Is this relevant at all?

@humanity: I agree completely. I have put 14 hours in so far, and it's just very different from what we have come to think of as a traditional Metal Gear Solid game. I'm completely in love with it but I can see how some people won't be. I'm sure I'll be in the minority but I actually prefer that they have put a lot of the story in the tapes, because then you can listen to them while you're actually doing stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I love the previous games (expect Peace walker funnily enough) but 4 was silly at times with the length of it's cutscenes. That being said though, I think that the cutscenes that I have seen in V are phenomenal.

This is a bad idea. I'm about 8 hours in MGSV and it's great but there's no way that it's going to be a fun experience playing this in a video series. Give Drew a break guys and let him play it his own way, not with Dan

Also it needs to be said that there's lots of wandering around doing the same mission a few times over for an hour or two with no funny interactions like the other games had. It won't fit the format for this web series.

Dan and Drew should do the quick look though

You're making it sound like they're forcing him to do it.

Good. Let's Play's already happen day 1, and sometimes even earlier.

Regardless if they are or not, it's the sort of experience that's best experienced alone. MGSV will be a thoroughly dull slog played for an audience. I've already found myself hating the game when I try and cram it but really relishing when I take it really slow.

If they do this series, there's going to be quite a lot of episodes which are just 'Go here and kill these commanders' or 'Get this intel'. It would be like an endurance run of Assassin's Creed (but better because MGSV is great)

I just don't think it's a good idea.

I hope Jeff and Brad invade their FOB once or twice.

So what you're saying is that this will be like a normal let's play? That doesn't sound too bad to me.

The way Drew plays (pretty much the Dan method), I can sorta see your point. I'm sure they will just resort to killing everyone in sight to progress.

I actually think it's a great idea. Drew handled GZ like a pro, so if we get 2 or 3 videos a week of him experimenting in the open world of Phantom Pain that sounds like a great video series to me. Even if it is exceptionally long, they could either do longer play sessions or stick primarily to the main story. Either way they haven't said exactly when it will be coming, though I think it's fair to say they're well aware of this massive undertaking considering how much speculation Drew's been putting into the story and seemed to enjoy the gameplay the most. I think it'll be a swell time!

WOOOOORD

I believe he is sarcastically pointing out the inherent strangeness of saying you don't find the appeal of watching someone else play videogames on a website dedicated to exactly that.

Definitely excited about this. I gotta watch the others first and play through MGSV myself. Once I do that though, I'll be watching his playthrough religiously

@fsteak: They're not dedicated to that at all. Has there even been 10 playthoughs on the site?

There's a pretty large difference between watching someone play something you might want to buy for 30 minutes and deciding to watch someone play an entire game instead of playing it.

@hunkulese: Your original comment didn't differentiate between quick looks and playthroughs, so it just looked like you were making a confusing condemnation of video demonstrations of games as a whole rather than just dedicated let's plays.

And there have been nine full playthroughs.

Sounds perfect. I never understood the hate for Peace Walker. I mean I do understand some of the complaints are valid, but watching that Metal Gear Scanlon: Peace Walker video and hearing Dan saying it's the worst game in the series in terms of controls, I just scratch my head and wonder why? The controls weren't great on PSP, but the HD Collection made it so much better. I actually kinda prefer it over MGS4 because of the gameplay changes.

I know this might sound like a dumb hang-up, but I do hope that this doesn't mean that GB will completely (or majorly) shift towards only doing the newest stuff. Videos like the Old Games Show and that look at the CD-I has to have been some of my favourite GB content for a while. There's just something about the crew, especially Brad and Jeff, talking about old video game shit that I really dig. We need a new Breaking Brad with Doom or Bradley May Cry dammit!

I'm probably just being overly paranoid.

@adequatelyprepared: There's been such a positive outpouring for features like Ranking of Fighters that I feel GB is shifting towards old games, rather than away from them.

Hell, Jeff's been knocking the idea of them talking over old press conferences for a while. I think classic stuff is here to stay, don't worry. :D

I have a reason to reboost my Premium subscription. I couldn't be more excited for this.
Here's hoping that they do an episode every other night instead of 2 a week, that would kill the series.

@adequatelyprepared: Jeff is a person who has dedicated his life to collecting as many old games as possible for preservation and sharing them with people. I think old games will always be a part of Giant Bomb.

The only thing I'd like to see out of this playthrough is a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule if possible. I'm sure Drew will get plenty of enjoyment out of his time with the game on the site, and there's nothing stopping him from continuing towards a 100% offsite after the story if he's so inclined.

At the end of the day (cliche) GB is a business, for as much as we pretend it's not, they still understand what brings in the cash and the MGS playthroughs have been popular. NOT doing this, means sacrificing something else they really want to do regardless of fan interest.

Drew Has Come To

@fsteak: Maybe you missed that the thread is about a full playthrough of a game and is filled with people saying that they won't have to buy the game now. Watching someone play a small chunk of a game isn't having them play the game for you.

@austin_walker@vinny they should do so

please gbeast u need to put up a fight vs mgscanlon

@betaband:

We don't know that they aren't. Does anyone know morse code? We should go back to some of the older Metal Gear Scanlon episodes and see if Drew is blinking out a distress signal.

Ugh are they really doing this? Kind of a bummer for Drew. Oh well. Easy enough to ignore it.

I mean, I'm not sure it matters the game is longer than the other four, even at 50 or so hours it wouldn't be the longest playthrough of a game on this site. Plus, I really don't think they'd do this if they didn't want to. If some episodes just end up being pointless meandering in the open world then so be it, there are some episodes of the P4 Endurance Run that aren't really productive in any fashion (that one episode where they spend an hour in a dungeon and die comes to mind.) I think the 'fuck it there's gonna be a million playthroughs, some of which are sponsored by Konami' approach is probably the correct one.

