Video game review: ‘Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’

When I was 10, my parents took my copy of PlayStation’s “Metal Gear Solid” away because it was “too violent.” It’s true, and it’s also too melodramatic.

Released Sept. 1, “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” is the final game in a 25-year series by auteur writer and director Hideo Kojima, as publisher Konami shifts from video games to the more consistent world of pachinko machines. While it pushes the series to new levels of detail and scope, players are ultimately let down by an unfinished and sloppy conclusion.

“The Phantom Pain” is the best open-world game of the past year, moment-to-moment. It isn’t as expansive as titles like “Grand Theft Auto” or “Skyrim,” but its world is a perfect playground for sneaking around. The individual segments of action and reaction – from gliding just on the edge of detection to blowing up tanks with pre-planted C4 – are just fantastic and almost tactile.

Players assume the role of Punished “Venom” Snake, the “Big Boss” of a nationless paramilitary army in 1984, when he wakes from a nine-year coma horribly scarred and missing an arm. Pursued from a hospital in Cyprus by a mysterious special forces unit, Snake and his crew vow revenge on creepy operative Skull Face.

“The Phantom Pain” is almost totally earnest. It’s silly at times, but isn’t actively comedic. While the game makes an effort to catch up new players from previous titles – fifth in the main series – it’s known for its complexity. Players new to the series should read some summaries online before starting.

Though “The Phantom Pain” has serious, tough action-game veneer, it really just wants players to have fun.

As in previous titles, Snake sneaks through guard outposts, crawls around and generally attempts to stay hidden, but comes equipped with high-powered weaponry when stealth almost inevitably fails. While occasionally the difficulty spikes are out of hand.

Unlike previous Metal Gears, “The Phantom Pain” is an open-world title, so players can travel to the mountains of Afghanistan or the savannas between bases and guard posts.

Soldiers knocked out, rather than killed, can be floated away by balloon over to offshore derrick headquarters, Mother Base, where they’ll join the player’s growing private army. The Fulton Recovery System, like many things in Metal Gear, is a real, thoroughly-researched military program where things yanked into the sky by a self-inflated balloon are recovered by C-130, though it’s grossly exaggerated for fun and dramatic effect.

There’s a level of attention to detail and interactivity that’s unusual in a game of such huge scope. “The Phantom Pain” is a game where you teach your horse to poop on command. “The Phantom Pain” is a game where properly-placed horse poop can be used to slick wheels and crash vehicles.

The soundtrack – unlocked by finding cassette tapes playing on radios in the game world – favors a selection of ’80s pop mixes. It is genuinely thrilling and appropriate to hunt unsuspecting Soviet guards while listening to Kim Wilde’s “Kids of America.”

The bad news is it clearly isn’t done. Beyond a certain point – the climax of one section of the game – it becomes clear that massive chunks of the game have been amputated.

Plot lines are left unresolved. The length of the last act is padded with harder variants of levels already done, and while the ending as it exists fits with the themes of the series, it doesn’t match expectations given the game’s previous scope. There’s no final boss battle. “The Phantom Pain” is the first leg of a long and interesting journey, but the second act doesn’t deliver.

However, half of a Metal Gear title is better than most video games in their entirety. Most open-world games last long enough to wear out their welcome, but “The Phantom Pain” is one fans won’t want to let go.

– Josh Greenberg