Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Before I get to the review I would like to address a few things:

1. The ethical issues at Konami detailed by Austin earlier this year (http://bit.ly/1Wb94iz). These working conditions are unacceptable and put a black cloud over the game. Despite this, these issues will have no effect on the review of the actual game. I included this piece because it is very much worth bringing issues such as this into a much larger conversation.
2. I started this review about 2 weeks after the game came out and have been adding to it since. The way the updates have changed things will not be reflected in this review, but will impact my thoughts come GOTY time.
3. I also played the whole game in offline mode because the server were down for almost the entirety of the first few weeks.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a strange game. On one hand, it has some of the year's best gameplay systems and tackles some important issues that are rarely approached in games. On the other hand, it is one of the most to poorly written and borderline insulting games I've ever played. For every moment of sheer brilliance, there are moments that make me question whether or not I should even be enjoying the game. For context, I have been a massive Metal Gear Solid fan ever since I got my hands on Metal Gear Solid 2 about 5 months ago and ran through most of the following games. While I may not have the nostalgic reverence for the series that many people such as Anthony and Ashly Burch do, the Metal Gear Series grabbed me and has quickly become one of my favorite franchises in any medium (both of the people mentioned will be brought up multiple times in this review because of their recent critique/celebration of the original Metal Gear Solid, aptly titled “Metal Gear Solid”). With Metal Gear Solid V, I knew exactly what to expect but despite this, I left profoundly confused about how to feel about it. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to wade through this internal conflict in order to find out whether I actually enjoyed my 100+ hours with this game, as well as using the Burch’s criticisms to see some of the ways the series has and has not changed over 17 years.

First the good. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain features some of the deepest, most well connected, and downright best gameplay systems I've ever seen in a game. As with every other Metal Gear game, this one is also stealth first. Unlike those past games, this one is far more focused on actual stealth. When talking about Metal Gear Solid 1, Anthony Burch says, “It’s easy to think of MGS1 as being a nonstop stealth smorgasbord, but a surprisingly large percentage of the game consists of Call of Duty-esque scripted action sequences, rather than thoughtful player-driven stealth… Stealth only occupies the spaces between these linear blockbuster scenes. Stealth is the mortar connecting MGS1’s bricks” (p. 89). The open nature of The Phantom Pain completely changes that by being all about thoughtful player driven stealth and there is massive variety in the types available. Big Boss can sneak up on enemies and knock them out, use a tranquilizer dart to take them out from medium range, use a silenced sniper rifle to take out enemies from afar, or even use mines that disperse sleeping gas to complete a mission without ever being noticed. Another thing Anthony points out in the book is that stealth in most of the previous games isn’t highly rewarding due to the radar that shows where each guard is and even where they are looking, saying, “Often, it’s not hard to feel like you’re just playing Pac-Man…”(p. 79). In this game it is more realistic as the player must be aware of their surroundings at all times. There will be many times, especially early on, where a guard will catch the player completely off guard. In past Metal Gear games, when this happened the game might as well be over. Calling the shooting in previous games bad would be a massive understatement and in the book, Anthony writes in detail about just how poor the gameplay in those previous titles is, but succinctly states, “None of the Metal Gear Solid games controlled better than a horse-drawn buggy trapped in a swap made of fresh boogers. (Until Metal Gear Solid 4, at least)” (p. 79). This game however features some of the best third and first person shooting in any game I’ve played in quite some time. Every aspect of MGSV controls so well that it never feels like there is a weak option like there has been in previous games. Whether you choose to go full stealth, all guns blazing, or somewhere in between, the game never feels like it is punishing you for going against the whole “sneaking mission” nature of how each mission is set-up and also gives an ample amount of tools in order to succeed in a variety of ways. There are many different lethal and nonlethal weapons from which to choose, all of which can be researched and upgraded using this game's defining feature, Mother Base. The physical Mother Base is a series of platforms in the Seychelles waters and depending on which platform the player chooses to place soldiers, different items can be researched and unlocked. Investing in the medical branch leads to unlocking different types of armor, while putting those soldiers in the Intel branch will eventually lead to Big Boss getting real time, potentially game changing, weather reports and updates on enemy positions during missions (there is a massive advantage in knowing when a sandstorm is coming or when it's about to rain as both can massively change up play styles). By choosing which of the seven branches to invest in, the player can pick a specific piece of equipment or upgrade they want to work toward. Investing is done through a micromanaging menu that gives full control over all Mother Base members. This menu even gives the player the option to fire any troublemakers that may pop up. Early on it is easy to notice that the soldiers that first occupy the base will not be enough and new blood must be recruited. This is done two ways. After finishing a mission or side-op, new soldiers will automatically be recruited. The other method is one of the game's most endlessly entertaining features. The Fulton extraction system. After tranquilizing, stunning, or holding an enemy up, Big Boss is then able to tie a balloon to their waist, which shoots them straight up into the air to be collected by an extraction flight. This system can even be upgraded so that tanks and massive containers of raw materials can be extracted. At first Fultoning everything that moves might seem like a good idea, but after upgrading the binoculars to be able to scan the stats of each soldier, choosing which soldiers to extract becomes a game unto its own. There will be many missions where after scanning all the enemies, the game becomes a puzzle of how to get to the few worth extracting without being discovered or worse, injuring those few high level targets, all while maintaining perfect stealth. This Mother Base extraction meta-game is without a doubt the single best set of systems in a game since the nemesis system in my 2014 Game of the Year, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. On top of the extraction systems, the game will actually adjust to the style of the player. If you are racking up head shots left and right, enemies will be deployed with metal helmets. If all the missions were done at night, enemies will begin using flashlights and night-vision goggles. The game will make adjustments to any style of play to the point where enemies begin using some of Big Boss's own tricks against him by using decoys in various locations. These tactics can be countered by sending some of the Diamond Dogs out on deployment missions similar to those found in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Friendly soldiers can be tasked with taking out a storage shed, which will limit the amount of helmets that will be distributed to enemy forces, while another unit can disrupt supply lines limiting the amount of body armor and sniper rifles the enemy has access to. All of these gameplay systems connect in such an extraordinary way that it becomes more fun and rewarding to fulton enemies than it does to just kill them. A game with half of these features would still be incredible, but the way this one uses all of these systems to near perfection leads to one of the best playing games of the year.

