Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain was released in 2015 and received praise from critics and fans until people started reaching the end of the game, which I will discuss more later. For now, let me just say that the critics were completely right giving high scores for this game - it's indeed a masterpiece even with its problems.

Anyway, let's start this review by looking into how the PC version performs. I played this game with a GTX 780Ti, i5 6600K and 6GB RAM and the game ran without any problems. It also scales very well from what I tested, and it's quite good looking considering the year of its release. Make no mistake, it's not visually incredible as The Witcher 3, but no Fallout 4 either. As performance goes, I was able to maintain 60FPS most of time, with a few exceptions. There's some areas where your FPS get nuked - OKB Zero and Motherbase are some which came to my mind right now but there's a couple others that are reminiscent of the problems that we will, again, talk later.

As far as it goes for bugs and problems, I had two main bugs in my entire 60+ hours playthrough. It's worth to mention that sometimes I couldn't connect to Konami servers. This caused some problems as a big part of my budget was on their servers and I couldn't progress with my tools and guns development until I could reconnect.

Gameplay-wise, the game exceeds every previous title in the franchise. Kojima Productions nailed the gun play and movement. Wandering around the open-world scenario of Afghanistan and the Angola-Zaire border is smooth as one can hope. You have access to a big array of transport methods. Once in a while in big open areas guards will notice you behind a wall for some reason and this is more recurrent in FOB invasions with can be a deal breaker sometimes. Still, most of time the IA will act according to what it's expected of it and taking your way sneaking into missions is completely possible. Overall, MGSV is a great TPS control-wise.

You will never be out of ways to make your way into a base. Guns-blazing? Sure, if you developed the correct weaponry, of course. Sneaking, passing by every guard? Go on, make sure you have enough tools to distract then if you need. Want to take out everyone without killing? You also can, this is the way I took most of time and I felt rewarded for capturing a captain instead of killing him even if I had to go the extra mile to accomplish it. If you're interested, YouTube has a lot of videos showing different ways to sneak, invade and capture bases and as your team rank up, more tools are going to be available.

The customization in MGS V is also in another level. You can paint and modify your guns, your motherbase, your vehicles and your partners. The Motherbase that is like a hub in the game it's a very well developed element that makes all the difference. Going after top-ranked soldiers so you can level up your staff, which allows you to develop better guns and equipment, alongside searching for resources to improve MB so it allows more staff to work feels great, not grindy at all.

The online element is another aspect which needs mention. MGSV features FOBs, which are offshore extensions of your mother base that can hold nukes and be invaded. The development of your FOBs are just the same of the main MB which a few difference. There you can deploy security devices like cameras to make invasions harder, and you can also develop your team to fight against other in a weekly league that the game runs by itself and rewards the winners with points that you can exchange for resources, highly-skilled soldiers, tanks and etc. You can invade other people FOBs too, which it's fun as each FOB is different from the other.

The game also has a system where you send your soldiers to accomplish missions online or offline. Online missions rewards you with top level soldiers and big amounts of money and resources, while offline missions allow you to get an advantage for yourself on the field. For example, you can send a squad to take out a shipment of helmets, which will reflect as less enemies wearing a helmet in your missions and so on. It's pretty interesting and developed, there's even a mini-storyline that goes as a main deployment task.

I don't have any problems with the sounds in the game, dialogues are well written and the voice actors did their jobs to pass emotion as their characters speak. The soundtrack for the game is what deserves the spotlight though. Collecting cassette tapes (they're like collectables) over will allow a selection of classic songs like "The Man Who Sold the World", "Take on Me" and "The Final Countdown". Musics that play in determined moments were also well-thought and fits perfectly with the theme.

Now it comes the hard part to review this title - the story. In the Metal Gear storyline, MGSV - The Phantom Pain is placed between Ground Zeroes (2014, prequel to TPP) and Metal Gear (1988, the first title released of the franchise). If you're new to the franchise, or if you don't played MGS3 and Peace Walker you might get a bit lost but after you finish the prologue you will be given a set of Codec's - audio files - which will inform you about what is what - who's Ocelot, what happened that you were in the hospital and more. More of those files are discovered as you progress.

It's here that I will be explaining the problems that the game have that were mentioned above. The story is incomplete. Basically, the game suffered with how Konami turned out to be and while the game ends on Chapter 2, there's rumors that the game was supposed to go over 5 chapters which would properly close MGSV and connect it directly with the start of Metal Gear. Why I chose to believe in these rumors is that they just align which leaked before the game release, take this one as an example[attackofthefanboy.com] - the first two chapters indeed have mostly of their missions listed there with the correct names, why someone would report the first two correctly and then proceed to falsely report the rest of the three missing chapters? Not only this but the final phase of the game simply don't make sense. Out of nothing, you start losing things and the story concludes completely out of place. Coincidence that this happened while Kojima v Konami fight was on its peak? Who knows. It's up to the individual player judge it though, I decided to believe, you might not.

While it's unknown if the game indeed was supposed to have 5 chapters, it's clear that there was more to it. Skull Face, the villain of Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain simply isn't developed enough as a MGS villain and its clear that some missions and places were changed in last minute, mission 30 and OKB Zero were clearly changed in the last months of productions (the area is one of these that tanks the FPS on PC, and according to rumors was supposed to be way bigger, a level by it self, which would make sense in Mission 30 instead of the awkward encounter that we got in the final game).

So, the story feels rushed. A lot of people say that as a TPS, MGSVTPP is outstanding but as a MGS is a mediocre game and I have to disagree, it still is a good MGS game, the first 20 missions or so still are very enjoyable and in the end it does its job of linking MGS Peace Walker with MG, answering a big question that was within the franchise since MG2 in the 90's.

MGS V - The Phantom Pain lives up to its name. It's a Phantom Pain, knowing that there was more who was ditched at some point. Once, it had 5 chapters, after the Konami incident, it has 2 with the last one being damaged as well. It does prejudice the game in some level but doesn't overcome the fact that MGSV TPP is an outstanding open-world shooter and stealth game and also execute an important role in the Metal Gear franchise.

SCORE: 9 / 10