I'm still not sure what this game is supposed to be.
It's got Metal Gear Solid on the cover but it's just not Metal Gear Solid, it features characters from the games but they're either plain pantomime (Kazuhura Miller) or watered down versions (Revolver Ocelot). There are other characters like Quiet (generic female fan-service), Skullface (It's like the Lone Ranger sat in the sun too long...), Huey (because it's important to keep Christopher Randolph in the games but never mind David Hayter) but realistically, and honestly , you don't give a shit about them, any of them. Not like in the previous games where you cared about the characters.
Despite the distinct lack of memorable characters and narrative and pretty much anything else that made the MGS series good and besides the fact that it isn't even Big Boss who you're playing with there are other issues with MGS5... shock horror.(Omfg!! spoiler!! And there was no warning or anything! Welcome to in the internet kid. I'll be honest with you - I ain't spoiling much, trust me and if you didn't work that out within the first 20 minutes of the game.. sucks to be you)
What really takes this game from behind are the sometimes horrible horseplay....er..., gameplay... dynamics, piss around in free-roam enough and on missions and you'll fast learn about these things. Free-roam, by the way, is largely this games best aspect. If that doesn't tell you something you're either a shameless fanboy or plain stupid.
So, what are they? Well we talked about aspects of the game in the last MGS5 post [Clickbait - No seriously this is actually the link to the other post, see it in the panel to the right >>> Wait, if it's there, why did I make this link? O.o] and covered Mother-waste-of-space, Free-whoring, Codec Calls (Wait, what codec calls? Yeah), the Voice of Medic.., err.. I mean Snake and Cut-scenes (Wait... there are cut-scenes..?). But I want to take this post to talk about the actual guts of the game - the gameplay - because on the front of it MGS5 claims to be MGS and then some but in realism it's basically a Fox Engine tech-demo and not a great one at that.
So let's start with one of my personal favorites...
Telepathic Soldiers
The troops in MGS5 are something else, they can accurately discern your location without having ever seen you; throw enough magazines or pop one too many decoys and, as if my magic, they know exactly where you are. Exactly; not a roundabout location or a rough idea, they know your exact location - what's odd is that the second one knows they ALL know without any form of communication. Now the soldiers in the first MGS were genome soldiers, genetically advanced troops but man, these Russians... shit son. Snipe from 300m away and they're onto you, whether you're using a silencer or not. What's also odd is that they use the most basic assault rifles in the game yet they will hit you with almost every shot, at full sprint, when you're 200m+ away but if you try to repeat the same feat, you'll need to lie prone and your target will need to be stationary if you you want even a 3rd of your shots to land from the same gun..
The Skulls
I have no idea where this 'unit' fits. They are supposed to be an upgrade on the Frogs most likely and the Ocelot unit from MGS3 but they are far more ridiculous. Along with teleportation and being practically impervious to pretty much everything they were obviously designed to be a challenge but they just turn every mission they feature in into a mindless run and gun to try and get away from them or kill them - which is no mean feat either. I remember early on getting so frustrated with their interruption in a mission that I had my Main Battle Tank airdropped to me and just blew the shit out of everything that moved I got them all but they still managed to destroy my tank.With the Frogs there was an element of tactics and stealth, but with the Skulls the second you move, shoot or fart they're onto you like an over-affectionate girlfriend with a rape fetish. And if you've gone into a mission loaded out for stealth you're gonna have a bad time. They just don't add anything to the game other than "Oh... fuck my life, these cunts, again".
Quiet
It's pretty clear that this character is plain Page 3 eye candy to break up the cock fest character lineup in MGS5. I can just imagine the development meeting about Quiet..
"Oh shit, we've gone and written too many male characters! Better overcompensate with this one female role and turn her into fap-bait. Yeah, that oughta' balance things out". (or whatever that is in Japanese)
Seriously guys, little less Hentai and a little more decent game writing. Now MGS has never been shy about adding attractive female roles in games, hell, MGS1 had Natahsa Romanenko, Meryl, Sniper Wolf and Naomi as in-game 'eye candy', and y'all remember the B&B corps right and EVA? All these, however, had 100% more character depth than the mute markswoman and that brings us to our next point; taking Quiet into the field. She has to be the most useless buddy that Snake can take with him. She's not an especially good shot, frequently when I've ordered her to fire she has missed her mark and she cannot be equipped with a silenced gun so that makes life hard. She's a mediocre scout at best as she'll miss a bunch of enemies in outposts and get her to scout the same outpost twice and you'll get two different results. She's not intuitive at all, unlike DD who will adapt to the situation, Quiet will sit on a rock 300m out of range and line of sight of you unless you specifically order her to move up.
So what does Quiet actually add to the game?
Bewbs. That's about it.
Seriously, just shoot her in the face after fighting her the first time, you won't be miss her.
Seriously, just shoot her in the face after fighting her the first time, you won't be miss her.
