Rob Dolen

Staff Writer

After unknowingly spending 42 hours this past week playing “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” (and only completing around one-fourth of the entire game’s story), “The Phantom Pain” is definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played and easily a contender for game of the year.

From the creative mind of Hideo Kojima and the 18th entry in the “Metal Gear” series, “The Phantom Pain” is the most complex, fleshed out and exciting entry in the series.

“The Phantom Pain” is the first to embrace the open world genre while continuing its action-adventure game play. The plot is extremely complex and hard to summarize, but here’s the most basic synopsis of “The Phantom Pain:” the main character, Snake (aka Big Boss), is the disgraced soldier and leader of the private military force called Diamond Dogs. He has recently awoken from a nine-year-long coma after being critically injured in the previous game (“Ground Zeroes”).

Snake is seeking revenge against Cipher, an evil organization comprised of the most powerful world leaders. They have betrayed and destroyed his army as well as his military organization.
The plot can be crazy and extremely confusing to those unfamiliar with the “Metal Gear” series, but that shouldn’t keep you from enjoying this game.

In “The Phantom Pain” you are tasked with recreating your private military force until you have the strength and resources to combat Cipher.
In the game’s open world (fictitious renditions of Afghanistan and Africa) Snake is given various missions pertaining to the story along with various side-missions that reward resources and currency to help develop “Diamond Dogs” as well as Snake’s headquarters, Mother Base.

Missions can be handled any way the player wishes. For example, if you’re patient, you can sneak into an enemy outpost at night during a sandstorm to extract a prisoner without being seen or raising an alarm. If you prefer the more intense approach, you can drop in at dawn from your helicopter and blow up everything in your way to get to the prisoner.

These options are what make “The Phantom Pain” special, along with it’s open world missions design which encourages creativity and strategy from the player, ultimately making the player’s experience unique and every victory even that much more sweet.

There are no outright restrictions forced upon the player or play style, although completing certain prerequisites can net extra rewards and resources. These resources can then be devoted to expanding the power, abilities, weapons, skills of both Snake and the Mother Base to help adapt to the ever-evolving enemy.
Despite the complex historical fiction plot which may alienate those who have yet to play the series, “The Phantom Pain” is an addicting open-world action-adventure that’s worth devoting a possibly unhealthy amount of time into, without regret.