METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN – A PlayStation Plus Primer

October's free PS Plus game is a giant, incomprehensible doozy. Here’s what you need to know.

Last month’s giveaway of Infamous: Second Son continued a stellar couple of months for Sony’s free game giveaway service, following Until Dawn, Telltale’s Game of Thrones and Just Cause 3. Whilst this month’s offering may be a little underwhelming with regards to the indie games on offer, rearing its preposterous head amidst them is Hideo Kojima’s totally insane stealth-action sandbox Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. You should play it (it’s free!) but if you go in expecting something run of the mill, you are going to be knocked for a loop. It’s an enormous game to the point of becoming overwhelming, intricately designed to absurdity and there’s a decent chance that you really won’t like it. But for those that do, MGSV might just be one of the best games on the PS4 as well as almost certainly the best stealth game of this generation.

QUICK INFO:

Genre: Stealth/Action/Sandbox

Install Time: Not as hefty as you’d imagine, clocking in at probably around 30 mins to an hour. So, about as long as your average PS4 game.

Platinum-ability: Just finishing the game itself is on par with one hundred percent-ing most other PS4 games, so don’t expect to platinum it without severely hating yourself.

Do I need to play/know about the previous entries to enjoy this one? No. It’s nonsensical whichever way you approach it.

What is Metal Gear Solid V?

Shockingly, MGSV is a sequel, which means you probably want to know more about the series from which it arises. This is easier said than done, given how Metal Gear Solid games rarely make much sense. Each one at least shares an emphasis on soldier-based stealth gameplay and there’s usually a cardboard box for you to hide under (which should already give you an idea of what kind of game you’re in for) but it’s hard to pin the series down given how even the main character isn’t strictly speaking the same despite having the same name, appearance and voice actor (for the most part). There are 20 minute videos dedicated to recapping the story of Metal Gear that a) won’t make sense and b) still won’t explain everything.

The good news is: it doesn’t really matter all that much and we’ll get back to the ‘why’ of that later.

Before we get to the unique stuff, here are the basics:

From a gameplay perspective, the franchise sees you play as Snake/Solid Snake/someone named Snake as you sneak your way around enemies/various obstacles. This is about as boiled down as I can make things without it spooling over into three articles. The series’ roots has always been in individual levels that, whilst dense and open to experimentation, seem pretty linear in comparison to MGSV, which sees the series blow off the doors and step out into open-world territory along with every other game released this generation. The key difference between MGSV and other games of its age is that MGSV performs a kind of Zelda-style transition to open-world in such a way that going back to more ‘linear’ level design of the previous entries now feels like a step backwards.

Did you just compare MGSV to Zelda: Breath of the Wild?

Yes.

It’s worth noting that in the transition to open world gameplay, MGSV doesn’t make the greatest of first impressions. The opening level – designed to teach the basics of the controls – is tedious and overlong, culminating in a boss fight that I’m still not sure how I overcame it, whether I overcame it and if I learnt anything from it in the first place. Narratively confusing, tonally unpleasant, I’m kind of grateful that I’ve largely forgotten the level by this point.

It’s when MGSV arrives in Afghanistan after the tutorial that the game starts to open itself up and the obsessively detailed design of the game shows through. For each mission you’ll be tasked with going to a different section of Afghanistan (and later, Africa) to complete a different objective. The place will usually be crawling with guards and so it is up to you to use both Snake’s moveset and the environment to take out enemies or avoid them entirely. Luckily that moveset is extensive enough that even without the game’s more…unique…features, completing missions can feel satisfying. And it all feels organic to the point where the game doesn’t simply hand you the objectives up front like a checklist. Maybe the POI is located in a military camp – you have to find that information out. There might even be a totally optional piece of intel that dramatically changes how you approach the mission tactically. The point is you have to figure this out for yourself – usually through the simple but still oddly satisfying interrogation system that allows you to grapple enemies, take them out of the way and pump them for information.

Oh and for those like me who aren’t very good at stealth games, MGSV briefly slows down time whenever you are spotted so that you can quickly plan your escape and line up a headshot.

This is pretty much the game at its most basic and so far, if you’re not familiar with the MGS brand, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is another straightforward military-action game.

In which case, you might want to strap in…

*Insert Prince song here*

MGSV opens with an escape from a hospital, which is under attack by unknown forces. It is loud, visceral and kind of unpleasant. It also has you fight a flaming man not unlike the human torch and has you witness an enormous flaming whale leap into the sky. Credit where credit is due: the tutorial does sum up the game quite nicely – gritty hardened warfare, stood side-by-side with shit so goofy most animes would blush. The second mission might open with more grounded stealth but it ends with you outrunning a horde of teleporting military zombie soldiers. I’ve not even got to the villain yet – a guy with a grisly, ghostly white head whose literal name is ‘Skull Face’.

Alone this would be a bit strange, but what really pushes it into the realms of all-time weirdness is the game’s obsessive dedication to realism. You’ve got the grit of the hospital opening and the various settings, plus some pretty hefty political philosophical commentary from Hideo Kojima (the game’s creator), mixed with realistic weaponry like suppressors that break after only a few shots.

Narratively, trying to untangle this mishmash is just complete folly. People have spent years attempting to ascertain whether Kojima’s work is genius or just plain insane, with each side being about as likely as the other. I think from a narrative standpoint Kojima is operating largely based on instinct to decide what makes the cut and doesn’t, which is why the games can veer between actually being dramatically poignant to just confusing.

For MGSV’s story, this doesn’t really end up meaning a whole lot. For a series that has garnered a reputation for extreme cut scenes (I’m pretty sure MGS4 made me sit through one that lasted over an hour), MGSV is light on both mini movies and plot in general. Once you arrive in Afghanistan (and later, your private Mother Base), the level of narrative effort drops dramatically to the point where a lot of the plot, if you want it, has to be accessed by listening to the debriefing tapes provided after missions, a lot of which is super complicated and meaningless, anyway. So if you’re the sort of person who only plays games for the narrative experience they present you, MGSV is probably not for you.