This will be the return of the Endurance Run for reals. Will take them quite some time to get through it I imagine, not that I'm complaining!

I don't really get the impression that Drew has enjoyed these playthroughs, and least not past the first one. He hated Snake Eater. Also he has already said that he would like to play the game on his own terms, not sure though if that was in a podcast or a video.

But it gets people subscribing I guess.

This will be an undertaking equal to or greater than the Persona endurance run. I don't really agree with doing it but I'd be happy with it regardless. MGS V just doesn't lend itself well to Metal Gear Scanlon. 1) It's free-roaming 2) It's HUGE 3) There is very, VERY little downtime (as in not playing the game a la cutscenes and codec) and 4) It's possibly the most exhausting game I've ever played (yes more than any Souls game).

What I think they should do -- when Drew finds himself wanting to quit 3 episodes in -- is do something like that checking in with Dark Souls 2 series except stick to it and make it weekly. Just let Drew play on his own and come in with his save every week to play an hour or so with Dan. That seems far more sensible, achievable and mentally healthy (lol). I'm really not joking about this game being EXHAUSTING. There is never a moment when you feel safe and comfortable. I thought I'd marathon it but it actually lends itself much better to short daily play sessions.

If The Phantom Scanlon becomes a thing, the way I'd like to see it done in a way that would be best for everybody = Drew replaying missions, with gear adjusted to what he had at the first playthrough. Maybe like the thing LonelySpacePanda wrote handled like that.

If every moment he plays has to be done in recording it's mad and going to hurt them. By the time I reached Africa, my save had 40 very entertaining, deep hours recorded on it, by god yes I'm marathoning it with my sit at home and be sick life.

Messing around with Mother Base stuff is gonna bring back flashes of linking Personas for half an episode.

After playing some of the game myself, I actually think it totally lends itself to Metal Gear Scanlon format. The missions / episodes are all pretty short if you stick with one playthrough and let things play out (eg. I did the ultra-long mission Brad did in the quicklook in 30 mins by run-and-gunning through it after being caught at the very beginning and still got a B).

Just play one or two story missions per ep and you're good to go. The main thing is how much Drew will want to do side stuff to get blueprints for cool gear and GMP.

Still waiting for my copy. I'm beginning to think it's gone walkabout. Or has been stolen. By terrorists.

MGSV is like a Ubi open world game with little story (and I don't mean that as an insult; I'm enjoying the game a lot, even though I was expecting something a bit different). Does not seem like a good fit at all for Metal Gear Scanlon. There'll be a lot of filler episodes with zero story of any kind.

Maybe they should consider the alternative. Now that Dan got Drew into MGS, Drew must force Dan into playing flight sims for 100+ hours.

I'm not sure about this. My favourite parts of Metal Gear Scanlon aren't always the gameplay parts - I found watching Drew play MGSIV the least interesting part of the series. His reactions to the cutscenes were the main thing with that. It WAS fun watching Drew wrestle with MGS1, but I don't doubt Drew's ability at actual modern games though. Depends if they just mainline it for the video series and avoid side ops etc.

@aegon:

@ripelivejam: Agreed, let me play it 1st :)

If this game is done in ~1 hour chunks like the previous ones have been, there will be dozens upon dozens of episodes. I'm all for it, because the series has been a gas up to this point, but at the same time, MGSV doesn't have the focused structure or narrative that the previous ones did, and I fear many episodes would be dull because of it.

I agree with this. A mission for an episode, 3 times a week, and this might work well enough.

In retrospect I'm sure they probably didn't think it through much, but they'll manage. This website is based on skillfully improvising on poorly made decisions, like the Contradiction Playdate born from a QL, MGScanlon born from a Demo Derby or an entire year anouncing every NDS game on the podcast because fuck it.

I hope they start like now.

YAY! MY COPY IS LOST!

"Dantom Pain" is making me hopeful for a Danny O'Dwyer "Danswers" crossover episode...

@captain_insano: so far from my experience you can only do this to an extent! Early on you hit a mission that effectively cannot be completed without missiles, and those missiles cannot be developed if you do not have the R&D requirement. Now, I'm pretty bad at games to be fair, but, I think a certain amount of Side Ops are required by this game. Also some "main" characters are in the Side Ops and those Side Ops are colored differently in the menu, sooo what is a side op to MGSV is not as clear to me as it should be maybe :S

@geraltitude: to avoid spoilers, which mission number is that? I never felt like I was required to use a launcher at for a looong time, and even then I preferred to sneak up to things and c4 them.

@viciousreiven: Sorry I'm not home right now but 90% sure it is mission 7, 8, or 9. Minor spoilers: you have to blow up some tanks that are on the move. Theoretically could do with C4 but these guys never stop and it makes that damn hard! Plus with level one C4 even 4 aren't enough. Air dropping two sets and doing the whole shtick twice over seems even more impossible. I tried over and over and once or twice came close but no cigar ultimately. Then: missiles. Like I said maybe I missed some sweet/obvious trick so I just did other missions until I had a rocket launcher.

@geraltitude: Ahh okay, I did use it for that one, but I already had one by then so I just equipped it when I heard the mission briefing.

@viciousreiven: yeah I feel the way your mother base is setup and how many soldiers you have is just so variably. For me I was miles away from a rocket launcher when I got the mission. Because the game doesn't reveal ahead of time all the weapons, you don't often know ahead of time what level you need in different units to produce which items.

Super curious to see how Dan and Drew tackle this game. Dan obviously is playing it as we speak but I wonder if Drew is or he is doing this series fresh.