'Metal Gear?!' Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[ArchieGemmel]

One thing I'd like would be being able to redploy to another place on the map when you've called in the chopper. You can do it on Mother Base to go to another platform but there doesn't seem to be an option in the main game. Is a bit of a faff to have to go to another menu screen just so you can fly closer to your next mission area.

[Consignia]

Got it today, and just done the first mission in Afghanistan. Totally exhilarting sneaking into the target and bombing out to the extraction point. I'm still overwhelmed a bit by the controls. I did like the prologue, but actually getting to meat of it is brilliant.

Storyline wise,

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has anyone felt there's something odd about Big Boss

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? I mean until the end of the first mission

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he barely speaks, and when he does it's like he's a different person.

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Could that be the twist?

[brat-sampson]

There's probably something going on, but it's also partly down to Kojima wanting to make him more like a Silent Protagonist. Plus Kiefer Sutherland probably costs more than David Hayter. You might have already noticed but

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Kiefer also voiced the guy leading you out of the hospital.

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[Consignia]

You might have already noticed but

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Kiefer also voiced the guy leading you out of the hospital.

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Certainly didn't pass me by. That whole sequence is odd, though. Especially with you

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choosing your face and it subsequently not being used.

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[Junglist]

Certainly didn't pass me by. That whole sequence is odd, though. Especially with you

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choosing your face and it subsequently not being used.

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Its

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used for online only.

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I've out six hours in today and it really is something special. I'm going to wait until I'm further into it to get my thoughts down, but considering I've disliked every MGS bar 3, this has blown me away. Incredible stuff.

[Thursday]

The way I see it is that

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Big Boss is a very different person by this point, in MGS3 he's basically Solid Snake in the original MGS, but he's changed a lot after all that's happened to him, which is perhaps why Kojima wanted Sutherland to give a very different kind of performance to make it clear he's not the Snake you know. Also maybe it's the shrapnel lodged in his brain.

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[Hank Venture]

Any point to this if you hate stealth games?

[Junglist]

Yes as you don't have to stealth. It doesn't punish you like the previous ones for going full attack. Every mission its entirely up to you how you go about it. Spend four hours sneaking about, or grab a grenade launcher, C4 and a machine gun and go mental, whatever ya like.

I hate pure stealth games, this is just an incredible sandbox.

[brat-sampson]

Easy option, pick up a copy of ground zeroes and see how you get on with that. TPP let's you go in all guns blazing, but it takes a while to unlock the all guns part.

Can anyone tell me a reason to use a supply flare instead of just arranging a re-up on the iDroid? I've not bothered developing them yet. So far I've decided Intel is the MVP in this game, as I'm a bad player and need all the in-mission help I can get. I don't know what I liked more, the time I first shot a

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decoy

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or when Intel reached the point you can spot them from a distance.

[ArchieGemmel]

You can be all guns blazing but if you want to level up your base and get new weapons etc then you need to extract people who are still alive. Not sure how quickly you'd be able to unlock things if you keep murdering everyone, as fun as that is.

[ArchieGemmel]

I'm up to mission 16 now. Was lucky and recieved my copy on Thursday so had lots of time to play it over the weekend.

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It's the hardest mission I've done, took me about 5 attempts, even had to wear the chicken hat. Finally came up with a plan which involved placing a decoy on top of C4 in order to blow up the Skulls which left me with just one to take down. Ran out of ammo for my assault rifle though and had to peg it around the area while Quiet took down his life. The Skulls are really scary bastards.

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After that I spent the rest of my session doing Side-Ops which are a lot of fun. Especially when you go back to an area that you've become really familar with and are able to use that knowledge to extract every single soldier in there, apart from the shit ones. Loving this game so much.

[brat-sampson]

That was a weird one.

