Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain

INTRODUCTION

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a 3rd person stealth action-adventure game designed, written and directed by Hideo Kojima and developed by KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS. It was published by KONAMI. It's the 9th installment of the series, following the storyline after Ground Zeroes. The game is powered by Fox Engine.

It was released worldwide on September 1, 2015 for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

PLOT  
9 years later after the event of Ground Zeroes, Snake finally wakes up from the coma. At that time, the hospital he was in was attacked by a special elite force and an assassin sent by Skull-Face to kill Snake. Ishmael, a mysterious guy who helped Snake to get out from that situation. Although, Snake and Ishmael somehow managed to escape from the hospital. On the midway of their escape, their vehicle crashes and made them both unconscious. A few moments later, Ocelot comes to rescue them and continues their escape. He then teams up with Ocelot, forming a new organization called the Diamond Dogs.

It's really hard for me to write anything more than this since the later parts contain major spoilers. The game has over 130 - 150 hours of story missions with an additional 100 hours of side-ops missions.


GAMEPLAY
   
The gameplay of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is exactly the same as Ground Zeroes except for this time, it has more depth into it. There are literally hundreds of different ways to complete each mission. You can either go loud and unleash hell upon your enemies or you can just stay low and sneak in the shadows.

Spotted by an enemy? No need to worry, the game has the same Reflex mode which was previously introduced in Ground Zeroes. It's a slow-motion mode that allows you to quickly knockdown enemies for avoiding detection. You can gather intel by interrogating enemies. You can also call out other enemies while you're interrogating one of them.

If you kill an enemy and the others find that body, they'll trigger an alarm immediately, notifying everyone else about your existence. They'll try to stop you by any means and this is the part where things get really interesting because, the game doesn't have any specific difficulty level. Every time you complete a mission, the enemies will learn your strategies and gameplay style. For example, if you use your Sneak Suit too many times, the enemies will slowly start to use flashlights and watchtowers. The game gets harder or even easier, depending on your play style.  
You can also choose buddies to accompany you on your mission. There are 4 different buddies. D-Walker, D-Dog, D-Horse and Quiet. D-Walker is a type of Metal Gear that helps you to travel from one place to another quickly and quietly also making sure that you're invisible to enemy eyes. It has a gun attached to it which can be used against almost every type of enemies. But it's not easy to use against Skulls. A fully upgraded D-Walker can detect nearby enemies. D-Dog was a cute little puppy that Snake found during on a mission. It has the ability to mark all the enemies of an area. It can also lure enemies and kill them on your command. D-Horse is for traveling large distances. It can carry valuable targets with it. Quite is a tactical buddy. She is a sniper. She can kill any target from miles away. But from all these buddies, D-Dog is my personal favorite so far.


IN-GAME CONTENTS

The game offers a variety of weapons & weapon's customization, characters & character's customization, Phantom Cigar, iconic Cardboard Box, vehicles, war tanks, buddies, Fulton and many other contents.

You can play as any character you want to. It doesn't have to be Snake all the time, you can change your character from Snake to a staff member before going on a mission. (A few exceptions: Ocelot and Miller are not playable characters)

The game also has an online mode entitled Metal Gear Online where you can play against other players in a PVP situation. 


KOJIMA'S LEAVE  
Several data miners have found that there is another chapter called "Chapter 3: Peace" inside the game. According to some journalists, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS was taking a long time to develop the game, which KONAMI didn't like. So, they released the game early before that chapter could even be developed completely. Thus, the chapter ended up being inaccessible from the game. Kojima wrote in his tweet that, the game already has its true ending even though there is no chapter 3. The story was balanced without that chapter.

I have waited 3 long years, hoping for this chapter to come out as a DLC, but KONAMI never released it and may never will. On October 9th, Hideo Kojima left KONAMI, leaving the Metal Gear series behind.


CONCLUSION  
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a masterpiece. From graphics to animations, dialogues to cinematics, everything about this game is top quality. It's an excellent story driven game. Thanks to Hideo Kojima and his team KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS for making such an amazing game. After all, the game won 2015's Game Of The Year award.

Play it once, I can guarantee that you will become a fan of this series. You'll never regret buying it.