Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - A Hideo Kojima Game

I played the PS3 Day One Edition.

Note: The following review contains spoilers related to Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

For one reason or another, I never really got around to reviewing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain when it first came out. Looking back, however, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t considering the controversy surrounding the dissolving relationship between Konami and Hideo Kojima at the time, which led to less than friendly discussion about the game and its shortcomings, both real and imagined, as a result of the fallout. Since it’s been over a year since the game released, and to celebrate the sixth anniversary of this blog, I figured it was now about time to share my thoughts on this game. I will say now, however, that this review is based mostly on memory and retrospection, since it took me nearly a month to beat it before and I won’t have that same pocket of time to play it for that long again. In addition, I will not be talking about the Kojima/Konami fallout apart from this paragraph, nor will I talk about what may or may not have been cut from the game. I will discuss it for what it is, not what it isn’t.

In the year 1984, nine years after the events of fall of Mother Base at the end of Ground Zeroes, Snake wakes up from a coma and, with the aid of the mysterious Ishmael, escapes a hospital as it is overrun by soldiers looking to capture him. After his successful escape from the hospital, and an ambulance he rode off in that got overturned, he receives aid from Revolver Ocelot in getting to safety. Ocelot helps Snake recover enough to rescue Kazuhira Miller, who has forced new armed force named Diamond Dogs. Together, the three of them work to both rebuild Mother Base and take revenge on the mysterious organization known as Cipher by defeating their leader, Skull Face.

The Prologue also introduces the mysterious Man on Fire.

The rest of the story which follows is actually very compelling and impactful, as it tackles the main themes of Race and Revenge (as explained by Kojima) rather well, though ultimately it feels somewhat unfulfilling thanks to some lingering loose ends. After the prologue chapter, Awakening, a good bulk of the story is contained within the first chapter, Revenge, and the second chapter, Race, has a fairly uneven pace. The length of time it takes to complete Revenge makes it feel like a whole game on its own, and while Race does answer some lingering questions, it is much shorter and requires some interesting conditions to unlock the ending, where you replay the Prologue mission, but with some additional scenes and dialogue added to fill in some of the story gaps and reach a rather controversial twist ending.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, since it’s the kind of game that’s difficult to talk about otherwise, I will end up having to forgo specifying which questions remain unanswered, but I will address the twist ending, or at least my own reaction to it. Initially, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it and I can understand why some people would be put off by it, especially since it can feel reminiscent of another game in the franchise. However, now that I have had time to reflect on it, it actually makes a lot of sense to the overall story of the franchise, since I’ve come to realize that the entire game basically exists solely to fill in a plot hole from all the way back in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

During the story, the characters all go through some interesting development, in that players get to see them reveal some of the darker aspects of their personality and how they react to what’s been thrown at them in the past. Kazuhira Miller in particular is much more revenge-driven to where Ocelot acts as a foil for his actions and would much rather be diplomatic about their decisions, though Ocelot does have a sadistic side. Snake, as well, displays a more pacifist approach in his treatment of the Diamond Dogs members, but is also capable of displaying a darker part of himself. These personalities and how they conflict with each other and other characters they encounter help drive the story forward toward their final encounter with Skull Face and with the ultimate decision regarding their conflicting levels of trust with Huey Emmerich.

Skull Face, as a villain, has a plan that’s over-the-top enough for Metal Gear, even revealing the development of the deadly Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, but he’s not as intriguing as previous villains in the series overall. He’ll certainly be talked about within Metal Gear discussions, but despite his importance to some of the later events in the series, he does not capture the imagination in the same way as Big Boss, Liquid Snake, Revolver Ocelot, the Cobra Unit, The Patriots (mainly their involvement in MGS2) or the Winds of Destruction.

Skull Face as he appears in The Phantom Pain.

Two other major characters introduced are Code Talker, an elderly Diné (Navajo) scientist, and Quiet, a scantily-clad mute sniper. Code Talker is important to the story and is an effective character when he is necessary, but in retrospect I only remember him for his optional cassette tape recordings, in which he discusses his past as well as the faults he sees in the ethics and politics of America. I also remember the cassette tapes where despite being critical of America, he unironically, and hypocritically, wants to eat a hamburger. As for Quiet, she came off as the most interesting of the new characters, as she is written in a way that comes off as mysterious, but not in a way that the mystery is tiring. The more the game reveals aspects of her past, the more intriguing she becomes, including the reason why she wears what she does in the first place.

One highlight of the game is the voice acting. Even though Venom Snake doesn’t say very much in the game compared to previous Snakes, Kiefer Sutherland gave an amazing performance by not only conveying the proper emotion in his voice, but also his rather subtle facial expressions. As a result, I couldn’t really imagine anyone else doing Venom Snake, as I had gotten used to Kiefer Sutherland’s fitting delivery. Troy Baker is also good in his role as Revolver Ocelot, serving as a good voice for the character at that chronological point in time and displaying a good range as Ocelot displays a number of emotions. Rounding off the main trio, Robin Atkin Downes provides a memorable performance for Kazuhira Miller. Although he’s prone to hamming up the anger every once in a while, he also shows a good capacity for humor during a particular set of cassette tapes where he interacts with Code Talker in relation to hamburger recipes. As for Skull Face, despite the shortcomings of the character, James Horan delivers a spectacular vocal performance that helps him stand out when he is relevant.

Kiefer Sutherland delivers in the role of Venom Snake.

Now that I’ve mentioned it a couple times, this is probably a good time to mention that The Phantom Pain has a large volume of cassette tapes to collect, be they automatically gathered from story progression or manually gathered out in the field. While it can be fun to collect some of the tapes, particularly ones which increase the selection of music you can listen to, a good majority of them are relevant to the story in some form or another. In retrospect, I have some mixed feelings about this. On one hand, this reduces the amount of time spent the player has to spend viewing cutscenes at various points across the story, an aspect of the franchise which garnered mixed feelings over time and came to a head with MGS4’s nine hours of cutscenes. On the other hand, this means that most of the development, both major and minor, for the story and characters is instead placed within the cassette tapes, meaning that players may have to sit through up to six hours of optional tapes just to learn everything. This is somewhat mitigated by only a certain number being required for story progression, but it can be a damper on things depending on how attached you are to the traditionally lengthy cutscenes of the Metal Gear franchise.

