ITT: Darkling is picky and sexist about video games

[Darkling]

I've been hiding in my room for the past few months, napping during the day and playing games on my PS4 at night, as any good otaku should. I'm very picky about the games that I play (I bought my PS4 primarily to play toys-to-life games like Skylanders and Lego Dimensions, but both of those series have been long cancelled now).

I recently played Nier Automata, which I enjoyed. Then I found a game called Deus Ex Mankind Divided on sale, and after a bit of a learning curve I found myself enjoying its stealth/cyberpunk gameplay. However, I've finished that now and I don't know what to play next.

I was looking for other third-person shooters and found that most of them have shifted to an open-world model. "Play it your way", "make your own fun (because we're not going to bother doing it for you)", etc. I looked at Ghost Recon Wildlands, but every review said that it was boring and repetitive, and that the best way to enjoy it was by assaulting various outposts etc with a group of friends (of which I have very few, as any good otaku should).

There's also Far Cry 4, but it sounds a bit over-the-top for me. Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't appeal to me either.

Then I came across a mention of Metal Gear Solid V. At first I was a bit confused that there were two games called MGS V, but a bit of research told me that Ground Zeroes came out first (probably because Konami was getting restless at the amount of money Hideo Kojima was spending on developing the game, with no revenue to show for it), followed by The Phantom Pain eighteen months later.

I also heard that TPP felt unfinished - some missions / chapters were cut out of the game, there were times in the game when it felt like Big Boss should have been talking but didn't, etc.

Anyway, by all accounts, Ground Zeroes is a very small game based around a single area (I think it was called Camp Omega?), whereas TPP is open-world with interminable helicopter rides to and from missions.

I've never played a Metal Gear game in my life, Solid or otherwise. I've heard that TPP is light on story, which might help me in that regard (or, on the other hand, leave me with completely no idea what's going on). I've watched gameplay videos where you sneak around, shoot people in the head from long-distance, attach balloons to things, etc, but basically the videos don't answer the question: is the game fun to play?

Some reviewers have said the game has a high difficulty level, which deters me. But I want a game that has more to it than your typical Call of Duty FPS. I don't know. As I said, I'm picky.

So - basically addressing Jo' here, since I know he's played it - what are your thoughts on MGS V?

[Jo']

I didn't take the step towards the PS4/Xbox one generation of consoles. But I heard apart from some more polygons nothing much shall have "improved" with games.

I went back to playing Deus Ex 3 (Human Revolution) in February and listened to some of the developer comments in the "director's cut" release. I realised how much this game has failed to archive it's main goal - game design wise - apart from working quite well and hiding it's major story flaws pretty decently.


(On a sidenote I never played MGS 4)

Let's talk about MGS V The Phantom Pain (TPP). Yes, "Ground Zeroes" is a sort of demo that came before TPP. And it "only" plays in Guantanamo Prison with different kinds of objectives in its missions.

Short answer: yes, it's (been) a lot of fun playing for me. TPP more than GZ since latter has more short comings when taking cover - it's not as solid as in Deus Ex where I love the "tightly glued" toggle. I often was spotted in MGS V because my avatar "slid out" of cover

Long rant:
I read that in the last months of developing TPP Konami was like a prison itself. Kojima was fired either during development or just after (more or less) finishing it and that's why it indeed feels unfinished. Esp. when you realise how parts of the open world game start to repeat themselves.

Generally the story is bullshit. So do not have any expectations about it. Really, Kojima went all out bullshit in other MGS before, but this is the top of all bullshit-ness. To begin with the film sequences are excessively bloody and gory - for no good reason. Considering that the sequel before that - MGS Peacemaker - was like a kids game with an shooting apes on baloons mission, this was an utterly surprising turn for me. There is even a japaneesy "Dating Paz" mission with the love box in Peacemaker and in Ground Zeroes he has her brutally tortured and plugged up with C4 in her belly and even womb (bullshit squared!)

I mean seriously, MGS V has not the infamous MGS sound track. You are not even playing Big Boss (oh, was this a spoiler? This is perhaps the reason Kojima put almost no lines in for Sutherland - don't try to find reason). The change from long time Snake voice actor David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland was doing Hayter a favour, since we only see "real" Big Boss briefly in one or may be two cut scenes after revealing the major bullshit "plot twist" about being the medic who had removed the bomb(s?) from Paz's body on the chopper (in MGS GZ), when Paz jumped off and exploded... or not? Because in TPP the scene magically changes to some XOF chopper firing behind falling Paz a RPG at Big boss' chopper... Well in short - we can't even call this accumulation of utter nonsense a story anymore. It's just random bullshit. I keep saying I would have fired Kojima as well after seeing this... bullshit of a story.