Walker Gear, Tanks & Armored Fighting Vehicles
I'm not sure, what are we playing? World of Tanks for Metal Gear Solid? Another departure from the tried, tested and loved MGS dynamic is the addition of a number of unnecessary things in MGS5 - it's gone from solo stealth operations to rolling in full riot gear in a Battle Tank. While this is fun, I can't deny that - who doesn't like Tanks right? It's just not Metal Gear in any way. It's like Kojima's dev team had been playing a bit too much Battlefield 4. The walker gear is also a lot of fun and I get that Snake has Motherbase behind him but what has this game become now? In-between full on solo sneaking and full on air-support and battle tanks resides this strange no-mans-land that is neither stealth or action and this is where you end up frequently in MGS5 - wondering what exactly you're doing wearing a sneaking suit with a silenced pistol while driving an armored fighting vehicle. More so if you played and enjoyed the other titles in the saga. If this is you're first MGS title, well good for you, because you were Konami's target audience, congratulations but if you're an Old Snake like the rest of us you know what I mean.
Infinite Caution
Time and time again bases and outposts have gone into Caution (old fans know what I'm talking about) after the guards suspect something is up and rightly so, but here's the problem; there is no cool down. Unlike in the other games, you can't seem to wait it out - the guards remain in this state indefinitely as long as you are in their AO. Which plainly, is stupid. I tested this by throwing a decoy into a guard post - one of the small roadside checkpoints and activating it. They instantly went into caution of course, so I retreated a bit and hid in my box and decided to try and wait it out and see if they returned to a normal state - I went and made a cup of tea and dinner for my kids and came back to find them still patrolling with sticks up their asses looking for the source of the intrusion. This doesn't make sense and again adds nothing to the gameplay other than an un-realistic annoyance. 
Come the fuck on, seriously. Stealth camo used to be something you had to work for - in MGS2, 3 and 4 you had to work damn hard for it. No alerts for the whole game in MGS3 and 4 and collecting an obscene amount of dog tags in MGS2. It was a reward for being a badass at the game, it wasn't just thrown out to you as a free perk. In MGS5 you just develop it at Motherbase and it's not even like you need your R&D team to be at an especially high level either. Oh you're new to the MGS experience? Don't worry about actually learning the game and getting good at it through trial, error and effort here's some stealth camo and chicken hat, cuz, y'know, learning through doing; ain't nobody got time for that.
Afghanistan and Angola
There was word that the game was supposed to have more than two areas but y'know, full game development? Ain't nobody got time for that! That and the modern Triple-A standard appears to be "get it out fast DLC/ patch it later" though no DLC is coming for MGS5 anyway. Gee, thanks Konami, way to bend us over. But besides my gripes with greedy-ass punk bitch game companies the two areas we got are, for the most part, incredibly.... empty. The actual playable ground space in both ares isn't as large as it's made out to be as a great deal of it is inaccessible terrain the rest of it is comprised of large expanses of empty space. Just take a look at this map of Afgan - the inaccessible terrain has been de-highlighted and you can see that what you are left with is less than half of the actual map space with more than half of that being empty land and roads. It's worse in Angola as the map is flatter and less mountainous so the areas of empty space are even bigger. This wouldn't be an issue if they'd filled it more with roaming enemy patrols or other points of interest but it quite literally is just bare land.
Stealth Cop-put
Metal Splinter Cell Solid
The similarities to the last SplinterCell are.. quite frankly, ridiculous. Whether this was by sheer coincidence or actual implementation is unclear but the style of the stealth is almost identical. Indeed, even the take-downs, though using different techniques, feel the same. Although I have to say the hand to hand elements of SplinterCell seem more dynamic and versatile than the one's in MGS5 and the cover system was more intuitive and smooth in SC as well as the collision detection for the cover system in MGS5 seems very hit and miss.
Just check out these screens....
Just check out these screens....
Sam and Snake make short work of enemies in had to hand combat.
Snake and Sam grapple enemies and use them as human shields in a gun fight
Snake and Sam even move in a similar fashion with very similar camera angles
Sam and Snake take cover behind a small wall.
If it looks familiar it's because both games feature settings in the middle east too..
Now I know that screenshots can't give the entire picture, so to speak, but it says a lot and if like me you have payed both games you'll know what I mean and it is strange. Previously though both titles were the undisputed stealth heavy-weights they were very different breeds of stealth, in many ways they really couldn't be compared. I recently got SC Black List again - mainly for the brilliant 2P split-screen - and the similarities became stark to say the least. When I first started playing MGS5 it felt somehow familiar to me but I couldn't put my finger on it, now I can.
Crawling over small ledges and up/down stairs
I briefly touched on the cover system in the section above and this I suppose is somewhat of an extension of that because it makes navigating the world in a stealthy manner just that little bit more frustrating than it really should be. Snake seems unable to crawl up or down stairs or up or down small differences in elevation and this makes stealth very frustrating as often you will have to resort to returning to a crouch, and risk being spotted, to walk up the obstacle before going prone again. Now I don't know many people who can't crawl up steps while prone or up/down small elevation changes like up onto a rock that a foot or so higher than the ground, so you'd think Snake would take this in his stride, but nooooo,that's far too much to ask.
