VIDEO Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

So I got this game for my bday last week. I bought Ground Zeros afterwards (because **** dishing out $40 for a ****ing demo). GZ was...decent I guess. Very similar to Snake Eater (obviously ). The ending was brutal and bizarre. Then I started Phantom Pain. So far, I'm out of the hospital and have just started Mission 1.

So my question(s) is/are, how good is this game really? It sounds like a lot of the hardcore fans despise it (I've played and beaten 2-4) because of lack of story and a resounding middle finger of a twist, along with the fact that Konami refused to include Mission 51. Although, it seems a lot of the casual gamers who are into stealth have gobbled this one up.

I've played and enjoyed 2-4, and I loved loved loved GotP especially. It's what got me back into gaming in the first place, which was the beginning of the summer of 2008. Am I going to like this one? It's better than Metal Gear Rising, right?

 

I dunno what alleged "hardcore" fans you're talking to that "despise" it, the worst complaint I've seen is that it's much lighter on the story than usual but I think a lot of us feel the gameplay makes up for it to some extent. It's a fun game, and you own it, so ****ing play the damn thing. They aren't actually joking about you only having three days to save Miller, incidentally.

Also,

Rising rocked, so I have no idea what the implication here is. Like, yeah, TPP is better, but TPP is probably a legitimate game of the year contender. Who are you getting opinions from?

 

Personally, I despise Rising. It jettisoned everything that drew me to the MG series and replaced it with hack n' slash and silliness. But to each his own.

I really, really enjoyed Phantom Pain, but I was also disappointed in the story. The depth of the gameplay pulled me in and the sneaking and shooting has never felt smoother. It's odd for the same game in the series to be both the most fun and most disappointing (from my point of view). I still play the game from time to time, but I haven't played the last few missions. The story was spoiled for me by accident, including the final twist, and the story was so light it just doesn't feel worth it to finish. Would rather replay my favorite missions in fun new ways.