While the execution of the story is uneven, the actual gameplay is simply phenomenal and easily the best in the entire Metal Gear series. For one thing, the shift to Open World gameplay was handled better than expected, with a map that easily dwarfs Ground Zeroes, as well as all of the other Metal Gear games put together. There are a lot of touches of realism which help to sell the open world, including the presence of a day-and-night cycle and dynamic weather, with both systems actually affecting various aspects of the gameplay. For example, nighttime operations will more involve the use of enemy searchlights and the occasional sandstorm can decrease visibility for both enemies and the player. Rain can also help disguise your footsteps and daytime makes it easier to spot enemies, but also for enemies to spot you. There’s a lot to take into consideration as players are encouraged to find the style and approach that works for them. In this sense, it is truly an open world with great freedom of choice.

Of course, there is a downside to the open world. There are two maps the player can explore, one based on Northern Kabul, Afghanistan and one based on the Angola-Zaire Border Region in Africa. The latter is more densely populated by foliage and has a lot of places to hide while the former is vast and more sparsely populated. When not doing any missions, it is possible to freely explore either of these two areas, but due to the placement of everything, it is possible to go for quite a while and not really find anything worthwhile unless you had an exact idea of where to find a particular resource or you wanted to get to side missions the hard way. The only other reason to explore outside of missions, then, is to see the incredible amount of detail put into the world.

Outside of exploration, there are two other ways to interact with the two regions: Main Ops and Side Ops. Main Ops are the ones which propel the story forward and Side Ops are optional, but can help get some extra GMP (Gross Military Product; the currency of the game) or rescue useful soldiers to boost Mother Base’s forces. The Side Ops can feel repetitive at times, but the gains are still mostly worth the effort in the long run. There are even a few Side Ops that are required to continue the story. The Main Ops are generally very good, although Chapter 2 has been, perhaps fairly, criticized for featuring duplicates of Main Ops from Chapter 1, but with different difficulty setting or modifiers placed on them, making these missions feel like filler meant to artificially lengthen the game. Fortunately, none of these duplicate missions are required to advance the story and can be skipped entirely.

However, there is a sort of unevenness to the overall difficulty. By this, I mean that there is a sort of baseline difficulty the game runs on which is fairly manageable, but then there are times when the game feels next to impossible. One standout moment in particular for me was the end of Mission 12, “Hellbound,” in which you have to outrun and sneak away from the new Metal Gear, Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, and escape on a helicopter. Sahelanthropus’ abilities made it feel unnecessarily difficult to escape detection and I was unable to finish the mission until I managed to find a perfect window of opportunity to board the chopper, and even then Sahelanthropus was less than a second away from blowing everything. The inevitable fight against Sahelanthropus was also difficult, but somehow felt more satisfying to outsmart it and achieve victory.

Metal Gear Sahelanthropus

That said, this game still has an unprecedented amount of freedom for a stealth game. During missions, players are capable of approaching the situation with either non-lethal stealth or lethal run-and-gun options based on the loadout they choose to go into the field with. Both approaches alter the skills required from the player and greatly change how they deal with enemy forces. The weapons and tools the player uses also change how they can disrupt enemy technology, one example being a radar; you can short circuit it with water, shoot it with guns or plant an explosive and remotely detonate it. While these choices are present for most of the game, there are times when you will be forced to go on the full offensive in order to survive, including the fight against Metal Gear Sahelanthropus.

As an example of this freedom, my personal loadout worked with my playstyle, emphasizing non-lethal stealth. Just looking at weapons, I used a RENOV-ICKX TP tranquilizing sniper rifle (Grade 3) customized with a suppressor, a UN-ARC-NL non-lethal assault rifle (Grade 3), a Water Pistol (Grade 4) and the Stun Arm (Grade 4); I would also equip Venom Snake with the Sneaking Suit for the health recovery bonus. With this loadout, I could tranquilize enemies from long-range, fire non-lethal rounds at a rapid pace at close range and channel electricity or summon lightning to stun enemies at close range to conserve ammo. The Water Pistol is actually far more versatile than it sounds, especially since it has infinite ammo, as it can put out campfires, temporarily blind enemies with a shot to the face or short out sensitive equipment. This weapons loadout is just one way of approaching the game and you may find something else which works well for you.

Another factor which can alter your approach is the addition of enemies who adapt to your playstyle. What this means is that if you do a lot of headshots, then enemies will start wearing more helmets, or if you attack at night a lot, enemies will start wearing night vision goggles. These are just two examples, but the results really force the player to consider how they may need to change tactics or if they should start mixing up the time of day in which they go after enemies. You can disrupt these tactics by sending your own soldiers out on missions to destroy supplies, a measure which may only be temporary, but is nevertheless effective. Similarly, if you destroy certain equipment within the environment, the game will remember it and when you return to the same area later, the equipment will still be destroyed. After about 72 in-game hours the destruction will be reverted, but this is still something to keep in mind.

Yet another wrinkle is the introduction of the Buddy System. Before going on a mission, you can select from one of four buddies to take with you into the field: D-Horse, D-Dog (aka DD), Quiet or D-Walker. Each has their own strengths that they can carry onto the battlefield, so it depends largely on personal playstyle. D-Horse can traverse long distances, serve as a mobile hiding spot for Venom Snake, distract enemy vehicles or even poop onto the road to cause vehicles to slip up. DD can scout the area via scent to discover items of interest, including enemy and weapon placements, and can even stun or kill enemies depending on what he is equipped with. Quiet can take advantage of various vantage points to scout for enemies by placing a marker on those she sees or she can be ordered to lethally or non-lethally snipe targets from afar. Lastly, D-Walker is a small bipedal robot Venom Snake can pilot, its exact usage being entirely dependent on how the player customizes its equipment.

