toxicitizen

Checkmate consoles. PC wins again. (It's the same scene Cowboy posted two posts up)

The tone of your initial reply came across pretty much the same way as those trolling posts you're describing, to be honest. It might be infamous for it but that doesn't mean some people don't enjoy it anyway. Nothing confusing about that. Ever heard of b-movies? Besides, the only one that's truly nonsensical is MGS4 and that's mostly because Kojima was trying to wrap everything up and basically went "Fuck consistency!", even going so far as to retcon the entire metanarrative of MGS2. MGS 1 through 3 all have perfectly fine and comprehensible cheesy sci-fi action movie stories. Certainly better than what most video games tend to have, even to this day. I mean, it's fine if you're not into it and they're convoluted for sure but they're hardly nonsensical. Were you one of those people who thought Inception was horribly confusing? Fair enough but I don't see how my original comment could've come across that way. I wasn't telling him he's not allowed to have an opinion. But if you're going to criticize something without having fully experienced it for yourself then you should be prepared to be told you have no idea what you're talking about. It's fine if you play MGS only for the gameplay but don't act like everyone is the same. Most hardcore MGS fans are in it for the story as much (if not more) as anything else. And considering how story-focused the series is there's no ground to claim that's an unexpected or invalid way to be invested in the series. Besides, it's not like the plot is the only thing to care about here. At this point it's as much about the characters as it is about the plot.

The TL;DR here is that it's an amazing game but an awful Metal Gear. It's definitely a divisive one.

Lol. Are you for real? I was initially only responding to Goh's usual weak-ass trolling attempts. You're the one who jumped in with the unnecessary snide remarks when all I did was point out that only having played a single MGS game didn't put him in the best position to criticize someone for being invested in the story. Which, I dunno, seems perfectly reasonable to me? Especially given that my disappointment with TPP's story was almost immediately met with "peepul carr bout MGS story?!? lOl!11!"

Well, if you wanna fully build up Mother Base you'll probably have to grind a lot. Shit takes forever. But I was describing Peace Walker's structure, that game is grindy as all fucking hell. You can play through TPP's sorry excuse for a story without grinding but Peace Walker was different. The boss fights were all balanced for co-op, so if you were playing solo their health would take fucking forever to go down. You basically had no choice but to grind for better weapons if you were to stand a chance against them.

The funny thing is that Peace Walker is probably the one game of the entire series that would've prepared you the most for MGSV. The Phantom Pain is really more Peace Walker 2 than it is Metal Gear Solid V, if that makes any sense. But yeah, don't play Peace Walker then, you're gonna hate it. Calling it a straight up bad game seems harsh but I honestly can't disagree with the sentiment. Mother Base made sense for a PSP game but here not so much. You grind short missions over and over again to make stats go up to develop more stuff to make more stats go up, etc. Peace Walker was essentially Monster Hunter: Metal Gear Edition, which is a perfectly logical formula for a PSP game. That formula doesn't make as much sense for a proper console game, though.

Ha, I knew that was a thing in Mother Base but I completely missed it in the open-world. I thought about hiding on trucks in a box because that's always been a thing but at some point I realized I wasn't using the boxes anyway, so I removed them from my loadout and just didn't try it. The chopper would've seemed like a much more natural way to fast travel, though...

There's a difference between "enjoying for what it is" and "taking seriously". Not sure why you guys can't seem to understand that distinction. My issue with TPP's story isn't that "I can't take it seriously" or whatever the hell you guys are going on about (hell, MGS3 is probably my favorite and it's the campiest out of all of them), it's that I found there was very little to it to enjoy. It has its moments but there's no elaborate narrative like the previous games had. And I simply didn't enjoy what's there all that much. Seriously, this has been a narrative-driven series since the PS1 gen. I'm not sure why I even have to explain or defend why many people were going into this one with the story as their main anticipated aspect...

Sounds like it's just not for you, then. I'm not saying it's high art or Citizen Kane or anything like that but it is a compelling cheesy sci-fi action thriller. Most people who are into it embrace it for how nonsensical it is. Besides, didn't you once say MGS3 was the only one you even played all the way through or something like that? If so, you're not exactly in a position to criticize or discuss the overall MGS story here. Lol.

