Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[Malpercio]

Quiet is not supposed to be sexy, she is supposed to be tragic

 

[gromit]

The ranking system is garbage in this for sure. Its based on speed more than anything. I know they tried to broaden the range on what is truly vital on an infiltration mission. Some would argue getting the job done quickly and efficiently is preferred to taking your time meticulously taking out guards like a ghost. Seems this game rewards you for being loud.

I agree the scoring system is strange and frequently inconsistent. They did not change what's "truly vital" though, because speed doesn't necessarily equate to lethality or unwanted attention.

If you're meticulously taking out guards... evaluate who you need to remove. Just take more chances in general. All those times where you end up going "I probably could have gone," just GO. If you plan a decent approach, you can almost ALWAYS retreat and recover. If you're quick-but-careful, a minor fuck-up is -- at worst -- an opportunity to lure the investigators into terms of your choosing.

Yes, speed is heavily rewarded... on top of any other goals, and often equal to the sum of them. And it should be, because doing the same thing faster, is objectively better. Points are not awarded for sincerity: they are more or less tied to demonstrations of skill, and the amount of risk you take. That is to say, how much you accomplish, how quickly and cleanly.

Half measures do not and will not get rewarded. At all. Ever. The only way to pull a decent score with them is to concentrate on a speedy operation... at which point it's not a half measure.

If you refuse to go quick, then double down and do actual "ghosting," for a more-or-less a sure-thing S-Rank. Or step it up, and literally do everything and ambush everyone... which is no guarantee, but a good start for a strong score. You don't need to be super-fast if you're very thorough, but you must be "not slow."

Not to say the majority impressions of the scoring and open world are off-base. There is a lot of truth to them. But based on what I generally hear and read, there's pretty standard advice on how to "deal with it" and even wrangle more fun out of the game.

Set goals. Do more, or faster, or less to do the same thing, or embrace overkill. Spend less time on set-up to have more fun in the heat of the moment. Or spend more, and revel in complete tactical and situational superiority.

Stop ACC'ing. Lurk and terrorize the map until the whole thing's red and you stink like an abattoir that just hit puberty. Plan chains of ops around priority, travel-time, and (optionally) maximum disruption. When you think "do I have what I need to do this," say "yes" more often. If the answer is really "no" then think "then what can I do" and "can doing that, help me do this."

If things go south, and you're left with a mess... then fuck it, don't put in more effort to get a lower score. Don't go loud and lethal if it's too late, or if you just don't want to. Blow your C4, high-tail it, and chuck a few grenades at any Nice Things you see on your way back out.

This all plays into the overlooked facets of the open, semi-persistent world. Things like retreating, or softening targets, that are complete no-brainers sometimes, but just plain fucking absent from 99.9% of games with direct control. Maybe 10% "allow" some (mostly pointless) recon from afar.

Here that stuff's pretty much required. You can even come by DEEP recon fairly honestly, which is a rare thing indeed. And information and preparation can make or break a clean, high-scoring run.

Not to the extent where you have to spend half an hour circling and marking, until you ruin the game for yourself. Unless that's what you get off on, in which case it's totally valid, viable, and rewarded... as long as you use that information to make up for lost time.

I have loved games that are more broken or repetitive, for lesser reasons.

This is the Codex, so you probably have too.

 

[KK1001]

Ground Zeroes is better than TPP.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Sniper wolf is easily one of the best female characters in the videogame industry.

Always is presented as human, and not like the other Foxhound freaks. Her abilites can be explained by her addiction to the diazepam, and in her design is extremely concern. She is made to look sexy, with a big necklace. But in the fight against her, she wear a clothing like the genoma soldiers to stand against the cold. This attention to detail can't be said about other characters in the same game.
She has an interesting backstory too.


Poor Otacon.

 

[Adon]

The only thing tragic about Quiet is that she didn't get the good dicking that she so clearly wanted from Snake. Otherwise, she's meh.

 

[sexbad?]

