Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[bonescraper]

I find it funny how much Jim hates Quiet's character, and here we have the actress herself playing the game... even starting her own let's play channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCND-4B-vUV7hLiP3niO39eg

Meh, Sterling actually makes a valid point. He says the bullshit reasoning behind her half-nudity is retarded, and it would be better if Kojima straight up admitted he just wanted her to look like a whore.

 

[Machocruz]

MGS4 was ike 5 in that every great decision stands next to a terrible one.

From a visual and nostalgia standpoint, the Shadow Moses return was top notch...and they botched it by pitting you against silly looking, boring droids. Now imagine the same environment with good human guard placement instead. Then you get a so-so boss battle that plays well the first time and looks great, but soon you notice how small the arena is. The showstopper is the Metal Gear battle, which while mechanically not that interesting, was just fun to watch, like a big budget FX movie. Blue-grey cinemajestic "filter" has never been used better in a game.
With a few tweaks, this whole act could have been peak MGS.

Act 3's tracking segment went on too long (lost its novelty after the first zone), as did the bike chase, followed by the second weakest boss in the game. Not a terrible act, but a steep decline from the previous two.

Act 5 was a whole lot of nothing capped by one of the highest points. Extremely short and uninspired environment, Screaming Mantis probably the least interesting encounter in the game. Walking forward and dealing with more droids *yawn.* Fight Ocelot with nods to preceding MGSes, acquire nostalgia.

Act 1 and 2. Best overall acts in the game, but they botched the "sneaking through a warzone" concept. More like "sneaking around the edge of a warzone," which would be the reasonable thing to do in real life, but doesn't make for a great stealth game unless you are forced to go up the middle, which you aren't in most cases. 5 handles this better by placing your objectives in locations where you'll have to lace through guard placements. Mostly. We have two legitimately good boss battles in these acts, fun to master. There are some third party skirmishes to get involved with if you want to, but doing so doesn't net you much. THIS is the fucking game where they should have implemented side/secondary objectives, like helping one side defeat the other, providing sniper cover, taking out armor, etc.

Top notch gun porn...that you are penalized for using. The ranking system in V is a step up (but it's too lenient with certain deductions). What makes sense when your arsenal is comparatively limited (like MGS1) ceases to when you have more weapons than that gun store Arnold broke into in Commando. It's a mental thing. A Chekhov's gun scenario for vidya. Good thing I'm not a trophy whore at least. At leas they let you go hog wild on the Beast form of the B&Bs. Stamina kills in 2 and 3 were always pointless to me. In most cases you were still just shooting bosses with a gun.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd say the Geckos and hand-balls are actually one of the most memorable enemies in MGS franchise even just by the fact they are among the most challenging enemies you face if you fail sneaking past them and have several unique gameplay qualities to them like the Gecko's anti-missile EM field and the swarming tactics of the hand-balls.

 

[Machocruz]

I'd say the Geckos supplemented by human guards and a few droids acting as mobile laser tripwires would have been better. And maybe if the droids weren't stupid looking balls with arms too.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, the area itself is like a learning zone since it's the first place you encounter the hand-balls in-game, and it's done pretty well when it comes to teaching the player how each of these enemies works. You first have the Gecko's in outside areas with lots of room so you can learn your way around how they detect and how they fight, and how you can kill them. Previously you've only encountered Gecko's in high-tension situations where you are in a hurry to get from point A to B fast, so you've mostly learned that they have serious firepower and maybe that they can deflect your missiles when fired from front. Next you encounter the handroids in a large, open room, where you can both learn that they can detect you via laser tripwires they set up, and that they attack in massive numbers, using both small firearms and special attacks against you. You can also learn that they have very large reinforcements, and that if you attack from a distant hiding position only the group you attacked reacts to the attack.

Next, you encounter two Geckos in tight closed spaces, one in a corridor and another in a large room with multiple obstacles. This is important because it helps you orient yourself towards how to evade, distract, or destroy Geckos later, and how Gecko patrol routine works in such an area. After this, you meed handdroids in a simlar environment where you have to navigate a more restricted area, with also more vertical placement for handroids.

