For the first time I find myself disagreeing with the masses in that I boot up mgs v and think to myself "man... Wish I was playing the witcher, why don't I?". sadly the main answer to that question is to talk to my friend about the ending and listen to the spoiler cast.

So I am starting to have contempt for this games length. I feel it doesn't earn it. Everything about mother base is complete bullshit. Half the systems feel irrelevant and the Missions (especially side ops) feel a bit samey. Lost count of how many prisoners I've extracted.

The game is fantastic, I just think there is too much fat and with my free time shrinking I find myself just playing rocket league. So in conclusion... Rocket league GOTY 2015!!!

Metal Gear has the least respect for the player's time of any game I've played in maybe the last three years.

If you think the game is too long, why are you doing side ops?

@spoonman671: I've stopped except when I need a chunk of cash. But yeah, I got too caught up in the zeitgeist and the opinion that side ops were awsome to the point where I'm 30- 40 hrs in and only on episode 27. I did it too myself. On the other hand I love open world games and the side content they present but none have burnt me out like mgsv

The actual act of playing MGS V is amazing. It plays incredible, sneaking around never gets old, the controls are perfectly on point. It's pretty much perfect from a gameplay perspective.

Everything else surrounding it is completely terrible. The systems, especially surrounding Mother Base, are convoluted and most of them have absolutely no reason to exist. It's at least five to ten hours too long. The story ranges from mind numbingly boring to intelligence insulting stupidity.

It's easily one of the best games of the year. But boy, do parts of it really fucking suck.

They exist to serve Mother Base, which has become increasingly disgusting. If you want to research the majority of the upper-tier gear, the extra GMP is needed. Some of those side ops link into important story stuff. It's a bloated game. Mechanically it's fantastic, but everyone surrounding the mechanics is awful. You could cut every single one of those side ops, save the old MB oldiers, and fold the important ones into the story, and you'd lose absolutely nothing of any real value.

I've quickly found that this is going to be a "long haul" game for me. Play a couple missions, do some base management/development, wrap up and come back when I need my fix. I find the experience a lot more satisfying in smaller chunks.

Otherwise, I start looking at the mission list and thinking "Man... gotta set up my loadout, watch the chopper drop me off, hope I brought the buddy I'll be wanting, head toward the mission proper... THEN I get to the good stuff... then I head back, get extracted, fire the minigun randomly while I wait for the fade-out, spend the next ten minutes in menus... I think I'll just do a side op and then go putz around Giant Bomb for a bit" (to clarify, I love every step of that process, just not ten times in a row).

This truly is an amazing game, and it'll almost certainly be my GOTY, but after the initial "yay, new game" binge session, I just can't play this the same way I do most games. The management stuff can feel very mobile-y, and like mobile games, it's best done a little at a time over a long period.

Glad others share this opinion. Was staring to think I was going crazy.mgsv has a lot of GOTY buz. Really interested to see if fallout steals metal gear thunder in that regard.

I think both games are great and I put 100+ hours into both of them.

Might pick up the Witcher 3 to compare and contrast. MGS V just seems to have so much filler to it. Enjoyable filler to play through but so many main missions carry no weight or consequence. Seems like Kojima told his team to double-down on content rather than shore things up once the release date was known.

I bought Witcher 3. It resulted in hundreds of hours of gameplay that is still adding up to this day as I trudge through a new game plus that is just as relentlessly engaging, addictive, and interesting as the first playthrough.

I bought MGS5, put 30 hours into it, and now it collects virtual dust in my steam library.

If Bethesda ends up making Fallout 4 require user mods to be enjoyable like Skyrim, then my game of the year is going to be pretty damn obvious (that is unless I get to Undertale. That's next on my list.)

Pick up the Witcher 3, it's an alright game. Everything you guys said about MGSV is pretty spot on.

I don't feel like you're against the mass at all, more people lean towards The Witcher as their GOTY I think than MGSV.

The side ops and returning main missions with handicaps sure can be seen as 'filler content', but I don't mind doing it because the gameplay is so damn good. The controls are perfect and the mechanics of the game are a joy to play with (even after 80+ hours) to me.

The Witcher has this filler content as well (free the village (fillage?) from monsters and see the cut scene with the 3 dudes walking towards it, for instance). Comparing the two games purely on how they play then it's a no brainer for me; MGSV feels like 2nd nature to me and The Witcher plays like having 250ms delay on the controller. The story is also its biggest selling point, but in the end in every quest you always hold the 'activate glowing path to the objective'-button (Witcher sense) and then do some hacking with your sword (and people complained about having little weapon variety in Bloodborne; this game only has swords!).