I realize that but that doesn't make it any less stupid. He was horribly miscast and it directly affected the game, negatively as far as I'm concerned. Not sure what Kojima was thinking. Well, I can kinda guess...

What? These games are all about the story. The gameplay being solid is a plus but the main focus is and has always been the narrative. It's hardly perfect and wasn't always elegantly told but yes, the series tells a good story. Good enough for fans to be invested in it, at least.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Finally finished the game, true ending and everything. I already ranted about it enough in the MGS thread so I'll try not to repeat myself too much here. Suffice to say that, as a massive MGS fan, to describe the game's story as insanely disappointing would be a massive understatement. I honestly thought it was fucking garbage. The Phantom Pain is easily the worst Metal Gear in that regard. It's not even funny. Well... I guess it's a little funny. Less funny is how misleading the trailers were. A bunch of footage from the trailers is just straight up not in the game and some was even incredibly misleading. Seriously, rewatch the trailers and try to imagine the amazing MGSV story they seem to be hinting at. Whatever you came up with is better than what's in the game. I guarantee it. Anyway, I think it says a lot about just how much Kojima truly knocked it out of the park gameplay-wise that despite all of that I still consider the game to be completely deserving of those review scores. It's definitely a solid 9/10, there's no way around it, it just plays wonderfully. My completion is at 50% right now and I intend to keep playing and trying to finish up everything. That being said, a few more thoughts/complaints: Recasting Snake with Kiefer was a dumb idea. It did not work. What makes it even more mind-boggingly retarded is that he's a borderline silent protagonist. People keep saying that he won't shut up in the tapes but that's just a straight up lie. It's mostly Miller and Ocelot, Snake barely ever talks in them. Speaking of which, the tapes were a dumb idea. They kinda worked to provide the exposition in Ground Zeroes but here they are a massive pain in the ass. You literally have to set hours aside to listen to those fucking things and some of them contain crucial plot details. It's just not a pleasant way to experience the story. People complained that it was dumb in MGS2 how people would use the codec when they were literally standing right next to each other. But I find it equally stupid for someone to be talking to you on the radio and have them go "Yo, I got this totally super important info for you. Not gonna tell you what it is, though. I recorded it on a tape. You know about tapes? They're pretty dope! You should listen to that tape I made. Taaaaaaaaaape." Going open-world was a dumb idea. Most of it is empty so you're just constantly going back to the same camps/outposts over and over again. I also thought the Afghanistan map was rather unpleasant to navigate. And when you complete some side-ops, the new ones won't unlock until you go back to the chopper command center thingie (basically a glorified menu). There's also no fucking fast-travelling! Once you're in the chopper, you're going back to the command center. You can't just give it another landing zone that you want to go to. So you're constantly wasting money because each sortie charges you for whatever weapons and gear you take with you. It just completely kills the flow and defeats the purpose of having an open-world in the first place. A linear world structure with more open areas (like some parts of MGS3 and 4) would've been far better. The main missions that took place in isolated sections of the world that were designed exactly like that were by far the best moments out of the entire game. Finally, being less focused on story seemed like a dumb good idea in theory considering the complaints leveled at MGS4. But the game goes in the extreme opposite direction where there's barely any plot at all. So it ends up also being dumb.

Well, just got the true ending. Fuck this game and fuck Hideo Kojima. I'm never getting hyped for a video game ever again. Going forward, my assumption is that all video games are going to be shit. XCOM 2? Shit. Mankind Divided? Double shit. Dishonored 2? Super shit. Persona 5? Maximum shit. It's the only way to never be disappointed this profoundly ever again. On a more serious note, that final mission was a fucking joke. I mean, the way it was handled was completely stupid and every bit as half-assed as everything else in Chapter 2. But even beyond that, when your big twist/reveal has me laughing my ass off throughout the credits, you know something's very wrong. Oh well, now it's time to go read all about that cut ending.