So? Do I need to point out Kojima put gravure idols in all previous games?

As I said, it was done on purpose ... if you want to refuse to look beyond that then you are doing just that, I would say its a deliberate bait, heck he done pretty much the same with Paz in Peace Walker with just a different type of sexualization and as I said, this been something he pretty much did every time ... be it Eva, Pas, Quiet or even The Boss ... heck the only game I think lacked it was MGS2 since Olga isnt much in my opinion, even Mistral in Revengeance despite not being a Kojima game.

Its fucking hilarious that 5 years ago nonody bitched about Paz little underwear act yet now its "objectification of women" ... I do hope you are trolling because really ...

Um, by definition, it is objectification. This isn't really a bad thing. The problem here is that you're too retarded to understand what sexualization is.

It has boobie girls all up in your face, but it's ironic and tragic later on in this bed-ridden retarded story, so that's totally not sexy.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Ground Zeroes is better than TPP.

No. Not really. One could argue the story is better but no way is the gameplay better. Camp Omega is a cool base though.

 

[Surf Solar]

I heard there is an ending/cutscene that only plays out if ALL nukes from ALL FOBs that players over the world have online have been disbanded. Which is pretty much impossible, which was the point I guess. Funny little sidenote.

 

[Outlander]

So Kojima spent resources in stuff no one ever is going to see in the game. No wonder Konami ejected his ass.

 

[dunno lah]

More cut content found in the game files, showing a cutscene of Venom engaging Skullface in hand-to-hand combat:

Spoiler

 

[Talby]

Here's the nuclear disarmament ending;

Spoiler

I actually like how this ties in with Metal Gear 1, although it makes Diamond Dogs look like a bunch of chumps since they unwittingly help Big Boss become the only nuclear power in the world. I like to think Diamond Dogs is absorbed into Outer Heaven at some point though even though it's not explicitly stated. Still bullshit that we never got to actually see the foundation of OH.

 

[Ivan]

WTF Did you guys know you can bypass the Skulls in the Code Talker op? Here I was on Extreme trying to take them out

 

[Echo Mirage]

You can also defeat Quiet using a tank in her Extreme mission.

The Sniper wolf alternate skin makes it well worth it

 

[Surf Solar]

Does anyone have a hint on where I can find the Friday on my Mind casette? Just a small hint, not a spoiler. I just completed the mission to extract the first child soldiers and have the feeling I missed it somewhere.

Also just unlocked the ability to customize d-dog. He is now my little fox

Where can I find the spider arm/leg specialist? Somewhere in the story?

And last question: I have a yellow marker on my map for the battle gear hangar. Yet I can't seem to find an entrance there? Where is it?

 

[J_C]

After putting 24 hours into the game (and I'm still at the beginning), I can safely say that this is a great videogame, and the best MGS game gameplay-wise, but overall, this is the worst MGS game. They basicly fucked up the staple storytelling of the series, which is as much important in MGS as the gameplay.

 

[Caim]

You can also defeat Quiet using a tank in her Extreme mission.

The Sniper wolf alternate skin makes it well worth it

That's hilarious. In my first fight I just cargo dropped her into submission.

Speaking of, can you use your buddies in this same way? I'd like to take someone out with a tactical horse strike.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Wasn't Guns of the patriots the worst MG game because his effort on the storytelling, even considering it have a great but short gameplay parts? Hmmm...

 

[KK1001]

No. Not really. One could argue the story is better but no way is the gameplay better. Camp Omega is a cool base though.

Sure it is. Omega beats any base in TPP. Enemy soldiers do things other than "stand and fuck around." The pacing of the story is great, and the cutscenes are better handled than most of the stupid shit we got in TPP. The enemy can actually see you on hard. No fulton to just remove enemies from the battlefield, making it so you have to actually hide bodies occasionally. Constant enemy reinforcements make ramboing much less viable. It just feels like more of a Metal Gear Solid game on top of all this.

