After 10 hours with 'Metal Gear Solid 5,' I can't stop thinking about it
Despite this being the fifth numbered entry in the "Metal Gear Solid" franchise, "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" requires no prior knowledge of the series from new players. See that guy crawling in the image? That's the main character.
He eventually gets to his feet and gets a gun, but cut him some slack: dude's been in a coma for nine years!
Here he is running for his life from the soldiers chasing him:
Oh, and there's this guy on fire who can't be killed by bullets who's following you around. In his effort to confront you, he kills dozens of men with guns who are trying to kill you. So, uh, bonus!
But enough of the hospital. You'll quickly move on from your post-coma state to the game's main action.
"Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" is set in a massive open world.
You'll explore Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, and the border of Angola and Zaire during the Angolan Civil War. All that to say that the game is set in the 1980s amid real world conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.
The map above gives a sense of the game's massive open-world.
The map looks a bit different in-game. It's compartmentalized, like so:
You've got a suspiciously futuristic tool called the "iDroid" that enables map navigation among many other things. It feels futuristic even for 2015, and the game is supposed to take place in the mid-'80s.
After being introduced to how the game plays during the action-packed prologue chapter, "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" speedily moves into the meat: open-world espionage.
Pictured here is the game's main character, Snake, observing an enemy base in Afghanistan.
Snake zooms in using his binoculars, which enables him to "tag" enemies, so you can analyze their abilities and know where they are at all times.
An early mission tasks Snake with capturing a Russian soldier who speaks English. Capturing the soldier means all Russian soldiers you encounter afterwards can be eavesdropped on!
After identifying the soldier, you must sneak up and knock him out. As you see here, he's already been knocked out and is being taken to an area with open sky. But why open sky?
This is why:
That's called the "Fulton Recovery System," and you can use it in-game to grab all sorts of fun stuff for your home base. From weapon emplacements:
To vehicles:
To bears (really):
If that's not silly enough for you, one of the game's main forms of camouflage is a cardboard box with varying designs on the outside.
If it looks like the box is floating above the ground, that's because Snake is inside of it, crouch-walking.
Here's the woodsy look of the famed cardboard box:
And here's the "attract immature Russian soldiers" box design:
And that's all within the first few hours. I haven't even told you about the puppy. THERE'S A PUPPY!
He gets older, and he gets an eye patch (like the main character) and becomes part of the game. His name is "D-Dog." And he's rad.
There's a whole ton more to "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" that we're barely scratching the surface of here. Tech Insider will have much more on the game in the coming weeks. For now, here's the game's launch trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/HrdweuF8_Go
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Height: 450px
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