I even stopped listening to those 100+ tapes. Ocelot again hypnotised himself into the disguise of a double or triple agent, thinking Medic was the real Big Boss. Ocelot of course (again) knows the real scheme, while Miller doesn't. Miller whines all time about how some Cipher is out to get them, even though a tape reveals that he (Miller) had talked to Cipher and Cipher actually had saved Big Boss, but Miller get's all paranoid about "Cipher" anyway...

Don't bother about the story, nobody knows what's going on with MGS - story-wise. Not even Kojima himself, I bet. I have a documentary DVD. In there Kojima says that after making MG 1 and 2 back in the 1980s he was accidentally approached by the "MG Solid" team. He never planned any instalments himself. Not for MGS 2 or 3.

Okay, let's stop right here whining about the story, because despite all this the open world game play really got me. I think I once played over 13 hours straight. When in the end you have all possible guns and stuff you can play in anyway you want. With no equipment, going for agonizing stealth. Or all guns blazing. Some complain that the two landscapes Afghanistan and Africa alone are too boring, but that's all right to me.

Oh and yes, the helicopter rides to missions or to mother base are not funny anymore after the third times. That will accumulate to a lot of wasted life time. Again you can't switch off the annoying music, which esp. gets all over you, when causing alarms... (bullshit, but it's always been like this with MGS game).

The Fulton ballons are VERY convenient and were already in Peacemaker. Basically yes, it's (been) a lot of fun playing for me. I like D-Dog taking down soldiers with the electrocuting stun rod :D "Quiet" is a little to trigger happy, so you need to equip her with a tranq-rifle if you are out to "farm soldiers" for mother base.

Difficulty depends on your own Ehrgeiz. You can A or even S rank Missions even though you sucked a lot at them - as long as you do things fast.


I dropped "Far Cry 4". It's 1st person and I could not get into it.

[Darkling]

I owned an Xbox 360 but moved up to a PS4 when the aforementioned toys-to-life games moved onto the newer generation of consoles.

I haven't played DX Human Revolution and don't plan to (since I don't want to step backwards a generation), but DX Mankind Divided has been an acceptable, if flawed, experience for me. I knew that going in, so my expectations for the game weren't too high, which allowed me to enjoy the game for what it is.

I admit I do like the cover system in DXMD that 'glues' you to your position and basically makes you invisible to enemies. I've heard in various reviews that the cover system in MGS V doesn't have the same 'stickiness', for want of a better word - it's debatable whether an enemy will see you or not when you're behind cover in MGS V.

It's sad to me how even Japanese games have felt the drive to move towards an open-world model (eg Zelda Breath of the Wild) even when it's completely out of character for that brand (speaking as someone who loves Ocarina of Time and Phantom Hourglass). I think there's still a place for story-driven narrative-directed game flow in today's culture, though admittedly my attitude may no longer represent the majority of gamers out there.

Hmm, yes, I remember reading about some unhealthy 'rape culture' aspects regarding Paz. I didn't know she was also in Peace Walker. (As I said, my knowledge and understanding of the MGS timeline is extremely limited.)

Don't worry, I've read the spoilers and I know that in TPP you're not really playing as Big Boss (which made no impression on me since I haven't played the previous games and don't even know who Big Boss is).

I get the feeling that Konami wanted a 'Hollywood name' to play Big Boss in MGS V, but then realised that they didn't want to pay Kiefer Sutherland for all of the dialogue required for the game, resulting in the lengthy sequences where the character (Big Boss / Venom Snake) should have been saying something but didn't.

To me, it seems like Konami was getting tired of Kojima and his lengthy development process, and wanted to rush out the next MGS instalment (or two), resulting in GZ and TPP being a bit incoherent.

Overall, I think your input has helped me make up my mind - MGS is a deep well that I don't want to jump into, especially in a last-gasp game that doesn't live up to the high points of the series.

[Jo']

While the open world play is fun - if you want a game that includes game play AND story, then no, TPP is not for you. Actually story cut-scenes and game play feels strangley detached. Iirc Konami also meant to leave the AAA game market and turn towards mobile games or something like that?


Deus Ex 3 is an okay game. I was quite surprised how openly the developer gave comments which otherwise seem to be kept secret from public. (but then I don't read gamer mags) They said, that they skipped (or had to scrap) entire hubs covering a complete city and part of another city. Since they did voice recordings very early in the process they partly had to re-write and re-record scenes after those development cuts.

Well and the DE3 ending is actually worse than the ME3 red/blue/green... It's merely one, two or three buttons that allow Adam to send a (modified) message to the world about what happened (depending on if you optionally bother to go see Taggert and/or David Sarif, before shutting down Panchea's hybrid computer) - it's about a brain chip that allowed the Illuminati to switch off augmentations or even control humans that wore chips. Plus a button that would destroy the Panchea installation all together leaving no traces at all.

