just get angry #NotRecommended). Some, and I count myself very much in this group, have been salivating almost constantly since Konami pulled the ultimate gamer cock-tease with Ground Zeroes, and now our patience has been rewarded. MGSV: Phantom Pain is finally here, and in the last week I have poured 50 hours of my life into the game. I can only assume my son has learnt to operate the oven through necessity, and that my friends have reported me as deceased, because trying to tear my attention away from MGSV is proving tougher than even a long time MGS fan could have anticipated! Back Story: MGS has possibly the most convoluted back story of all time, so I'll cut through the clutter and just focus on the pertinent points for MGSV:PP. Ground Zeroes was set in 1975, mere months after the final events of MGS: Peace Walker. Phantom Pain picks up the story 9 years after that, with Big Boss waking from a coma after Militaires Sans Frontières/Outer Heaven was destroyed by Zero/Cypher in GZ. Luckily for Big Boss he is being cared for by a kindly old doctor and a nurse who knows exactly what any man wants to see when opening his eyes... boobs less than a foot from his face. That's right, the old Kojima over sexualisation that we've come to love (albeit slightly cringingly) makes an appearance immediately, and to be honest it is welcome. With Konami stripping Kojima's name from promotional material there was a very real concern that they would also remove his trademark style from the game. Luckily that is not the case! The opening cutscenes are long, REALLY long (you'll spend a good 5-10 minutes as little more than a spectator), but they're visually stunning, as always. They also contain a wealth of information that you find yourself poring over for clues while listening to the doctor's explanations of your recovery. How did Big Boss get from a helicopter crash over the Caribbean Sea to an unknown hospital? Are those items on the wall related to the hospital's location? Where's that nurse gone, isn't it time for my sponge bath? Unfortunately before too long you're forced from your life of relaxation and recovery by an attack on the hospital, starting with the murder of both the nurse (noooo!) and the doctor by a mysterious woman (more on her later), all while you're sitting helplessly wiggling your mouse and clicking buttons to no avail. As you might suspect the real target of the attack is Big Boss himself, but he is saved by the timely intervention of a heavily bandaged man…

Video Game Review: MGSV: Phantom Pain

2015-09-22

PikeyZA

Overall - 9.5

95 9.5

MGSV: Phantom Pain is a stunning game, and well deserving of the large amount of extremely high ratings it has received since launch. It's well paced, fun, challenging and absolutely beautiful. The storyline may leave a little to be desired, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's not great in it's own right. While it's not on par with Snake Eater, it's still a good story. In my opinion it is a very serious contended for GOTY, alongside The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 (shhh, you know it's going to be awesome).

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NOW STOP READING AND GO PLAY THE DAMN GAME!

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