My basic approach from beginning to end rarely had to evolve beyond surveying the area with binoculars, tranquilizing everyone in sight and Fultoning out staff as required. One outpost feels much the same as any other in their approach with few unique twists to enliven any of them. The open world is strangely and disappointingly lifeless. There's a new buddy system in place where friends he picks up along the way can help him out in the field including an absurdly cute dog, a magnificent stallion, a bipedal manned robot thing and a mute sniper there for the befriending, and they all spend the rest of the game trying their level best to out-silence one another.Īs for how it plays… well, it's generally okay. Snake doesn't have to go it alone this time out either. Nothing quite like staffing a base full of previously hostile combatants as far as efficiency goes, right? Anything's fair game, from enemy soldiers and gun emplacements to random goats and donkeys just wandering around the warzone. See, to rebuild Mother Base and get his PMC back on track Snake has to procure equipment and personnel in the field-usually by implementing a Fulton device, which is essentially hooking balloons to them and watching them shoot into the sky where they'll be picked up and reprocessed for his own use. For a large part of the midgame, there seems to be little personal motivation to get anything done in this new, open world entry beyond satisfying Snake's bizarre kleptomaniacal leanings. He's practically a silent protagonist now. Earlier games in the series have faced criticism over their lengthy cut-scenes, but The Phantom Pain proves that heading too far in the other direction is even worse-and Snake's sudden lack of interest in speaking to anyone doesn't help much either. It's a pretty cool set up, but The Phantom Pain almost immediately jettisons all attempts at weaving a compelling storyline. Alas, all good things must come to an end, so after waking up at a particularly fortuitous moment he decides that it's probably a good idea to rebuild his private military and seek revenge on the people who wiped it off the face of the earth in the first place. It's been nine years since the end of Ground Zeroes, and Big Boss has been taking it easy ever since-not that he's really had much choice in the matter given that he's been comatose the entire time after getting blown out of the sky. LOW A lack of story motivation coupled with an overload of open-world repetition. HIGH Infiltrating a heavily guarded enemy prison for the sole purpose of retrieving a copy of A-ha's 'Take on Me'.

Metal gear solid v review no spoilers