Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Multi)
By: Konami
ONE of the most enduring series in gamedom comes to an end with the tenth and final Metal Gear, completing a stealth-cycle that began 28 years ago on the NES before Hideo Kojima's legendary refit for the PlayStation generation became the gaming benchmark for sneaking around with a box on your head.
Despite losing his left arm and having a chunk of shrapnel lodged in his noggin, Big Boss assumes control of rogue mercenaries Diamond Dogs in the mid 80s, taking on the Soviets in Afghanistan and African PMCs in his quest for vengeance against Skullface.
Kicking off with one of the best intros this side of Last of Us, where players escape from a hospital under siege (and spend a lot of time staring at Kiefer Sutherland's bare backside), it's nearly an hour before you can shoot anyone, but it's soon stealthy business as usual, and as the darkest Metal Gear yet, race, child soldiers, torture and rape are all on the menu.
No longer studying simple enemy patterns, Phantom Pain's whopping environments are stuffed with opponents sporting complex behaviour and multiple points of attack. It's the best the game has ever played, with a wide range of ways to approach targets, wacky mission partners and a metric ton of sandbox to play in.
The open world stuff works really well, giving plenty of angles for infiltration, while you can either whisk guards away in balloons to toil at your base or simply Rambo your way through them.
Being Metal Gear, it's fully loaded with Kojima's trademark weirdness – there aren't many games that let you stuff an inflatable decoy of yourself with C4 while listening to A-Ha on your Walkman before escaping on a horse that can strategically poop.
The base itself is a genius idea, where you can grab a shower, smack your own guards around (they'll salute and thank you for it) or raise canine mascot DD from adorable puppy to throat-ripping hell-hound.
Thankfully, there's far less reliance on over-indulgent cut-scenes (in the fourth effort they took so long enemies were dying of old age), and while it's all a bit pantomime for some (fourth-wall breaking is a staple in a series that often involves running around in the buff, hiding in cardboard boxes and stashing cadavers behind pot plants), fans can ease their phantom pains with Metal Gear's swansong. Kojima and co have earned their rest. *Salutes*.