And now the bad. When The Phantom Pain succeeds, it does so in a way above pretty much any game out there. When it fails, it fails in some of the most self-destructive ways imaginable. Throughout this review I have been, and will continue, quoting the brother/sister duo of Anthony and Ashly Burch. I did so because I recently picked up their fantastic criticism/celebration of 1998's Metal Gear Solid. Aptly titled after the game, the book examines every aspect of the original to its very core. 17 years later, many of the criticisms they pointed hold true for Metal Gear Solid V. In fact, certain aspects (which I’ll get to a bit later on) got FAR worse since 1998. The gameplay in The Phantom Pain is phenomenal, but it has some minor issues. It may give the player an insane amount of tools to use, but the problem there is that almost none of these tools can be used in combination with one another. In the book, Anthony equates the toolset of the original to a "big-ass key ring" where each tool has a specific use and can only be used in that one way. "Though MGS1 gives the player 29 tools to use, most of those tools don't synergize well with other items. What's the C4 do?... What's the stun grenade do?... What's the chaff grenade do?... Where as a good stealth game encourages the player to use their tools in combination with one another to solve problems, MGS1's tools are too shallow to be used for anything other than their most basic purpose" he adds (p. 74-75). With MGSV, very few of the tools given to the player are used in ways beyond their basic function. The cardboard box for example, can be used not only to hide but can also be used as a distraction, an incredibly silly way to lure enemies, and even a sled that can bowl over soldiers. Despite being one of the deepest items in the game, it still feels restricted to its own functions. The lack of interconnectivity feels restrictive and at odds with the openness of the rest of the game. When presented with an outpost or a massive stronghold, the possibilities seem endless but as the player does more experimenting it becomes clear that there are only a few ways to approach any situation. "The player is encouraged to be clever, but in a linear way- the game is made up of puzzles to be solved, rather than scenarios to be experimented with. A couple of the puzzles have more than one solution, sure, but even those moments are fairly shallow, offering a choice of several one-dimensional solutions rather than options if real depth" Anthony says of the original MGS (p. 76). A few sentences later, when talking about one moment in the game where the player must take out three enemies on a bridge, he adds, "There's no interesting back-and-forth, no planning or improvisation- just three equally valid and simple answers to a multiple choice test" (p.76). I pulled these quotes to offer a comparison to Metal Gear Solid V and they do a good job of illustrating the formula for the whole game. While there is some depth and a ton of fantastic back and forth between the player and the enemies, that is about all that has changed in this regard. There are some elements of planning but they are limited to which one of two ways the player wants to handle things and then scanning an area to find out the patrol paths of enemies (at least until D-Dog and Quiet are unlocked because they can pinpoint the location of every single person and object in an area before the player even gets there). After this, the game becomes a puzzle of how to get to an objective either stealthily or all guns blazing using a toolset that wasn't built for truly creative solutions. In amazing stealth games like Dishonored, players can use five completely unrelated tools in combination to pull of some of the most inventive ways of taking out an enemy I've seen in a game. MGSV’s gameplay feels too restrictive compared to the openness the rest of the game. For a game as massive as this one, it is disappointing that the things you can't do overshadow the things you can. When watching an episode of Metal Gear Scanlon V, Dan suggests trying to lure a bear into an enemy base. While Drew decided to tranquilize the bear and Fulton it back to mother base, a thing the game totally lets you do, I immediately tried Dan’s idea. After an hour and a half of attempting various methods, I discovered that not only is it not possible, the bear will actually stop chasing the player for no discernible reason when it gets to the edge of an arbitrarily decided area. I tried many different ideas in many different areas and one of the most creative combinations the game allowed was; place C4 at the bottom of a hill, run to the top of the hill, detonate the C4 to lure guards, sled down the hill in the box to stun the one guard who could actually be bothered to check out the massive explosion. While the lack of connectivity in the toolset is FAR from the worst transgression, it is disappointing that in a game where the player should be able to tackle every mission in an insane amount of ways using every tool available, there are only a few viable choices for most of them.

