MGS V - Review

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MGS V - Review

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:54 pm

So in the next installation of me commenting on games you've probably already played: MGS: The Phantom Pain. There are some spoilers in here, if you really care about a terrible story enough for that.

I only got this game because I accidentally have a year of Amazon Prime and it was going for twenty bucks, so I was like "Eh, fuck it, why not?". After all, I've been getting a lot of games for my PS4 that I think I'll be playing for a long time to cut down on the bills from my CPU.

I was pleasantly surprised by this game on the whole, because I genuinely don't enjoy stealth games that aren't turn-based, nor do I particularly care for the MGS series. However, most of the reason I loved this game so much is--I think--because of all the extra stuff loaded onto the side. It's massively open world, packs a huge variety of enemies, and allows you to get very creative with how you sneak around and take care of business.

So I'm going to +/- this business, as I often do when there's a lot to talk about and it doesn't fit neatly into a few paragraphs.

++++++++++++++++Special Agent Jack Bauer. Whoever thought to give Kiefer Sutherland the lead role was a genius. His is a voice that was practically born for grizzled mercenaries.

++Resources/Research. I really liked the process of researching weapons. It required resources and certain levels (And occasionally, specialists or blueprints stolen from enemy bases) and really integrates into the gameplay well.

++Dog. He's awesome. I don't know why he has an eyepatch, but the first time he hopped up on an enemy, knife in his mouth, and sliced the guy's throat, I was sold.

++Customization. This is probably one of my favorite bits. I don't care if we're supposed to be building a super-serious mercenary army, I'm painting our base lime-green. If I want to paint my extraction helicopter salmon pink and have it blaring "You Spin Me Round", as it picks me up, then I should damn well be allowed to do it, and this game agrees. Nothing's more demoralizing to an enemy than a bright purple tank rolling over your position and massacring your army.

++The Crew. It's funny to wander around your base and put them in chokeholds when they salute you, but I was stunned to realize that you can play as some of them in the field instead of just as Snake. From then on, it was Flaming Buffalo, the only female combatant, and D-Dog, buddies forever. Glaring Tree Frog and his gleeful robot adventures with D-Walker. Roaring Bull and his trusty horse, giving no shits as they breezed past enemy outposts. And, of course, Snake and Quiet, the power team.

++So many extra tasks. Seriously, animal collection, resource collection, people collection, vehicle collection, weapon development, base development, etc. There was so much extra stuff to do, and as a hoarder in video games, I loved every second of it.

++Combat/Stealth. This system is on point. The stealth can be a little jank at times, but that's just the curse of real-time stealth games. Most relieving were reflex shots, a system wherin if you're spotted, time slows down and you're given an opportunity to incapacitate the people who spotted you so you can stay in stealth. I learned to WORK those reflex shots. I would occasionally bring down as many as three people in a reflex moment, allowing me to just carve through a base without ever technically being seen as long as I did it right.

It may not sound like stealth, but this is where the shooting and stealth go hand in hand. Once I killed these guys, I would then hide them around the area (or extract them) and stay away from certain enemies and eventually just whittle the base down into nothing. It allows you to kinda work both angles in; you can have shooting and stealth all in one go, and it's pretty brilliant that it allows both. Combined with creative environments (in the enemy positions, anyways) that allows multiple angles into any situation, and it's a great system.

+Supply/Buddy/Vehicle Delivery. Not just delivery, but the ability to direct Quiet around to certain pre-programmed vantage points, too. I liked the system of just being able to call down airdropped resupplies, vehicles, loadouts, and buddies. Nothing made me smile as much in this game as when they parachuted the dog in, his tail wagging the whole way, as intense music played through his descent.

+Environments. You play in the Savannah of Africa and the mountains of Afghanistan. Though they aren't amazingly creative, a la Supergiant, Mass effect, or Bioshock Infinite, they're still well-done, and extra points for constructing the maps in a way that every enemy point (even the outposts) allow multiple ways to push through an enemy position.

I was actually kinda disappointed about Africa, though. Afghanistan is set in the 80's, during the Soviet invasion. Africa, instead of being a particular historical event, is set in a war torn region that's occupied by private military forces and child soldiers and forced labor. So not as much a specific moment in history as much as just the worst parts of Africa past, current, and future.

+Music. I would've liked more licensed music, frankly, but the music was still pretty well-done. The moment I picked up "Maneater" and realized there was going to be a big 80s soundtrack, I was so excited, but there are only like...fifteen songs and only a half-dozen of them are really good. That said, I liked that you could set the music for the helicopter.

+/- Quiet. There was something of a small uproar about this character, and now that I've played, it's become very clear that she's just in this game to be tits n' ass. The way she stretches in the helicopter in a way that brings the word "presenting" to mind, the way she jumps into the helicopter boobs-in-your-face first, and that gratuitous rain scene, all of it makes very clear why this character was created. Her character's mostly nonsense and as I'll mention in the next bit, I cannot fathom why she ever wants to stick with you. I would like to think that should've been made more obvious, considering she's something of a major character in this game.

That said, here comes the twist: I don't actually mind this kind of character in a story that's already silly and pointless. This is kind of a larger point that I won't get to into, but I only really get irritated with sexualization when it rolls in to ruin otherwise strong or nuanced female characters. In a game like this, that's obviously silly and breathtakingly dumb, it doesn't bother me as much. It probably helps that she's amazing in-game, as she basically becomes unstoppable once you get the "Cover Me" command.

