The pacing might be terrible, the dialogue incoherent, the character motivations incomprehensible, and the ending woefully unsatisfying, but Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is, really, an excellent video game. It’s an impeccable stealth-action game, clearly inspired in all the right ways by modern series like Far Cry, and it’s got a level of moment-to-moment joyfulness that kept me satisfied even when I was slogging through harder versions of levels I’d already beaten just to see the “true” ending. Metal Gear Solid V is the best Metal Gear yet, and has immediately become one of my favorite video games of the last few years. It’s a very dramatic microwave corridor.) (If you haven’t played Metal Gear Solid IV, well, take my word for it. One particular late-game sequence is on par with the series’ greatest moments, like Metal Gear Solid IV’s microwave corridor. Metal Gear is to dialogue as teenage goths are to poetry, and yet-yet!-there are moments in this game that sent shivers through my body, made all the more evocative by the fact that I was in control of the action. As I watched the story unfold, I found myself constantly frustrated, yelling “no way” at my television every time I witnessed a preposterous plot twist (there are a couple) or listened to an inane conversation (there are many).

For all that’s changed, The Phantom Pain has one big thing in common with other Metal Gears: It is both profoundly stupid and incredibly provocative.

Ign metal gear solid v review