And still... I want to go back to The Witcher world some day soon. I've stopped playing after going to the big island (30 hours in or something). I feel like I have some unfinished business there.

Witcher 3 >>> MGS V

They share a few issues, but MGSV wins over Witcher 3 any day of the week for me, simply because I actually like playing MGSV while I did not enjoy Witcher 3s gameplay at all.

I like them both for different enough reasons, but I'm a Vinny-level gaming optimist, so whatever.

Witcher 3 had solid gameplay, even though you got what you needed to play so early. My answer for that was turning up the difficulty. By the time I was at the highest difficulty, any fight with any monster was something I had to be laser-focused for or I'd get wrecked. The tension made any fight I survived satisfying, especially if I was manipulating weaknesses to stay alive like Geralt would. In MGSV, I could bullshit my way to victory, but the number of tools available to do so make it meaningful and entertaining. Sadly, I had to actively handicap myself because the game got so easy, forcing myself to try for higher ranks that I'd normally ignore, and sometimes not using that insanely OP rocket punch. Christ, that thing is a win button, if I may be so bold as to sound like I'm fourteen.

Both have good stories (the Witcher had a better, more understandable arc, MGSV had that fun Kojima-crazy).

Witcher 3's side stuff was better written, better realized, and consistently entertaining. MGSV's side stuff was repetitive, but again, the crazier-by-the-minute tools available are what made it fun.

I'm at 135 or so hours in each game, but I have one mission left in MGSV to s-rank and I'm done forever. Witcher 3 I'm playing the new expansion, which is effing amazing, and can't wait for the next. It's been a damn good year for games, yall.

@teekomeeko: it truly has, its hard to believe that last year shadow of mordor was game of the year.

Are you doing anything else while you're doing the SideOps? Listening to podcasts/music? Watching TV? Episode 27 is a solid place to be. You're technically near the ending of the game. Beyond that, it doesn't take THAT long to activate the final states to see the proper end.

I enjoyed my time with MGS, but honestly, I could probably count the amount of hours where I was razor focused on the game with nothing else preoccupying my time on one hand..

I grew tired of the game as well. I think it controls great and there are a heck of a lot of options when it comes to how you want to play.

But I think most missions are too similar and the story doesn't interest me at all. I also think the world is very empty for an open world game, and that the second open area looks at least 3 years old visually.

I've played through the game and had grand designs to go through unlocking everything or finishing the remaining missions / side ops, but the latest economy updates and FOB crap about the game has really soured my opinion of it. I was already tired of wading through 8 messages trying to encourage people to build FOBs and steal other people's stuff so that they could make money. But logged on last night to find out that a) I was in the red on GMP because it couldn't find a server and b) my 3 hour in-game time dispatch with 60% success had failed for the third time in a row. Just turned off the game and took the disc out.

It's an amazing open world game from a gameplay perspective, but the story is not compelling and the Konami money-making crap really appears to have damaged the metagame, to the extent it wasn't already badly designed. I have a feeling if I hadn't already played through the game when the latest wave of bullshit started I would have quit before finishing and done the same as you.

Everyone has their thing. For me I'm finding very little to draw me into MGSv; its a great game, I love it, and it will be in my top 10 but I just laugh when I hear people talk about how researching something new draws them into the game. The landscape is lifeless, the enemies might as well be cardboard cutouts of the exact same soldier, there's absolutely nothing to draw me in in terms of story, and the side missions stopped being fun about the time that they stopped making new content for the game and you start rehashing the exact same ones over again. Even Mother Base stuff is the absolute most boring implementation of the concept I could imagine. They might as well have just made that part a management sim on another screen to keep you from having to load up new, pointless areas.

Again, its a "to each his/her own" thing because the Witcher 3 wows me. Each area looks unique and lived in opposed to MGSV's lifeless, dull landscapes. Side missions almost always have lore and an interesting story attached, there are whole types of missions that involve nothing but exploring, I find the combat find, and with the large number of enemy types the combat becomes more than just "ok...I'm telling Quiet to snipe that guy" or "tranq soldier #5,777".