That also said, it's a pretty misogynistic thing. The only major female character is locked in a cell where she struts around in a bikini and showers. There's a scene where she's tortured while every major male character in the game looks on and either nods approvingly or does nothing to stop it. And once they're done torturing her, in a bit that's uncomfortably 'beaten woman syndrome', she then says she cares about those people too much to hurt them. It's hard not to be aware of it, but again, it's a shit story anyways, so I mostly don't care.

+/- Story/Characters. Why does Quiet like you so much when you maimed her as she tries to murder you in your hospital bed at the beginning of the game? Why does one of the villains sometimes want to commit genocide and sometimes want to just set up a black market for nuclear weapons? Why is Ocelot the mom of the group? Why do they bring along this random fucking kid (who's clearly evil, he led a group of child soldiers and wears a conch shell[I'll admit, that touch was a bit clever and made me smile] and bullies the other children) to an assault? Why, after Quiet's been with you for like...a bajillion missions and is being cooperative enough, do the base staff just up and start torturing her for information? Why is Special Agent Jack Bauer not speaking more when he's the best voice actor in this game?

I see the story sometimes praised in reviews, and that baffles the fuck out of me. The words "Poorly-written fanfiction" are often thrown around too loosely to refer to a mediocre story, but this is actually like a poorly-written fanfiction. The plot jumps around all over the place, characters' characteristics often shift for no reason and their reactions to things are all over the map. Characters' motivations are difficult to discern, and the story is just nonsense. I know I'm kinda repeating myself, but I want to point out that it's not because the story is silly. I don't care if there's a little boy with a gas mask who can summon humpback whales made of fire--that's actually creative. But to compare another completely silly game, Saints Row 4 has a plot that's just ridiculous, but the characters and story follow a logical course of events and maintain a consistency. So the story here is possibly one of the worst I've ever seen in a video game this good.

Characters reverse course within the same cutscenes--in that one where they torture Quiet, Ocelot literally gives permission for them to electrocute her, then a minute later says none of it matters and who cares why she's there. Quiet--as mentioned before--was literally set on fire by you when she tries to kill you in the opening, then when you have a sniper battle where you shoot her a bunch of times, you're suddenly best friends. One of the villains sometimes goes to great lengths to kill you, then just wants to ride in a car with you for a while for no particular reason. None of them make any sense at any point except for Snake, and even then only because he says so precious little (Seriously, you pay Jack Bauer for voice acting and then give him the fewest lines? Who are you, Bethesda?) that he doesn't get to contradict himself.

The funny part about this is that the story clearly does try at some points. Occasionally, it attempts to get serious, sad, or send a very grave message, but excuse me if the grim plight of child soldiers is a little undercut when two seconds later, Quiet's running around all tits-out and my pink helicopter is descending to the tune of "The Final Countdown". Not that I particularly chide it for that, mind you. I was surprised that it thought it could tackle the issue of child soldiers/miners in Africa, but it was just in a game where it was then followed up by giant mechs and shit. Not to say that a piece of media needs to be serious when tackling a subject--I actually happen to be most preferential to media that's more light as it speaks to very heady subjects--just that it really doesn't work here.

- Cutscenes. MGS4 was notoriously ridiculous with the fucking cutscenes, and this one is still pretty long-winded. Sometimes they're not cutscenes per-se, but there was one egregious moment when you hang out with the villain, take a long with him, go on a long ride with him, and then a long cutscene happens afterwards. It's why I skipped so many cutscenes in this game, I just wanted to play the game.

- Occasional lack of control. This game loves to hear itself talk, and that will become very clear very quickly. A little different from cutscenes, when you get to the chopper the support characters will sometimes talk for minutes at a time, leaving me to just sit there and wait for them to finish before I could do anything.

--Combo breakers. This was one of the major irritants. Several story missions feel like they're just there to break up the way you've adjusted to playing the game. I would say that's a good thing, but when I'm playing a stealth game, I get irritated at missions where you cannot utilize stealth. Most galling were a string of missions where you: have to escape super-snipers who literally know where you are at all times, thus rendering stealth pointless; fight five weird mutant guys who can absorb a billion hits and require you to dodge out of the way of their attacks; and let's not forget the mission where you fight a gigantic mech with a rocket launcher and tanks, which is awesome, but also kinda requires you to play the game completely different.

It's not good design, is what I'm saying. It's one thing to require a different reading of the way the game wants you to play and quite another to just suddenly be like "Now this stealth game is 100% shooter." The depressingly sparse missions where they drop you into a combat zone with no weapons or ability to call reinforcements/extra supplies, and you have to just slowly work your way up through outposts to the big target, those were an example of great missions making the stealth/combat system work. These bullshit ones, not so much.

On the whole, I have some annoyances with this game, but it far surpassed my expectations. The story is stupid and pointless, as are the characters, but that's not why you should be here anyways. The stealth/combat aspect is great, the base-building/resource management that every game seems to have now is among the best I've ever seen, and it's just really fun to waste a shit ton of hours (And there is a LOT of content) in this game.
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Doodle Dee. Snickers
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