If I haven’t been at work or sleeping, the only thing I’ve done for the last six weeks is play Metal Gear Solid V. I’ve clocked over 100 hours. I’ve actively avoided social situations because they were conflicting with my game time. I have relished every opportunity to talk about how Mother Base is expanding, or what 80s throwback pop song I’ve loaded onto my helicopter’s loudspeaker this time.

(Uh, it goes without saying that a lot of major spoilers lie ahead, and if you haven’t completed Mission 46 you should probably proceed with caution)

By this stage, it should be pretty apparent that I’m rather partial to the Metal Gear series. It’s also pretty apparent that I build it up to be a lot more than it probably is, I think a lot of Metal Gear fans feel this way. I told myself time and time again, not to go into MGSV with high expectations after my lacklustre experience with MGS4. I waited until the night before release to watch the launch trailer. I realised this would probably be the culmination of every reason I’d ever played Metal Gear in the first place. I had to wait a few days to pick up my copy. I got the collector’s edition, because I’d missed out with every previous title. I had good reason to believe this might be the last Metal Gear game. It felt important to be throwing all that money away on a pretty pathetic ½ scale replica of Snake’s bionic arm. It’s currently sitting on a pile of unopened review copy games from work. Sometimes I change the pose. It’s a useless piece of plastic, honestly.

I had a friend over to watch when I first started playing. He said he was almost more excited to see my reaction to the game than the gameplay itself. The intro played. I made a mental note to listen to The Man Who Sold the World’ on repeat as soon as I got the chance. I was giddy. It was concise, and I was thrown into gameplay almost immediately (by Metal Gear standards at least). Except everything was cumbersome. The prologue was pretty tedious, and the violence was almost too much, too soon. Everything that was happening seemed like it was intended for an entirely different game. It was cool, but it didn’t feel like Metal Gear. It was almost an out of body experience within an interactive one.

It wouldn’t occur to me until I had finished Mission 46 and found out the true identity of MGSV’s protagonist that maybe Kojima had crafted that first forty-five minutes or so of gameplay to feel as such. Maybe you’re meant to feel like you haven’t played a game in nine years, that you can’t adjust to certain colours properly, that you’re missing an arm. But there’s a lot to wager on that the average player is willing to sink 80+ hours into the story to even reach this third ending. Which still isn’t the final ending, if you factor in the Nuke ending and the cut Kingdom of the Flies mission. So I guess I still haven’t finished the game.

MGSV is a fever dream, an amalgamation of various Metal Gear tropes and inside references, both a nostalgic nod to the past and an ominous premonition of how the original Metal Gear falls into the revised canon. You know Snake is going to go insane, you know that he’s going to build his own nation of soldiers, that at some point he’s going to think – YES, poisonous Zanzibar hamsters are definitely something I want on my base. It’s the journey to that turning point that we’re all playing for. We’re all hanging out for that wink at a future character, whether it’s a throwaway line or shoehorned in as if we’re all idiots who didn’t pick over every meticulous detail in a previous prequel title. Unfortunately MGSV really liked to overstate the importance of side characters from previous games compared to characters who had actual bearing on the plot of the series as a whole. I would’ve loved to know what happened to Null/Frank Jaeger after Portable Ops but Kojima threw him in the retcon bin, along with Campbell and Strangelove (to a degree, though her case was more ‘thrown into an A.I. Pod…’).

The Boss, the one character you’d expect Snake to have the most turmoil over, is barely mentioned. Which is a pretty big slap in the face after watching him have breakdown after breakdown over her living on as A.I. in Peace Walker. Instead we’re force fed Paz and Kaz. But not fun Kaz, so I’m gonna call him Miller. Miller’s shifty behaviour in MGSV mirrors his actions behind the scenes in Peace Walker but unlike in the predecessor, they are never really drawn attention to. Kojima could’ve had a lot of fun with Miller’s character, maybe given him more to do than be a whining, money-driven prick. But let’s forget about Miller and focus on Paz for a second, shall we?