Venom Snake with DD in the helicopter.

From my experience, D-Horse is useful in the beginning, as he is your only option at first, but as soon as I acquired DD and Quiet as buddies, I quickly shifted my focus to figuring out which of those two would be best suited for a particular mission, sometimes switching between them during a mission should the situation call for it, though more often than not I would choose DD, equipped with the Sneaking Suit (Stun version), for his versatility (plus I actually grew an emotional attachment to him). When I did use Quiet, I would always equip her with the Guilty Butterfly to fit in with my playstyle. I did use D-Walker occasionally, but found it to be more situational due to my playstyle prioritizing non-lethal stealth. I’m sure other players will feel differently about which one is their favorite to use, but I figured I would share my own experience to demonstrate how subjective this feature is.

Two additional gameplay aspects which are fully implemented in this game are the return of the Fulton Recovery System and the inclusion of a Supply Drop system. The Fulton balloons are once again used to extract enemy combatants for recruitment into the Diamond Dogs, but can also extract various wildlife and can also now be upgraded to extract weapon placements, vehicles and large resource containers. Should the player go through the effort to obtain the Wormhole Fulton option, they can even use this system indoors. This improvement to the system makes it more worthwhile to use and is a big step up from its use in Peace Walker.

As for the Supply Drop system, it makes it possible to request certain items, weapons or ammunition to be dropped onto the battlefield for easier access. However, you can also select where the item box will drop, which means you can also use it to knock out anyone unfortunate enough to be standing within the landing zone. This system is rather effective and I found myself using it every so often to change up my tactics and make sure I had plenty of ammo in a tense situation.

It should also be mentioned that this game has a huge wealth of customization options. To name a few, you can customize Mother Base with different colors or a customized Diamond Dogs emblem, customize D-Walker to your liking, alter your Buddy’s equipment, change up the helicopter’s weapons and effectiveness or create customized guns with various abilities based on the parts used. It can be fun to play around with the options from time to time, since this is a feature which allows you to change up the game to your liking, at least to an extent.

Naturally, the sea-based Mother Base makes a return from Peace Walker, although this time located by the Seychelles Archipelago off the coast of Africa. One notable difference from the Peace Walker version of Mother Base is that players can now explore Mother Base on foot and see everything for themselves, as opposed to mainly viewing Mother Base from a menu. This iteration of Mother Base is much larger than one can imagine, although exploring each strut entirely on the ground can take quite a while, as it would take a few minutes to drive across the bridges to each strut. The length of time it takes to travel can be mitigated by taking a helicopter to another strut’s landing zone in less time, though it still takes a while, or by crouching in a cardboard box on a delivery zone to warp to another delivery zone you have already discovered (this form of fast travel also works in the open world Afghanistan and Africa regions).

The game's Fast Travel system.

Each strut of Mother Base covers a different specialization of the Diamond Dogs, with plenty of secrets to be discovered as a reward for exploration. These secrets include hidden diamonds and posters, both of which automatically raise GMP, secret interactions and various challenges to test your skills. There is even a zoo you can visit which houses all of the animals you Fulton out of the battlefield. You are occasionally required to revisit Mother Base every so often, although frequent visits do have their benefits, such as boosting overall morale by passing fellow Diamond Dogs staff. One benefit in particular is returning to shower every so often, which helps Venom Snake feel physically and mentally refreshed. This makes it so Snake can’t be as easily detected by how bad he smells from the stench of blood, since blood can’t be removed unless you shower, and helps his reaction time in Reflex Mode. Visiting Mother Base under special conditions will also allow the player to view special cutscenes, which is its own reward.

But Mother Base is not the only place Venom Snake can be. You may spend a majority of your time away from the battlefield within the Aerial Command Center (ACC), where Snake can take a break in between missions. It also serves as a quieter place where you can listen to cassette tapes and manipulate various aspects of the Diamond Dogs through the iDroid, as well as the only place where you can decide what Ops you will tackle next and how you will go about them. Having this in-between zone is actually very useful and helps to establish a gameplay rhythm for yourself.

Venom Snake in the Aerial Command Center.

One iDroid feature you will use a lot, apart from sorting staff members and sending the Combat Unit on missions, is dealing with the R&D Unit to develop and upgrade various tools. While it is worth it to get that next item, upgrade or Mother Base expansion, the one thing a long-term player will need is commitment, a quality which many players may not be prepared for at first. You need to make sure you have all the requirements fulfilled before you can go through with development, but this may require you to do some grinding in a sense for GMP and resources. You may also need to do some shuffling around with staff members to make sure you have a high enough Staff Level, as well as making sure you Fultoned specific soldiers with specific skills or occasionally upgrade Mother Base strut sizes to make sure you can have the right Staff Level in the first place. Eventually you will need to care about and focus on Fultoning soldiers whose ratings in different areas match or exceed a high threshold, which may require quite a time commitment. In other words, R&D is very useful and a requirement to survival, but prepare for a large time commitment if you want the very best equipment you can get.

What easily deserves praise, however, is the Fox Engine, developed by Kojima Productions. This engine is capable of so much environmental and organic detail that it looks and feels close to real life, even when playing on seventh generation hardware (I played on the PS3 version). There is a lot to praise the engine for, including how it handles weather and lighting, but it would also be enough to say that it is a technical marvel that’s hard to beat.