There are some other minor issues that I'll mention here because they are important enough to mention, but not important enough to get the attention of the monumentally bad aspects of this game. Small things such as; the repetitive mission structure, the unique boss fights from previous games being replaced by a rehash of a boss fight from Snake Eater and a literal bullet sponge (as in he will literally absorb bullets), the fact that there are only three boss fights in the game (possibly four but it's hard to consider fist fighting a child a true boss fight no matter how fitting it may be). The part that deserves the most criticism is the story.

To start with, the plot of The Phantom Pain is rather thin. It follows Big Boss's journey to rebuild Mother Base and the Diamond Dogs to not only get revenge on the man responsible for the destruction of the original, Skull Face, but also to wage war against the quasi-illuminati group known as Cypher. And that is pretty much what happens. Being one of the middle chapters of the overall Metal Gear story, predictability isn't inherently a bad thing, but the ways it gets to those connecting moments are some of the most poorly written story beats in the series. It is almost always clear where the Kojima wants to go with this game, but he gets there in some of the absolute dumbest ways possible. From deflating plot twists to the nonsensical justifications all the way to the ending that I loved even though it tries to tie the entire series together in the most slap-dash way possible, this story is full of some of the worst writing in a game this year. The most egregious examples of the writing exist in the characters. It would be an understatement to say that the majority of characters have less personality than the cardboard box (although to be fair, that box has more personality than 90% fictional characters and most real people). The main character of Big Boss has exactly two personality traits. He's either emotionally vacant or angry at all times throughout the game. These two traits are captured by Keifer Sutherland in a performance that sounds like he's reading out of a phone book, which normally would be horrible, but here it encapsulates the character to utter perfection. Big Boss is just another overly gruff and stoic character in a world full of overly gruff and stoic characters. That's not a condemnation of that archetype as it can be done incredibly well, such as Joel from The Last of Us who is as rough-and-tumble as they come but at all times shows an underlying vulnerability that not only makes the character far more interesting, it also heightens the drama in every scene. Joel makes me able to empathise with all his tribulations. Big Boss just makes me want to take a nap. (Worth noting: In the book, Ashly poses a fascinating question of how this type of character would come off if he were an NPC as opposed to the main character). Most of the other characters are similarly one dimensional, but some stand out for all the wrong reasons. The worst example is the main villain Skull Face. His backstory is so nonsensical and his motivations so unbelievably stupid that they completely undermine most of the story. Throughout the entire game there is really only one character who actually has any interesting qualities. But that one character is also one of the most insulting and embarrassing characters in a series that is no stranger to insulting and embarrassing characters.