This eventually leads up to the final room, which is a long hallway with numerous obstacles and both patrolling Geckos and handroids, and one of the toughest sneaking challenges to ghost through. A step up from this would have been to have human guards as well, but I think the area's strict adherance to its premise as UV enemies only in an abandoned facility works really well in itself so I don't feel that much was lost. As a sneaking area, it's definately the tightest design in MGS4.

It's also important that the player probably won't have a Barrett at hand, so they have limited ways of directly fighting Geckos.

I'd say that the game does succeed much more than any other game has attempted before or since in creating battlefield sneaking in several areas in prior Acts, in Act 1 it's fairly difficult to avoid battlefield conditions when you make your way along the road towards the abandoned hotel to meet Rat Patrol since PMC troops take cover in and move through the alleyways bordering the road, and the last segment is a small plaza with PMCs and rebels engaged in an open shoot-out involving a gunship that you have to cross either by sneaking, running for your life, or fighting through. In Act 2 there's a lot more parts where you don't have two opposing sides fighting and the power station is easy to just circle around, but the villa is a very good situation where you have to work through tightly cramped area with a perpetual combat between two sides. The villa also has more exploration offered if you go over every nook and cranny for goodies, but yea Act 2's areas between the initial ad hoc rescue mission you can pull to avoid hostile rebels later on and the villa are much weaker than in Act 1 due to having much more sparse enemy placement in a more open area (in Desert Level you have a lot more buildings with enemy sharpshooters and fire teams that make approach require more caution).

In MGSV I don't really get the same feeling or even attempt towards "battlefield infiltration", but rather a take at total tactical freedom.

(I played through MGS4 again with a fresh save two weeks ago, so it's in good memory)


PS: Confession, I always have more trouble taking out The Fury than taking out The End. And Laughing Octopus is the boss I have the hardest time with in MGS4.

 

[Malpercio]

Done with the "Quiet ending".

Not sure whatever I liked it or not. There is a good character to be found in Quiet at the end. Probably. Maybe it's just me having a boner for "tragic" romances.

On other hand some of the scenes felt very forced in order to create drama (enough scenes about characters hiding behind rocks with a guard checking on them only to change idea at the last second!!! They never work!!!) and her ridiculous outfit sure detract from the ending

Spoiler

She's fully dresses so she can't use her power... once the soldier tries to rape her he removes her pants and she goes full terminator... and for some reason one of the first thing she does is getting her stocking back.

tl;dr the baseline of her character is fine, everything related to her "powers" is a clusterfuck.

 

[Necroscope]

Finished the game and wow, the ending was brilliant and actually explained a lot of nonsense. It's as if the spirit of MGS returned in the final episode to say goodbye. Now I'm even more me confused as to how to feel about this game.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Meh, Sterling actually makes a valid point. He says the bullshit reasoning behind her half-nudity is retarded, and it would be better if Kojima straight up admitted he just wanted her to look like a whore.

The Sterling statement againts "Quiet design" is extremely flawed.

The point of Sterling is summarized in Quiet desing is shit because Kojima tried to explain it instead of assuming why he designed the characther like that. The fact is Kojima said a couple of times that the character always was supposed to look sexy (He changed his statement later and said erotic, what a change), he wrote the character and ordered to Shinkawa to design the aspect of the character. He said that he wanted her to look sexy for encourage cosplay and sell more Metal gear figures (Too much honesty, Kojimbo). The thing continues with Sterling making a unfortunate comparison between Quiet and The End, defending that The End had the same characteristics, but that he was an old man and wasn't nude as Quiet is. The fact is The End hasn't the same characteristics as Quiet. There's only two things in common: Both are snipers and both can make the
photosynthesis. And this last point is completely diferrent driven in each character: The end was an supernatural character in sync with the nature and his costume helped him to make the photosyntesis. The End didn't breath or drink through his skin. Quiet is a character that can do photosyntesis, drink and breath through her skin thanks to the parasites that she have, the same parasites that the Skulls have. It's a fucking plant. Finally, I can't get how is worse to avoid the explanation about things of a character like Sterling suggests, even if the explanation is not satisfactory.

