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Video Game Review – Battlefield 5

I waited awhile to review this game because it had a rocky start. After three and a half months the game finally feels polished and patched up to where it should have been when first released (a sad trend in modern gaming).

I don’t know what it is but Battlefield 5 seems like the shallowest BF release I have experienced. I’ll say strait away that the game is great fun and I’ve already put over 120 hours into it and play fairly regularly. I’ve played pretty much every Battlefield that has come out on Console since Bad Company. I am definitely more of a Battlefielder than I am a Caller of Duty .. I like both games for their different mechanics and styles. I’ll discuss some things I like and don’t like about Battlefield 5 as it stands .

Battlefield 5 is military shooter with an emphasis on large open maps complete with tanks, trucks, jeeps, and even planes. The BF series has different class roles which each play differently and have different equipment to help out on the battlefield. Assault class carries explosives and anti tank weaponry, the Medic class can quickly revive fallen team mates and restore health and bandages. The support class is great for defense and can restore ammo and equipment to team mates as well as build fortifications twice as fast. Lastly the Recon class is best used for spotting enemies with their spotting scope or as counter infantry at any distance. A good BF player will learn each class and be able to switch if the situation calls for it.

To begin the game plays really good now. I have had no severe instances of freezing or being booted from servers. Battlefield 5 definitely captures the intensity of warfare better than any other Military Based Shooter. I know it’s not a “simulator” by any means but there are some truly epic moments in BF games that I have never experienced in any other shooter. This is the main reason why I keep coming back to this series. You feel like you are part of a small army running across a field with other human players, while shells rip into tanks several yards from you. Having to dive in a fresh crater to avoid gun fire and popping smoke so your squad can advance on a target never gets old to me.

The sound in BF games has always been a sheer cut above the rest in terms of oomph and quality. I play on a small surround sound system and most of the guns have a distinct punch and boom when you fire them, not to mention the wonderful echo effects in open areas versus the muffled bangs when firing indoors. The sound design in general is pretty stellar to me. Hearing the roar of gunfire and artillery grow steadily louder as you run towards it is a reminder, to me, of how terrifying it must have been for soldiers throughout the world who had to live through it.

I really enjoy the WW2 setting. World War 2 has been an object of fascination for every generation that came after. I’ve read about extensively.. Today we are only reminded by video games and movies that show heroic characters doing epic things.. I appreciate how BF5, and BF1 before it, captured the more somber and hopeless sides of war. After all it was primarily young men who lost their lives in those savage wars. BF1 definitely took itself a bit more seriously in terms of feel and emotion but I don’t mind too much because after all it is just a video game.

I enjoy what they added to the gameplay mechanics. Every class being able to revive is a blessing. I have been on teams where it seemed like myself and a good squad turned the whole tide of battle, because we had someone playing each class well and supporting each other. It took DICE a minute to get the medic class balanced but now I feel all the classes are fairly useful each to their own and have their own play styles. The emphasis on team play is strong and goes a long way toward winning matches or having more fun in general.

The smoke in BF5 is actually pretty great. The medic class automatically comes equipped with two smoke grenades, which are used with great success in this game. I use the smoke both to safely revive fallen soldiers and also practically as a smoke screen to block the view of snipers, tanks, or when advancing on objectives. To me it adds a small sense of realism to the game that feels genuine. Smoke and cover fire are huge parts of war fare and I feel the small addition of a functional smoke grenade is awesome. I know the smoke nades are in the other BF games as well but I believe this is the first time they are issued as a base gadget. For some reason this helped me notice them and it’s the first time I have ever found them really useful in game.

Although the game plays well now there are still some things that I don’t like or that put a bad taste in my mouth.

Among various bugs and glitches the game felt very empty on launch. There was a huge lack of maps, gadgets, vehicles, and game modes. Many gamers expressed their displeasure with this aspect. Without the 50 dollar premium pass, Dice and EA are hoping that micro transactions will provide enough money to continue development. However the past couple years and other popular titles have shown that this ultimately leads to a weak trickle of content that doesn’t have much of an impact (think star wars Battlefront 2?). Battlefield fans are skeptical if BF5 will ever become the game that it deserves to be and I share in their skepticism.

Another big turn off came after the game launched. There was a problem with the in game currency that allows you to unlock cosmetic items and specializations. The glitch prevented anyone at the already low level cap of 50 from getting the company coins needed to progress.. This left me with a “why the hell even play then?”, attitude as this made it very difficult to advance and specialize my weapons. Worst of is the fact that this bug persisted for over 2 months..

