“Don’t make me call you Sahelanthropus. It’s not a good commando name.”

If you haven’t previously checked out Hideo Kojima’s final work on the Metal Gear series and you own an Xbox One, it is one of the free Games With Gold starting on 16 May 2018. (It was a PlayStation Plus game in October 2017 if you’ve remembered to ‘claim’ all your PS+ titles each month.)

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (MA-15)
Reviewed on PlayStation 4
(Screenshots all from PS4 version)
Also on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is probably more well-known for the controversy surrounding its release than its actual gameplay at this point. From its original announcement (made by a non-existent studio with a faceless lead developer, and without the Metal Gear Solid title), to its justification for the stripperiffic outfit of sniper Quiet (she breathes through her skin, you see) to producer Kojima ultimately being ousted from Konami and having his name removed from the cover artwork, MGSV seemed to be in the news a lot before it had even hit the shelves. (Even then, it was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons; the PC retail version of the game doesn’t even have the game on the disc.)

Once you actually got the game onto your hard drive, though, it’s quite a treat. Graphically gorgeous, critically acclaimed (both PS4 and XB1 versions have Metacritic scores in the 90s), full of variety and with loads of missions and hidden extras, MGSV will keep completionists happy for quite some time. And if you were worried about Kojima getting the reverse Allan Smithee treatment, well… his name is everywhere in the game. (More on that in a moment.) Given Kojima’s departure from Konami, it is likely to be the last ‘true’ Metal Gear title, but what a note to bow out on.

MGSV (including glorified tech-demo Ground Zeroes) is actually my introduction to the series; I wasn’t a PlayStation kid when I was younger, so the opening games in the MGS line passed me by. Luckily this game is a prequel of sorts, taking place before the events of (most of) the other Solid games but after some of the series’ spinoffs, so you don’t need too much of the backstory to muddle your way through. Short version: you play as Big Boss (referred to as Punished “Venom” Snake, or just Snake in-game), leader of a private military corporation. Nine years after the antagonist organisation XOF destroys your base in Ground Zeroes and puts you in a coma, you awaken and escape from the hospital to find that your former colleagues are back in business under a new name, Diamond Dogs. With your new team behind you, you set out for revenge, tracking XOF first to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and then to Africa.

MGS is all about stealth, and despite the ‘team’ I just mentioned most missions are conducted solo. The intent is to drop behind enemy lines, carry out the mission (generally ‘steal this thing’ or ‘kill this dude’), and get out without anyone seeing. While you can just barge in and shoot up the place, you will be quickly overwhelmed in the early stages of the game as guards call for reinforcements. Even as you acquire more powerful weaponry and better gear, a measured approach is better; Snake still can’t take a lot of hits before he goes down, so it pays to generally avoid combat.

That said, the game allows for differing play styles, with benefits and consequences. Your mercenaries get paid for missions, and you can use that money to air-drop additional gear (or just call for a gunship to back you up); the downside is if you fail repeatedly you might find yourself running out of cash. Some Achievements/Trophies are also locked away if you use your expensive toys to complete missions. Meanwhile, it pays to vary your tactics a bit; enemies get wise to particular ruses, and you’ll find yourself facing opponents with helmets if you rely too heavily on sniping, or gas masks if you overuse stun grenades.

MGSV also allows for different approaches in achieving the objectives themselves. Why ‘eliminate’ a valuable enemy soldier who has expertise you can use? Just knock them unconscious, and have them airlifted out and persuaded to join Diamond Dogs. The game’s open-world map means you can accomplish some objectives before the missions even appear; useful if you have a pathological desire to blow up every satellite dish and tank you come across. You don’t need to return to base after each mission, either (although there are objectives at the base to accomplish if you’re a completionist); hijack a vehicle and you can take a scenic tour of Afghanistan at your leisure. With 50 story missions and over 150 side missions there is a lot to do, although some of it in the later stages is recycled. For example, some of those side missions involve redoing a level with a restriction, like starting out unarmed.

There are a few gripes. The story feels a little unfinished, although there was talk at the time of release that a third chapter (there are two in the game) was cut; even in its released state the game easily lives up to the long-standing meme of MGS games having lengthy cutscenes with no gameplay to break them up. While you can just go from mission to mission, each main story mission has an opening and closing credit crawl like a TV episode; annoyingly (or helpfully) these can give away that particular types of enemies will appear, thus spoiling the level you haven’t yet started. The credits, though, do list Kojima’s name five or six times each ‘episode’, thus ensuring that even if his name isn’t on the cover, it’s everywhere in-game.

It’s also not a game you can dip in and out of. Some missions will take over an hour of real time as you plan your approach and meticulously work your way forward; at times the game is miserly with checkpoints as well, so until you accomplish particular objectives you might be replaying that hour over and over until you get it right. This is a game that requires a certain amount of dedication if you are to draw the most enjoyment; even to go back and get these screenshots I didn’t want to replay too much of the game, lest I get dragged back into an hours-long stakeout of some radar installation.

But put in that effort and the game is quite rewarding. It feels pretty badass to take down an entire platoon of Soviet soldiers without ever being seen, then stealing all their stuff and hocking it to buy better guns; the combat (or avoidance of combat) is most satisfying. The game does a pretty good job of telling its story and making you care about the characters, even perhaps identifying a little with Snake depending on whether you’re more of a kill-everyone or recruit-everyone kind of soldier. There’s a lot to do and the campaign easily justifies the now-discounted purchase price (or download, given it’s an Xbox Live Gold freebie as this gets published.)