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First run I realised I was waaaay behind the convoy so 2nd time I thought I'd cut them off at the pass and went for a nearby point after finding the route. There, waiting, were 4 guys from another PF and a vehicle. Managed to take them out but the convoy just came straight past. They went full pelt to the end and at a sprint I could just about keep up with the rear tank, but not actually do anything to any of them, so I'm wondering how the fuck I'm meant to do this. They get to the end of the route and just park the truck on a pier. I sneak close, aiming to get to the end of the pier, where nobody's around as they're all on land. Skulls jump out, but none behind the truck so I just sneak up, fulton the thing, jump back into the water and run like hell. First direction I found the bloody area wall so couldn't go any further so just ran alongside it until I was out of the mission area with skulls chasing/shooting around.

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I think it's going to be like Ground Zeroes in that when you actually know the patrol routes and what targets are going to do, you can ignore mission intel and just plan your own swift way to get the objective done.

[ArchieGemmel]

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On my first attempt I found the PF guys, extracted them and used their jeep as a blockade. Blew up both the tanks with a rocket launcher then the Skulls popped out and completely destroyed me. Tried the same tactic a few times through with no luck then on one of my attempts the truck drove off after I'd blown up the tanks but stopped at the next checkpoint area where I was able to lay some traps. They're hard as nails.

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The AI is impressive. I keep getting too cocky and trying to sneak past guards when I'm really close to their eyeline and they almost always spot me, or at least get curious about the guy with one eye and a horn crouch-walking his way around the high-security military base.

[Thursday]

I tried a couple of things with different that one, but my tactics then ended up making me checkpoint, in a new worse position in the end I

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I just managed to run into the truck while it was parked and drive away just far enough from too much heat and distract the skulls enough that they didn't shoot down the fulton balloon. Did feel like I was missing something with that one, like there was a way you were supposed to it, and the way I did do it felt like I was gaming it a bit too much.

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[ArchieGemmel]

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I attempted to drive away from them on one go but they kept attcking the front of the truck and it blew up. I'd say it was one of the least satisfying missions I've played so far just because it felt like I was suddenly expected to play the game differently to how I had been before, mainly stealthy. I saw someone on Twitter posting up there S grade retry of the mission though so maybe I was missing out on some essential element of it.

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[Thursday]

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I did try driving away from them and got destroyed as well, so that's why I tried driving away for a bit and then bailing out before they could destroy it, just seemed like it would confuses their AI enough to give me sufficient time to fulton it.

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[ArchieGemmel]

How're you finding the buddies? Once I realised that you can swap them out pretty easily I've been mixing up how I use them. DD seems to be the most helpful so far though.

[brat-sampson]

DD and Quiet are the best I have on missions, I ignored the Walker for a while but travelling around on it's great fun, plus it deals with steep drops a lot better than the horse. Tempted to kit it out some more.

On an unrelated note, I *finally* managed to complete the RnD platform shooting gallery, so I've put it on Youtube. It's easily the toughest one with some really sneaky placements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLelfY4ooR0

[Consignia]

In the first mission with the

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zombie like ghost soldier things

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, how are you supposed to deal with them? I just got on the horse and cheesed it. The first two times this lead me to death, but the final time I did take as many hits and luckily escaped. Surely there's a better way?

[ArchieGemmel]

I got on Diamond Horse and ran away, wasn't sure if you were meant to stick around and tackle them properly.

brat - that's ace, it's the only one I haven't completed yet. Have attempted it several times but spent most of it running around being unable to find them all. Will polish that off this evening. Does it grey out all of those missions and remove them from the Side-Ops counter when they're done?

I've got to the point where everything I want to develop is around a quarter or half of what my GMP is so having to be really careful about I want to buy or upgrade. Have stuck with the same Assault Rifle I've had from the start.

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I have the legendary gunsmith now though which means I can start to customise my weapons. The silenced tranquiliser rifle is very handy.

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[brat-sampson]

If you mean literally mission 01,

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there's two groups of Skulls and three routes (left, right and bridge) if you wait, they come for you via two of the routes, so you just race away down the 3rd. I'm pretty sure any attempt to shoot/tranq them just ends in game over.

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As for mission 06,

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you can take them down with two hits from the Honey Bee, but it's easier just to run away. Killing at least one is an optional objective though.

