Today I finished, what I assume, is all of the main story mission to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. After 175 hours of play (I think I’m at about 178 at the time of writing), I’m left satisfied yet slightly disappointed. Don’t worry I won’t include any spoilers.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely fantastic game, and the first chapter is everything I could’ve hoped for, and to be honest, it could’ve just ended there. It’s more chapter 2 I am a bit disappointed with. Of the 18 missions available throughout that chapter, only 6 of them add to the story, and they are brilliant, one in particular being on the quarantine platform at Mother Base giving a sort of survival horror-like atmosphere. I don’t mind replaying earlier missions, even at a higher difficulty, I often welcome it to help get the most out of a game I spend £40 on. But when 12 missions just seem to be added to flesh out the remaining chapter it’s just a bit of a disappointment.

I personally believe that what ever happened between Konami and Hideo Kojima is probably the reason for this happening. I wanted a lot more story content, and you can tell that by the time the ending comes around, it feels abrupt and that more of the story Kojima had needed to be told. The game apparently had (or has) a third chapter and there’s a bit more of the whole story that needs filling in, and not just through tape recordings, though I must admit I did enjoy listening to quite a few of them, and some are well acted and quite informative. I also think, that if this didn’t happen between the two, the game would have sold a lot more, as I have read a few discussions and a lot of Metal Gear fans have boycotted the game to spite Konami. MGS V is a successful game, but, considering it’s multiplatform and sold less than MGS 4 did in its first week as a PS3 exclusive kind of says it all. Everyone, I believe would’ve benefited if Kojima could’ve continued to create the game he wanted, granted, it was budgeting at $80 million, but we would have had a more complete game, and I actually believe it’d still be in development now. Konami would’ve had a greater amount of sales, there would’ve been more possibility for Hideo Kojima to remake Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid, which I would genuinely have loved to see, and there would have been Silent Hills, which a lot of gamers were extremely excited for after the PT demo.

I know I’m focusing on the negative side of my experience of the game, but it is fresh, and it is quite minor compared to what’s in the rest of the game which I absolutely love.

The opening/prologue of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is quite simply one of the best pieces of gaming I have ever experienced, and puts nearly every single game to shame in how incredible it is and is just jaw dropping. All the cutscenes throughout are incredibly well directed with the single hand held camera panning between the characters in the scene and action.

The game is set out a bit like Peace Walker with how the missions are laid out, having to select them from a list, though in this game it’s done via the iDroid and not being taken out of the game as such. It’s graphically excellent and so is the audio, and some of the classic audio cues are still there such as the alert and clear clips from all previous games.

Apart from what I’ve mentioned previously, I honestly can’t really fault the game. The side ops, admittedly can become a bit tedious if that’s all you’re doing, but there’s a lot to the whole game, from the FOB’s invasions, to the story, to developing Mother Base, sending out soldiers on ops, exploring both Afghanistan and Africa. Not only that but from tomorrow, there’s Metal Gear Online 3, which I am really looking forward to considering how Metal Gear Solid 4’s MGO was quite possibly my favourite online experience to date. I’d personally like to see a lot of the elements from that return in this but it does look great regardless.

There was quite a bit more to this I was going to write, though I wasn’t intending on doing much of a review for the game, but as I normally tend to I get a bit side tracked and lose my train of thought and it becomes tough to get back in to it. Nevermind, I’ll no doubt have more to say on the game at somepoint, whether I add to this or a separate post, specifically about MGO, and there’s also the promise from Konami that there’s more coming to the game, hopefully a more complete story experience, but I’m not going to hold my breath.