The aptly named character of Quiet represents many of the ways the Metal Gear Solid series has been objectifying female characters in some of the worst ways for over 17 years. At first I didn’t have a problem with her appearance because before release Kojima had said there was a reason for the appearance and that reason would make players “regret their words and deeds”. While the explanation for why she wears nearly nothing works in that weird way that all things in Metal Gear make sense, it is incredibly flimsy. She is not the first character in the series to have that affliction, but those other characters are normally dressed and one even wears a full-blown ghillie suit. Even worse than that, later in this game she can be equipped with actual clothes, completely shattering every part of the explanation. Somehow even worse than this is anytime Quiet is on the command chopper with Big Boss, she cycles through a series of provocative poses that deliberately shove the character’s “assets” into the player’s face. The complete lack of any effort to make Quiet anything more than marketing material aimed at lecherous fourteen year old boys combined with the paper-thin explanation make the entire character insulting. In a year full of some of the best female characters in all of gaming, Quiet feels like a step back in so many ways. But this is nothing new to the Metal Gear Solid franchise. In the book I've been quoting throughout this review, Ashly Burch (who has recently become one of my favorite people on the planet) has quite a bit to say about how games treat female characters. There is one character in the original Metal Gear Solid that exemplifies all of my issues with Quiet. In the book Ashly says, "MGS1 sides with the time-honored idea that sexuality is the only source of female power. Well, in this case, it’s sexuality and a high-powered sniper rifle, but female sexuality and death are inextricably linked in the form of Sniper Wolf” (p. 102). It’s almost too easy to compare Quiet to Sniper Wolf (especially considering the unlockable Sniper Wolf outfit for Quiet). Both are relatively interesting characters that have rather intriguing backstories, both are defined by high powered sniper rifles, and both have some downright bizarre interactions with the two protagonists. Sniper Wolf becomes inexplicably obsessed with Solid Snake to the point where Ocelot warns him that she may fall in love with him before killing him. "Of course an assassin becoming obsessed with their target isn't an uncommon trope in fiction. But Wolf being a female assassin colors the nature of the obsession. It perpetuates an inaccurate and dangerous stereotype of women as crazy, clingy, and obsessive... If Wolf was simply obsessed with killing Snake, that would be consistent with a non-gender specific trope of assassins in fiction. But it's that obsession's connection with love and sexuality that causes it to spill into an unfortunate class of female stereotype" (Ash p. 103). The character of Quiet is similarly obsessed with Big Boss, however her obsession is worse because there is almost no positive interaction between the two for most of the game, despite the fact they are working together. In fact Big Boss openly mistrusts Quiet and on multiple occasions talks about how she will eventually need to be killed. Despite this, Quiet falls into some weird kind of one sided love with Big Boss. There is a scene where she takes a shower with Big Boss, there is a scene where she provocatively dances in the rain for... some reason, and there is a scene where she defends herself from being sexually assaulted while simultaneously removing her clothes. Quiet is a portable sandwich kit away from being a misogynist's idea of a "perfect woman". Having the game treat me as if I was still 14 years old, then giving me some flimsy explanation that I’m supposed to take at face value leads to the only game that has ever left me feeling insulted. Pretty much since the beginning, this series has featured some of the worst representations of female (and male for that matter) characters in an industry that is no stranger to this type of thing, but the female characters in Metal Gear Solid V are a massive step in the wrong direction. The only other major female character in this game is similarly objectified but to a much lesser extent because she is relegated to a side plot that may or may not actually be real. Sure the game does give players the option of playing as a female character after fultoning a few from the field, but that in no way makes up for the terrible treatment of major female characters. This issue is almost easy to ignore for many reasons but as Ashly simply puts it, “Because there’s so much that’s ridiculous about Metal Gear Solid apart from its representation of women, it’s easy to ignore the problems with its female characters and dismiss Kojima as wacky and lovable” (p. 143).

