METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

[h1] The Weapon to Surpass "Metal Gear"(Solid V) Is Metal Gear Itself [/h1] I have tried multiple times to like this game and eventually finish it. With its smooth controls, amazing performance and genuinely fun gunplay! Unfortunately that is only part of the whole package. I kept wondering what was missing from a game from the iconic METAL GEAR SOLID franchise. A series touted for its awesome cinematic set pieces, great stealth, iconic characters, and campy dialogue that's almost so bad it's good! I felt throughout playing the game that a lot of what made METAL GEAR SOLID "METAL GEAR SOLID" was missing. Gone are the iconic Codec calls and little Easter eggs hidden within the channel selector in leu of the optional to listen to cassette tapes you're given throughout the game. Since you're listening to all of these in past tense, you really never know when these calls take place in relation to you hearing them, causing an entire disconnect from both YOU playing the game, Snake and the people that all interact with him. Whenever characters DO talk to him either in person or directly he has almost NO spoken lines. This disconnect is felt throughout the entire game. I felt that there was almost no meaningful interaction between any of the characters to make me care about any of them at all like in the previous games. I felt like Snake in this game was so lame it's not even funny and the Snake from the previous games was kind of funny. Gone is the great soundtrack that often had callbacks to previous games or even the METAL GEAR SOLID theme at all. Instead we get a bunch of real world music straight out of Hollywood, ambient tracks, or no music at all. Not one piece of original music from this game stuck to my ears at all and it made the world feel flat. It just feels like the game is going for a more realistic tone whereas the games of old had more of a sense of whimsy despite it's overall serious nature, that contrast is what made the older games great! In fact I feel like this game takes itself WAY too seriously it felt less like I was playing a METAL GEAR game and more like I was playing a better version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, a game I already hate so that's not really saying much. Before there would be genuinely humorous moments that would get a chuckle out of me in the series but hey! Remember the alert sound you hear as every nerd adjacent boomer has as their text notification despite never playing the game? We still have that! Oh! Remember the BOX? We still have the cardboard box guys!!!!!! Look! You're playing as a guy who LOOKS and sort of acts like Snake! Guys THIS IS METAL GEAR! (Not Metal Gear). You spend more than half your time doing the same genre of missions over and over and over again. "BOSS! WE NEED YOU TO EXTRACT THIS NAMELESS GUY WHO HAS VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR US WE NEED YOU TO GET IN THERE SO WE CAN FIGURE OUT WHERE THE LOCATION OF THE NEXT GUY THAT WE NEED TO FIND IS" "BOSS EXTRACT THIS CONTAINER" "BOSS EXTRACT THIS" "BOSS" "BOSS" Why do they call you the "Boss" when you're literally doing all the hard work? Every outpost I infiltrated felt exactly the same, I felt like there was no thought to the level layout or they thought we would be fooled because the game is open world now. Back in the day missions and levels were all hand crafted and all very intentionally made. After a while I started to feel like I was playing a soulless product masquerading as something once great as if it was wearing its corpse like a skin suit and because of that I cannot continue to play this game to completion in good faith. I have no idea how you were able to make a game that "feels" good to play so boring. Ground Zeroes is basically what this entire game is but just on repeat as if they think gamers have the memory and attention spans of a goldfish. Just go play FAR CRY. Anyways, can't wait to play through MGS4 again soon!