Podcast Episode 9 - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The 9th episode of the podcast is here! See, I told you it was going to go monthly... Yes, I did wait until the last day of the month, but it totally exists. I pretty much ramble about Metal Gear Solid for about an hour, so if you're into that check it out!

You can listen to it here, on the Game Time With Manny page on Soundcloud, or subscribe on Itunes!

Review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

This review is based on my experience with the PS4 version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Note: There are spoilers for the end of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in this review.

Score: 5/5

Metal Gear Solid has been one of the most iconic franchises in video gaming since Solid Snake infiltrated Shadow Moses Island on the PS1 in 1999. However, like all good things the franchise has seemingly reached its conclusion. Over the past few months fans have been treated to news of series creator Hideo Kojima having issues with Konami, and saw his name slowly being removed from any marketing related to the game, even the game's case. Rightfully so, this had many fans worried about how well Metal Gear Solid V would turn out. As with most things Kojima has done the wait for his theoretical swan song has been trying, but it was sure worth the wait. This is quite possibly the final time we'll see Big Boss outside of a pachinko machine.

It's funny, because the Metal Gear franchise has often been derided for having more instances of the player watching as opposed to playing. In both the Phantom Pain and its prologue Ground Zeroes there are very few cutscenes. They're made up almost entirely of gameplay. On top of the new found focus on gameplay the controls have been updated. Previous games in the franchise were perhaps too ambitious, which often lead to buttons doing too many things depending on the context. It often felt clunky. The Phantom Pain actually plays and controls like a modern video game, which took me by surprise. No longer did I find myself fighting against the controls to complete a task. It helps that its all fairly simple. All you really need to do is aim, shoot, reload, sneak, and switch weapons. The controls are set up similar to how they used to be where circle is on reload, but you can change the controls to essentially be the same as modern first person shooters if you prefer that style.

I got a whole lot of use out of this assault rifle.

It's made even better by the fact that you can actually use many different weapon types and not really be chastised for it. In previous Metal Gear Solid games your rank during a mission was based almost entirely on stealth and the time it took you to complete the mission. Now you can kill literally everyone, and as long as you do it well and fast enough you can still achieve an S rank. This means that I experimented with weapon types I would normally never use. I went into tons of scenarios armed with a rocket launcher and a shotgun and actually did quite well. On top of that enemies with guns aren't infuriating to deal with. As long as you don't stand directly in the line of fire you can make it out of most situations. Big Boss has regenerating health, so gone are the days of scavenging for rations and taking a knee in battle to use them in order to heal. It makes Big Boss feel like much more of a badass than he previously did, which fits his persona in the story.

The Phantom Pain takes place immediately following the ending of its prequel, Ground Zeroes. Big Boss returned to Mother Base to find it swarmed with enemy soldiers. Before he could set down and defend his home his helicopter transport is blown out of the sky. The Phantom Pain begins with our protagonist in a hospital bed waking up from a nine year coma. The doctor explains that he's in rough shape. He's missing an arm, and has a piece of shrapnel stuck in his forehead that won't ever be able to come out. Since Metal Gear is all about the story I don't want to give away too much. I'll say that you get out of the hospital, and start building a brand new Mother Base in order to get revenge on the organization that destroyed everything Big Boss has been working towards.

Miller wants revenge for what happened in Ground Zeroes.

The rebuilding of Mother Base is actually a large component of the game, which is very similar to the building of Mother Base in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. On missions every soldier you encounter has a set of stats and you can recruit them to your cause. All you have to do is put them to sleep, or beat them down with your fists, and you can Fulton them out of the area. Once the soldiers make their balloon exit they will be assigned to an area of Mother Base based on what their highest stat is. The better the units you have in each area the more you can develop for Big Boss to use in combat. Development starts off with no wait time and very low requirements, but the game quickly ramps up so that you need to scrounge for units constantly and then have to wait anywhere between 18 minutes and 5 hours for your research to finish. This sounds tedious, but there's something very satisfying about strapping a balloon to every soldier, animal, and vehicle you see. Development time becomes a non-issue as well, or at least it did for me, because I was so engrossed in playing the actual game that I would completely lose track of time. The main problem ends up being resources, because eventually you need insane amounts of them and the world doesn't necessarily always provide them.

