Review of Metal Gear Survive

It kinda sucks because the majority of Metal Gear games were indeed solid, both in amazing gameplay and intricate story. This one sadly developed and published by Konami doesn't have any. Taking place between the events of 2014 'Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes' and 2015 'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'; the game has the player take command of an MSF captain who get trapped in a parallel dimension where a mysterious virus to turning the survivors of the Mother Base into zombie-like creatures called 'Wanderers'. Without spoiling the game too much, following the series creator Hideo Kojima exit from Konami, it's seem like the game developers didn't much an open sandbox to play with. After all, most of the money was going with the company new focus shift toward casino mobile gaming rather than home consoles. So for the most part, the game just use the same recycle assets from their previous games in its engine. The most jarring of this has to be the near empty deserted landscapes of Dite that just looks very similar to the Afghanistan levels from 'Metal Gear Solid V', just with fog to mask how small it is. To add to that, the game poses very arbitrary limits on all the mechanics in lieu of actual progression. A good example is that is how 'Metal Gear Survive' has walls of microtransactions. The game doesn't even allow you to get another save slot without paying cash. That isn't fair. Another thing the game does is set extreme high standards on the player controlling their character's hunger, thirst, stamina, and oxygen levels before entering a new area. If your stats are low, the AI Virgil AT-9, the base camp computer (Voiced by Ananda Jacobs) will remind you constantly to refill it in an annoying, slow, monotone voice. As much as that is a nuisance, the countless tutorials are worst. They act like the majority of the audience have never played video games before with all the nagging. Anyways, once you get through that, rest of the mission gameplay even with multiplayer is just as boring. Gathering resources from ruins, rescuing stranded personnel and rebuilding the base is just as tedious and repetitive. Even fighting hordes of zombies is a chore as the enemies rarely pose a danger. For zombie standards, they are really stupid as don't even think about going around a chain fence. Enemies have really bad AI. Likewise, the game has little to no emphasis on stealth which diehard fans have gotta use to. Instead, it punish you by taking stamina for taking that route to kill enemies rather than using quick melee attacks. That doesn't make any sense. Even the music along with the gameplay is forgettable. I miss the days of having a fantastic musical score by composer Harry Gregson-Williams to set up the mood. A better score would have make this game a lot better. As for story. While the game has clever nods to works like 'Dante Inferno' by poet Dante Alighieri, Greek mythology and mysterious real life events like the Philadelphia Experiment like previous titles. The game is still a huge departure from the general feel of the series in that department. Honestly, why can't we have the complex political fiction, and espionage that fans of the series have long love? While the game does talk about the nature of warfare, the dangers of genetic engineering and nuclear disarmament, the voice performers kinda brutal the sophistical by reading the lines so dully rather than giving out emotional delivery. Not only that, but dialogue scenes are rarely animation. That means long wind exposition dumps are a lot harder to sit through than the other games cut scenes. To add to that rather than paying Kojima to use his highly complex in-depth characters in this game, they instead outed to create a bland playable customize character with a story so generic and lifeless that he doesn't stand out. Not only that, but the game is full of plot holes as majority of threads are never resolve. Don't get me wrong, apocalyptic zombie games with customize character and world building can be fun. Just see 2015's 'Fallout 4' for example. However, this game take the survival concept set in another world entirely and made it unplayable. Not only does the game looks and runs noticeably much worse on the Xbox compared to any other version of the game. The resolution drops all the way down to 720p. As for Playstation console, it's a little better, but requires internet connection to play both multiplayer and single. Honestly, it's better off to find a PC version if you want to play. Anyways, after the massive backlash that the game received, many fans are in agreement that the series just won't survive without Kojima. In the end, it's just another survival game in an already oversaturated market, not worth playing. This game deserve to seal in a cardboard box and never open. It's that bad.