TPP's stupid metagame bullshit infects every aspect of the game and adversely affected the design. Not to mention that it's really a 20 hour game packed stretched out into 60.

 

[Caim]

Wasn't Guns of the patriots the worst MG game because his effort on the storytelling, even considering it have a great but short gameplay parts? Hmmm...

All cutscenes in MGS4 combined are about 9 hours long.

Without rushing too much you can finish the game in about half that time.

 

[Makabb]

15 hours in and got 7%.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Sure it is. Omega beats any base in TPP. Enemy soldiers do things other than "stand and fuck around." The pacing of the story is great, and the cutscenes are better handled than most of the stupid shit we got in TPP. The enemy can actually see you on hard. No fulton to just remove enemies from the battlefield, making it so you have to actually hide bodies occasionally. Constant enemy reinforcements make ramboing much less viable. It just feels like more of a Metal Gear Solid game on top of all this.

TPP's stupid metagame bullshit infects every aspect of the game and adversely affected the design. Not to mention that it's really a 20 hour game packed stretched out into 60.

I thought Ground Zeroes was a waste of time. Sure, it was fun to play, but I grew tired of it quick. Maybe it's because I didn't have the attachment to Paz and Chico since I haven't played Peacewalker yet. It played fine and yes you had to move the bodies, but the missions got boring quick. At least with Phantom Pain you have such a wide variety of tools at your disposal, so you can shake things up a bit. The soldiers have increased vision in Phantom Pain after a while due to them using NVG's and binoculars, not to mention the snipers.

Yes, the story might not be as good as some of the other titles due to the cassettes containing most of the exposition, but the key thing I took away from the game was that it was supposed to be drastically different than the other games, aside from Peacewalker of course which Phantom Pain is basically a sequel of.

I think Kojima wanted to spend more time on the game, so it was rushed out by Konami, because the mission variety is pretty poor. I can't complain though because I spent over 90 hours playing it. It almost becomes a game to see how you can fuck with the guards. Besides I think OKB Zero is just as good as Camp Omega. Code Talkers mansion isn't that bad either.

 

[Ebonsword]

Whoever came up with the Code Talker mission needs to be punched in the balls.

Sure, the first two parts of the mission can be managed, but the extraction... why couldn't a helicopter land in the back yard of that mansion?

That mission annoyed me, as well.


I eventually just left Code Talker in the basement, went out and killed everything between me and the LZ, and then went back for Code Talker.

A word of warning, though. If you do this, Kaz will be screaming in your ear every 30 seconds about "OMG ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE HIM THERE?!!!", which get's kind of irritating. I suppose if you kill everyone before meeting Code Talker in the basement, it might reduce this (I don't remember if more guards spawn after you contact CT).

 

[Necroscope]

Doing mission 43, 50% completion.

Gameplay wise it's without a doubt the best MGS - possibly one of the best games in recent history. Which makes it even more heart wrenching that everything else is a clusterfuck. The story is beyond redemption (Jesus Christ, the jeep ride...), the Interface is horrible (I'm almost finished with the game and I still have problems with navigation), the amount of filler overwhelming (what's the point of the second chapter if it consist mostly of the missions from the first chapter, wtf!?), even the soundtrack is weak. Overall TPP reminds me a bit of RE4, which was a fun game to play, but had little to do with the franchise it was supposedly part of.

This game is just another confirmation that some people are geniuses unless they are given too much freedom. Kojima has some great ideas and is a worthy addition to any team, but he should never make a game on his own.

 

[sexbad?]

WTF Did you guys know you can bypass the Skulls in the Code Talker op? Here I was on Extreme trying to take them out

I mentioned exactly that like a page prior. I actually was going down the "bypass" route already when the cutscene introducing them triggered. I just went along my merry way, climbed up some rocks near a waterfall (I think), and never saw any sign of them except their lasers focusing on other things in the distance.

 

[Somberlain]

Fucking OCD, mang. 98% total completion and I have to keep hunting those animals even though I'm getting sick of this game