I briefly touched on the cover system in the section above and this I suppose is somewhat of an extension of that because it makes navigating the world in a stealthy manner just that little bit more frustrating than it really should be. Snake seems unable to crawl up or down stairs or up or down small differences in elevation and this makes stealth very frustrating as often you will have to resort to returning to a crouch, and risk being spotted, to walk up the obstacle before going prone again. Now I don't know many people who can't crawl up steps while prone or up/down small elevation changes like up onto a rock that a foot or so higher than the ground, so you'd think Snake would take this in his stride, but nooooo,that's far too much to ask.
How high can I jump from ??
I still have not figured out the fall damage multiplier for MGS5 yet, it seems highly variable. Snake is able to dive roll from the roof of a 2 story building one minute without so much as a scratch while other times, at equivalent heights he'll suffer a broken ankle while other times the fall will straight kill him. This makes skillful parkour escapes somewhat hit and miss as oftentimes you'll jump straight to your death from a height that previously you'd been ok with.
Upgrade paths vs.
The Legendary Gunsmith.
This was an odd but kinda cool idea to add to MGS; being able to customise your weapons. We kinda got some weapon customisation on MGS4 with attachments and that kind of thing but nothing this advanced. I'm not gonna lie, it does feel very gimmicky and that paint job gives you no tactical advantage but it sure is fun.
The system also isn't implemented that well as no explanations are given for the different kinds of scopes for instance; US No.1 and Soviet No. 2... Oh right, so what does that mean? Well unless you've used and made a note of either, you won't know. But here's the strangest things about it - the Legendary Gunsmith actually overrides various R&D upgrade paths. Allow me to explain...
Take the silenced tranq sniper rifle for instance or the silenced semi-auto sniper rifle. Both have distinct upgrade paths from other guns of the same type. If you want the silencer on the soviet tranq sniper rifle you need to fulfill various conditions, likewise with the silenced semi-auto. However, if you've got the legendary gunsmith you can simply modify either gun to your own standards (like putting a silencer on the tranq sniper and semi-auto) - providing you've at least developed a couple of guns in the same class to provide you with the parts - avoiding the R&D upgrade paths to those specific guns entirely. Which is good, kinda... but it largely defeats the purpose of the R&D tech-trees in some cases.
"Dynamic" difficulty curve
This is one of the worst things about MGS5, there are no difficulty settings; it's a sliding scale. What this means is that the game gets progressively harder the more you play but here's the problem with that - firstly it lures inexperienced players into a false sense of security and, let's be honest, even a rank noob can get lucky and run and gun every mission but eventually - thanks to the dynamic difficulty scaling which does not adapt to player skill - they'll come up against something they simply cannot beat and will be completely unprepared. For us more experienced players it largely ruins the first half of the game because it's so mind-numbingly easy. There's a reason that games, even modern ones, have set difficulty settings; so everyone can benefit and play how they want to play, sliding scales never work they always either make it too easy or too hard. The Assassin's creed series also suffered the same thing for most of the title - the games are just too easy.
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MGS5 is a lot of fun, the same way FarCry and Just Cause are fun and that seems to be where this game now firmly sits - for me it's lost it's seat in the stealth action hall of fame alongside games like Hitman and Splinter Cell because this game, unlike the others, plays much better when you just grab a bunch of decoys and C4 and fuck around in free-roam, picking up the odd SideOp now and again if you stray into the area. It no longer feels or plays like a serious MGS title and while this is a good thing in many ways the game has lost itself in gimmicks and online multiplayer it seems.
Metal Gear was always about the skill of the player against the challenges of the game using just what you've got, now your skill doesn't matter so much and it can be argued that this was just make the game appeal to a wider audience but MGS never had a problem before and certainly didn't need dumbing down to accommodate anyone. Coupled with these bad bits of game coding and bad dynamics it seems like what MGS is, has been lost in a game that, oddly for MGS, is too ambitious and tries to do too many thing - a Jack of all trades but a master of none.
Metal Gear was always about the skill of the player against the challenges of the game using just what you've got, now your skill doesn't matter so much and it can be argued that this was just make the game appeal to a wider audience but MGS never had a problem before and certainly didn't need dumbing down to accommodate anyone. Coupled with these bad bits of game coding and bad dynamics it seems like what MGS is, has been lost in a game that, oddly for MGS, is too ambitious and tries to do too many thing - a Jack of all trades but a master of none.
Now,... where did I park my tank ?
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Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. As always I'm open to discussion and ideas too.
If there's something you'd like to see me write about then let me know!
If there's something you'd like to see me write about then let me know!
It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game.
#GamersUnite
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Spekter Gaming YouTube channel possibly coming sometime in the next couple of months, need to build my gaming rig first, watch this space. Peace.
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