Thursday, September 10, 2015

Metal Gear Solid V



     In the months leading up to release, Metal Gear Solid 5 seemed to by surrounded by controversy; Konami unexpectedly parting ways with the series's creator Hideo Kojima, removing P.T from the PSN Store and cancelling Silent Hills and removing Kojima's name from the box. Despite all of the bad things that happened around this game, Metal Gear Solid V emerged a great game. It is already the best-selling game in the franchise already selling three million copies, and surely will be a lot of people's Game of the Year (and deservingly so).
     
      A few days ago, it was revealed that the game had some cut content ( a whole chapter's worth of it) and it's believed that Konami didn't give Kojima enough time (and probably money) to finish his end-all-be-all Metal Gear. Even without the content, the game is still huge and has plenty to do. Build your base, gather resources, roam around Afghanistan and Africa looking for bases to take over and things to fulton back to Mother Base, among other, more violent things. This game is truly the shining star in the Metal Gear franchise gameplay-wise, but story wise it seems to fall short. Now, I'm not exactly engulfed by the story of Metal Gear and my knowledge of the overarching plot is minimal, so I can't attest to these complaints, but they seem to be brought up in every review and in other places among the internet, so there must be a problem. In the same article I mentioned earlier, it was shown that a final cutscene and act was missing, so that could be what is missing, story wise. 

     Gameplay is this game's shining star in the end. Controls are tight, and the stealth mechanics are very good. I don't play stealth games often because I suck at them, but this game has kept me in and interested, there are enough mechanics to approach every base in a different way, whether it be all stealth, or just a run and gun, kill everything strategy. The AI is good, although they seem to be a little, deaf, and blind (not really a bad thing), but they're better than any other stealth AI I have interacted with. The guns and gadgets you can unlock by building your R&D team and earning money are fun to experiment with too (C4 is my favorite because it's explodey and loud).

     Progression of unlocks, base building, companions, and everything else are what truly keeps me wanting to play this game. They're constant enough to make it feel like I'm achieving something even if I only take over one small outpost before flying back to mother base. Even though I haven't unlocked the good majority of gadgets and upgrades I look forward to spending the time to unlock and upgrade everything. Mission freedom in this game is really unmatched by any game out right now. Mission structure is basically "We need you to do this thing, do it in whatever way you deem necessary", really, you can approach the whole game with complete freedom.

      Only about 4% done with this game, I know I have a lot more to see and unlock, and I really look forward to sinking even more time into this game, as it is already a strong candidate for my Game of the Year, and it is already one of my favorite games of all time. Mission freedom and really great gameplay are where this game stands out and it is a shame that Konami didn't give Kojima means to finish his greatest game.
      

  
  

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