Happily, the sparseness of MGSV’s story means that it barely registers any lasting impact upon your impressions of the game, which means you don’t have to know what’s going to enjoy yourself. Instead, the interesting part of all this goofiness comes in the way it impacts how you play the game.

See, outright strangeness mixed with unflinching realism opens MGSV up to some of the most experimental and inventive gaming to be achieved outside of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. For instance, the aforementioned and classic cardboard box can be equipped at a moments notice to sneak past guards – a technique that is already pretty silly – but it can also have stickers of other soldiers placed on it so that when Snake stands up, you can fool other soldiers at a distance into thinking you’re on their side. Inflatable decoy soldiers can be deployed to distract enemies, using Snake’s phantom cigarette to speed up the perception of time allows you to observe a base’s guard formations and commanding your horse to defecate on the road can cause enemy vehicles to skid uncontrollably. There’s even a water pistol, which at first seems like a pure gag, but it can also be used to hold up unsuspecting enemies and take out electrical equipment without the use of explosives.

Then there’s the fulton recovery system which, put simply, is a balloon you stick on enemies to transport them back to your base to join your ranks. It quickly becomes a core part of the gameplay and is easily one of the best game mechanics in anything ever. Diminishing returns just don’t seem to apply to this thing as every time you use it there is at least a small part of you that is going to giggle at the stupidity of it all. And of course, it obeys the same rules of realism that everything else in the game obeys, so it can be shot down, conscious enemies will scream to attract attention and you can also use it on vehicles (after a few upgrades) and animals (attaching a parachute to a bear is as ridiculous as it sounds).

What else…oh yeah: there are 80s cassette tapes scattered throughout the world as collectibles that you can listen to during missions. You will want these tapes, largely because I’m about to tell you that you can perform stealth whilst listening to ‘Take on me’ by A-ha or arrive in your helicopter whilst blaring ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ – which, by the way, will unnerve the enemy as you approach.

And I’ve not even touched on Mother Base – your hub in between missions. You’ll want to return here partially because you can give Snake a shower, which stops military morale from dropping, but also because it is a vital part of your resource management. More facilities means more kit and better people in those facilities means better upgrades. I watched a YouTube video that pointed out how, even if you stand still, there are still accomplishments going on via the constant research and resource development that ticks away in the background. Mother Base might sound like a chore but it isn’t to play because everything happening there feeds back into your time in the field. Plus, you can customize Mother Base if you feel up to it.

To keep going with listing this game’s features is not something I want to write or you want to read. But hopefully what I’ve discussed here gives you a semblance of an idea of what you’re in for. Aside from the puppy you find and train to take into battle with you, I’m not sure what else I can talk about to convince you. So let’s look at probably the most immediate concern you might have from reading all that:

That sounds a bit…much.

It kind of is. I think it helps that the game doesn’t heave all of this on you in one go – stuff like the fulton takes a couple of missions to unlock and there’s so much to do that you get time to work through the gear bit by bit. As for outside of the game, check out some of Playstation Access' videos on the subject, which both give you tips for how to approach stealth in MGSV and offers a good idea as to how the game operates.

You said earlier that I might hate it?

Yeahhhhhh, so there’s a number of reasons that MGSV is kind of an unwieldy beast when it comes to long-term evaluation. Beyond the incomprehensible plot, that is.

There’s the immediate surface level stuff like the complete lack of emotional investment the story commands or the complete lack of clothes that adorn the game’s main female character. Her name’s 'Quiet' and she’s a half naked sniper who is unable to speak. I know: for such a short description, it can elicit one heck of a groan. Quiet can accompany you out into the field wherein she can absolutely obliterate the enemy provided you kit her out with good enough weaponry, but MGSV is definitely not a poster boy for female characters in gaming.

Ignoring the extraordinarily iffy gender politics (which I’m still not sure are parody or not, though I highly suspect are not), probably the biggest problem with MGSV is the sheer length of it. I have been playing this game for a good while now and Rob and Junice have played it for longer. None of us have finished the main story. For those wanting to go in for the long haul with MGSV, we can all pretty much guarantee that you’re going to run into the problem of sheer exhaustion. If you’re after the platinum, you will hate this game and yourself by the end as you try not just to achieve an S rank on every mission but also other such baffling tasks as documenting every type of animal in the entire game.

This might not sound like an issue if you’re just looking to dip your toes in and give it a whirl, but the way this game tests your patience is baked in throughout the rest of the experience as well. For all the ways the game introduces you gradually to its different elements, there can be moments where the game’s lack of mission information can be downright annoying and you spend an hour interrogating everyone in the base before you realise what it is you were supposed to be doing. It’s not a pervasive problem, but you are going to throw your hands up from time to time at this game.

You know I’m not sure whether you like this game or not, Adam.

I do like this game. I think we’ll look back at this generation and see MGSV as one of its most impressive achievements. Not only is it a seamless transition from old school levels to open-world, but it offers an experience of satisfaction and uniqueness that you just have to tell your friends about, regardless if they care or not. It’s also frustrating and there’s every chance that by the time you plough 50 hours into it, you’ll be done with it forever. But you have to give this thing a go. Maybe you’ll bail after an hour or so, in which case just brush it off – it’s free! Or perhaps it’ll click and you won’t play anything else for weeks, in which case you probably won’t believe that it’s free.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is totally crazy and totally free for October on PS Plus.

Also available for money on Xbox One.

#metalgearsolid #metalgearsolidv #mgsv #PSPlus #hideokojima #playsationaccess