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The shooting galleries get ticked off but are able to be done again. You can't do the same one twice w/o leaving and returning to base though. Also, shortly after uploading that I obviously found another one put up a few days ago that does it faster, but meh :p

[ArchieGemmel]

This game is too good. Just done mission 18.

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Spent ages sneaking around extracting everyone who had an A grade, and even a tank at one point. Once I got to the mine I fultoned everyone out who was worth getting then executed everyone else. Then I had a battle suit and rocket launcher dropped in, rescued the kids and blew the chopper out of the sky. Then my heart rose into my throat as I saw a tank drawing a bead on the helicopter as we were extracting but fortunately we were too far away.

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I'd like to try and be a bit more creative as it seems like you can go absolutely wild if you want to but then I'm worried I will lose my progress on the missions. Maybe something to try out with side-ops.

[brat-sampson]

Weirdly for an MGS game, about the only thing I haven't really enjoyed has been the boss fights. They all seem overly tanky and having to avoid them, sort out extraction and do whatever has to be done to beat them can all be a bit fiddly and irritating. Though to be fair, I guess awkward boss fights is just another sign of MGS now being a real stealth game... Maybe down the line people will be able to find cleverer ways of doing them but so far they stand out as the weakest parts of missions.

[Thursday]

It's so good I'm stopping myself from playing it because I don't want it to end, but I'm also tempted to try and blitz through it while I don't have much else going on.

So often with open world games, you get one or the other, a good open world, but crap story missions or vice versa. Here both are amazing.

[ArchieGemmel]

It definitely helps that they haven't filled the world with loads of busy work like 'collect 50 documents'. I've been reading about the new Mad Max game and it sounds like while it's fun there's tons of repetitive padding. Most of MGS's missions are a variation on the same theme but they feel fresh every time because of how each base is constructed.

I go on holiday for 10 days tomorrow. Going to have some serious withdrawal symptoms, although at least it means I wont be finishing it any time soon.

I'm 28% through now but no idea how much of that % is based on score etc.

[brat-sampson]

The pause -> Records screen has a breakdown of your various completions, from Missions to wildlife collection..

[Consignia]

Weirdly for an MGS game, about the only thing I haven't really enjoyed has been the boss fights. They all seem overly tanky and having to avoid them, sort out extraction and do whatever has to be done to beat them can all be a bit fiddly and irritating. Though to be fair, I guess awkward boss fights is just another sign of MGS now being a real stealth game... Maybe down the line people will be able to find cleverer ways of doing them but so far they stand out as the weakest parts of missions.

So like Peace Walker, then? There were no good bosses in it, just destroy this generic military vehicle with a stupid amount of health. I never finished it due to how tedious that was. This game seems to be Peace Walker done right.

[Thursday]

I wouldn't compare them to Peace Walker at all. I'm not quite sure which one brat means, unless he's much further than I.

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The battle against Quiet was a bit of an odd one, as I was trying to tranq her at first, but it takes so little health off compared to a sniper rifle. So I took a risk and just assumed she wouldn't be permanently killed if I took her down with bullets. The first battle against the Skulls can either be sorted fairly quickly by running away or using that honey bee launcher. Also went through the first Man on Fire encounter. Which wasn't really surprising in what you had to do, but it was handled very well.

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[brat-sampson]

Mission 20 (Voices)

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Man on fire I found irritating because it was hard to a) get him close enough to a water tower then b) aim up at the tower meaning you can't see him anymore c) Hit the water tower while he's close enough to be affected d) time calling in the chopper so it lands in the brief window you get while he can't just take it down. All while not being hit more than a couple of times by him and not being able to run away because the AOE on the tower's pretty small. One time I managed to miss with both towers and couldn't see any other way to slow him down so restarted.

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There might be a better way to do it I didn't see though, I guess. I'm up to mission 30 next and there's been a couple more.

[Thursday]

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Ahh right, there's some other smaller water tanks you can shoot, and also the exploding barrels will at least stagger him for a bit.

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