Metal Gear Scanlon: V - Part 26

Kept you waiting?

Can't wait for all the hot Weird Al references!

Metal Gear...?

Drew Fighting!!!

Ugh, those kid collecting side-ops were the worst. Right next to the escort mission with the kids.

No more kids in your games please, Kojima.

Huh?

Oh man you just sent me down a rabbit hole with these re-enactments

Pretty sure throwing a grenade on a wounded and surrendered enemy combatant is a War Crime, Drew.

This feature's still going, huh?

So only one main mission left (41) until Shining Lights, then 45, and finally 46. If they do at least one of these per episode that's four episodes to go.

@teddie: What makes them any different from standard prisoner extraction side-ops? I remember knocking these out in a very short time with no difficulty.

The part where they're required to advance the story.

Dan even mentioned the challenge task rewards this time, but there they stay . . . untouched. This is driving me insane.

Drew finds the target, precedes to sprint in the opposite direction.

The film talk is fun, but I wish they would pay at least a little bit of attention to the game. Complaining about the game at this point would be like someone closing their eyes and whining about how dark it is. At least they admit it.

These two need a 90's film feature or something.

Also "me-me" I hate you Dan. I love you Dan.

Metal Gear Scanlon V might be one of the most disrespectable series that Giant Bomb has ever done.

Drew and Dan really don't care about what they are doing in the game. They know whatever they put out Giant Bomb members will watch. They have no respect for the audience.

On the other hand take Project Beast. It is the complete opposite. There is actual editing and production involved. Team GBeast actually cares about what they are doing. On top of that it is a free video.

MGScanlon went from top tier Giant Bomb content to literal D-Horse shit.

/rant

I think Quiet may be available again...

It seems like a lot of the unfinished feeling missions in Act 2 aren't Kojima directed/by in the credits, if I remember correctly. I'd wager the kid collecting may be the same, even though the side ops don't show credits. They're so filler-y, and would have served the same story function as just collecting them all in one mission. So inconsiderate of your time. I wish Act 2 had just been structured: Numbered Mission>Cutscene>Numbered Mission>Cutscene. It isn't like the game was too short; it just needed to get to the conclusion.

@surfincoffin

Quiet is available like one mission after that cut scene. There was even a point in last episode where Drew accidentally went into the buddy list and it showed Quiet good to go.

Major spoilers inc.

After *that* mission you lose her for "good".

JK do the mission where you fight her in a sniper duel eight times and you get her back.

If you do the hard version of her mission you also get a sniper wolf skin. Easy way to do that is to just drop a sleeping gas bombardment on her.

maybe mgs5 should be a better-paced game then

You are more than welcome to your opinion, but I personally cant blame drew for getting a little tired of metal gear, at some point there is not much more to talk about 30 hours into the 5th game in the series, especially when your doing these shorter child rescue missions,and it takes so long to find the right menu option to accept the mission, take the helicopter ride, drive out in the jeep, and then spend 5 minutes running threw the back door of the base and running out the back with the hostage.

no crazy metal gear story bullshit to keep you interested or new interesting mechanics or other special bits of the game to interact with, just good solid core mechanics that are starting to wear a little thin along with your patience.

As far as it being disrespectful to the audience, I personally came to GB for the kind of off topic, off the cuff fun that first I saw in the giantbombcast. I will definitely admit that metal gear scanlon has gone on long enough for my taste, and would like to see a new feature, I just think its a little harsh to call it disrespectful.

@slaegar: Interesting thing about getting Quiet back, that wasn't included in the game until about a month after the game was out; then it was patched in.

Can't fulton those children without researching made me went: D-Dog is literally one tough son of a bitch since you can fulton it as a pup.

I think they're doing what they can to fill space. I don't think MGSV is a good game to watch being played. The story is totally absent and the missions are boring.

@warmonked: The story isn't absent, Drew is just literally skipping it; i.e. the tapes, which is the equivalent of skipping cutscenes in the previous games.

@kasaioni: The tapes are a rough way to present the barebones story full of grumpy, self serious, angry men. I put some 220 hours in the game and loved the stealth sandboxes, but there are 0 characters in this game worth giving a damn about.

I can see that MGSV hasn't meshed well with Drew, and no amount of Wolbachia or Copulating will fix that.

"Are these wheelchair ramps?" Yes, code talker is in a wheelchair. Remember, from before?

@kasaioni: you can't compare something that the game intentionally sidelines to something that is part of the game game and you have to take action in order to skip. Yes, it is skipping story by missing the tapes in the same way that you would miss most of the story by skipping cutscenes. No, that is not on Drew.

I'm just here for the Dan/Drew stories and action movie references.

@ravelle: Agreed!

It honestly feels like Drew and Dan have just picked up the controller on someone else's console, 80% of the way through the game, having never played it before, and are just messing about. There's no attempt to follow the story, listen to tapes, to fulton containers, to stealth missions, to develop items. In fact they're so bored that they actually sound more excited talking about microphone clips and water bottles.

I wish the MGSV Metal Gear Scanlon videos went on for longer so more can be done per episode, not saying nearly an hour is short or anything, but the latter parts of this game gets a little...dragged out.

There's no point in correcting Drew's play here, they're not gonna flip around and play it as a stealth game 90% through the game, and however you feel about it, it gets results and is a valid way to play, getting new base members doesn't even seem particularly important at this point either considering how little they upgrade their base and weapons.

