Set in the 1980s, “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” sees legendary soldier Snake rebuilding his private army after spending nine years in a coma. Playing as either Snake or one of his agents, you can explore locations in enemy-occupied Africa or the Middle East, while chasing the machinations of rival military commander Skull Face.
Unlike previous “Metal Gear” games, “Phantom Pain” offers an open world where you can take on smaller-scale missions or just wander at your leisure. Although both regions are emptied of civilians, there are plenty of enemy bases to infiltrate, animals to capture, and equipment to steal. Snake’s army, the Diamond Dogs, is primarily built by you appropriating resources and kidnapping soldiers from the opposing forces. You can easily scan enemies on the battlefield to find their strengths and weaknesses, with your eye toward stocking your own camp with the finest men and women you can find. You assign your troops to job divisions within your base, where they will help advance the development of new gear and hinder enemy plans.
Because “Metal Gear” is often as silly as it is serious, you snatch up people, animals and whatever else you want by attaching homing balloons to them. The balloons rocket your target into the sky for a white-knuckle flight back to your secret base in the Indian Ocean. A good portion of the game is you sending jeeps, goats and prisoners up and away, and it never gets old.
But what does wear thin is the game’s assortment of missions, which just about always boil down to “sneak into the base, and sneak out with file A, operative B or prisoner C.” The good news is that infiltrating enemy compounds is exactly where “Phantom Pain” excels, but when you’re spending most of the game in only two environments it can feel repetitive. “Phantom Pain” also has a confusing progression structure, with missions and story beats divided into several user-selectable categories for no perceivable reason. It is often unclear exactly what you have to do next to move the story along, so you just putter around on sidebar missions – or listen to the game’s many audio recordings – until something triggers it. By the game’s end, “Phantom Pain” starts asking you to re-play earlier storyline missions under more difficult conditions, which ought to be illegal for all video games.
“The Phantom Pain” also allows you to go online and attack other players’ Diamond Dogs bases to steal from their collected assets. It’s another wrinkle to consider in the sub-game of micromanaging your private army, as your troops can automatically defend your base should you find yourself under attack. This mode can easily be switched off, however, if you are not interested in opening yourself up to those risks and rewards.
Even after swallowing a few disappointments, “Phantom Pain” remains impressive. This latest “Metal Gear” game is a master class combination of smart and stealthy, framed with a slightly-less-bonkers-than-usual storyline (goat balloons notwithstanding.) The open world sprawl is a blast to explore, despite the game’s unnecessary padding.
This review is based upon product supplied by the publisher. “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” is available for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC. Image courtesy Konami Digital Entertainment.