It's true that Kojima, after all the controversy when the character was announced, said that the explanation of Quiet cloting will make you feel ashamed of your words and deeds. It's true that Kojima sold the explanation as something super deep in comparison with what it is in reality in the game. But all this isn't enough for recording a video saying that stuff. It's easily the weakest rent you can find about Quiet looking design.

Done with the "Quiet ending".

Not sure whatever I liked it or not. There is a good character to be found in Quiet at the end. Probably. Maybe it's just me having a boner for "tragic" romances.

On other hand some of the scenes felt very forced in order to create drama (enough scenes about characters hiding behind rocks with a guard checking on them only to change idea at the last second!!! They never work!!!) and her ridiculous outfit sure detract from the ending

Spoiler

She's fully dresses so she can't use her power... once the soldier tries to rape her he removes her pants and she goes full terminator... and for some reason one of the first thing she does is getting her stocking back.

tl;dr the baseline of her character is fine, everything related to her "powers" is a clusterfuck.

That soldier shouldn't tried to choke her IN WATER.

 

[CyberWhale]

PS: Confession, I always have more trouble taking out The Fury than taking out The End.

Bullet to the helmet + a WP grenade immediately afterwards.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Bullet to the helmet + a WP grenade immediately afterwards.

(Fresh save on HD Collection last time, was fighting non-lethal for anal completionism)

But anyway, WP Grenade has a special effect on The Fury? Never knew. I assume that's why he says his suit's ripped.

 

[Drakron]

That soldier shouldn't tried to choke her IN WATER.

That wasnt the mistake, the mistake he made was pulling her pants down.

 

[CyberWhale]

Guys, is Kojima supposed to be this bad at writing? I mean, Metal Gear Solid 1, tried playing it yesterday on emulator but I can't take it anymore, no exposition about really important stuff while crazy minutes long cutscenes of boring exposition about banal shit or Snake talking endless platitudes about war that you could take from any generic anti-war journalistic piece. From what I'm hearing, is MGS V writing worse than this? How could that be?

Check out the Briefing section and be sure to read the supplement summaries on first two installments (MG & MG2). Everything else has enough exposition at the right time, but I do agree that the game's characters have an unfortunate habit of constantly bombarding you with endless and trivial anti-war massages. Still, I do think that they are worth suffering through.

 

[Malpercio]

The Sterling statement againts "Quiet design" is extremely flawed.

The point of Sterling is summarized in Quiet desing is shit because Kojima tried to explain it instead of assuming why he designed the characther like that. The fact is Kojima said a couple of times that the character always was supposed to look sexy (He changed his statement later and said erotic, what a change), he wrote the character and ordered to Shinkawa to design the aspect of the character. He said that he wanted her to look sexy for encourage cosplay and sell more Metal gear figures (Too much honesty, Kojimbo). The thing continues with Sterling making a unfortunate comparison between Quiet and The End, defending that The End had the same characteristics, but that he was an old man and wasn't nude as Quiet is. The fact is The End hasn't the same characteristics as Quiet. There's only two things in common: Both are snipers and both can make the photosynthesis. And this last point is completely diferrent driven in each character: The end was an supernatural character in sync with the nature and his costume helped him to make the photosyntesis. The End didn't breath or drink through his skin. Quiet is a character that can do photosyntesis, drink and breath through her skin thanks to the parasites that she have, the same parasites that the Skulls have. It's a fucking plant. Finally, I can't get how is worse to avoid the explanation about things of a character like Sterling suggests, even if the explanation is not satisfactory.

I dunno about this Sterling dude, but

Spoiler

The End and Quiet are literally the same. :D If you listen to code-talker tapes, they retconnected the Copra Unit members as parasites users. I think Code Talker himself even implanted The End parasite into himself too. The End and Quiet have literally the same power (actually, Quiet may even be more powerful) and parasite, but Quiet can't use her lungs because they are carbonized at the beginning of the game, so she can "only" breath through her skin... though I'm not sure why her skin, eyes, and face aren't burned like her lungs. Unless the parasites healed her? And why parasites that can DECOSTRUCT AND RE-CONSTRUCT MATTER HOLY FUCK can't "heal" her lungs anyway.

 

[Echo Mirage]

There is something I just don't get about Quiet. When she moves or lands she produces shock waves. And appears she has the ability to control her overall mass. But yet when it comes to fighting she has no real physical strength at all. Venom is able to lay her with out with CQC and pin her down without any issues.