I watched only a couple of DE4 game play. Which said Adam was fished out of the sea. And since Sarif is alife, I suppose the "destroy-and-sink-Panchea button did not go canon". They changed Sarif's voice actor. I liked the one in DE3 much better.

[Darkling]

Well, I've mostly given up on the idea of finding a stealth/shooter/RPG game with a decent story, since the current trend towards open-world games means that a coherent story is very difficult to implement meaningfully. So if TPP is a fun gameplay experience, then I might consider it.

I'm working on a list of games I might want to try out - I guess I want to know if TPP is 'fun' most of the time or if there are lengthy periods where it feels like 'work'.

I guess I should do what I'm doing with the other games on my list and watch some gameplay vids of TPP to see if I think it might appeal to me. Personally, I prefer games with female protagonists, but that narrows things down a bit too much.

From what I've heard, Deus Ex Mankind Divided had similar issues to Human Revolution - the game design was much too ambitious and Square Enix (the publisher) made the studio split it into two games, in order to create a trilogy. DXMD and the third game were being made concurrently, but then most of the staff from the third game were shifted to DXMD in order to get it finished. Then, after DXMD came out, the follow-up game was quietly cancelled in favour of other, probably potentially more profitable, projects.

There was a very long cutscene at the start of DXMD explaining what happened in Human Revolution, but most of it went over my head. Jensen was comatose in a hospital in Alaska for a year after being fished out of the ocean, during which time his augmentations turn out to have been, well, augmented with additional experimental abilities. Sarif's company goes bust because of the 'aug incident', ie the augs being forced to attack people. I'm not sure what happened to Panchaea.

There was a tiny subplot in DXMD about Jensen and Eliza Cassan, which I liked because it had a tiny undertone of romance to it (possibly imagined by me) and AI romance still kind of appeals to me as a concept at the moment.

In DXMD your health replenishes to its maximum automatically over time (though you can upgrade the length of the health bar and the speed at which it regenerates). You can also find painkillers, hypostims and alcohol to restore your health. (No protein bars!)

[Jo']

In TPP in order to upgrade or develop equipment and weapons you need to raise the level of the different mother base platforms or divisions. And this is a kind of "work". You "abduct" enemy soldiers and that's what you mainly need the fulton balloon for. But you don't have to. I feel this "abducting" is a pretty elegant game design. You don't just sneak through missions but you check what soldiers have good stats and then you capture them. To me it came pretty natural :D You are like a predator that stalks its prey.


Eliza gave the impression to sympathize with Adam in in DX3. That's why she indirectly helps him. When Adam eventually gets down to her mainframe she acts a little flirtative. It seems that she disliked being used by the Illuminati. But she also acts quite naive or clueless, she is a news caster an AI that spins the news for the people.

Adam has a girlfriend in DX3 Dr. Megan Reed. Since she - even if forced after being kidnapped - helped developing that "kill-Switch" chip it is hinted at in DX3, that it affected their relationship. He rescues her before going to Panchea and since the game ended there their relationship status is left open.

I saw a Game play video of Adam talking to Sarif in DX4. If he was secretly in Alaska - what ever rendered him comatose? Sarif mentions Megan. She went iirc to the US to work on some research?

So they cancelled a lot in those DX games, what a shame

As you say, writing a multi path story is very challenging! BTW the writer said in the dev comments, she paid attention to not having Eliza using contractions. I was like: "Hear hear!" Since I did the same with Shiro.


Is there still that "Lazarus" Pirate Radio broadcaster in DX4? I just found it hilarious that everywhere in DX3 soldiers, scientists, people, police and whatnot listend only to a "pirate station" that rants about conspirations

[Darkling]

I don't really object to base-building aspects in a game (after all, one of my favourite games is the first XCom game). Figuring out which enemy soldiers in a mission have the appropriate helpful stats to be abducted and brainwashed doesn't sound too bad to me.

I generally find that Japanese games place a greater emphasis on "what might be fun for the player?" rather than the Western emphasis on "what will make this game sell the most copies?". I enjoyed that about Nier Automata and think I might enjoy it about TPP. I've started watching some gameplay videos, and so far the (very early) gameplay seems pretty simple - scout out an enemy outpost with your binoculars and mark all the enemies, then sneak in and eliminate them one at a time. I could live with that.

There's a brief reference to Megan Reed in DXMD, but she doesn't appear in it. Adam asks Sarif about her, and it's clear that she and Adam have drifted apart. (Yes, as you said, she took a job with a corporation in the US - California, I believe.) Adam doesn't really have any love interest in the game (though there were a couple of characters I would have liked ero scenes with - wishful thinking?).

