This game has an open world so poorly thought-out and so poorly implemented into the gameplay loop (where a drop-down menu of actions a la Travis' room would easily have sufficed) that it's genuinely such a tragic stain on what would easily be a five-star, no-fucking-around, stone cold killer of a game. At least give me fast travel you fucking peice of shit. I feel like dennis in the it's always sunny episode where he has to get a job and he's going fucking insane in his car every 3 minutes except that's 30% of the game. Then they steal your bike for the last level and force you to walk halfway across the city and in that moment you realise that they genuinely know the game's open world isn't fun whatsoever, and they're straight up laughing at you about it. I would stinkfuck bad girl, no grease, until the room is declared a biohazard

genuinely not sure how the hell you're even supposed to talk about this game. the easy answer is the cop-out, to say that "the gameplay is good, the story is bad", but idk, i actually quite liked the story! i thought the interpolation of mgs1/mgs3 characters at the interstice of their existence, timeline-wise, was incredibly fun. the problem is, naturally, that it just ends. this game is sort of like a breakup, in that sense.

sometimes there's the furtive warnings that something isn't quite right under the hood - that's the scene where you and skull face are sitting in a jeep driving across afghanistan while you listen to Friday I'm In Love by The Cure on your Walkman. sometimes there's the arguments, and the cold shoulders - that's the part where the story ops dissolve into extreme difficulty/total stealth variants of earlier missions you'd already completed. and then there's the part where it just ends, and you're forced to part ways. much like a lost love, you're stranded in the dust wondering what could've been. but there's no point reminiscing, just gotta pick up your bags and keep moving.

it also goes without saying that this game is no labour of love, rather one of the most pronounced products of abuse to ever hit any level of prolificacy - in that sense, it's kind of a miracle it ended up as good as it is. but my god, is it also exhausting. there's a fatigue that hits you around the 20-30 hour mark that it truly never recovers from. there's a great writeup to be done on the metanarrative insertion of online missions and functionality into the game - much like Big Boss, your work is never truly done - and the great nuke stuff as well, but if i can be honest, i spent every moment of this game running as far away as i could with anything to do with the F.O.B... not for me, thank you! seems like a premise death stranding capitalised on far better than this game ever had the chance to, and good for it, i reckon. mgsv is a game that tries to do everything, and ever-so-nearly touches the sun. then, naturally, konami burns its wings off, and offers you an EVA boob jumpsuit dlc as an apology.

also worth noting that the first 20 minutes of the prologue before it turns into action movie gonzo slop is truly something incredible. blew my mind as a 12 year old, probably my first introduction to games-as-art, nothing's hit me quite like it since.

in mgs2+3, the player's healthbar, maneuverability and access to incredibly strong stratagems that allow you to bypass stealth altogether (suppressed tranq headshots) mean that stealth is ironically not as much of a priority as the game was designed for when it comes to progressing through the game - even if you raise alert, you can just hotfoot it onto the next area, tanking a baker's dozen bullets to the chest, and the worst that'll happen is you respawn a little ahead of where you were, with your health full and alert cleared. mgs1 snake is no superman, and in this one you truly have your hands tied behind your back in playing the way the game was designed for, for better or for worse. engaging at times, a slog at others. but not a revolutionary game for no reason!

i'm a big fan of the metal gear solid trilogy's structure, with 1 being the 'construction', 2 being the 'deconstruction', and 3 being the 'reconstruction', but it's also quite fun seeing where each game's priorities lie - where 2 is an examination of raiden, and his relation to the world around him, and 3 is an examination of the boss, and her relation to snake, 1 seemingly siphons all of its juice into the side antagonists. in mgs2&3, the bosses outside of the final bossfight are all part of that game's 'boss faction' (dead cell, COBRA unit), cartoonish bordering on self-parodying, but in 1, they're all united by circumstance and, above all, incredibly heartfelt in a way you can only really feel the traces of with Fortune in MGS2. weirdly enough, the main antagonist is the story's weakpoint, motivated only by a childlike inferiority complex in contrast to the far more noble, samurai-like (kojima's movie melvin nature showing out in this game) bosses preceding him.

as much as i want to say you should play this game before mgs2, to truly see how much of an uncanny retelling of the original it is (to great thematic and narrative effect), there's so many points that feel like a real product of the times (sniper backtrack, pal key backtracks, elevator fights, very rudimentary aiming system making some bossfights a real nightmare) to the point that i wanna say maybe just watch a longplay instead? it's up to you. it's your destiny i guess. it isn't written in your genes!

In one route you bully a girl so hard she relapses into being bulimic again, in another route you enter an abusive lesbian relationship as the abuser, and in another route you whore yourself out on MySpace because you don’t want to work retail. On one hand ‘understanding’ Nicole is a blaring self-report on all levels but on the other hand no other VN protagonist has ever embodied the teenage girl mindset quite like her. It’s truly incredible to witness. You will hear line deliveries that make you question what the hell the rest of the industry is even doing. Possibly essential reading