Snake Gets Around
Playing through previous Metal Gear games, you’re pretty much on foot the entire time. I’m not surprised that due to the vast size of MGSV, extra methods of getting around have been implemented. These come in the form of vehicles, drop-off points via helicopter, and my favourite, horseback!
He. Is. So. COOL!!!
Riding the horse controls very much the same as in The Witcher 3 but at the same time feels a bit more comfortable. Whilst on horseback you can gallop, which makes navigating the large environments much quicker. Along with extra speed, your horse can also provide minor cover. By leaning over the side of your horse, you effectively become hidden. However I’m still yet to try this, so I can’t say how beneficial it is.
Alongside having a horse, Snake eventually (if you choose to do so) extracts a puppy from a certain mission who gradually grows into a full sized badass dog. Appropriately named DD (abbreviation of Diamond Dogs, the name of Snake’s private military company) and decked out with a totally awesome eyepatch, this animal becomes an incredible asset to the way MGSV is played. Especially towards the beginning of the game.
DD can alert you to approaching guards, nearby medicinal plants to harvest and occasionally marks territory by urinating. DD also marks enemy locations the same way your binoculars do. However, if you dismiss DD, all enemies marked by him will lose their markings.
Online Mode
If an amazing single player campaign wasn’t enough for you Metal Gear fans, you can also jump into the online mode! You start off with the look you think you’re going to be giving Snake at the beginning of the game, but feel free to customise how you look whenever you want. You’ll be asked to choose from three different classes and mess around with perks and loadouts. Once a class has been selected, you can’t change your mind. As you continue to play, more character slots become available to allow for multiple characters.
A lick of hair there, scratch a scar here and Bob’s your uncle! Hmm he kinda looks like his name could be Bob…
Starting in a free-play mode, your customised soldier can run around a good sized battlefield to practice on test targets using your current loadout, or jump into a robot walker to test out it’s fire power.
MGSV Online has four gameplay modes at the moment: Bounty Hunter, Comm Ops, Cloak & Dagger and Sabotage. Bounty Hunter lets you go nuts killing enemy players until their ticket count drains to zero. The last one standing with any tickets left wins.
Comm Ops is more or less a capture style mode. By controlling different parts of the map, you deplete your opponent’s grasp on the map.
Cloak & Dagger is probably the most entertaining though. It’s basically an attack and defend kind of game where you need to extract one of two data discs to one of two extraction points without dying. The defending team is armed with lethal weapons whilst the attackers are equipped with invisibility cloaks (not the kind a certain wizard owns, but close enough) and non-lethal weaponry. Cloak & Dagger calls for some serious tactical stealth gameplay. You’re bound to come out of this with some great stories to tell.
Sabotage is another play mode that requires your team to destroy or Fulton out an enemy missile before the round ends.
To make things even more interesting, there’s a Survival mode which allows you to compete against five other players in a bid to get the most consecutive wins. Reaching five wins in a row scores you a nice reward.
If you own the DLC “Cloaked in Silence”, you can play Survival mode as much as you want. Everyone else has a limited amount of Survival tickets that get replenished periodically. Makes the DLC a bit tempting but if you can’t afford the couple of dollars it costs, at least you can still play.