That last quote is the truest way to describe the entire series. This franchise has produced some of the most gleefully absurd moments in any series in the medium so it is incredibly easy to ignore all of the problems with the games. Sure The Phantom Pain allows players to shoot themselves in the face with a rocket propelled robot arm, but at the same time represents women in some of the worst ways possible. Sure you can sled down a hill in a cardboard box while listening to such hits as “Rebel Yell”, “The Final Countdown” or “You Spin Me Right Round”, but does that make up for a downright bad story? Does any of this actually matter in a game where a giant robot with a minigun dick literally kicks a tank at Big Boss seconds after literally throwing a helicopter his way? Those questions are for the player to decide, but for every bad thing that hasn’t changed since the original Metal Gear Solid, there are a dozen other things that have not only improved, but become some of the best parts in gaming. Sure everything about the story in this game is bad, but it is one of the best playing games ever made. Sure you may not be able to use items in interesting combinations with one another, but that in no way stopped me from throwing 100+ hours of my time into this game and enjoying every second of it. Over the past 17 years since the release of MGS1, Kojima has changed with each new iteration in the series, but has also been able to stay true to what he wants to do with games. In a medium where many games lack self awareness in the worst ways, “Metal Gear Solid is tonally defined by its willingness to embrace the fact that, yes, it is just a video game, and you are just a person twapping buttons on a hunk of plastic” (Anthony p. 42). This series is such a unique piece of gaming culture because it is willing to completely ignore the fourth wall and because it is one of the few franchises with actual, meaningful messages. While some other creators are fine with games just being games, “Kojima, meanwhile, made a game about a cyborg ninja fighting a metal Godzilla and he still managed to spend pages and pages on nuclear deterrence, genetic fate, and the cost of war… Kojima has the courage to say something. He may say it loudly and he may say it inarticulately, but he says it. More than that he says it earnestly...” (Anthony p. 158-159). Despite all of the things Kojima and his team may or may not have learned since the original Metal Gear Solid, the way this series has and hasn’t changed since then is remarkable. It’s amazing that someone with some of the most off the wall ideas can put them into their work while still having messages that most other stories rarely touch on, but at the same time if that person doesn’t learn after over 28 years of working on one continuous story, they will probably never fix what is truly wrong. These games have done some truly incredible things, they have done some incredibly dumb things, but they are a unique thing that no other franchise has ever even tried to take from and that is what makes it the one of a kind series that will forever have its place in gaming. I’ve spent many words detailing all the good and bad of this game, but it is hard to put in simple terms because there is truly nothing else like it, and there probably never will be. Despite all of its many problems Metal Gear Solid V is a wildly entertaining, sometimes serious, sometimes silly, jaw droppingly cinematic game that somehow pulled off the most impressive feat of hitting the ever elusive 1080p 60fps on consoles. It may be one of the most insulting and embarrassing games of 2015, but it damn sure is one of the best. Thanks for reading.

Likes: Incredible gameplay, some of the deepest and most well connected systems in any game, phenomenal licensed soundtrack, everything I wanted out of a Metal Gear game

Dislikes: Lack of synergy between items feels at odds with the freedom of the rest of the game, story is downright bad, fails to connect the series in any meaningful way, some of the worst portrayals of female characters in any game ever,

References:

Article about Konami’s working conditions:

Walker, Austin. "Report Reveals Restrictive and Hostile Working Conditions for Konami Employees." Giant Bomb. 3 Aug. 2015. Web. <http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/report-reveals-restrictive-and-hostile-working-con/1100-5251/>.

All quotes taken from the book “Metal Gear Solid”:

Burch, Anthony, and Ashly Burch. Metal Gear Solid. Los Angeles: Boss Fight, 2015. Print.

(http://bossfightbooks.com/products/metal-gear-solid-by-ashly-and-anthony-burch)

If you enjoyed my take on Metal Gear Solid V, or if you think I need to form my own opinions, feel free to leave some constructive comments. Thank you!