Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Pros:

• Great diverse Gameplay
• Useful companions
• Great graphics, voice acting, animation
• Tons of customisation
• Interesting plot twist (that makes sense)

Cons:

• Tons of padding in campaign
• Open world is kinda lifeless
• Limited variation in missions
• Boring main villain
• Most boss fights aren't that great
• Lack of MGS quirkiness and heart
• Online is an afterthought

Verdict: Tons and tons of reviews give this a 10/10, greatest game of all time. Overrated IMO thou still an enjoyable game, but with just allot of unnecessary padding and lack of key elements that made the other MGS games great.

7.5/10

I wouldn't try to review this masterpiece in a written review, because I can't do it proper justice and out of fear of leaving something behind. But in light of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta, I finally decided to quickly write up a few sentences here as a thank you note to the developers and to further augment the game's aggregate score.

The uniqueness, creativity and smoothness of the gameplay is something I've never seen before. The controls are smooth user friendly, even arcadey. Every input feels tight and precise with 0 delays.

The game offers an unsurpassed sense of freedom in how you approach each mission and any single situation can be changed on a dime.

The enemy humanoid AI is the best I have ever witnessed in a game thus far and will tear you apart remorselessly if you think you can exploit it.

Both all-guns-blazing action and stealth are so much fun that getting caught doesn't feel like a punishment, although the game encourages you to take the stealthy approach and you'll be rewarded for it.

Be warned the main story is heavy on cutscenes and dialogue, seeing as it is a Kojima game you should be expecting that anyways.

The game offers 2 multiplayer modes. A single-multiplayer mode called F. O. B.s where you infiltrate other players Forward Operating Bases and a more traditional multiplayer mode, branded Metal Gear Online which has all the archetypal Call of Duty style modes, deathmatch, capture the flag and more. Both modes offer a plethora of ranking and biweekly events/challenges that you can participate. I have spent 75% of my playtime in FOBs. They are that good (and if you abhor multiplayer you should give this one a try seriously because it's not what you think) and so long as Konami maintains its servers I'll keep on playing at least on a weekly basis.

A technical marvel for the time it was released and continues on to this date. The game engine used to develop it, the Fox Engine, is the single most optimized 3d engine I have ever experienced. If you're on an NVidia GPU there are some graphical settings you can tweak to enhance them still. Suffice to say it runs good, buttery smooth amazingly good.

There is also slight modding support which can be leveraged if you're on a not-potato PC to give an extra oomph to the otherwise top-notch gameplay. I wouldn't bother with it though unless I have completed a full run of the main story.

The sound design is immaculate. The score is great albeit a step down from the first MGS trilogy imo.

An immensely deep & replayable game from start to finish. It is as challenging as it is rewarding. A massive game of epic proportions, a game for the ages. A Hideo Kojima game.

Rating: 10-/10 - Masterpiece.

Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain is the penultimate journey in Hideo Kojima's classic saga; even though it's a prequel there is a good deal of surprises to be found in the story. The gameplay is nothing short of phenomenal and there's so much attention to detail graphically and narratively speaking.

The Phantom Pain is a gaming experience to be remembered for generations to come. Its immersion for the players is unsurpassed, its atmosphere phenomenal, its story a bit sparse yet massive in scope and ambition. Hideo Kojima has made the 2001: A Space Odyssey of video games right here. There's endless subtexts throughout, visually and script-based, and that's excluding the ridiculously tense and terrifying start of the game, where you're at a hospital in Cyprus, trying to escape certain death.

If you haven't played the game yet, please do so, and play the 'Day One Edition' on the PS4: the definitive version of this modern masterpiece.

Positives:

• Most of the story
• Characters
• Musical score
• Graphics
• Gameplay
• Voice acting

Negatives:

• Feels incomplete (Thanks Konami...)

Once you are dropped into the game, you are treated to beautiful cinematics and mystery. Even if you have played all of the games in the series, there is a lot of mystery and confusion. The game does a great job at revealing its story, and filling the past games' plot holes and "now I know now" moments.

The game-play of The Phantom Pain is more fluent and dense than any other in the series. From the facial animations to the crouch movement, You can clearly see the amazing effort Kojima Productions and Konami had put into this game. All of the good details, graphics, and animations all look perfect in the game's cut-scenes.

In The Phantom Pain, there is no longer the "stealth or guns- blazing" decision making. It is Unexplainable of how many ways you can infiltrate, kill, travel, or anything else (So many choices!). It has the most choices of game-play of any game EVER! Even so that I just can't explain it!

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is easily the BEST stealth oriented game to date, and the most game-play choices of any game in existence! Everybody should buy this game when the chance is given!