Before I start I'll go a bit in to my personal Metal Gear history. I never played Metal Gear Solid, Even though I owned a Playstation and it seems to be basically everyone who ever owned one's favourite game. I played the demo that came with OPUKM (Acronym meaning available on request) and liked it, but as you may know, Total Soccer also came on that disc, so... I have seen it be played many years later (like, 2012) but I'm still not really sure what the story was. Anyway, jump forward to the PS2, and I got MGS2, and loved it, easily one of my favourite games on the system, and might have been my favourite if not for the GTA 3 series. Couldn't get in to MGS3 though so gave up a couple of hours in. I never played any handheld games but I did play MGS4, but wasn't particularly keen, I didn't know what was going on in the story and the amount of respawning enemies was nuts.
Jump forward to ground Zeroes, the overly expensive demo that came out last year and I didn't really like that either, I seemed to be spotted from the other side of the map constantly, and it nearly put me off buying this, but in the end I went for it and here we go.
Stealth again is the name of the game, and just like every other mgs game (apart from 4 IMO) they've nailed it. Planning, timing, execution are all vital and when it all turns out how you planned it just feels great, I love it when a plan comes together. Of course, that happened to me about twice in the 31 missions in the main game, so, it's a rare feeling. I will be honest though, the majority of the times I was spotted were my own fault. In the first half of the game, I'd sneak expertly through the first 2/3 of the mission until I get spotted, but by that point there was few enough enemies for me to gun them down without issue. Then, as I got further in the game and my relationship with Quiet (your sniper buddy) got to a point where she could 'cover me' and I was able to get her to basically wipe out entire bases, or at least distract them to the point where I could just waltz through the middle and complete my objectives. Sure, I wasn't technically 'spotted' on these missions and I got a few S ranks on missions based on this, but the point was not to kill anyone, bu Quiet did all the biz and saved me time and effort, so I was all for that (do I even like games? I'm always trying to make them easier for myself somehow).
On the subject of Quiet (although I've started a new paragraph so I guess this is bad grammar, kbfhsbd), the buddy system is of great use. You have to start with a horse, which is basically useless except for travelling slightly faster. Then you find a lost puppy, the cutest thing in a video game since Yoshi's Woolly World. Rescue him and you'll soon have another buddy, D-Dog. He's a lot better as he spots enemies for you and can distract them, the only problem he has is following you around to closely, and not very stealthily. Later you battle Quiet, beat her and after a while she's another Buddy, and IMO the best one, for all the reasons I've said above. The only weird thing is her back story, she's sort of part of the Skulls (more on that later) and doesn't eat and other such things, but more strangely she's really scantily clad. Don't know why, though I guess I should be used to it from other metal gears. You'll unlock other variants on her attire, like being silver, gold (for some reason) or covered in blood (more than once a month) to 'intimidate enemies'. The weird thing with all of these is she's a sniper, so she shouldn't really be seen, so it makes no real sense as the guff says it intimidates enemies. There is also a mini rideable Metal Gear, but I never used it as it can't do awesome stuff by itself like Quiet of DD, so no comment.
Base management then. It's got these RPG elements, and although there's many aspects to it, ultimately everything is for the benefit of creating new equipment for you and your buddies. I have to mention the Fulton device here, which allows you to capture people, items, vehicles and animals in the form of a big balloon that shoots them in to the sky. It's a fun addition to the game that's just as crazy as you expect something in Metal Gear to be. If you can at some point, Fulton a sheep, the sound is hilarious.
The Skulls then are a super powered group of soldiers that have massive health bars, deal massive damage that takes forever to recover from and can teleport. They always come in groups too and are tough group, just make sure you're loaded up with exclusives and tat Quiet is in position. They also turn other soldiers in to sort of zombies, but they are way easier than regular enemies as they don't shoot, so that's helpful.
Things that aren't so great then. There's some slow down t times. I was playing on Xbox so can't say if it's true for PC and PS4, but a few times I got spotted or missed a great opportunity due to this. I also found cover sometimes doesn't work great. Approaching cover is supposed to automatically put you in to cover but sometimes you end up just standing by the wall, a button press would have been more effective. I'm going to put the story in here, but not for the reasons you may expect. Sure, the prologue is classic metal gear where it makes no sense and is nuts, but after that there isn't much to it. Just a guy trying to control the world through language and metal gears, but it's very light. I've never been a big fan of the weird Metal Gear stories anyway, but it's still nuts, but there's not much to it. On language, there is a section towards the end of the game where many of your staff gets a disease based on what language they speak and have to quarantine them, individually. I had to individually check each of my 343 staff to see if they spoke Kikongo (whatever language that is) and the 153 that spoke i I had to individually move them in to quarantine. That was both time consuming and annoying.
On to the final boss, where you fight a Metal Gear. It's very easy (though when he drew his sword I really wished I' researched a Dragon Dagger). Now, I'm not a lover of bosses as I've no doubt said several times before as they just seem to be a test of patience so I was glad for this, but it was a low point to end on as it felt an anticlimax, I much would have preferred a big infiltration mission like the penultimate level, that's where I'd have finished it.
I am yet to complete 'chapter 2' of the game which takes place after the end of the main story and is mostly redoing old missions with difficulty modifiers. Now, never in my life have I finished a game and then played it through on a higher difficulty so unless I have nothing else to do I'll probably skip it and watch the 'true ending' on youtube, so nothing on that it.
Overall then, it's a game of fantastic gameplay and well crafted missions that is great fun to play with a few annoying niggles that leave it for me at an 8/10. If you've enjoyed Metal Gear games in the past, play it.
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