It’s been almost a whole week since the release of Metal Gear Solid V, and I was finally able to get out of the game. A whole week wasted on the fact that for the first couple of hours I had only one question: “What, massaraksh and massaraksh, did I spend the money on?”?!”

Let’s be honest – open-world is now a genre slightly different from the open world that Elite, Space Rangers or at least The Elder Scrolls series gave us. What does Far Cry offer us?? Points scattered across the map where something will happen. Essentially, this is a set of attractions that can be completed in any order. Outside of it, activities come down to either completing completely side tasks (collecting bags) or simply crawling around the world and taking screenshots. No life simulation. Even in TES there was at least some imitation of everyday life inside cities. In modern open-worlds, this is not even the case; life here refers to the spawn points of enemies that can attack us between running from point A to point B.

So in MGS V there isn’t even this. All we find in free swimming is a zebra running across the lawn. And here’s the ambush – these zebras also do not run anywhere beyond the boundaries outlined by him! This is not the level of modern Ubisoft games – we saw something similar in their first lumpy pancake called Far Cry 2. Especially regenerating checkpoints. Oh, these roadblocks..
MGS V, at first glance, is completely empty. As soon as you rescued Kaz Miller from captivity, he triumphantly offers to go to all four directions. No, of course, not directly, but by hinting that there are also tasks there… But the tree sticks, until we take a task, at least some, the game will not move anywhere and will not offer to do anything. Where we would already have a million and one things to do that would give us a goal, we only have a list of tasks that we won’t get to until nothing starts. All you can do is steal animals, watch rare trucks drive past checkpoints and listen to good Russian speech. My mommies, of course I read articles about the typical open-world, but so..

So why, after such an optimistic start, am I now going to tell you about the well-deserved high praise of the game?? To understand this, let’s move a little further from my acquaintance with the game.

— Episode “Help and Departure”\”Backup, Back Down”. The goal of the mission is to destroy as many Soviet armored vehicles as possible approaching the front line. It goes along three main routes, plus various additional tasks appear on the map – simply put, you won’t be able to do anything while sitting in one place. Not the most standard premise, but not exactly original either – something like this has already been used in many games, and not just action films.
It was the third hour of the game, and I still didn’t understand what interesting things to do in it. Stealth? Well, not bad, the AI ​​is quite good-eyed, but otherwise it’s just weak to the point of helplessness. The main thing is to call yourself to change the silencers for the sleeping pistol.
Weapon? Well, a lot, another thing is that my playing style allowed me to bypass only with that same pistol with a silencer.
Open world? Brr, don’t remind me about these endless empty expanses of Afghanistan, where every living creature either speaks Russian or is a sheep.

Since we had to blow up equipment, this time we won’t be able to just use tranquilizers. Guns in your hands, bombs in your teeth, to hell with stealth – we’re not in the mood. An RPG, C4, had just been developed, and with this wealth one could have some good fun. C4 on the road in front of the first armored personnel carrier, “Kids in America” is turned on in the player.
Explosion – the first car is destroyed. The supply is called (3 bombs out of four on an armored personnel carrier is too much), and at this time a second armored car already appears on another road. No time to think! Snake climbs onto Roach and hurries towards his goal. At this time, I accidentally discover that with D-Horse, it turns out, you can shoot on the move. COD: Black Ops 2 pops into my head, and now the second armored personnel carrier has already been shot at point-blank range by missiles without getting off the horse. Two more goals – you need to save the prisoner and blow up the third armored car. We grab supplies, place new mines on the road, and at the same time run to capture a prisoner. Soviet soldiers from a UAZ moving along the road fall dead, struck by the shadow on a wildly galloping horse. The prisoner soars into the sky – and somewhere far away another armored personnel carrier explodes. Panic on the air, reports of losses. Music in the player. There is pure and unclouded joy in the heart.

Three targets out of seven – and each was destroyed in a new way, and despite the fact that I was preparing to simply blow everything up with a rocket launcher. I had to spin around and figure out the route of each new armored car, trying to simultaneously remain invisible and complete new objectives. One mission gave me more content than 3 similar ones from any other similar game. What is the reason? Let’s figure it out.

The first point is undoubtedly the very diversity of the mission structure. Kojima wouldn’t be Kojima if he gave the usual typical tasks to kill ten mobs. Here these mobs not only take different routes at a great distance from each other, but the matter is constantly complicated by something new.

