Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – Xbox One

I’ve been playing it for about six hours now. Here are my thought:

1. EVERYONE has to play the first mission of this game ("Prologue"). It’s one of those rare moments in gaming when you actually FEEL like you’re the character. It’s very graphic, though, so I wouldn’t sit the entire family around the TV for this one.
2. I just finished Far Cry 4 and this has a lot of the same elements in it. For instance, when "attacking" an installation I spend some time "tagging" the enemies with my binocular just like I did in Far Cry 4.
3. Graphics are the best I’ve seen yet on Xbox One.
4. Very elaborate controls, in my opinion – almost to the point of being confusing. Lots of "Hold down the D pad while pressing the left button while selecting AND pushing down with the R analog stick" kind of stuff. Still not used to it all.
5. The story is solid and the voice acting is great!
6. I like the "Mother Base" component to the game. It’s a great way to customize and pick the equipment you want without adding too much management overhead.
7. It’s kind of "open world." It’s not nearly as open as Skyrim or something like that where you literally can just go do whatever you want.

Great game. Glad I bought it. Look forward to MANY more hours of enjoyment.

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Update 9/18/2015
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After playing the game for another 20-25 hours I decided to upgrade my review to 5 stars. This game is amazing. It might be one of the best I’ve ever played. I try to play it whenever I can and I haven’t run across a game like that in a LONG time. It’s just something that has to be experienced. I love it. 🙂

Why did I change my star rating to 5?

1) The detail and thought put into the game is breath taking.
2) The shear size of the game is staggering.
3) I’m not losing interest. In fact, I’m getting MORE interested as I play it longer.

~Slick

This is a great game that is well worth the money. 50+ hours of main gameplay (not to mention the side missions)! The graphics are great, storyline is compelling and the video cutscenes are beautifully directed, voiceovers are engaging, and you can interact with most things in a huge world. The only thing I’d say is lacking is some of the key boss battles – they take too long and don’t really speak to the ‘essence’ of metal gear – stealth attacks. Also, there is almost too much customization, and after completing the game on main missions I had only upgraded like 20% of my stuff… i hadn’t leveled up enough to access the better guns, etc. But overall, great game!

The thing that made me stop playing was the difficulty, which I looked to turn down but didn’t see an option. Otherwise, the graphics are great and the attention to detail with the gameplay is outstanding. It’s primarily a stealth game, but a lot of different factors come into play. There’s the standard ‘the louder you move the easier enemies can hear you’ aspect which seems pretty commonplace for stealth games, but aspects of sandstorms and night versus day influencing visibility was a great move. Mother Base was a little confusing, but since this is my first Metal Gear game, it’s I my own fault for not buying previous titles. It’s a good game, and if I can find a way lower the difficulty I’ll play it again, but it made me want to pull my hair out at times.