Metal Gear Solid V

[Gunstar Green]

There's one late game mission that really threw me because there's just so many people but yeah, in general most of the challenge is front loaded. Once you start being able to develop better weapons and have air support things get way easier (and more fun).

I still always tried to sneak at first but more often than not things just became a bloodbath.

[SamuraiMegas]

Anyone try out survive yet?

[ESauced]

Well, sounds like I was both playing it wrong and quit right before it got easier. D dog was just about full grown when I stopped playing I think. And I was treating it like a regular open world and running back and forth between side missions which as mentioned, was very time consuming.

Looks like if I stuck with it a little longer then gameplay options would have opened up a lot.

[Sload Soap]

D-Dog is really helpful when you want to be stealthy. Yeah I'd forgotten how tough the game is early on, I guess it kind of gives a false impression that every situation should be stealth based. Later on though you'll be riding an armourplated D-Horse into battle, firing off shots from a rocket launcher before fulton lifting the survivors back to base to work the kitchens.

[noiseredux]

alright, this stuff helps. Because right now I'm like "I can't do this for 30 or 40 hours," but knowing that it won't stay like this is helpful. Especially given how much I enjoyed the prologue, so I genuinely WANT to get a chance to enjoy this game.

[ESauced]

I wish I’d stuck with it. Now I’m in this limbo where I feel like I invested too much time to start over, but I’ve been away from the game for so long that I’ve forgotten everything about the plot and how to play it.

[noiseredux]

I wish I’d stuck with it. Now I’m in this limbo where I feel like I invested too much time to start over, but I’ve been away from the game for so long that I’ve forgotten everything about the plot and how to play it.

I'm only like 2 hrs or so into it myself. We could be comparing notes here, man. Haha.

[noiseredux]

alright dudes, I got a chance to fire Phantom Pain back up and retry that mission to rescue Miller. And this time it was a success. Sloppy, but still. This time I went wayyy around the right side of the base and did my best to slowly work my way to where he was being held. Of course my best is still bad when it comes to stealth so I was spotted by *someone.* I'm not sure who as I thought I tagged everyone. Oh well, fight or flight time. I hugged a wall and started firing back. I'm not totally sure how I survived the TWO grenades that were tossed my way, but I just barely did. Once I had a clear path into the building I ran in and got rid of the couple of guards hanging out in there, and then waited for the rest to come in. The best was the last one who patiently waited for me outside of a closed door. I guess he planned to surprise me, but since I had tagged him it was no surprises. I kicked the door open and took care of him - earning an achievement for securing a base in the process. Which felt good because well, I'm bad at this game so any minor victory is a big one to me.

Actually, getting rid of all those guards was a blessing in disguise. It meant I could haul Miller out of there without trying to sneak around or have a another gun fight. Eventually we were ambushed by Skulls though. That was bad. We hauled ass on the horse and made a getaway on the helicopter. Then I finally got Mother Base setup. So yeah. Some early progress now.

[noiseredux]

Okay, mission three took me like an hour... but still. I did it. Haha. In this mission I had to "eliminate" a certain dude in one of those big camps. Now, the suggestion was that he had some good intel so I'd be better kidnapping him than killing him. So that's what I hoped to do. I spent a LONG time trying to come up with a feasible approach. I tell you I surveyed every side of that compound from afar. This explains why the mission took me so long. I was literally spending a lot of time just circling the damn place and trying to find my target, and trying to find SOME way in that wouldn't get me super killed.

I had tagged about a dozen guards but still hadn't found the target. And then I faintly heard it: "we're the kids in America/woah-oh-oh...," dammit, there's a radio playing inside that little shack. I figured he must be hiding out in there, but I couldn't get a good view in. So I make a trek around the opposite side of the outskirts so I could try to spot him. I make my way up a small cluster of rocks and sure enough there's movement in that shack. Zooming in it's confirmed. I've found our guy.

Alright so now what? There are over a dozen guards around this compound. Several right outside his shack. One with a spotlight adjacent to it. And oh shit - he's apparently got a friend guarding him inside. Y'know what? Change of plan: I'm just gonna really ELIMINATE this sonofabitch instead.

It's at this moment that I realize that a sniper rifle would be greatly appreciated. But oh well. I move my way in to try to get a better shot. I make my way to a small building and hide behind it. I start crawling closer. There are at least three guards patrolling right around me. I nervously inch my way from makeshift cover to makeshift cover. I'm finally close ENOUGH so that I can see him through the window. I wait.

This is the tense part. I know that even with a silencer his friend will notice when I start shooting. So I have to make this count. But I'm still not really quite close enough to make it easy on myself. Oh well, let's let it ride. I open fire and the target goes does while a BUNCH of dudes swarm me quickly. There's bullets flying at me from every direction and as I turn to run I realize that the target isn't actually eliminated. It's just a flesh wound. Ugh! I turn back towards him - and as my luck would have it - he hasn't gotten smart enough to get out of the window. I finish the job and book it with no real escape route planned.

I whistle for my horse just as a giant sand storm kicks in. I have no idea if this is a scripted event or if I'm just really lucky, but it totally helped save my ass, plus makes for a cool story. I can hear the soldiers scrambling to find me amidst the chaos, but they fail. As my heart rate slows I find a spot to chill long enough to call for a heli-uber. I can still hear the confused and upset guards off in the distance as I make my way to the rendezvous.

[noiseredux]

Tackled mission four, and with that one I feel like Phantom Pain has officially clicked with me.

This was the mission that involved taking some satellites out of commission. On paper, this sounded like a fairly easy mission. But it's me, so things just aren't going to go smooth. More on that later... I started the mission out by finding a little puppy friend. Good stuff. Then I started my trek towards the camp I was looking for. I stumbled upon a small lookout that had two guards chilling. Miller tipped me off that one of them was speaking English so he'd make a good translator. I went around and clipped both of them with tranquilizers and whisked them off to Mother Base. I'll admit, I was pretty proud of myself.

I hopped back on the horse and continued towards the objective. On my way there it dawned on me that I really wish I had a good sniper rifle. And THEN it dawned on me that I could just use the iDroid to develop one and have it delivered Amazon Drone style. So I did just that. Yes! Okay, yeah I'm starting to make more sense of this game and its possibilities.

So I made my way up to a good lookout spot and tagged the three satellites, along with a bunch of guards. I started to consider how I'd go about taking out the satellites when - oh shit - apparently I didn't hear a guard come up the hill behind me and discover me. Cover blown; time for bloodshed. The new sniper rifle came in quite handy as I started picking off guards below. They sent backups and I just kept whittling down their numbers until the base was all mine. I had Mother Base deliver me some C4 and took care of the satellites.

Admittedly I'm still trash at stealth. But at least it seems like I can bungle my way through these missions, which is nice.

Here's what I mean about the game finally clicking with me, though. It occurred to me that Phantom Pain is basically what I had wanted from Breath Of The Wild. It is a huge sandbox of possibilities. It does present you with the ability to tackle problem as you see fit. There isn't necessarily a "right" way to do anything. But the difference is that there is actually a structure to Phantom Pain that was lacking for me in BOTW. Eventually I just grew tired of asking "where should I go next?" in the Zelda game, whereas MGSV kind of combines the best of both worlds for me.