The second point is time pressure. In this mission, in addition to the timer, the player is also weighed down by the prospect that the targets will reach their destination in the most trivial way. We are used to timers, but they are rarely given to us in the game: I can only remember this one, and a few more further down the plot. But it is in this episode that we become acquainted with the fact that it is easy to fail a task simply by hesitating – and no one except yourself will tell you when that hour will come that marks the failure of everything. Here it is easy to determine, but in other missions (for example, “Common Language”\”Lingua Franca” they will not tell you at what moment the guards decide to go and shoot the prisoners who need to be saved.

The third point is freedom. The game doesn’t give any hints at all about how to deal with your targets, except for a modest indication that it’s generally advisable to capture anti-tank guns when fighting against vehicles. And it was precisely this third point that became the decisive factor in changing the direction of my emotions from the game by 180 degrees.

In Far Cry, Dying Light, Red Faction Guerilla and other open worlds, we are given a task and simply allowed to complete it along a direct route, depriving us of the open world and giving us a corridor where a step left or right means immediate failure. These games are still attractions, don’t forget. Even though we can choose which one to see first, in these games themselves there are absolutely no other options for achieving the goal other than what they came up with and gave us. Diversity is given within the framework of going through very noisy/going through not very noisy. But one way or another, everything will come down only to the corridor that the developers have provided for this mission. It’s understandable – the game should entertain the player.

And here MGS V spit this principle in one place. If other games just tell us: “Hey guy, come here and see what cool things we can show you, or go there – it will be fun too, and we will tell you what buttons to press!”, then The Phantom Pain gives you a task, shows you the entire arsenal available to you and pats you on the shoulder, saying “Have fun”.

We are not given any way to get through. Improvise, make it up as you go, use everything you have – all yourself. The game only provides the means for this. And in this principle, MGS V is the sandiest of all sandboxes in its genre.

“This is where we get to what I call the Tranquilizer Gun Problem.”

Let’s first understand what https://nogamstop-casinos.co.uk/ a sandbox is. This is a game where there are no tasks for the player. Examples: Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, most city building simulators like SimCity or Cities: Skyline. But there is an important clarification – they do not have tasks in a global sense: you cannot win them and see the “you won, start the next game” screen?”. So, each stage of the game gives the player certain goals. Let’s consider this using the example of Dwarf Fortress: the first 7 dwarves land and must attend to the first survival: building farms, simple workshops, rooms and primary defenses to protect themselves from predators and thieves. Over time, there are more and more people in the fortress, and it is necessary to engage in more and more aggressive expansion of the territory for construction and associated extraction of resources in order to recoup the costs of those things that cannot yet be built or extracted. A new gameplay element appears – sieges, which means it’s time for the player to create and develop an army, defense and other military technologies. As the sieges become stronger each time, the player is forced to extract more and more valuable minerals from the depths of the earth – and therefore face new dangers, forcing them to develop the economy even more..
Yes, this is a solid layer of gameplay, but sooner or later it will simply end. You will extract the best minerals, you will create an almost invincible defense system and you will be able to create an ideal economy that can support the life of the entire population. That’s it, the game is over? No, an experienced dwarf breeder simply takes a new pack of 7 similar ones, and launches them… well, let’s say into glaciers, without pickaxes, fur coats and other things.
-What are you doing?! – a normal person will exclaim in horror: – This is madness, isn’t it easier to choose greenhouse conditions, an ideal set of equipment and live happily ever after?? Why punish yourself?!

For what? Indeed, this has no practical benefit. Moreover, it causes real harm, threatening complete collapse already at the initial stages. But in the case of DF, its players have a universal answer: Losing is fun! Hell, in games where you can’t win, losing is the only element that symbolizes the end of the gameplay! It’s clear that it becomes a substitute for what forces the player to create a new party. And not just a new one, but specifically creating new challenges for yourself in order to overcome them just for fun. And fun.

What was this long theoretical part for?? Just because MGS V is also such a sandbox. Why do we need other weapons besides a tranquilizer pistol?? Any munchkin will tell you that it is simply not needed. Any person who is keen on experiments will ask not this question, but another: “What does this new gun do??”.
Why switch between soldiers if there is almost no difference?? For those who are interested.
Why was the database customized?? Well, customization is good anyway.
Why is there an opportunity to ride vehicles in the game?? Well, what if the player wants?
And that’s about it all. This is actually the answer to the problem of the “Tranquilizer Gun”. No one other than the player and his passion for exploration will force him to use another weapon. Because our game is not Far Cry. We have Minecraft here.