Or is that last part just her love for the legend that stops her fighting back?

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

I dunno about this Sterling dude, but

Spoiler

The End and Quiet are literally the same. :D If you listen to code-talker tapes, they retconnected the Copra Unit members as parasites users. I think Code Talker himself even implanted The End parasite into himself too. The End and Quiet have literally the same power (actually, Quiet may even be more powerful) and parasite, but Quiet can't use her lungs because they are carbonized at the beginning of the game, so she can "only" breath through her skin... though I'm not sure why her skin, eyes, and face aren't burned like her lungs. Unless the parasites healed her? And why parasites that can DECOSTRUCT AND RE-CONSTRUCT MATTER HOLY FUCK can't "heal" her lungs anyway.

Thanks for the note. Consider yourself brofisted.

There is something I just don't get about Quiet. When she moves or lands she produces shock waves. And appears she has the ability to control her overall mass. But yet when it comes to fighting she has no real physical strength at all. Venom is able to lay her with out with CQC and pin her down without any issues.

Or is that last part just her love for the legend that stops her fighting back?

She's clearly stronger than a normal human. But NOBODY CAN DEFEAT BIG MEDIC. No Quiet, no Liquid, NOBODY.

 

[Ebonsword]

I started playing Peace Walker over the weekend. I'm really enjoying it so far (although I'm only about 10 missions in).

It plays *very* similar to MGS5, much more so than MGS1, 2, or 3. It seems like the perfect game for folks who were introduced to the series via MGS5, doubly so since MGS5 features some of the same characters (and refers to others).

It does seem to be a bit on the easy side, though. I'm just CQCing/tranqing my way through missions without much regard to stealth, and I'm still getting mostly A and B ranks. Maybe it will get more difficult later.

Oh, and I'm loving the illustrated cutscenes that look like they were done by Yoji Shinkawa.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The Ashley Wood-drawn cutscenes are really good, they're an excellent example of a simple solution to an issue (PSP cartridge not having space for lots of full motion cinematics) having really good artistic pay-off.

 

[Machocruz]

Konami loved Ashley Wood. I remember his work for Contra: Shattered Soldier. Was quite a weird aesthetic for Contra.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Shattered Soldier is my favorite Contra game. The bosses in that one were crazy.

 

[Drakron]

I dunno about this Sterling dude, but

No, its simply reducing then to certain aspects and discarding everything else, The End and Quiet are entirely different characters with different motivations as The End is just a old man waiting for death, whatever happens in that battle it will be his final battle, its always be The End.

Quiet is different, in a way she is more similar to Sniper Wolf as both were initially driven by revenge but they also very distinct, none of the characters are the same in terms of motivation, also each characters were created at different times, you can retcon all you want but The End when designed in MGS3 lacked that stupid nonsensical plot, he simply did that like everyone in the Cobras had their unique abilities that also were just like FOXHOUND in MGS1 also had their own thing and Dead Cell in MGS2 also have their own abilities, nobody really cared and accepted it ... we just go from NANOMACHINES to parasites because of a foolhardily attempt at trying to explain and wrap up everything that just makes things worst.

Simply attempting to link Quiet to The End and ignore they were very different designed games is not really much different that saying they are both Snipers and Human shapped so they are exactly the same, nevermind they are entirely different characters with different backgrounds and different motivations.

 

[Malpercio]

I'm not "attempting" anything. The game does itself does it. There was no need to "explain" the Cobra Unit with lolparasites in MGSV but they did it anyway and now they have to bear with the contradictions and links it creates. Not that the lol-parasite make much sense.

Again, it's not me who is linking anything, it's fucking Kojima himself.

Then again, you are the same dude who said Quiet isn't mean to be sexy so

 

[Drakron]

No, I said Quiet is not meant to be sexy, she is meant to be tragic.

Eva is sexy as he uses her sexuality all over MGS3, Quiet on the other hand is burned alive, have her body modified to the point she no longer functions as a normal human being, etc ... the relationship of big Boss/Eva and Punished Snake/Quiet are different.