Apart from the original score, which I found to be good at setting the mood, there are also 16 licensed songs you can listen to in the game by finding their cassette tapes. Since the game takes place in 1984, these are naturally mostly 1980s songs you can listen to through the iDroid. However, you can also use the cassettes to set what music you will hear when the helicopter arrives to assist or transport you. I found this to be a fun feature, since I set it so the helicopter played “The Final Countdown” by Europe (a selection which I personally found pretty fitting during a firefight). While I had played the PS3 version, as I had mentioned previously, I am aware that the PC version allows you to set the helicopter music using any song you happen to have on your computer.

There are a couple other complaints I remember having with the game which I couldn’t fit anywhere else in here. One is the fact that after a certain mission, the game forces you to create a Forward Operating Base, even if you never wanted to. The only way to avoid doing so is to play offline by never accepting the online terms and conditions that pop up whenever you start up the game (playing offline also speeds up the game anyway). The other is that despite making a big deal out of it and even allowing you to advance its progress by checking in on it, the Battle Gear is unusable, becoming more of a tease of something you’ll never be able to use. As a result, it feels like your time is otherwise wasted.

The Battle Gear ultimately goes nowhere.

One final thing to consider about The Phantom Pain is the length. As it is a very large game, it will take quite a while to complete the main story, let alone reach 100% completion (for those who are into that). At the time of this writing, my current playtime is 100:47:10 (aka 100 hours, 47 minutes and 10 seconds) and my completion percentage is 52%. Needless to say, there’s a lot to see and do.

Looking back on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it definitely could have used a little more time to develop the story. It felt a little uneven and with a conclusion which leaves some plot threads open to speculation, although I have come to appreciate the twist ending a little more due to its role in filling in a plot hole from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. The gameplay, however, is simply the best I’ve ever played in any stealth game and its large amount of depth creates a very immersive and engaging experience. The game may be flawed, but I had a lot of fun and found it very hard to put the controller down. In the end, I think that’s what matters the most.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - Extra Op: Jamais Vu

When Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes first came out on March 18, 2014, it was a big deal that the PlayStation and Xbox versions of the game would both be getting exclusive content in the form of an Extra Op. For the former it would be Déjà Vu and for the latter it would be Jamais Vu. During my review, I covered what goes on in the Déjà Vu mission, with Big Boss recreating moments from Metal Gear Solid on Camp Omega, as well as find logos for the other games and make them disappear with a special light. It was unknown at the time if the exclusive missions would make it to the other consoles until on May 1, 2014, where the missions were finally patched into the other version. More recently, I finally found out how that worked and popped in my PS3 copy of the game to find out just what Jamais Vu was like. For the most part I’m glad I finally got to play it, but I’m not sure I missed too much of anything.

Before I begin, I also want to point out that this will count as a DLC review, since, as far as I know, this content did not originally exist on the disc.

During the loading screen, the player is treated to a text narration discussing possibilities within our universe. Our galaxy consists of about 300 billion stars; about half of these are orbited by planets and on average two planets per star have the conditions to support life, so it is entirely possible that the universe is home to a myriad of life forms. The sorts of intelligence that might develop on these worlds are beyond our imagination, but we also cannot say that our universe is the only one. At the quantum level, Schrodinger’s Cat, where the cat is simultaneously alive and dead, is in effect until a wavefunction collapses under observation. During this observation, these two possibilities branch off into new worlds until the universe splits infinitely. If the universe continues to split into infinity, it is possible that it will eventually recreate scenes from the past, and if it played out differently, then our reality wouldn’t be negated, but a new future would be created out of that paradox. This is one possible story in one possible universe, born of paradox, after paradox, after paradox…

After that justification of this non-canon Extra Op, the mains story is thus: A soviet commuter jet crashed near Camp Omega and something came out of the wreckage before telecommunications blacked out for 24 hours. After this period of time, their report was a suspicious “conditions normal” before ceasing communication. It was confirmed later that the base had been taken over by body-snatchers, referred to as “Snatchers”, who killed most of the soldiers there and stole their identities. Due to their suspicions, the CIA hires the Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF) to investigate and eliminate the Snatchers on the base. As explained by Kazuhira Miller, the mission is too great for Big Boss to handle, so they end up hiring a time-travelling cyborg named Raiden to take care of the Snatchers, as his body would be immune to their abilitites. In exchange, MSF will give Raiden all of the XOF patches that they have previously collected (the mission, like Déjà Vu, becomes available upon getting all nine XOF badges in the main game). Thus, on the day of XX/XX/XXXX at 00:01, Raiden is dropped into Camp Omega to begin his mission.

How you know you've found a Snatcher.

What I like about this story is that while it does end up amounting to “it’s an alternate universe”, the narration goes out of its way to explain exactly how something like this would be plausible in the world of Metal Gear trough the application of real world science. It’s fascinating really, since one aspect I love about the series in general is how detail-oriented it is (despite the occasional retcons of course). I find the idea fascinating in general though that Raiden, as he appears in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, can even be in the same place and time as Big Boss. Not only that, but the plot being inspired by both Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a previous Hideo Kojima game, Snatcher, also isn’t that bad of a concept, since in a military base it would be terrifying to not know if you can trust someone you work with all of the time. So, as far as concepts go, this premise is very creative and out there (in a good way), although the execution would be difficult to discuss since after being dropped into Camp Omega, the gameplay takes over.

Between the parent game and this Extra Op, the gameplay is largely the same, with Raiden capable of greater stealth than in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. However, Raiden also retains his Ninja Run technique from his own game, making it easier to run away and reload when necessary (although you can still totally die if you’re not careful). Also, rather than use his sword, Raiden instead uses guns in order to lethally take care of the Snatchers. This ties in pretty well with the gameplay of Ground Zeroes and allows Raiden access to relevant weaponry, although I couldn’t help but feel that it would have been more interesting in a way if Raiden could use his skills from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, including the Zandatsu, or if the mission was more geared towards his type of action. It felt in some ways like playing as Snake but with Raiden’s body and Ninja Run ability, so some more variety would have been welcome. I also didn’t like that the mission ends in a drawn out firefight, but this would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce more of Raiden’s abilities (then again, Miller does tell Raiden that while he does have regenerative fuel cells, the soldiers of Camp Omega wouldn’t have any more) or take more advantage of him being a separate character.