Let’s go back to the mission with which I started the article. After completing it, I got excited about the idea and decided to see how I could go through it again. So:
Get on a horse and destroy everything with an RPG.
Take mines and place them in target locations so that you don’t even have to do anything.
Take the previous method, but in such a way as to immobilize objects, and not destroy them – and then zafulton.
Call a helicopter and, under the “flight of the Valkyries,” destroy everything in the mission area.
Call for artillery support and repeat the destruction of everything.
Take Kvaet as a partner instead of the horse, and give her a large-caliber sniper, working only as a gunner.

Six ways to complete just one task – and I haven’t yet mentioned a couple of others invented by my friends. What would a reasonable person say?? It’s clear that why the other 5, if we have a horse and an RPG – it’s the most effective. But effective does not mean spectacular! And the player must determine the measure of effectiveness for himself, to the extent of his imagination and perversity.

Honestly, besides Dichonored, I can’t remember any other game that would give the same enormous freedom in completing a task. We are too accustomed to the scripting of everything and everyone, even in open worlds, and finding ourselves in these conditions, when the game does not tell you what to do at the right moment and which button to press, we get lost.

But if we’re talking about Dishonored, then we can remember one more detail that many people put in the game’s minus. It is the absence of any encouragement to complete the mission in other ways. It’s just a double-edged sword. Yes, the ending of Corvo’s story depended on whether to leave people alive or kill them. But what should people do who want to enjoy the game’s good combat system (sword fighting is a rarity these days) but see a good ending?? Humble your pride and look at the bad? Wonderful freedom of choice, which forces you to play the game either in stealth or to a bad ending.

There are no Sorrows in MGS V who would give a severe scolding for a pile of corpses. There are no endings that depend on karma. There’s not even a karma counter. This is not a bug, this is a feature. The game gives us room to experiment, gives us many ways to achieve a goal – and does not limit us in any way. This is the hallmark of any game that wants to call itself “open world”: the absence of restrictions. Here the plot begins to play only when the player wants it, here missions appear only when the player wants it, here weapons are developed only when the player wants it, here everything is done only if the player wants it. MGS V is a game that you can play. After all, the player here decides what to do and when. I haven’t seen anything like this since Lego.

Staff morale has dropped. We need to get back to base. Damn, game, why do you manage to spoil me at the very moment when I almost acquitted you??!

— Why still 95 out of 100?

Yes, because there are no perfect games. And take your Bioshock Infinite away from me, there is only a controversially ideal chick from computer games against the backdrop of a dull action movie. Making shooting in an action movie uninteresting, and then saying that it is a masterpiece – this is a real overhype!

This whole hymn to freedom and openness is still limited. Let’s not talk about gut locations, here Kojima did everything right. Afghanistan – guts, Africa – flat meadows, where finding at least one hill is a challenge. This is called location diversity, not lack. In addition to this terrible trick with increasing the morale of the personnel at the base, there is also a completely unnecessary part in the single game with the gameplay of FOBs. I have nothing against online play – but not when it is almost always built-in, and can only be disabled by completely cutting off the Internet. I want to go in and clear out a couple more outposts, and not listen to the news that half of my personnel were taken away again while offline! And I have to hear this, because the login to the server is carried out automatically whenever you enter the game.

What else is terrible? Well, for example, there’s no need to fulton everything and everyone. Why is there a collection of equipment in a warehouse?? Yes, only for the sake of beauty, mainly, and as a reserve currency fund. And the resource system was clearly introduced into the game only for me to build FOBs. Such an “unobtrusive” F2P.

The game is easy? How about. It is clear that in small chamber locations it is easier to make advanced AI of opponents, but this is not an excuse for the fact that here it is so helpless. It seems that he was cut at the last moment, because the rudiments of intelligence in bots are promising. They notice the slightest loss of equipment and personnel, they immediately open mortar fire in the event of sniper fire, and the system for calling and approaching reinforcements is something truly new and unusual for such games. But at the same time, they can point blank not notice Venom, stare and squint for a long time, waiting for the arrival of tranquilizers, and persistently stupidly go to help their comrades, and not hide, seeing that everyone around them is falling into a sleepy state. How this tactical stupidity combines with such good intelligence on a larger scale is a mystery.