I’ve mentioned before that I felt quite uncomfortable with some changes in the shift from Peace Walker, which was aimed at teenagers, and Ground Zeroes, which was clearly aimed at a more adult audience. The introduction of Paz as a character in Metal Gear is pretty much where I pinpoint a lot of my issues with the series in recent years. She’s the result of Kojima pandering to the otaku demographic, just as he did with Raiden in MGS2 for teenage girls. Paz still doesn’t sit quite right in the Metal Gear universe. I’d pick Drebin’s silver diaper-wearing, smoking monkey from MGS4 over her any day.

To fully comprehend how Ground Zeroes made me feel uncomfortable, it’s almost necessary to go back as far as Peace Walker. My main problem with the recent games is Paz, the Cipher agent who ‘only pretends’ to be a school girl. While Galvez recounts how Paz and her friend were taken captive by a CIA mercenary group, the player can zoom in underneath her school uniform to her underwear. Supposedly to check for injuries, but it feels like it’s really just to ogle. Even though the story she tells is merely a ruse, at this early point in the game you take it for truth. So not only are you meant to feel for her as a survivor of abuse, but then immediately treat her as a sexual object. It immediately makes a mockery of her experiences.

You learn more about her through cassettes, you know, really important stuff like how it felt to be a double agent, cooking with the other gals, watching Snake and Miller fighting naked in the shower…oh, and of course that time Strangelove gave her a sexy rub down…just…really in-depth character development. You get to even go on a ‘date’ with her later, because there’s nothing seedy about a man in his forties taking a teenager for a date by the beach right?

Eventually her cover is blown and a fight ensues on Mother Base. She hijacks Metal Gear Zeke and you’re stuck fighting her while the most distracting, earworm of a J-pop song (sung by her Japanese voice actress, of course) blares all over Mother Base. It ends in a dramatic explosion and Paz is thrown into the ocean. We assume she’s done for. Thank god we never have to deal with that screeching Real Doll ever again. Now we can go back the important things that really define Metal Gear, like pants shitting and how nukes are bad.

So then Ground Zeroes shows up in all of its grim, oppressively bleak glory. The opening sweep through Camp Omega is impressive, it feels Hollywood. Kojima has finally gotten his wish. Keifer Sutherland’s name flashes on screen. This is the big time. Miller recites Campbell’s famous line – ‘Excellent Snake, age hasn’t slowed you down one bit’ in a way that’s almost deriding you for remembering the original context. It feels kind of alien. I had a flashback to when I flicked through the MGS4 strategy guide and thought the game had grown past me. I was worried that maybe I was no longer in the intended demographic.

Ground Zeroes is presented in an oddly realistic, somewhat soulless and depressing manner. Almost as if Kojima was going to visualise the atrocities of war without resulting to some kind of supernatural gimmick. Other than some questionable technology for the 1975 setting, Ground Zeroes is quite no-frills with its gadgets and weaponry. The controls streamline as a result, and the action feels easier to control. It’s actually grounded.

When you come across Chico and the other black bagged prisoners cry out for help in their cells, I felt genuine panic. I watched Snake choke Chico to ‘calm him down’, it felt like his descent into madness had truly begun. The camera dwells on Chico’s injuries for a second, and you get the feeling you’re about to find out it gets a lot worse. I ran off with Chico and hid him near the beach, then came back for the other prisoners, not for some kind of gameplay reward, but that it felt necessary to save them. That if I left them behind they’d only jeopardise the rest of the mission.

Miller tells you over the radio to find Paz next, using the cassette Chico recorded while they were taken to be tortured. Great. He wants to bring her back to Mother Base and punish her for double crossing them (ironic considering Miller had done the same thing with Cipher himself, BUT ANYWAY). So I go and search for her while listening to Chico’s uncomfortably voyeuristic tapes. Oh good, she’s strung up in a basement with her head shaved. She looks like she’s been beaten up even worse than Chico. She cries the whole time you carry her to the LZ, which in my case was mid-alert phase. I hated it, it was insanely hard. I wanted the mission to be over.