Raiden takes the stealth approach this time around.

Beyond this though, I found that some small touches made the mission more fun overall. The first time you aim at a soldier and identify that he is a Snatcher, for instance, the MSX version of “Creeping Silence” from Snatcher will play. In addition, there are plenty of references to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, including the appearance of specific tracks from that game being a part of the mission’s soundtrack and the chopper that drops Raiden down bearing the Platinum Games logo on the fuselage. This is one of those cases where the little touches help sell an idea.

I’d also like to bring up something about the voice acting. There’s nothing really wrong with the performances, but I did find it odd what they did with Raiden. After the ending, one of the credits listed is Keifer Sutherland for Snake, even though Snake doesn’t even speak during the whole mission. It seems that what they did for Raiden was they took voice clips from Snake related to interrogation and applied heavy filters to make it sound robotic so that it nearly matches the voice Quinton Flynn had in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but I honestly feel it would have been more authentic, and believable, if they actually got Quinton Flynn to record those lines himself.

Having not been able to play the Jamais Vu mission until now, I feel satisfied in my knowledge of what the previously Xbox-exclusive Extra Op entailed. Being able to play as Raiden is a neat incentive and the non-canon story actually has a fascinating idea and explanation behind it. While the references to other games are fun and it’s interesting to play as Raiden in Camp Omega, it might have benefitted from going all the way with the character, down to having Quinton Flynn voicing him. In any case, I’d encourage PlayStation users to give this mission a try, since now some additional replay value has been added to the main game. In the end, it’s a flawed, but still pretty fun addition to an already great game.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - Kept You Waiting, Huh?

The Japanese box art also features Kazuhira Miller.

I’ve only been a Metal Gear fan for a little over a year, but in that time I have become very familiar with the deep story and characters to the point that I am now eagerly anticipating the eventual release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (side note: I got into Metal Gear after the stealth announcement of Metal Gear Solid V at the 2012 Spike VGAs). Before getting there, however, I knew that I would need to play Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. I somewhat followed news of its release and knew about all of the controversial elements that Ground Zeroes would introduce to the franchise, but nevertheless I pre-ordered my copy of the game and waited for it to arrive in the mail on release day. Since I’ve finally had the opportunity to play Ground Zeroes, after heavily anticipating its release for a long time, I think that it’s a very good game with a great taste of what’s to come, but it could have used a little more meat on its bones.

In the year 1975, sometime after the events of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Big Boss works with the Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF) to infiltrate an American black site on Cuban soil called Camp Omega. His mission is to locate and extract two prisoners in the camp, Chico and Paz, who were both involved in the Peace Walker incident. Inside the camp, the leader of an organization called XOF, named Skull Face, informs Chico that Paz is dead and hands him a tape recorder before leaving the camp with the rest of his forces, who all discard their XOF patches while onboard the helicopter. At this point, Big Boss arrives on the scene to begin his mission while Kaz and Huey prepare for a UN inspection on Mother Base, which was scheduled in response to suspicions of the base housing a nuclear weapon obtained during the Peace Walker incident. Unfortunately, no one has any idea of what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Skull Face, leader of the mysterious XOF.

The story for the game is very short, clocking in at less than 90 minutes on my first playthrough, but also very powerful. Camp Omega is presented as a rather unsubtle metaphor for Guantanamo Bay and though it doesn’t really discuss anything relating to it apart from references in a post-credits timeline, it does present the conditions as deplorable and can incite conversation in real life about the prison. After the extraction of Chico however, things easily take a turn for the worse in one of the most climactic and shocking endings in the entire franchise. Really, I was in total awe with my jaw dropped and I couldn’t really react until the credits rolled. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending, but in any case it will be very interesting to see how The Phantom Pain expands on the idea of Big Boss falling into a nine-year coma after Ground Zeroes.

The gameplay is largely the same as other Metal Gear games, but with some big changes. First off, this is the first open world Metal Gear title, meaning that within the space of Camp Omega you are free to approach the missions however you please, be it running and gunning, total stealth, or somewhere in between. Ground Zeroes does not feature the ability to Fulton Recover enemies, though Kojima himself did explain it away by stating that it wouldn’t make sense for a chopper to keep circling Camp Omega if there was risk of it being shot down. For the most part though, there’s more of a DIY approach to certain things. For instance, you have to manually pinpoint where you want/need to go and manually take prisoners or enemies to a helicopter for extraction. Whereas in previous games you could not pick up an enemy gun and use it, you now can, as well as automatically collect ammo for guns you already have equipped. On that note, the number of weapons you can have on you is restricted even further, with only one or two big or small weapons, plus a few throwables, on you at a time. I have no idea if this change only applies to Ground Zeroes or if it will be carried over to The Phantom Pain, but in some ways I’m not entirely sure I like it; I suppose it just takes some getting used to though. Instead of a combat roll, Big Boss now does a dive move, which actually works pretty effectively in getting away from or even knocking over enemies.

The most notable change though would be the iDroid interface. By pressing the Start button, with Select now serving as the pause button, you can bring up the iDroid, which can supply you with information regarding your mission, a map of Camp Omega and the ability to summon a helicopter to any pre-designated landing point. This interface takes some getting used to, partly because usage of the iDroid is performed in real time, so you have to make sure you won’t be killed if you need to do something with it. Other changes include the ability to Sprint as well as increased CQC commands and regenerating health. That last one is a bit controversial, though it should be noted that you can still be shredded by gunfire if you’re too reckless.

This shot may be from an Xbox version, but it still shows off the iDroid.

