LO3 - MGSV review

Mgs V review

As a big fan of the franchise I found myself quite scared of what I would find when I played Metal Gear solid V the phantom pain, what with the full price, half an hour long, standalone prologue that was Ground Zeroes. And also the rumours of hidden microtransactions in the review copies.

And I am happy to say that for the most part metal gear solid V is a worthy addition to the franchise. They took a huge risk taking this game open world and leaving the very linear, story driven narrative and cutscenes that have been a staple of the franchise so far(metal gear solid 4’s hour long final cutscene). However this risk was worth it because MGS V has one of the most enjoyable open worlds I have played in recent memory. With dynamic weather effects and sandstorms that have genuine effects on gameplay, such as a sandstorm passing through that limits enemies vision so you can sneak into a base undetected. Or a storm passing overhead and the rain allows your Taser arm (Yes a prosthetic arm that doubles as a Taser) to reach further and strike multiple enemies at once.

The game does lack in solid story in the first chapter but what is there is pretty good. It’s your basic story of revenge with Big Boss waking up from a 9 year coma and pursuing the people who destroyed his life 9 years previously, while rebuilding his private army from the ground up.

Speaking of Big Boss’s private army, you the player have to ‘recruit’ new men for your army by knocking them out and attaching a balloon to their back so they can be picked up by a helicopter and taken back to base, yeah I’m serious. Building your army, called Diamond Dogs, is one of the most addictive aspects of the game though as is gradually expanding your ‘Mother base’ through acquiring resources in the open world. These resources range from gun placements to cars or cargo containers filled with raw materials.

This leads me to the parts I didn’t like so much which mainly consists of the games F.O.B multiplayer mode, which on paper sounds like a good idea. It allows you to build a secondary base away from your main Mother Base where you put spare materials and soldiers when your main base gets filled up. However this base can be invaded by other players who can steal your staff and resources. This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t allow people to do this when you are not even playing the game. The most annoying thing that happened to me is that my base got invaded while I was in the middle of an important story mission. To avoid this I resorted to disconnecting my game from the online servers. While this is annoying it did not negatively impact my experience with the game too much.

So all in all I loved playing through metal gear solid V and will probably continue to play it for a long time. In my opinion this is a strong contender for game of the year. I give Metal gear solid V a 9/10