Adam says that he was comatose for close to a year prior to the events of DXMD (which takes place two years after Human Revolution), but as I said, it all seems very conspiratorial (though it's never explained despite an entire side-mission line about finding out how and why Adam gained his new experimental augs). After he woke up, he started working with Interpol, which is where the plot of DXMD begins.

I admit that, after a lengthy teething process, I've started to really like DXMD. I wish that there were another game in the same vein as DXMD - cyberpunk, stealth, shooting. I played a low-budget 2D side-scroller RPG called Dex a while back, which was quite good, but obviously limited by its funding (it was a Kickstarter project).

Hmm, I never noticed Eliza not using contractions (like Data), but then I abashedly have to admit that I didn't notice Shiro not using them either.

In DXMD there's a 'rogue' news service called Samizdat that spreads all kind of rumours and gossip. But no, as far as I know, there's no radio station. In fact, I generally turned off all TVs and radios in the area ASAP because they were distracting me.

[Jo']

I've started watching some gameplay videos, and so far the (very early) gameplay seems pretty simple - scout out an enemy outpost with your binoculars and mark all the enemies, then sneak in and eliminate them one at a time. I could live with that.

Jupp, that's pretty much it. Apart from some occasional "boss" fights. Replaying them is a bit of a pain due to all the video sequences. One thing that irks me is the "telepathy" between the enemy soldiers, in case one spots you every one immediately magically knows, where exactly you are. But if you hide properly you can have some fun with the AI.

As buddies you have at first a horse, that can drop shit on the street which makes cars spin
Then you find a wolf-dog. That can sniff out enemies at quite some distance and has some other options.
If you catch the half naked chick "Quiet", she can tag along as you sniper buddy.

For me it took a very long time until the general game play got boring. Sadly there is not much use for the choppers rail gun or the ground based heavy guns.


I think game developers butcher their stories' consistencies, because (apart from team changes) their games switched console generations and they can asume that they have as much new players who do not know the story, as older players who might not play the sequel at all. Megan being kidnapped was the whole motivation for Adam in DX3. A number of NPC comments referred to him as a "mad man" who follows his love. Shame they scrapped that so easily that in the sequel.

Like I said, now you got some more GB RAM, a couple more polygons on the screens, games no longer fit on CDs nor DVDs... Yet, what do we as players really gain?

[Darkling]

I'll have to watch some more TPP gameplay, I guess. It sounds like the game world is rather empty apart from the enemy outposts you have to assault / infiltrate. One review said that 99% of the game takes place outdoors. Are there side missions and people you can talk to, or just flying to and from missions in the helicopter?

They have a so-called 'definitive edition' of MGS V which bundles Ground Zeroes and TPP into one package. What did you think about Ground Zeroes?

Yeah, I think they definitely pushed the reset button with DXMD's story. A lot of it is about tension caused by the Aug Incident, but Adam himself starts out without any real story baggage. He's now just an operative working for an anti-terrorist Interpol taskforce. No love interest and only passing references to the events of Human Revolution (as far as I can tell).

With the advancements in computing power, the new trend seems to be large open areas where the player can wander around and do things on their own initiative and at their own pace (eg Grand Theft Auto, Far Cry, Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Phantom Pain). I think that's where all the money goes - into creating these huge environments - rather than into trying to create a compelling single-player game experience. *sigh*

[Jo']

Yes, *sigh* And that obsession with online multi-player game play.


Well, TPP open world is very generic and yes 99% outdoors (with little buildings or hats you may enter). The boss fights are integrated into the open world. However still a mission area is limited and if you leave it the mission is cancelled.

In MGS the world has always been limited to closed areas or complexes with enemies only. There are no people or civilians to talk to, like in DX games. Well you can listen into what other soldiers may talk to each others, but it's no interaction. Actually if you beat up your own men on mother base they will thank you for it o_0;

A lot of little details are funny, like collecting animals, but other little things are just weird and do not make any sense at all. Like e.g. "Quiet's" idle animations on the chopper or in detention on the medic platform... Especially her "detention" since she can de-materialise herself - I stopped rationalising what Kojima might try to tell people through his games. (sometimes I wondered if Kojima took TPP seriously, or if he showed gamers and/or Konami just a middle finger)


I find GZ has a higher difficulty level and I often ended up going on a killing spree, because on the last 5 meters after 2 hours of sneaking I was spotted anyway *ARGHHH!!!* You have only few weapons/limited ammunition and the "taking cover" is worse than in TPP. It has several missions which always take place in the same one location. Basically it's some gruesome side story about Chico and Paz (which were introduced in Peacemaker) on audio tapes.