Enemy AI is also a bit smarter this time around. The guards at Camp Omega will respond to both sight and sound, now with more objects that generate sound, and can easily catch you if you’re not careful. When you are spotted, you go into reflex mode, which is essentially the fight-or-flight response turned into a game mechanic; you can either shoot the enemy to neutralize them before they alert others to your presence or you can run/dive out of sight. No matter what you do, don’t think that you’re entirely safe. If you incapacitate a guard, you’ll need to hide the body and if you run you’ll need to find a safe hiding spot; in either case, the guards are pretty good at sweeping the area where they last saw you, though it’s possible for you to be far, far away from everyone if you’re good enough. It probably sounds like I’m reiterating what was already important in previous games, but I feel like I need to explain how this applies to the open world setting. Also, when alert mode is triggered, you will be alerted in the bottom right corner by the iDroid, which feels like a natural extension of Peace Walker’s status system.

Graphically, this is easily the best looking Metal Gear game, or just plain game for that matter, that I have seen in years. The Fox Engine is a real technical marvel, showing off a lot of dynamic lighting and hair and cloth physics even on seventh generation hardware (I played the PS3 version). Both night and daytime are something incredible to look at and it’s easy to want to replay a mission just to look at how the Fox Engine enhances the feel of the game. The character models also look very realistic to the point that they blur the line between fiction and reality, all without dipping into the uncanny valley; this seems to show off just how good Yoji Shinkawa’s art style is. The fact that we’ve even reached this point in graphics capability is impressive at all, but it’s even more impressive to know that it’s coupled with good and responsive gameplay. As an interesting touch, the entirety of the Ground Zeroes mission in Camp Omega is also one continuous unbroken shot.

The Fox Engine at work.

Of course, I’ll now need to address the most controversial aspect of the game (before a supposed internet leak of stuff from the finished product): Kiefer Sutherland, best known as Jack Bauer in the series 24, replacing longtime voice actor David Hayter as the English voice of Big Boss. I wasn’t entirely sure what to think of this at first, since I never really paid attention to Kiefer Sutherland, but after seeing and hearing his performance in this game (Sutherland also performed facial capture for Big Boss), I think they made the right choice. It still takes some getting used to Hayter not voicing a Snake protagonist, but Sutherland’s delivery captures the emotional journey Big Boss has gone through after Peace Walker and all through his experiences at Camp Omega and the cinematic ending. I’m now looking forward to seeing how he will perform during The Phantom Pain.

James Horan, known to Transformers fans as Wheeljack in Transformers: Prime and to others as the cowboy in those 5-hour Energy commercials, is also a new voice actor to the series, voicing the villain and XOF leader Skull Face. At first people weren’t sure what to think after the extended Ground Zeroes trailer was released, showing off the first cinematic in the game. However, like with Sutherland after the leak, people began to warm up to him. Personally, I think Horan did an impressive job as Skull Face. At times he sounds genuinely terrifying and his lines are delivered with such conviction that you can’t help but be in awe by his performance. It will certainly be interesting to see how he continues the role in The Phantom Pain.

Returning voice actors from Peace Walker also have some good delivery despite not having as many lines, for the most part, compared to Sutherland; we have Robin Atkin Downes as Kazuhira Miller, Christopher Randolph as Huey Emmerich, Antony Del Rio as Chico and Tara Strong as Paz. They, for the most part, have the same delivery as in Peace Walker, but the range of emotions brought on by the dark events at Camp Omega, as well as the ending, cement just how good everyone is at voicing these characters. As I’ve said with Sutherland and Horan, I want to see how they do in The Phantom Pain.

Like in previous titles, the music is composed very well, this time by returning composer Harry Gregson-Williams. I’ve always been impressed by his Metal Gear work and this is no exception, especially during the console-exclusive Déjà Vu mission where he remixes classic music from Metal Gear Solid. Also noteworthy is the use of the song “Here’s To You” by Joan Baez and Ennio Morricone from the film Sacco e Vanzetti. The significance of its usage is actually brought up at one point and every single time it’s used the tone of Ground Zeroes manages to put the whole song in a much darker context. The song by itself is actually pretty good, but it’s interesting how its usage here is all too appropriate.

Before I end my review, I feel I should address the most polarizing aspect of the game, that being the amount of content. For $30, the game comes with one Main Op (Ground Zeroes), four Side Ops and one console-exclusive Extra Op unlockable by collecting all nine XOF patches during the Main Op; on PS3 and PS4 you get Déjà Vu and on 360 and Xbox One you get Jamais Vu. Since I bought the PS3 version, I got the Déjà Vu mission, which has Big Boss going around Camp Omega and recreating specific scenes from Metal Gear Solid. It’s a fun mission and definitely one worth repeating, though be aware that you don’t get any tranquilizers (because MGS1 didn’t have them) and dialogue repeated from MGS1 is also re-enacted by Kaz and Big Boss. Apart from that mission, the content shared across all versions admittedly doesn’t amount to very much. It’s true that completing Ground Zeroes only gets you a 10% completion ratio, you can unlock a Hard Mode for each mission you beat and there are a lot of incentives to replay every mission, especially since whatever you get will transfer to The Phantom Pain, but I still wish there could have been more content to satisfy my Metal Gear itch. I still like what I got to play, but being able to play more would be the biggest improvement of all; that said, I’ll probably return to each mission a few more times in the future so I can transfer more stuff down the line.

When you see this, the investment suddenly feels entirely worth it.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is an interesting game. Is there enough content? Not entirely. Are there improvements all around? Yes, for the most part. Is Kiefer Sutherland capable of taking on the mantle of Big Boss? He most certainly is. There may not be enough to satisfy everyone, but I felt that the investment was worth it overall. With tons of replay value and a great taste of what’s to come next, I think existing Metal Gear fans will enjoy it, although those who are more hesitant can wait for a price drop. Newcomers should not begin here, unless they listen to every cassette tape available before playing and have a friend with them who is willing to explain everything as it comes up. Instead, I would encourage them to begin with Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Now I really can’t wait to see what Kojima has planned for the future.