I'm just excited to see this through to the end, Metal Gear Scanlon has been one of my favourite features on this site since I got premium access, and while I think MGSV is the lesser one out of them in an entertaining story fashion, it's still fun to see them react to the thematically confusing nonsense, and the ill conceived writing it spits out.

When this is over and done with I hope they do a bonus episode or just an episode where they can actually sit down and listen to the tapes. Actually, if anyone has the time and insight, they can make a comprehensive list of the most important story tapes, the ones at the end seems to carry the most significance, but there's always nice tidbits to take from the rest of them too, and not always just the yellow ones. (do skip all the code talker tapes though, as it's literally just explaining magic biology with no personality, enthusiasm or significance to the plot)

If the content of the tapes is so important to the game, why isn't it in cutscenes? You know, like in the previous four games.

This installment features some superb surprised guard noises. WEH!

whooo

@alistercat: It absolutely is on the player to listen to the tapes if they wish to know the full story of the game.

@rvone I don't know, I wasn't on the development team for this game. But that a lot of the story parts are in the tapes doesn't change the importance of those parts.

That may be the case, but it is bad presentation. At best the player is wandering around doing side tasks while they listen to the tapes. At worst, you're just sitting there while an exposition dump happens.

I am so torn on this game because there are ideas I'd defend here (including the divisive ending), but some of the presentation and structure of systems is just anti-player and ends up inhibiting the narrative they're trying to present.

Man, Drew and Dan just don't give a FUCK anymore. Can't say I blame them.

I was definitely thinking about this a lot the other day. This series went from being very analytical of the games to two dudes sitting around talking about what are apparently the only two movies either one of them has ever seen (joke). It still works as entertainment, because they're pretty funny/insightful guys, but at this point it might as well just be a podcast for as little the game portion of these videos matter.

If this weren't so close to being done, I'd say they should just put a bullet in it like they did with the Farmville series years back. It just isn't working. They don't even seem like they're enjoying it.

Seems like some solid progress was made in this episode. I don't really remember how much there is left though.

Is Quiet actually missing at this point in the story like they said? I thought you could call her again as soon as the chlorine gas scene ends.

I enjoyed this one :) Coming down in the helicopter the blowing up fools was fun :P

Agreed with Javk, this is hot trash, yet I'm still technically watching it as I feel obligated to at this point, as I imagine most people still sticking with this are as I like Dan and Drew. Regarding "filling space", there is an actual archive of the most interesting parts of this game untapped, the tapes. They just choose not to engage with it. I'm sure this holds some viewers interest, but not mine.

Instead ... "Commando"? Ok.

Umm, you were also "sitting there while an exposition dump happens" during the Codec sequences in MGS1-4. Yes, those were mandatory, but the tapes replaced those and having them as A) Optional and B) Playable during normal gameplay is great. I don't understand the complaints about them.

If you don't like the actual content of the tapes, that's fine, but just because the way that information is presented to you has changed doesn't make them suddenly a waste of time.

Is this really still going?

@worlddude: While the codecs weren't perfect, they were better both functionally and narratively.

Tapes did not present themselves in any context. They were just handed out at certain points, often not even logically, and asked the player to get to them. Codecs presented themselves always in context of the situation you were in. Whether that context be tips for a boss fight and some plot information, they happened when they were supposed to. A directed experience that let the player receive context sensitive information when it was pertinent, not ten minutes later, not when the player had downtime, not after the relevant mission was completed.

On top of this, codecs involved the player and didn't break established logic. By having conversations being directly with the player character, you didn't have to question how information came into the player's hands. Tapes made no justification for why you were hearing conversations you had no business hearing, you just got exposition dumps between whoever made sense without consideration for why you would get that information. It destroyed the sense of espionage because the player character was no longer seeking out the information for himself, it was just handed to him.

People like to bring up how convenient the tapes are. That you can just put them on in the background while you play the game. The reality is that a player had to make the decision of which narrative critical information to consume. You need to pause the tapes during story critical missions, or you might miss important beats taking place in the game. So, the player would be required to do side content while listening to the tapes. This is only acceptable when the side content is good and available. There are so, so many tapes that the length of recording could easily outlast the amount of time any capable player would spend playing the game. Further, the tapes with critical narrative information aren't something you'd want as back noise anyway, as you'd need to pay attention to them. Often, I found myself mindless wandering around an environment while a fifteen minute dialogue dump played out just so I had an understanding of what was actually going on in the game.

Also, I don't have hard numbers, but I'd be willing to wager that the time spent in codex conversations in any given game is absolutely dwarfed by the total length of tapes given to the player in Metal Gear Solid V. But that might just be because a lot of the tapes are worthless, and they aren't effectively distinguished from the important ones; unlike codecs that push players to see critical stuff (conversations that start automatically) and jokes bits are often contextual beats that require a player to call somebody up at the right time/place.

I think a lot of this can be distilled down to Drew's experience. He got all of the pertinent information given to him in all previous Metal Gear Solid games. The game distinguished between "here's this conversation about the story" and "here's this conversation about hamburgers", and delivered that content--although using the same device--in a different method (forced conversation vs contextual call).

@jacksukeru: Only 4 main missions to go, three of which are major events in the game.

What is the point of complaining about their play style this far into the series with them nearing the end game?

I think it's time they took this video feature to the backyard and put a bullet in it.
Drew just doesn't care at all about this game anymore.

I also saw Terminator 2 when i was probably in 2nd grade. I loved it outside of the Sarah Conner dream where her body explodes.

I never had D-Dog kill anyone but I always had him use his stun stick on fools.