The game generally lacks that very globality. In the fourth part there was an excellent system with war, when Snake was forced to hide on the battlefield. It would be interesting to see the confrontation between the Mujahideen and the Shuravi not only somewhere in the characters’ stories, but in the game itself. A little more liveliness would not hurt the world at all – but there is none. Perhaps he suffered the fate of episode 51. The game generally leaves a huge feeling of unfinished business, especially towards the end of the first chapter. It seems that an epic battle of your army against the enemy is about to take place – but no. Do everything alone – although almost all the characters say just the opposite.

You will tell about the 31st episode and the second chapter? But this is not a disadvantage, but a very advantage. Let’s dot all the i’s right away – episode 31 is the finale of the game. The second chapter is nothing more than freeplay, slightly supplemented with small mini-plots and repetition of material already covered on difficult levels. Have you seen freeplay in any other game that would expand the ending?? And you offer to kick the game for this?!

But all these disadvantages are exactly the same 5%. For the remaining 95%, this is the most open, most diverse and surprisingly rich game that has come out recently. It took me a week to complete the first chapter – and in every mission, every new moment I received something new. Then a new type of opponent appeared. Then they learned to adapt to my methods (and I had only seen this before in Homeworld). Then I opened a new gun, and I needed to arrange a test drive. Then suddenly the bear hunt turned into a real boss fight, because the laws of nature turned out to be stronger than a sniper rifle with sleepy darts. And you know what? I have still studied barely 3/4 of what the game has to offer me, because I have not yet seen a single portal or rocket prosthesis.
Please note that I didn’t say anything about the plot, staging and other things traditional for Kojima – in them he is, as always, at his best, and there is no dispute about them anywhere (although I will note a couple of points later). But the fifth part looks like a mockery of those who said that the fourth was a complete movie. There are a minimum of scripts and maximum player participation. For fans of the old MGS, this game should really seem worse – because it is completely different. It can be unpleasant to come to a pizzeria and find out that McDonald’s has appeared in its place. It seems like both are still fast food, but the approaches are fundamentally different. But for fans of Ubisoft games it will seem too boring – no one tells you where to go next and what to do. And the munchkins will just howl – no bonuses other than those that are given simply for completing. Why then bust your butt??! And that’s who will like it? An audience that, in fact, does not expect to play a game of this genre. Here’s the problem.

MGS V needs to be played with the clear belief that you want to entertain yourself, just like any other sandbox. The game provides a huge number of gadgets and devices, but does not regulate their use in any way and does not lead by the hand. Moreover, the most effective way of passing is really effective, because of which, if you lack imagination, you will doom yourself to boredom. But for the rest I can only say.
Toha. Tostya. You are wrong.

— Here I’m finishing my story about why the game is for me the best thing that has come out this year, and I’ll just leave a couple of tips on how to find a fan in it. And under the spoilers there are just thoughts that the game suggests. This is MGS.
Well, yes – under spoilers everything is not accidental. Don’t look there if you haven’t completed the game. I warned.

Have you ever thought that the development department is a unique way of leveling up like in an RPG?? If yes, then I recommend a way of playing that I call “D&D”
Look at the list of side quests. Roughly classify them into separate categories. And after that, create a specific “class” for completing each category: collect a specific loadout for the task, and impose certain restrictions on yourself. I will give my examples.

I was actually surprised how many people laugh at the fact that the credits constantly appear in the game, in which Kojima appears. Let’s be honest – besides him, there are many more people flashing there!

And secondly, this is a very interesting directorial move. The game is generally structured in such a way that when going through the plot, the player has the illusion of watching a TV series. The plot is not woven into the narrative, but is located somewhere in parallel, allowing us to go into freeplay even in situations that do not seem to encourage this. I won’t say how cool this move is, explaining all the absurdities of the form “They said to move towards them as quickly as possible, but you can not go for a week and nothing will happen.”.

Since each episode is a new series, the authors are shown to us as in any other series. By the way, I recommend paying attention to the “Invited Guests” and “Furs of the Day” sections. Usually there are very good spoilers about who you have to fight with.