As the chopper takes off, Chico alerts Snake to a bomb hastily sewn into Paz’s abdomen. I know where this is going. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. The medic carefully cuts the stitches, Snake holds down her shoulders and then everything just goes too far. There’s never been gore like this in a Metal Gear game before. Everyone tries desperately to hold her organs in, she screams and Chico just looks on in horror. I do the same. The medic eventually pulls out a bomb, and Snake tosses it out the hatch without batting an eyelid. As if he couldn’t care less.

Then we come across Mother Base in flames, the IAEA nuclear inspection a ruse. The destruction is devastating, and gets right under my skin after all those hours spent recruiting troops and building Mother Base during Peace Walker. Just as Kojima planned, I’m sure. The chopper touches down just in time to rescue Miller as the final strut sinks into the ocean. It’s almost poignant. But then Miller ruins it with an obscenely hammy line – ‘they played us like a damn fiddle!’, and the moment is lost. He grabs Paz by the shoulders and calls her a traitorous bitch. Yeah cool, let’s drag her through the mud a little more. She spits blood in his face and practically leaps out of her seat, eyes darting around the chopper before she opens the hatch. Snake attempts to stop her from jumping, claiming they got the bomb. She cries that there’s another and throws herself into the sea as an enemy chopper shoots them down.

It’s an emotionally draining end that left a bad taste in my mouth. Forcing Paz to become some kind of martyr felt forced and awkward. Snake really didn’t seem to care about her that much during Peace Walker and they wanted her gone anyway. It weakens the end of Peace Walker to bring her back solely as torture bait. Then again, Kojima loves to bring characters back from the dead to deliver a message to the player, only to die again forty minutes later. End of MGS4, I’m looking at you.

After the first ending in MGSV, we’re treated to a little snippet of what was to happen in chapter two. Images of Paz flash by quickly, I didn’t pay much attention to it since I assumed it would just be a flashback. I quickly forgot about it and instead kept toiling away on side missions, occasionally coming back to Mother Base to check on developments and hang out on the Animal Conservation platform. One particular time that I came back, a cut scene triggered where one of the child soldiers had dropped a necklace into a chlorine tank and Quiet comes out of nowhere to jump in and retrieve it. She makes it out, but gets roughed up pretty badly. You’re told over the radio that she’ll be in sickbay for a while, so naturally I want to see if you can visit her. After wandering around the Medical Platform, I finally found an open door. The screen goes dark and I get settled in for a cut scene, but it’s not what I was expecting. Quiet is nowhere to be seen. It’s Paz, sitting on a bed reading a book written by Galvez. She’s got a couple of scars, but her hair has grown back and she’s in some kind of bikini doctors scrub getup. Great, she’s alive again.

We’re then treated to a lovely flashback that goes far beyond tasteful. In fact I’d say it’s flat out disgusting. Everyone already knew where the second bomb was. We already had to listen to the tape where Skull Face just rams it in there in Ground Zeroes. Why go the extra mile, is it just for impact? Why is no other character in the series shown in such a way? How is an audience meant to feel compassion for Paz’s torture after being forced into fetishizing her in Peace Walker? In the last few instalments of Metal Gear, it seems that for every moment of sincere, horrible side effect of war shown in Metal Gear, there are ten more of utter stupidity.

So begins a series of side missions where you have to search for former MSF soldiers from nine years ago, each soldier carrying a photo that corresponds to one of Paz’s tapes in Peace Walker. Every time you find a photo, you’ll bring it back to her room on the Medical Platform, and every time she gives the same response. She thinks it’s still 1974, and she honestly believes she’s a student. Here we go again.

When you bring her the final photo, she’s too busy ripping her guts out to care. Let’s relive the bomb disposal scene from Ground Zeroes again, because that was so fun. Snake is seemingly upset as the room explodes and Paz disappears. It was all an illusion. What a waste of time. But then you receive a rather eerie tape that emphasises that no matter what Snake does, Paz can never be brought back. But why should we care?