This is where the online mode comes into play.You build an FOB (Forward Operating Base), which is essentially another Mother Base. You can then invade other player's FOBs and steal their resources. I only did this a few times, because I kept getting wrecked. You can deck out your FOB with all kinds of security measures like drones, traps, and security cameras. If you're online when someone tries to infiltrate your FOB you will be notified and you can get into the fray and take them out. It's a cool mechanic, but I often found myself being invaded by people who were much better equipped than I was, so there was no way for me to stop them. If I ever did get good enough then I could retaliate and take back everything I lost, but I was never able to successfully do that. It helps that once you get invaded you can not be invaded again for another 6 hours, so my resources were not constantly being stolen. People were coming at me with things I didn't even know existed and were using tactics I had never seen before, which made me realize that the game will let you do just about everything you can think of and pull it off.

Expect to be looking at this menu a lot. Upgrading Mother Base is very important.

I'm not kidding, almost everything you can think of to do the game will probably let you do. Want to have your horse poop in the road so a jeep spins out on it? You can do that. Do you want to put C4 onto a jeep, Fulton it away, then blow it up right next to a helicopter? You can do that. Have you always wanted to hide in a Porta Potty and play poop sounds from your phone to make guards suspect you less? You can do that too. When I say the options are limitless, I'm being mostly serious. There are so many things the game will let you do that are very surprising. There is detail in things that there shouldn't really be any detail in. On top of that the open world lives and breathes in a way that I never would have expected. Enemies contact other bases, and are aware of things that are happening outside their general field of view.

With the release of The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear as a franchise did a 180 degree turn from how it used to be. Gone are the forty minute cutscenes filled with anime craziness. They've been replaced by shorter scenes that are still crazy, but they're much fewer and far between. All of that craziness has been transplanted into the gameplay. You're much more likely to see something nuts while running around the world than you are in a story sequence. I never would have expected that the series could evolve so much, but I'm glad that it did. Initially it feels like a lot of the Metal Gear charm is gone, but it just takes some getting used to. It's still a Hideo Kojima game, so you know you're in for a wild ride.

Big Boss and his clones have become iconic characters in the world of video games.

I'm willing to make the bold claim that The Phantom Pain is one of the best action games ever produced. It has a scope that's unparalleled in video games, and everything comes together to make a cohesive package. Sure, there are some things I could nitpick, but none of them stand out enough to tarnish this otherwise great entry into the Metal Gear franchise. Sure it doesn't tie up the story of the whole franchise with a pretty bow, but I didn't really expect it to. That's what I like about Kojima. He likes to keep the fans guessing. I think it's great that the final entry in such an iconic franchise is fresh and fun as opposed to being buried under the weight of its predecessors design and mechanics. If you have a platform that you can play The Phantom Pain on, then I highly recommend you do so. You will not regret it.

Game Time - August 2015

As August and Summer draw to a close I still have a few games left to talk about. Even though I was visiting various cottages and playing Ultra Street Fighter 4 at Summer Jam 9, I actually found time to play video games. Most of which were new!

One such game that I won't be talking about here is the Rare Replay Collection for Xbox One. It collects 30 Rare developed games from the past 30 years. Obviously games like Donkey Kong Country can't be featured, but fan favorites such as Viva Pinata, and Banjo Kazooie are. All I want to say about this is that all companies releasing a game collection in the future should take note. This is how you collect games into a package!

As for brand new releases I picked up LBX or Little Battlers Experience for the 3DS. It's a robot fighting game from Level 5, the makers of Inazuma Eleven. It has as much charm and content as most other Level 5 games.

Next up we have the game I wish I didn't pay $60 dollars for, but had to have, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3. It's Dynasty Warriors, but with One Piece characters...for the third time!

Last but certainly not least I finally got around to playing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It's not new, but I did break the seal on my disc copy. That makes it new, I guess? I had to prep for the true Metal Gear Solid V, so it was going to happen sooner or later. Speaking of MGSV I'm in the process of playing through it right now and I need to get back to it.

It's game time!

LBX: Little Battlers Experience

For some reason Level 5 decided that they wanted most of their franchises to be pan-media. They started with Inazuma Eleven and have continued on to LBX and Yokai Watch. Inazuma just had a game and an anime, while LBX and Yokai watch have expanded into the toy realm as well. With all of their franchises the games come first. However, in the case of all of these franchises they take a while to see the light of day outside of Japan. For example, there are three LBX games in Japan and the first one is only just coming out here now when it was first released in 2011.

In Japan the success of these games leads into an anime, while here in the U.S. it was the opposite. LBX was dubbed and shown on Nickelodeon. It was actually quite popular, despite the fact that half of the episodes were cut out for audiences outside of Japan. That's right. This show about battling tiny robots was too violent and professed ideas not suitable for American children! To be honest it is kind of crazy some of the stuff that takes place in this game. No joke, I had to stop a tiny robot from assassinating a prime minister, None of this makes sense without context though, so let me give you some.

Now that the cardboard is reinforced no one will get hurt!