There is a mission to destroy equipment? We hire a sapper specialist. During the lockout we give him only explosives and only explosives. No stun or sleep grenades – you will be stunned by the roar of C4 explosions! But cool guys don’t look at the explosion – and we’re also playing stealth. So, having mined everything and everyone, you must also remain unnoticed. Additional points are awarded if you also do not use any stun weapons other than your own hands. Remember – sneak like a shadow, make noise like a mammoth!

Kojima’s games always revolve around one word. But in this case there are several such storylines, but if we highlight the main one, then it is “Language”, or rather “Words” in general.
The game has a lot of thoughts on what exactly makes a person consider himself to be a certain culture, and how to deprive a person of this culture. Even the humorous dialogue between Code Talker and Miller regarding hamburgers illustrates well how certain elements of a foreign culture can influence others.
But besides this, the importance of words and actions is also very strongly emphasized. The most powerful words have been spoken on this topic specifically about Big Boss. He constantly talks about creating his own military paradise for the dogs of war, convincing people to join him. But in essence, people for him are just a measure of their own rightness. If they join him, it means he’s right? The theme of power and its influence on people in general is very much revealed only in this game. And not on the prettiest side.

But revenge, which was talked about so much in the game and in early announcements, is revealed a little worse in the game – but only because there is little that can be said about it. Yes, revenge turns people into demons. Kaz has turned into a completely paranoid psychopath driven by revenge for the death of MSF. The skull wanted to take revenge on the whole world only because as a child he was forced to abandon his homeland. Volgin lived only on a feeling of revenge against Big Boss – although this can be called life with a very big reservation.
But that’s all that is said about her in the game. Revenge is bad, guys. That’s it. Surprisingly obvious thoughts.
But the idea of ​​a circle of revenge is conveyed well, especially in the gameplay of an online game. It lags a lot now, and there is almost no normal game, but I was able to get some impressions. I have now been in an ongoing battle with one person for three days now. First he infiltrated me and stole the fighters, then I infiltrated him and returned mine by stealing his employees. Then the situation repeated itself. And somehow, unnoticed by ourselves, we gradually began to move away from the usual “gentlemanly” techniques. And now, after a while, we invade each other’s platforms just to cause a massacre. And this penetrates much more strongly than any “atata” said in the plot.

Scout to be rescued? Well, let’s immediately decide that fultons are prohibited for us. Maybe the person will be injured. Or maybe too noticeable. In any case, you can’t take fultons. Once you rescue a person, you must drag him to the helicopter, no exceptions. By the way, you are allowed to raise the alarm only when you have already saved a person: we will assume that at the first sign of an infiltrator the prisoner will be shot.
Additional points are awarded if you call an evacuation helicopter directly to the camp where the target is being held. Hold out under fire, protect a soldier, and even fly away unharmed – Captain MacTavish would have liked it. And you will have an additional reason to mine everything and everyone before saving a person. Yes, many of my ideas are somehow related to explosives!

If you are not interested in completing missions in certain ways, then here’s an idea for you to just carry certain equipment to everything.
For example, the “soulless hunter” kit. There is always a sniper on the back – lethal, no women’s games with sleepy darts. And as your main weapon, take the smallest and weakest machine gun possible – for example, the local analogue of AKSU. A pistol on the belt. Lethal!
What to stun? Yes, actually, nothing. You are the last thing your enemies will never see. You don’t infiltrate the checkpoint, you just kill everyone on it from afar before they notice you. Accordingly, passing in a similar style requires maintaining perfect camouflage. Remember – there is nothing funnier than a sniper in close combat!
Extra points are awarded if you still don’t kill anyone. Hint: shoot the limbs. The Bible doesn’t say anything about kneecaps.

But the “Mujahid” kit seems even more perverted. Leave all the cool equipment at home. No dupes, no bullup rifles with built-in sights. On the belt – Kalashnikov of the very first modification. In your pocket – a useless Makarov, even without a silencer. Prosthesis? Well, either the very first one, or even take a fighter from a combat unit who doesn’t wear prosthetics. Oh yes – no camouflage suits, just simple camouflage. Partner – horse. Praise Allah and go ahead and slaughter the damned shuravi!
Additional points are awarded for each kill with a knife.

Do you want extreme madness in what is happening?? Take a tank, cover it with gold, and throw Soviet anthems into the player. Your task is to complete the mission without getting out of the tank, except for the necessary things, such as picking up drawings or prisoners, but even then you are not allowed to shoot at the enemy with infantry weapons. Just tell me? The answer is no – because you need to comply perfect disguise.