I feel there is a problem with balancing the teams. Often times it’s either mashing or getting mashed. I’ve been in very few matches where it comes down to the wire and the points stay close the whole time. Those matches definitely happen, maybe I just wish there were more of them.

Lastly, customization for your weapons are purely cosmetic beyond what type of optic you use. To me this feels kinda cheap.. I get that it is probably going to be one of their only extra sources of income at this point.. One of my favorite BF games was BF3 because the customizations that you unlocked actually effected the way the gun behaved. You unlocked barrels, grips, stocks, extra attachments, and sights that niched out the weapon. I guess they have “specializations” that you can unlock for specific weapons to better customize a play style. I don’t know.. I just don’t care to have my WW2 guns painted in chrome and gold plating or with bright green and blue colors.

My overall opinions and thoughts vary pretty greatly on this game. I love the gameplay overall. Now as it is, the game sounds great, looks great, and has exhilirating combat. The maps are large open and for the most part pretty balanced (except Hamada, just make it normal conquest?)..

However there aren’t many maps yet and worse yet only 1 new map slated for release by the time four were releasing for BF1. This is an ominous sign of what is to come as far as map content.

I highly recommend this game if you like more in depth online shooters. There is more depth and strategy at play due to vehicles and and different classes. Like I said it is one of the only video games that regularly gives me those “holy sh!t” moments of epic gameplay. There were some issues in the beginning but most of them have been corrected or patched up. I am eager to see what becomes of this game, for it will be telling of the overall trend in gaming as a whole as more and more games move to a “games as as service” model. I’ve already written about my disdain for this in another article.

Hope this article was a little bit useful if you were on the fence about the game.. If you are interested in Battlefield 5 I would highly recommend it now. You can purchase the game for under 40 dollars. I play regularly so feel free to join a game or add me on PSN if you ever want a great squad mate! , my id is: SL_Blank

As always thanks for reading.

Video Game Review – Super Smash Bros: Ultimate

Being a long time Nintendo fan it is no doubt I have played the hell out of the Newest Super Smash Brothers. Super Smash Brothers has a super long lineage going back to the N64. It is a fighting game that pits long time and lesser known Nintendo characters into one roster. An impressive roster at that. Smash Brothers has always been one of my favorite games on Nintendo and probably my most played game on my N64 besides Goldeneye. Spent a lot of time playing Melee for GameCube as well and owned the one for the Wii U.

The game is a stylized fighter / brawler where every character has the exact same move sets controller wise, but the corresponding moves are drastically different for each character. Some characters have similarities usually if they are from the same game franchise or the same story line. Instead of life bars in SB, hits you land increase Damage% and as this rises you or characters you hit are thrown farther from the impact. Eventually after enough Dmg% is accumulated even the smallest move will send a character flying off stage which knocks a point off their score or finishes the match. Basically weaken your opponent enough to Smash them off the stage. These basic mechanics make Smash Bros easy to pick up and learn but a challenge to master. There is a lot of depth to this game, coupled with a HUGE roster of characters, there is a lot to chew on.

Diving right in to the new Super Smash Brothers Ultimate for Nintendo Switch.

The list of characters starts off small and you unloce new characters just by playing the game. I think it took me several weeks to get all of them. There are 76 characters in the game at present, each with different powers and abiliteis. This may seem daunting but the game rewards you well jsut for playing and experimenting with the different modes and functionis. There are many different playstyles among the characters including fighter types, sword types, shooter types, and various other types based off of the games where the character comes from. I’ve put around 40 hours into the game and I still have far from seen everything.

I like this game because there is a littele something for everyone. There is definite action. The graphics are more cartoony and very colorful, so kids can enjoy it. The game has tons of customization and handicap settings so, again, kids can have a good time as well as more seasoned players. I’m not even particularly good at SB but it is always a riot to play with multiple people who know what they are doing, even if they don’t, matches are crazy and mostly enjoyable. You can easily make it easier if you are having trouble in most spots, except for the new Adventure mode.

I enjoy the new Adventure mode, speaking of. It adds the slightest story and strategy element to the game instead of it being just a brawler. After a cutscene you must travel a world map and fight enemies in battles with set parameters and hazards. Doing this gains you spirits which come in two forms. Main and support. These spirits are from any Nintendo property you could ever imagine even some super obscure ones that I have never seen before. Spirits serve as a cool and functional collection item that allow your character to become immune to various stage hazards, move types, or start you off with various weapons. They add very basic form of strategy that is easy to get the hang of. This is a one player portion of the game, but the spirits can be used on any other part of the game, and it lets you choose whether you want them on or off.