Reading what I've typed it seems I'm being hyper critical but I do enjoy the game...I just wish Kojima had made an actual Metal Gear game and not given us the next evolution in Splinter Cell games. I would have appreciated something to do in the open world or a reason to travel on D-Horse or by foot. There is absolutely 0 reason to do any of that. Instead its go back to your helicopter, load up next to the mission, and go...unless you just use the cardboard box trip and then its the same thing again.

I want a reason to play more MGS5 besides "it controls well" but with Halo 5, Destiny being a good game finally, and other games coming out I think Metal Gear V is going to be relegated to the sidelines for me.

@the_nubster in all honesty that describes most of the game. Metal Gear games broke up the monotony by giving you boss battles that handled differently or parts where you were being chased or had to defend a spot against an enemy for a certain period of time. MGS5 is always "kill this guy/fulton this guy". Not to mention the high level research stuff really isn't that cool outside something like a rocket arm. Otherwise its just, "I want to use this gun that's been done to death in Call of Duty for the last 10 years."

Your title confuses me.

@alexw00d: the vibe I have got from the podcast and it's surrounding community is that the witcher 3 is pretty awsome but fuck that game I'm done, gimme that metal gear. Whereas I am feeling the opposite and wondered if others shared my opinion. It got to a point where I really liked the game... But no where near as much as the guys on the podcast.

I see. Yeah I got 80 odd hours of MGSV and I'm done too. I think I got every bit of story from it, just left side shit. Now Hearts of Stone is out I'm back with Witcher 3. I think I actually got my fill of Witcher 3 the first time before MGS even came out, did all the main and most of the side stuff in 90 hours. Glad there's more new stuff now though.

So tonight I gave the game another good crack. No side ops, just missions. I've been finding the game really easy so I've stopped taking d-dog and quiet (those buddies feel like you're using cheats imo) and it's improved my experience immensely.

Anyway... The game is a beautiful fucking mess imo and is a visionary masterpeice to some extent. I'm excited to see how it influences the likes of rockstar and... Well just rockstar really.

Honestly the road to the ending (mission 46) will go pretty quick now if you mainline it. Just do the yellow missions, yellow side-ops and listen to the yellow tapes... It won't take you that much longer I think.

It's hard to know what that means honestly, to me witcher 3 is the best RPG ever made and MGSV is one of/the best game i've ever played. 2 of my all time favorite games came out in the same year, amazing.

160hrs mgsv, 120hrs witcher 3(still haven't finished main quest line)

download dragon age inquisition ;)

Oh yeah, MGS5. I'm on mission 22 or so and haven't played the game in a few weeks. From what I hear it seems like Konami is determined to ruin the experience with online shit.

What's the word? If I play offline only and don't want to touch FOBs, am I screwed?

I love both games but they both have a similar problem of going on longer then they should. Witcher 3's main story quests are filled with so much padding and filler that it made it a slog to get past certain points. Though once you get over that hump the game is fantastic and magical again. MGS V should have been shorter. There is quite a bit of filler here as well, I think its a shorter uphill battle than its is for The Witcher but it's still there. Good thing MGS is so much fun to play or it would have been way harder to forgive it for its padding and pacing issues.

I think The Witcher 3's problems with pacing hurts it a lot more than MGS even though I enjoyed my time overall with The Witcher more.

@frytup: No, the people complaining about the online ruining the main game I don't think fully understand how the system works. You never have to engage with it (besides the main story mission) and it's never been a problem for me. The only time I was "invaded" is when I invaded someone else and they were getting payback. It has never happened randomly in the 100+ hours I've put into this game and my resources have never been lost due to someone taking them and I've always had plenty for what I needed.

Play onlIne for the extra FOB storage and deployment missions and don't worry about being invaded. If you never engage with invading other people you don't have to worry about being invaded.

MGS does sandbox better but hides the lack of cohesiveness of its open world by stimulating the player to run from camp to camp in order to fulton and collect loot to get the next toy.

The Witcher has worse controls but the world design, quests, and ambiance mitigate almost of it.

I give the edge to The Witcher just because its a landmark in game design.

This year, for me:

1- The Witcher

2- Bloodborne

3- MGS

lets wait for Fallout, but have my doubts that can be above these 3, knowing Bethesda's MO

This game completely fell apart for me around mission 25 and never recovered. The mission design goes massively downhill - instead of tightly-designed little stealth puzzles which felt like a mix of Far Cry and Hitman, you have terrible boss fights, annoying sniper alleys, forced battles with massive waves of shit enemies and so on. All while being unable to upgrade your weapons due to the stupid quarantine costing me a third of my staff - good luck if you never developed your lethal weapons before now! And the structure gets annoying. I went from loving it to really, really disliking it amazingly abruptly.

