So I recently finished the story for the game. And I have been a big fan of the MGS series ever since the first one for PS1. I have not played the first two MG games for NES or the psp games, but I have seen the story via videos on the net.
The good points are as following:
+ Gameplay is pretty solid, pun intended :P The CQC is greatly improved, the gun combat and the movement is also greatly improved over previous games. So this is where the game truly shines is on gameplay and that is the core gameplay. All the gear and assets you can use are mostly great, especially the buddy system and there are lots of ways to play and do missions.
+ The graphics are stellar and on PC it is very well optimized. To have it look this well and run at 60fps all the time is really great for a multi platform game.
The Middle Ground
+/- + Story presentation. When the story is presented to you through cutscenes it is some of the best directed cutscenes you will ever see in a game. They are beautifully made and very engaging. The bad part of the story presentation is that there are way to few cutscenes that tells the story, most of the story is told through cassette tapes and it gets so tiresome listening to all of them. I wish some of the important stuff had been presented through some sort of cutscene or at least in a better way than through tapes. Why not something similar to the codec moments in previous games, not a fix, but at least it would have been better.
The bad
- The story itself is to me very lackluster and very sparse. Which is to me a huge minus for this series. I have always loved the stories in these games and the amount of cutscenes have never been an issue for me. It seems they traded gameplay for story and that is just not good for a MGS game. It feels unfinished, the ending comes out of nowhere, and I hear there is even a whole chapter that has been cut out of the game.
- Big Boss as a character.... is boring... He has no character, he barely speaks and I have no idea why on earth they had to change the voice actor as the facial motion capture is most of the time not noticeable, since he almost never speaks. Most of his dialogue is once again through boring tapes. Jack Bauers delivery is not bad, it is just and unnecessary change, I have no doubts that David Hayter could have done just as good a job on the facial motion capture.
- To many silent characters. Big Boss, enemy bosses, Quiet (though she should be quiet), Eli has so few lines or never even says anything, making their characters boring and just not that important really. They are just there, they don't add much to the story.
- Chapter 2 is poorly designed, with most of the missions just being the same missions from chapter 1, just with new challenges added to them. The story missions has to be unlocked by doing certain stupid criterias. The ending comes out of nowhere and has no build up. It feels like a whole chunk of the game is missing.
- Mother Base is annoying as hell and mostly pointless. There is not much to do there besides the silly MP mode, some cutscenes plays out and there are a few collectibles and secrets. But to have such a detailed part of the game be pretty much useless is just stupid. You have to upgrade it by pretty much grinding resources and fulton staff from the open world to upgrade and unlock new weapons. And you have to even wait for 30+ minutes to unlock items, which is really annoying when you are going on a mission and just wanted to unlock a new tool for that mission.
- Lack of some stealth mechanics that are sorely missed. Why can't I shoot the radios anymore? That was so handy in the previous games, and shooting someone in the leg or the hand does nothing, while even in MGS that made them either unable to use their weapon or walk slowly and actually get handicapped.
So to end this review I have to say that the game is a big disappointment, while the game is worth the price tag it just falls flat as a MGS game. The core gameplay mechanics makes up for lots of the negative points as you do get a lot of enjoyment from the stealth gameplay or going all action. But the story and the game itself is just not satisfying or finished. It seems they forgot what made these games truly stand out, and that is the cinematic and engaging story. That this is the last MGS game makes this even more bittersweet, especially since MGS4 ended on such a high note, this one puts a black mark on an otherwise great legacy.