To Be Continued in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Tactical Espionage Operations

Note: The following review is based on both the PSP and PS3 versions of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the latter of which was played via Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection.

In about a year’s time, I’ve gone from knowing nothing about the Metal Gear franchise to knowing nearly everything about its story and characters. Since I first played Metal Gear Solid for PS1, I’ve become completely drawn in by the world the games have set up and have now been eagerly anticipating new installments, one of them being the recent Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. My attention has now been drawn to Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a game which I have been following coverage of since I became more aware of it. However, I realized that in order to understand its events, I’d have to play the previous chronological entry, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. To that end, I got the PSP version and began playing it, but then switched to the PS3 version partway and completed it there. I’ll explain how and why later, but the important thing is that I ended up liking Peace Walker, although I felt some of the gameplay tweaks and revamped mechanics needed a bit of getting used to.

In 1974, ten years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (MSG3), Naked Snake, now known as Big Boss, has created his own army, the Militaires San Frontières (MSF; translates to Soldiers Without Borders), composed of those who have abandoned all ties to their home country. On November 4, at Columbia’s Barranquilla Coast, MSF deputy commander Kazuhira Miller introduces Snake to two potential clients from Costa Rica, Paz Ortega Andrade and Ramón Gálvez Mena. Gálvez explains that since Costa Rica has no army, he was given authority by the Costa Rican government to hire MSF to protect them from an invading armed group. Kaz encourages Snake to send MSF as protection, but Snake is reluctant to do so. As persuasion, Gálvez takes out a SONY Walkman, which he gives to Snake, and plays a cassette tape containing a recent recording of The Boss’ voice. Surprised, Snake agrees to help out and is provided an offshore platform in the Caribbean as a base, which is dubbed Mother Base. Six days later, MSF leaps into action. During his mission, however, Snake learns information revealing that there’s a lot more going on than he initially thought.

Ramón Gálvez Mena as he appears before Snake.

Written by Hideo Kojima, the story of Peace Walker is pretty much a direct continuation of MGS3, since The Boss is an important element of the overall plot. She serves as the motivation for Big Boss’ actions and her past and ideals are frequently brought up and discussed. That said, the story is very well-written. Big Boss’ journey leads him to meeting new characters, all of whom are well-rounded, though we don’t always get a glimpse of their entire personality. Every single character is important to the plot and a couple, Huey Emmerich and Kazuhira Miller, are also important to the events of other games chronologically. The game’s theme of nuclear deterrence is also heavily discussed, with characters Huey Emmerich and Dr. Strangelove at the center of the issue via their creation of the eponymous Peace Walker AI weapon. I like how the search for Peace Walker is played with gradually increasing urgency across four lengthy chapters until it reaches a very emotional climax and ends in a way that caps off the major events of the story perfectly.

Peace Walker as it is first seen.

Of course, I feel I should mention at this point in time that while you do go through four chapters to get to the end, there is a fifth chapter that is only accessible after the credits have rolled. This chapter requires the player to go through certain motions or fulfill requirements to keep it going and it doesn’t take very much time to finish. That said, this chapter is also home to some very major plot twists, which I won’t spoil so that you find out for yourself. If chapter four is the emotional climax, then chapter five is more like an epilogue, which isn’t that bad considering the length. At the same time it hints at future adventures for Big Boss, which makes me all the more curious about the events of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

The gameplay in Peace Walker is different from the approach the other games have taken. Rather than simply play through one continuous story, the game is divided into chapters, further subdivided into individual Main Ops missions that take varying lengths of time to complete. As you play through each chapter, you are also encouraged by Kaz to knock out your enemies and use the Fulton Recovery System on them so they’ll end up in Mother Base and expand the MSF’s ranks. By replaying missions, you can not only capture more soldiers for Mother Base, but you can also repeat fights against vehicles to expand your arsenal or have a rematch against one of the AI weapons to obtain parts and AI boards for weapons of your own. Apart from the Main Ops, there are also Extra Ops where you complete different challenges, such as recovering POWs or obtaining classified documents, to gain rewards and further Mother Base’s potential. It gets easy to adapt to this mission setup, but there are a couple elements that will take longer to do so.

Mother Base after a good deal of expansion.

One of these elements is that not only do you have to make sure MSF has a good number of people in it, but you also have to manage Mother Base itself. You are responsible for putting different soldiers into different divisions, like R&D and Combat, with more divisions of Mother Base becoming available as you advance through the story. You can Auto Assign people to these different divisions, but eventually you’ll probably be forced to make some decisions manually and even end up firing those who contribute the least. Your R&D division also relies on GMP from Combat to determine what weapons and items they can develop, with some naturally taking longer than others (completing missions will move time forward). At first I found myself greatly understaffed, which caused me to have low division ranks (which also determine what R&D can do), but when I finished playing I was nearly at capacity, so I would suggest taking some time to figure out who you think really deserves to be at Mother Base to advance development and keep things running as smoothly as possible.

There's also a surprise special guest.

The other element that takes getting used to is the general control scheme. You can choose between three different layouts, with one being based on the earlier Portable Ops, one based on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS4) and another based on the Monster Hunter game series (which, if my research is accurate, inspired the Mother Base management element). I chose Shooter Type so it would feel more natural, down to adjusting the control scheme to mimic classic Metal Gear gameplay as closely as possible. This helped me get through the game better, but having played both the PSP and PS3 versions (I’ll explain how in a bit), I would suggest playing on PS3 due to the better camera and weapon/item selection controls. On that note, items and weapons can, on PS3, be accessed with L2 and R2, but requires you to still scroll left and right in real time on a menu that takes up a majority of the screen. I’m more used to the action pausing to let me switch, so I needed more time to adjust to this method. I also liked certain changes from MGS3, like not requiring the player to go through menu after menu to heal or change camouflage patterns, since you select one camo to use for the mission and “Ration = Health” is reintroduced, along with more cardboard box options and other healing items. The Psyche gauge makes an appearance from MGS4 in place of Stamina, which results overall in a pretty solid hybrid of MGS3 and MGS4 gameplay. I now wonder where future games will go with this idea.

