Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PlayStation 4) Second Opinion Review

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain began life as a PS3 and Xbox 360 game early in development, and running on PS4, it is not apparent. The visuals are utterly gorgeous, and the Fox Engine proves it would have been a true power house in game development and is capable of so much, from having a rock solid 60 frames per second all while computing dozens of AI enemies, vehicles, large robots, photographic textures, AI partners, and characters with the most life-like animations operating in vast open world locations. Between returning to the custom Mother Base and exploring the beleaguered maps of Afghanistan or Africa, the emergent gameplay has profound impact on the surroundings.

When enemy soldiers become alerted to Big Boss' presence, unless he took steps to sabotage their comms equipment, they will notify other surrounding bases for back up, or will be on alert, as well. All of this can be seen from the iDroid device, which has a real-time satellite feed of the goings-on of the battlefield, showing enemy movement, whether it is by vehicle or foot, no matter how far away they are. Of course, Big Boss always has options, and in The Phantom Pain he has more than any before thanks to the support team (which can be levelled up), so calling in for supply drops or airstrikes (at the cost of in-game currency) is always viable. The amount of options and potential strategies in is almost overwhelming, since pretty much every play style is accounted for; in fact, there is so much here that there is a good chance many people may never even try it all in a single playthrough. The Phantom Pain is a technical feat and it is remarkable that Kojima and his team were able to construct such a massive and meticulous world that runs so smoothly.

The core gameplay of MGSV, like always, is centred on infiltration. While the world is large and open, the principles of MGS are still preserved thanks to all the cool toys and abilities that can be utilised for approaching almost any situation. Fans of the second act of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will feel right at home in these more wide open and varied locales, with various enemy soldiers on patrol and the many smaller indoor areas to hide in. It is especially exciting when, while approaching an encampment, an enemy sniper that was overlooked takes aim, and suddenly things get very tense and whole strategies have to be rethought out. Many times, these sorts of things are unscripted and will just sort of happen, and it is not limited to just soldiers, but some dangerous wild animals, too. By far the most helpful of Big Boss' abilities is the series' oldest move: crawling. Mastering crawling in this game is key to victory, since it may not always be apparent when the best time to use it is, as it does slow Big Boss' movement and quite a few missions are time sensitive.

With every new Metal Gear Solid release, the games have been getting longer and longer; Peace Walker, in particular, is a formidably long game rife with replayability, making it easy to drop over 60 hours and not feel its length. The Phantom Pain outdoes this, and despite being a game that can easily outdo most RPGs in terms of length and content, it is easy to lose track of the time while playing, and before it's realised, there are over 100 hours clocked.

Kojima has been very vocal about his reverence of the Grand Theft Auto games, mostly because of their emergent and high replayability that makes it so anyone can craft their own stories while playing what is still, essentially, a linear plot. The core game of The Phantom Pain is as such. Big Boss has a list of main missions that can be completed that have been designated to a specific area, with their own set of parameters and optional parameters (for those who dare for a greater challenge), and the side-ops, which do not have any real specific parameters and do not have any grading system, as well as not being confined to any boundary. Typically, the main missions have impressive set pieces, as well as surprises that anyone who has played a Metal Gear game before would expect. The side-ops are the typical fare of grinding-type missions that Far Cry fans would be familiar with, which are kind of cool, but can wear thin after a while. These are best described as diversions or breaks from the more tense and methodical main missions, and, really, are best in smaller doses.

Big Boss is not just limited to conflict, but can violently mess around with his Fulton recruits to increase their morale while roaming the absurdly large Mother Base, which can be expanded for greater weapons and equipment, or will be used for the FOB missions, which are basically online raids of other player bases. While a novel and creative concept, it does have a negative impact on the solo game, since the online connection is pointlessly absurdly tied to the iDroid menu, which will lead to ridiculous load times for opening up what is just a menu, making it best to just play offline while playing the main game. Mother Base itself, while having some anaemic use in solo play, is mostly for show and exploring its immense struts that clearly are meant to evoke memories of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty's Big Shell location; ultimately, it does not serve much of a purpose, and leads to running around and doing nothing. The odd visit to Mother Base is fine once in a while, but it is best to just stay in Afghanistan or Africa where the real substance takes place.

The Phantom Pain is a pretty incredible game with a great cast of characters; however, it must be mentioned that the recasting of Big Boss at this juncture was a grossly miscalculated creative choice by Kojima. In this story, the decision to make Big Boss a semi-silent protagonist is a bit perplexing, but understandable given the chilling circumstances of the plot. However, since David Hayter has always been the voice of Big Boss in his prime, it is extremely jarring when he actually does talk because, sadly, it sounds like Kiefer Sutherland is phoning in his performance and gives flat line delivery. It's like entering an alternate reality where all the pictures of your father are of a different man, and everyone recognises him except for yourself, and they all insist that it is him, but no matter how much squinting is done, it just does not register as someone that is supposed to be recognisable. It is only distracting because Kiefer Sutherland does not sound like the character at all, and fails to deliver the lines that anyone who has played these games in this series would know, taking the player out of the experience. David Hayter's absence is sorely felt here for what is the final send-off of a legendary character he carefully crafted for years.

Losing David Hayter is not the worst aspect of The Phantom Pain. It is no secret that this title has had a troubled development, with Hideo Kojima butting heads with the high level executives of Konami, culminating into his departure of the company, so it is no surprise that there would be some executive meddling with how The Phantom Pain would be tampered with, but no one could have expected this and no other publication is covering it.

The true ending, and what can be best described as the series epilogue, can only be seen by those who have purchased the outrageously expensive Collector's Edition of The Phantom Pain. The Collector's Edition comes with a bonus disc that contains a cut-scene that is the final end of the story. The standard editions will have everyone pour over a hundred hours of gameplay, with the final moments being rushed, and the reason being is that Konami possibly cut all funding and could not be bothered to incorporate the game's finale, which only is included in the CE bonus disc. The ending itself isn't even a fully completed animation, thus leading some credence to this theory, and the fact that Konami is abandoning video games further emphasises this point that it just didn't care. It is the most tragic aspect of what could have been the game of the year that many people who bought it will have to go to YouTube to see how it ends. The obnoxious microtransactions are nothing compared to this irresponsibility and carelessness that Konami has displayed here, and it is appalling. Other grievances that everyone will have to endure are the dreadful server issues for some of the online features. The FOB missions rarely ever play out smoothly, and it is pure luck if a successful connection is made. At the time of this review, Metal Gear Online and all of its features are still not available.

The Phantom Pain is a legendary game full of daring creative choices, some of which are strokes of genius, and while some can lead to annoyances - such as the long helicopter flights, or the downright illogical recasting of the hero - it is a beautiful looking game that is mechanically sound and sets the bar high to nigh unreachable heights for all sandbox games to come. MGSV is great because of its journey and not because of the complete package (which is incomplete). Even with its flaws, it is unlikely there will be a game that is this ambitious or polished (barring the save corrupting bug that needs to patched), and will probably go down in gaming history as the great "What if" of its time due to the heinous corporate meddling.

In the end, The Phantom Pain's pros vastly outweigh its cons, and is legitimately one of the better Metal Gear games that, even though isn't perfect, people will still love because it has so much character and attention to detail that has been the Kojima signature for decades. Should Konami dare to continue the series after this game, do not accept it. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the final game in the franchise and anything beyond it from here on out is betrayal.