Tiny robot toys called LBX were released to the public, but their battles proved to be too dangerous. After some kids got hurt they were banned. After a few years someone invented a super strong cardboard box for the robots to battle in. I can't make this up, it's called reinforced cardboard! Even though they're still super dangerous outside of the cardboard, because you can use them to kill people... Anyways, now kids love controlling these hot toys with their phones.

The gameplay is relatively simple. You control your customized robot in battle in third person. It can hold two weapons that each have a basic attack. Each time you attack it costs stamina. Running and jumping also decrease stamina. The game is essentially all about stamina management. If you run out you're left vulnerable and your attack decreases. After a few seconds it recharges, but the battles in LBX tend to last only 20 or 30 seconds. Every second and point of damage is crucial.

All the kids love a good LBX battle!

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the gameplay, but it's not bad, My enjoyment comes from collecting the hundreds of robot parts and weapons. I've always liked any game where you can customize robots for battle. Custom Robo and Gotcha Force on the Gamecube are two excellent examples of this. While I like those games better LBX definitely has an interesting story to back it up. I'm almost done with the story, so I'll wait to make a final judgement until the end.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3

I don't want to type a lot about this game. It's the same as Pirate Warriors 2, but with ten new additional characters. You mash square and triangle in order to decimate hordes of enemies. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone. As opposed to basic gameplay I'll talk about the new systems they implemented.

In the previous game you equipped coins in order to increase your stats. Now you can spend coins permanently to upgrade your stats. This works out a lot better, because you don't have to mess around with changing out coins. You get coins by completing various missions, and each time you defeat officers in battle. If you defeat an officer with a special attack you get even more coins.

These are all the playable characters! (There are many non-playable characters on  here)

The other main change is the Kizuna Rush system. Each map you will be given specific partner characters who you can freely switch between. As you fight the bar next to the partner will fill up across three levels. At level 1 you will be able to push either square or triangle after you end a combo to have the partner attack as well. If the partner kills enemies they will be counted as ! kills. What sucks is that ! kills are one of the three things you're graded on each level and I've only ever gotten it to S rank one time.

Once the kizuna gauge is filled you can push R2 to power up. This will make your character stronger for a limited time. You can push circle to unleash a special from both characters. You can also chain Kizuna specials up to 3 times. So if you enter the powered up R2 state with two characters, the third time you do it and execute a special everyone used so far will attack in unison with you. It's super powerful.

Gotta destroy all the enemies!

Pirate Warriors is a lot different, but mostly the same. I like when they try to make refinements to the generic gameplay and test out new mechanics. It's always hard to try new things, so they get a kudos for trying.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

When I saw a disc based copy of Ground Zeroes on amazon for $5 dollars I jumped right on it. It's been sitting on my shelf for approximately six months now. I decided to pop it in on August 31st, because I wanted to prepare for the release of the true Metal Gear Solid V the following day. After playing Ground Zeroes I now agree with everyone who said it was an overblown tech demo, because it is. It took me an hour to complete, and only had story in the beginning and end.

As a Metal Gear game it was kind of disappointing, but as an open world stealth playground it was amazing. It makes sense that this is how Metal Gear would transition to the new generation of consoles, but I can imagine it won't sit well with most fans.

It's a sneaking mission.

My issue with a lot of stealth games is that once you're caught you're completely screwed. With the new non-terrible controls in Ground Zeroes it's easy to gun down everyone once you're caught. Sure you won't get a very high score, but at least you'll complete the mission. Even better is that you have a lot of options. There are tons of ways to approach any given scenario. It's fun to figure out a plan and then execute on it, but the scale is just too small.

I don't really have much to say about Ground Zeroes to be honest. It's a fun sandbox with almost no content. Sure you can do side missions, but it all takes place on the same military base. It's more or less a proof of concept for the full game. I actually would have been angry if I paid $30 for it. After playing MGSV proper I can say that the scale of the game is much larger than anything Ground Zeroes had to offer,

Metal Gear!?

I don't know what to think about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain yet/ I do know that it has started off September with a bang though. It certainly doesn't have as much story as the previous entries in the franchise, but so far the gameplay makes up for it. I really liked MGS 1-4, but I was not a huge fan of the controls. Most of the time I felt like I was struggling with the controls to make it to the next story beat.

That said, I'm going to keep playing V to see what happens in it. Maybe the open world stealth will wear thin, but it definitely hasn't happened yet. Next Friday I'll be picking up Super Mario Maker for Wii-U as well, and on the 29th we'll all get to witness the magic of Persona 4 characters dancing.

The games are going to start coming fast and furious, which means that I need to get playing! See you guys next time!