It’s funny that the vast majority of Snake’s motivations in the last couple of Metal Gear games are based around women. After MGS3, Snake is thrown into turmoil over The Boss’ final mission. Time and time again, female characters lure him into the idea that they can help him come to terms with The Boss’ death. Hell, it’s why Snake agreed to take on Paz’s request for help in Costa Rica in the first place. She simply brought a recording of The Boss’ voice and he was putty in her hands.

In MGSV, a lot of Snake’s actions are for Quiet’s well-being. He appears to take an instant liking to her, probably due to the fact that she’s quite handy with a rifle rather than her attire (or lack thereof). When Quiet takes down an enemy jet by way of slow-motion headshot to the pilot – some real Twin Snakes bullshit right there – Snake seems to be overcome by the same gun-boner he had when Eva gave him the .45 in Tselinoyarsk. I’ve always liked that competence, rather than appearance, has been what was deemed attractive in the Metal Gear games and MGSV is no different.

At first I tried not to rely on Quiet for missions, instead spending all my time with DD. I didn’t think she’d be all that useful, and wrongly assumed she was only there as jiggle bait. But as her bearing on the story increased, I found it necessary to take her along. Then I felt protective of her, I grew attached. When she disappears in the endgame, I set out to find her immediately. Her escape from the Russian soldiers was ridiculously cool, even if it was ultra-violent. It dawned on me that she was totally badass, even if she had a gimmicky back story and liked to roll around in the rain wearing a tactical bikini. Her ending is bitter-sweet, and I thought it was rather fitting if not a little predictable. My only regret is not keeping her around a little longer to S rank a few more missions.

While women drive Snake’s motivations, it’s the men making decisions for him. Miller and Ocelot constantly bicker as if they’re cartoon angels and devils on Snake’s shoulder. He’s a passive protagonist, only ever giving input when yelled at to do so. For someone who is meant to be a charismatic leader, he’s emotionally stunted and awaits prompts from everyone else. Miller’s suspicious actions are never dealt with, brushed over as if Kojima ran out of time to write that part of the story. I was always on Ocelot’s side, even during torture sessions. He does well to play the cold and nonchalant ‘villain’ in these scenes, but he’s actually the good cop out of the two. Ocelot is also the only one who knew the truth about Snake’s identity from the beginning. That the real Big Boss only tells Ocelot about his plan is a clear indication of his lack of trust in Miller.

Ah yes, the truth. I had no idea that mission had been coming. I had assumed the game was over after Quiet vanished. But then Mission 46 appeared in my mission list. ‘Escape the hospital’ – Alright, why not. It hits me straight away, Kojima played me like a damn fiddle. Of course you’re not Snake, there are all sorts of red flags throughout the game to throw you off. Hell Ishmael even says ‘you’re talking to yourself’ in the prologue. I felt like a dumbass for not having noticed sooner. But then I thought back to other instances in the game. When you find the Mammal A.I. Pod in Huey’s lab, The Boss’ voice seems sceptical of your true identity. Eli’s DNA test comes back negative, because you’re not who you appear to be.

It’s a ridiculous fake out that angered me at first until I let it sink in. In an open world game where you dictate the flow of narrative, you create your own story for the protagonist. It explains why Snake is so passive in his interactions with his comrades on Mother Base, why he cautiously looks on before taking action. He’s a shell of a man, devoid of his own identity and brought back from the dead to only serve as a stand-in. In fact, the final timeline shown after the credits reveals that Solid Snake kills Snake’s Phantom rather than Big Boss himself in the original Metal Gear. It almost makes sense. Almost. Oh and that camera pan to the tape labelled Operation Intrude N313 and the MSX booting up. Ugh, it was beautiful.

Despite all the shortcomings in character development and storyline, this might be one of the best Metal Gear games solely based on gameplay experience. I don’t usually like open world games, I prefer a strong narrative to drive the gameplay along. But I felt true freedom in this sandbox. This was the first Metal Gear title where I preferred the gameplay to the cut scenes, and it felt all that more satisfying as a result. I’ve shrugged off the pseudo-science and questionable voice acting for crossing the desert on horseback, tying balloons to soldiers and picking medicinal flowers. All the while, I think to myself – ‘From here on out, you’re Big Boss.’