Since I’ve mentioned Monster Hunter, I’d like to spend a little time on that. By completing certain requirements (listen to all of Chico’s briefing files about mythical creatures, then almost complete Extra Ops 029 but go to the ocean instead of the Fulton Recovery Point, then go to the end of the bridge and watch a cutscene), you can unlock missions where Snake fights different creatures from the Monster Hunter franchise. Having never played Monster Hunter, I still found this crossover idea interesting and actually felt my adrenaline going during combat. However, these missions can also be very difficult depending on your strategy, so I only got to beat the first one, Rathalos. These fights can also get majorly annoying, particularly when you mix persistent Velociprey creatures with relentless attacks from the boss creatures, especially Tigrex (who I died against every single time I challenged it). Still, this offers the game quite a bit of replay value and is a good treat for Monster Hunter fans.

Believe it or not, this is even more challenging than it looks.

Before I go into the technical aspects of the game, I’d like to point out one major continuity error. This has nothing to do with the number of minor retcons, like making it so it wasn’t Huey (Otacons’ dad) but rather his dad (Otacon’s grandfather) that was involved in the Manhattan project, as Metal Gear does it enough that you just have to roll with them for the story to still make sense. This is actually about something that one might overlook that goes through the entire game and some might say that I care too much to point out: Snake’s eye patch. In MGS3, the player gets to see the moment Naked Snake (not yet Big Boss) loses his right eye before gaining his iconic eye patch. This moment is so poignant and important to Naked Snake’s development that the game even alters the First-Person aiming so the player is only seeing out of his left eye, forcing one to try and adjust how they fire to make up for this. In Peace Walker however, no matter who Big Boss is fighting, regardless of it being a cutscene or manual aiming, he is always aiming out of his right eye, which means that he is somehow looking through the eye patch to fire off a weapon. After a while I stopped worrying about it, but I could never really let this little detail go because it goes against everything that should logically happen in a universe that is already very realistic (except for the giant robots and technological marvels of course). Hopefully this is just a one-time thing.

Seriously, how is he doing that? Is it nanomachines or something?

Since I mentioned it before, I’d like to explain how I was able to play both versions of the game for this review. When Metal Gear Solid HD Collection was in production, Kojima Productions developed a new technology that Hideo Kojima called “Transfarring” (a portmanteau of “transferring” and “sharing”). This technology allows someone to begin playing Peace Walker on the PS3 and then transfer their save to the PSP version so they can keep playing it on the go; this mindset also applies to the HD Collection in general since you can move your files to and from the Vita version. For veteran PlayStation users, you may recognize this as the Cross-Play technology introduced to PS3, PS4 and Vita, which is essentially a widespread adoption and integration of the Transfarring technology. In my case, I began on PSP before Transfarring to PS3 for the better control scheme. I may not have any Trophies for doing so, but at the very least I was able to more comfortably play and finish the game.

The Transfarring screen for Peace Walker.

Graphically, Peace Walker is actually pretty good. Of course, the character models on PSP look more akin to an average PS2 game, and the PS3 version, though in HD, is simultaneously better and kind of the same, but the backgrounds are amazing. I never got tired of looking at Costa Rica, with the amazing attention to detail on the flora and fauna of the area. I was reminded quite a bit of MGS3, especially in the background noises, but I can’t fault the game for trying to be as detailed as its brethren and, in some ways, succeeding. As usual, Yoji Shinkawa’s art style is really good in Peace Walker, as the new characters go in with the recurring cast perfectly; Paz in particular is actually pretty cute.

The high art quality actually carries over to the cutscenes, which were actually better than anticipated. Ashley Wood, from what I read, was heavily involved with the art for Portable Ops, but in Peace Walker he is actually credited as a guest artist; the art style used throughout is more akin to Yoji Shinkawa, who led a team of artists for the game. To me, this style suits the game better than Ashley Wood going solo, who I still say is best for horror comics, and I think the game is better off for it.

The general style of the cutscenes (Pictured: Paz).

Peace Walker also features very good voice acting. David Hayter returns as Naked Snake, although his voice sounds raspier than usual. Christopher Randolph also returns to voice Huey Emmerich, which makes sense given that Huey is Hal Emmerich’s father. While his performance is not completely unlike Otacon, there’s something a little different about it to set the two characters apart from each other. Tara Strong and Steve Blum, two of my favorite voice actors in general, also return to the series (having previously appeared in Portable Ops) to voice Paz and Ramón respectively. Both of them give strong performances that lend a lot of depth to their characters, which helps the vocal quality in general. Overall, everyone involved does such a good job and I hope this level of quality carries over to future games.

Lastly, the music is very good as well. There is a lot of range in the compositions with plenty of style changes throughout the course of the game. When there is a sense of urgency or triumph, the music perfectly reflects that, but the lack of music in certain situations is also good as it keeps you on your feet.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is an excellent addition to the Metal Gear franchise. The story directly continues from MGS3 in a brilliant way and nuclear deterrence is discussed in fascinating detail. The gameplay changes things up quite a bit and, while it takes some time to get used to it, it’s a very natural evolution and hybridization of MGS3 and MGS4’s gameplay styles. I would highly recommend existing fans to check it out, but I would also strongly suggest playing it on PS3 for the sake of a better control scheme. Newcomers to Metal Gear shouldn’t even try to start with this one, as they’ll likely become lost by the references to previously existing events. In that case, I’d suggest actually playing the rest of the games first, beginning with Metal Gear Solid and going forward by release order. Considering what’s on the horizon, this is an essential game in the franchise that there is really no excuse for fans to miss.

[Revised 3/27/16]