And that's to say nothing of the way Konami seem determined to screw you over on resources with the forced FOB stuff if you don't play for a couple of weeks.

I don't understand how people like Dan can play it for 100+ hours, seems like it would get tiresome long before then. That said, it would make my top 10 of the year based purely on the first 30 hours or so before I started to hate it. No higher than about 8th.

I haven't got around to Witcher 3 yet but I know I'll love it. The lack of any compelling motivation in terms of story, characterisation or just variety to plough on through the slack parts of MGS V is what put the nail in the coffin for me.

I forget if the community does goty polls or not. I remember the game of the generation stuff, which was a ton of fun to see/be apart of. Hope someone puts some work into making it (community goty) happen. This year definitely deserves it, as its been absolutely fantastic (for game releases).

@frytup: all that fob stuff is nothing man, just do it. I never got invaded in 160hrs of gameplay and now they have events where you can invade an npc fob withiut fear of retaliation. Even if you got invaded its really nothing but gmp and yoh can lock all your good dudes and they cant be taken. The media got people worried about a whole lot of nothing imo, just play the game and dont worry. As longas you dont invade you dont get invaded in my experience. And youll yave enough to beat the game without it,itll just take a bit longer to level up your crew.

As an absolute Metal Gear Fanboy since I was 5 years old, Id normally say that I think that Metal Gear would be my GOTY regardless of whatever else came out that year.

I played roughly 100 hours of MGS5 in the first week of its release.

I've played a total of 102 hours of MGS5.

Now, you may think that's because I've completed everything, but it's actually not.. I simply just have gotten totally bored of the way the game and systems interact. It becomes way too easy, full stop - Apart from roughly 1-2 missions, that can even be cheesed with the right equipment. There is a ton of value for $60, and a lot of variety, but there is not nearly enough story for this game to earn GOTY from me I'd say, but it's no doubt a 10/10 for gameplay until the last 25% of the game.

Witcher for me has the opposite problem.. It's a real bear to play, but a 10/10 on the story side for everybit that I've played so far.

MGS5 is unbelievable. Truly one of the best games ever made. Ya'll is crazy.

Those micro transactions are supremely out of place and leave a bad taste in my mouth though.

I can understand that opinion because the core gameplay loop in MGS5 is just so satisfying. Even so, if I were to take a step back and look at both games as overall packages - The Witcher 3 takes the cake. Sure, TW3's combat has some significant problems, but the world, the characterisation, the amount of effort that went into crafting the smallest side quests place it miles above every other RPG released in recent years. By contrast, the quality of MGS' overall package is extremely debatable. The story is virtually non-existent, the upgrade systems are poorly thought out - especially the UI (I mean, yeah, TW3 has UI problems too, but holy shit, nothing compares to having to manually quarantine half of mother base), the world isn't especially compelling or detailed and a large portion of the missions are copy-pasted.

I guess the inherent problem with 'getting into' TW3, so to speak, is quite simply that it's an open-world RPG. MGS is satisfying in short bursts. TW3, like Dragon Age: Origins or Baldur's Gate or *insert miscellaneous Infinity Engine game* before it, requires some amount of effort to actually sit down and immerse oneself. Each of these games has the potential to become incredibly addictive, but only if you dedicate the time to them.

MGSV is a great game, just... way too padded with bs. So far this year I would have to say my top games are:

1. The Witcher 3
2. Pillars of Eternity
3. Cities Skylines
4. MGS V

The Taken King would also knock MGS V down a place, but I don't consider that a proper 2015 game.

I agree both games are repetitive, but man MGSV is the one that caused me to get bored. I got real tired of the samey Side Ops, as I've never felt it necessary to develop beyond a sniper rifle, tranq. pistol and a few gadgets. As a result, I pushed through 10 or so main missions this weekend. Seriously, the Skulls Unit ruins that game. I dread any mission I see them in the credits for and am now stuck on Mission 29 (I just want to rap it up at this point). Fighting them is so different from the really tight controls/mechanics of stealth infiltration. The game is not suited to make fighting them at all fun. Anyone got any tips for Mission 29 (and the last few main missions for that matter?). I hear there are some repeat missions after this to get the "true ending", but it also sounds like seeing that ending is pretty damn disappointing. I may have to take a break after mission 31 and start in on some Fallout 4.