If you mean their character design then both are sexualized but as Eva is also a very much a part of her character, the same is not about Quiet were she never uses her sexuality towards other characters in the game, she uses violence.

The link of The End and Quiet is simply the parasites, the same link is also present with the other members of SKULLS (especially the Sniper unit) and Cipher, I simply point out such links is just something you cannot apply to every character because it does not affect their characters personality or behavior, its the same as picking any female sniper and compare her with Quiet.

Even with the Parasite link both The End and Quiet are still entirely different persons with entirely different personalities, even their boss battles are vastly different, even if its there its entirely irrelevant outside of a explanation for their abilities that are still significant different.

In short, you are judging a book for the cover so let me ask you, what do you think about Huey because if Quiet characterization is "debatable" you have Huey that suffered somewhat of a transformation from Peace Walker (were he was pretty much Otacon) to being shown more in the light as what Otacon described him as, a monster without being explicit about what he did.

 

[Whisky]

Guys, is Kojima supposed to be this bad at writing? I mean, Metal Gear Solid 1, tried playing it yesterday on emulator but I can't take it anymore, no exposition about really important stuff while crazy minutes long cutscenes of boring exposition about banal shit or Snake talking endless platitudes about war that you could take from any generic anti-war journalistic piece. From what I'm hearing, is MGS V writing worse than this? How could that be?

There's a few things that need to be understood about Metal Gear.

There's two kinds of people, those who take it seriously and those who do not.

The former will try to justify every unusual decision and questionable piece of writing as being part of a greater whole. Something sublime. Imagine if Lyric Suite wrote about Japanese Action Games and apply that to this kind of fan. That kind of fan.

The other accepts the ridiculous nature of the series and appreciates the fact that Metal Gear is one middle-aged Japanese man's grand vision of applying everything he thinks American culture is like as distilled from countless bad action films he's watched; usually with a side serving of whatever pseudoscience he learned about the week before.

If you're the former, one day you will grow out of it and hate Kojima.

If you're the latter, you will forever appreciate him.

Try to play it as the latter. If it doesn't work, don't worry; it's not for everyone.

Spoiler

That being said, MGS1 was really groundbreaking in its cutscenes and voice acting for the time. Yes, having still models bobbing their heads to failure actors pretending to be chain smokers was ground-breaking. Those were crazy times, man.

 

[Drakron]

The other accepts the ridiculous nature of the series and appreciates the fact that Metal Gear is one middle-aged Japanese man's grand vision of applying everything he thinks American culture is like as distilled from countless bad action films he's watched; usually with a side serving of whatever pseudoscience he learned about the week before.

Thats not the problem, its the inconsistency when you have very different ideas clashing .... one thing is Raiden, another is this.

Its the same as having a pre-1940's action movie and a 1980's action movie, they are different ... its the things that thematic start to clash with each other and how what things that were done in the 40's were different that the ones in the 80's.

The story in MGS3 was also utter ridiculous, you have a Orbital Frame in that game as a model but it doesnt stand up as much, its coherent as this simply .... its wrong, its bits and things that simply feel wrong, if he did say in the style of Rambo III but its just ... boring, MGS III had Soviet projects of that time, this? nothing ... the closest is child soldier but its stuck with the whole overarching metaplot that been going for too long that is brought in to add nothing to the series outside a few loose treads that didnt even need to be explained.

Look at Revengence, as ridiculous it far higher that MGSV but you dont see people complaining about it ... that isnt the issue, its the flaws on MGSV are too many to be ignored.

 

[DeepOcean]

The other accepts the ridiculous nature of the series and appreciates the fact that Metal Gear is one middle-aged Japanese man's grand vision of applying everything he thinks American culture is like as distilled from countless bad action films he's watched;

That was pretty much my experience, it was like I was watching a japanese Steven Seagal movie where japanese Steven Seagal did monologues about the evils of war each odd cutscene, it was very odd. I guess if I took it as some japanese/american kitsch thing and shut off the brain and don't take anything of it seriously I would be okay with it like I am with Resident Evil but the controls and some odd design decisions infuriated me. I guess I will buy Metal Gear Solid V enjoy the stealth gameplay and take the story as some edgy anti-war Power Rangers episode then.