Trust me, it's not you, it's the game. Since you're still early on, my advice to you is forget about the story. It's terrible and you'll only be disappointed by it. Focus on enjoying the gameplay, that's the only area where the game succeeds and holy shit does it ever. Take your time, build up Mother Base, do side ops. There's a handful of truly memorable story missions but there's also a few completely shit ones (basically any where you're fighting the Skulls) and there's way too many that feel like pointless filler. Essentially, most issues I had with Peace Walker carried over to The Phantom Pain. Also, I've given it more thought, listened to more post-game tapes and what not, and I take back what I previously said. The story in TPP is every bit as retarded as the one in Peace Walker. Hell, at least Peace Walker had a fucking story. I'm not sure what Phantom Pain was even going for, especially given what's come to light regarding the lacking ending and cut content. Oh and speaking of cut content, turns out the trailers were misleading as all hell, too. Plenty of scenes in them that simply aren't in the game at all. Even more infuriating, one bit in particular from the E3 2015 trailer had me super hyped because of the implication. And while it's in the game, what's actually going on at that particular moment is absolutely not what the trailer seemed to suggest. Incredibly misleading and shitty. Also, remember how MGS4 went full retard using nanomachines to explain literally everything? Well... Honestly, all things considered, at this point I'm not sorry to see Kojima leave the MGS series for good. After Peace Walker and this, I kinda want to say that he simply doesn't know how to write these games anymore. At least, not in a way that makes me care about the story like I used to. I think his writing style just wasn't a good fit for the gameplay switch that happened after PW. I certainly feel sorry for the shitty treatment he received from Konami but as far as the series is concerned I won't miss him if we get MGS6 in a few years. The MGS gameplay should be easy enough to replicate without him and his writing has gone to complete shit, so that certainly won't be missed.

Had a look at that Kotaku article and quickly saw it mentioned the true ending so I fulton'd the hell out of there. I think I caught a glimpse of what it might be about, though. If I'm right, that's going to be yet another disappointment. Lol. Also, apparently Kojima was super wasteful during the development of the game and stuff getting cut was as a result of Konami putting their foot down because the dude couldn't meet a deadline to save his life. Konami is still shit but if there's truth to this, I dunno, maybe I'm just still sour about the disappointing story but it's starting to sound like Kojima screwed up big time and was fired for a reason.

The Skull Face stuff ends on mission 31. Then you get a little "Coming next" preview, Chapter 2 starts and more missions unlock. Apparently, there's 50 main missions in total but it looks like some of the post-game ones are just going to be harder versions of previous missions. For example, mission 33 is a repeat of I don't think they'll all be like that though, since there's clearly more story stuff that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, I saw something about that. Think it was a Kotaku piece or something. I avoided it because I wasn't done with the main story yet. Think I'll hold off a bit longer just in case it mentions post-game story content.

Welp, credits just rolled on the whole Skull Face thing. There's clearly more to go in the "post-game" or whatever you wanna call it, so I haven't completely beaten the game just yet. Peace Walker similarly locked its true ending behind a bunch of post-game stuff. But I'm not exactly holding my breath here. The gameplay is fucking incredible, probably the best game I've ever played in that regard. And for an open-world game, some of the main missions actually had some pretty goddamn good level design. They would take place in isolated corners of the map in areas that felt more linear and designed than the rest of the game world. Some of them even had map design that was very reminiscent of some of the best areas from MGS4, so that was pretty damn great. But the story? Absolute fucking garbage. It's not as stupid as Peace Walker but that's not saying much. As an hardcore MGS fan who was mainly anticipating MGSV for the story, that aspect was a massive disappointment. The trailers are literally more interesting than what actually happens in the game. And speaking of the trailers, pretty much everything was in them. I'm not even exaggerating, it's fucking ridiculous. There were barely any surprises left in the actual game. You can pretty much piece the entire plot together just from watching them all. I know Kojima fancies himself a bit of a film director but he was clearly desperate for footage when editing those things. He didn't have much to work with so he just put everything in there. :/ I could probably rant some more but I think I'll hold off until I've fully completed the game. I don't wanna shit on it too much because it's still an incredible game. Hopefully something will happen to make me feel a little more positive about it overall...

It looks alright but I see no need to be in a hurry for this one. Even if it wasn't for MGSv, it was almost 50% off before it even came out. I expect it'll drop in price fairly quickly.

So, uh, I'm a bit broke atm and I've been holding on to GMG credit for a couple months specifically for this game. Then GMG just never put it up for pre-order and when launch day came around, it disappeared from the store entirely. To say that I was annoyed would be a massive understatement. Then I found out it might simply not be available in Canada, so I used a VPN to check the US store and sure enough there it was. I added it to my cart for shits and giggles and turned off the VPN. The thing is, when I logged back into the Canadian store, it was still in my cart. I tried to complete the transaction, not really expecting it to work, but it went through! Woops? Anyway, I have classes all day but it's downloading at home right now. I should be able to play it when I get home tonight! Hopefully this won't backfire...

"A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever." -Adolf Hitler

Same here. Went back and S-ranked all the missions on hard and unlocked the last few things I needed to get 100% completion. I also made sure I had extracted every single unique character because apparently they tie into the save transfer thing and having extracted them unlocks them as Mother Base staff in The Phantom Pain. So now I'm all set for tuesday!

Yeah, like I said, I was probably being a stealth purist on that one. It was just so unexpected because it seems so contrary to what stealth games are usually like (or should be, if you ask me). But that's an interesting point that it fits with the Robin Hood theme. Hadn't thought of that.

Volume. Pretty decent little stealth game. It turned out to be shorter than I'd heard (a little under 8h) but overall I'm pretty happy with what I got. Most levels are rather short but there's a hundred of them as well as a level editor so it's not like the game lacks content. The story is alright (it's kind of a vague retelling of Robin Hood) but, unlike Thomas Was Alone, it's really not the focus of the game. Most of it is delivered silently through in-game text and only the more important lines are voiced. The quality of the voice acting is also kind of all over the place. The AI voiced by Danny Wallace sounds nice and clean but the audio quality and delivery of the main character isn't quite as good. He's voiced by some youtuber I've never even heard of and I have a feeling the guy had to record his lines with his own equipment and just sent the files to Mike Bithell. Same goes for Jim Sterling's cameo. It was a little jarring to have the audio quality be so uneven but it's not like there's that much voiced dialogue anyway. The mechanics are clearly what was prioritized and it shows. I can't really compare it to stuff like Thief, Splinter Cell or Metal Gear in terms of quality (even though the MGS VR missions are clearly the main inspiration here) but the controls are tight and the game is incredibly satisfying to play for what it is. It's not the most challenging game ever but some levels do require decent timing and planning. Also, the game keeps introducing new elements regularly enough over the course of the 100 core levels that you're never doing exactly the same thing for very long. My only major complaint is a stealth purist one. I tend to play all stealth games the same way: no alarms and no kills. In other words, I ghost. If I screw up, I reload. But about halfway through Volume, I got stuck at the beginning of a level for like 15 mins unable to figure out how to get past the guards. Turns out I was supposed to let one of them see me so he'd sound the alarm, which would cause the other guards to come running, clearing the path for me. That's so antithetical to how I play stealth games that I couldn't help but be bothered by it. I'd been going out of my way to play well and avoid getting spotted only for the game to force me to "screw up". That's what kept Volume from being a truly great stealth game for me. It lacks and almost actively discourages going for that extra challenge for players that want it. All you get is a par time for each level, and I ended up beating them on my first try most of the time. --------- I also finally got around to finishing the story DLC for The Evil Within. I still have the third one to play but it's this weird first-person challenge room kinda deal or whatever. I'll probably play it at some point but I'm not particularly interested in it. Anyway, the first two were pretty good. It's more TEW, so that's always nice. This is this game's equivalent to the Ada Wong campaigns from the Resident Evil series. You play as the mysterious character who might or might not be a bad guy (or, uh, girl) and it provides additional info about the plot and events of the main game. Also, while the main game encouraged stealth a lot, the DLC focuses almost exclusively on it. You're literally unarmed most of the time. The stealth was my favorite aspect of the main game, so needless to say I was pretty happy to see the DLC go in that direction. Overall, I enjoyed it enough to be happy I got the season pass but it didn't quite grab me as much as the main game did. It took me like a month of playing on and off to make my way through both episodes. I probably would've enjoyed them more if I had played them back to back with the main game.