The rest is all here including the Classic mode which slowly gets more difficult if you do well, and ends with a battle with master hand or a franchise boss fight depending on which characters you are using. There are also some other great modes including the Century Smash where you fight a hoard of 100 bots, or challenging last man standing type battles. Normal Smash mode has a fully customizable set up and you can save your favorite match types so you don’t have to deal with the menus unless you want to tweak something about the match. You can change pretty much anything about the match including game rules, certain items, handicaps, CPU difficulty, and anything else you could imagine. Ultimate playability (I don’t think that’s a word..)!

There are tons of unlockable items in this game. Literally a thousand plus spirits and thousand plus different pieces of music in the soundtrack. Countless pieces of armor and costumes for your Mii character.. It’s truly impressive the amount of stuff they can fit on those tiny little Switch cartridges. There are literally 100 different stages or battle arenas!!! This game is simply massive.

There isn’t much bad to say about it honestly.

The game is a lot faster than I remember.. Sometimes the hardest part of the match is literally trying to keep track of your character. The stages move and swoosh around and are a potential hazard in themselves. I often find myself losing track of my character after a large explosion or other dazzling event, thus I die needlessly fairly often. You do get used to this but it was something I noticed. I may be getting old or it may have been a long time since I played a SSB game. Honestly this adds to the chaos of the game and mostly ends up being funny in large multiplayer matches. When playing solo it is much easier to see what your character is doing and what your moves do. It took me a lot of time playing solo before I got the hang of the larger more intense multiplayer matches.

The online mode kinda sucks. Or maybe I just suck at SSB because I rarely win and when the lag isn’t messing up my experience people tend to be try-hards or just spam the same bullshit moves over and over. Needless to say the servers aren’t very stable and I’m sure they will be updated eventually but I generally don’t play much online. It picks a random match and random team mates for you unless you are playing co-op with a friend. I probably just need more practice.

With all the games I played this past holiday season I’d say this one was one of the only two that felt worth it, Red Dead Redemption 2 Being the other. I have discussed the ongoing trend of developers selling shoddy and incomplete games. I’m happy to say this game felt worth my money.

I’d highly recommend this game to anyone who likes fighting or beat em ups. The action is intensely smooth and fast paced but the simple controls let pretty much anyone figure it out pretty quick. Definitely a no-brainer for anyone who loves Nintendo and owns a Switch.

Video Game Review – Assassins Creed: Odyssey

I generally like the Assassins Creed series but I’ll admit I got series fatigue after Black flag and never finished Unity and I never even purchased or played Syndicate. I absolutely love what they did with Origins though and as result I thoroughly enjoyed the newest installment, Odyssey. I got a Platinum trophy on the Playstation4, thus I fully explored the game and most of what it had to offer. This game is absolutely massive and Gorgeous to behold. I must say it is an impressive game even at its worse! Never once can I say the game is very bad at all there were some minor things I found silly or repetitive but that is literally any video game.

Most importantly I thought the game was fun! It’s fun and rewarding to explore, the action is fun, and they give you so many options on how to fight and engage the enemy that, as long as I kept changing up my perks and switching up my play style and weapons, the gameplay loop never really got boring even after 100+ hours. To me that is a pretty good experience. There was some repetitive stuff but to me it never felt super drab or grindy.

I truly enjoyed the characters and time setting. I liked the Greek accents even if they were a little cheesy sometimes I thought it felt pretty genuine for the most part. Most every review I have seen or read praises Kassandra as the better and more lively of the two playable characters. I chose her because quite simply a female character adds so much to the dynamic and way I play the character. I personally like the “Bad Ass” female persona, I grew up watching Ripley fighting aliens with machine guns duct taped to flamethrowers. I wasn’t disappointed by Kassandra in the slightest. I read a review that says, “playing as her turns the game from a good one with a solid male lead character into an epic game where you are basically a mini Wonder Woman.” I would definitely agree and second this statement.

The characters felt pretty real and alive. She displayed emotions in a great range, she was funny, and several times I felt the dialogue was specifically tailored to her sex, which to me was refreshing. A friend of mine played through the game as Alexios so I got to hear some of the dialogue and the way people talk to him. There is definitely a difference in the way the NPCs address the main character depending on their sex. It added a nice touch of realism that helped to immerse me in the world that much more.

Some of the Dialogue is kinda cheesy and after spending so much time in the game you start to see the limitations of your choices and effects but The game is Massive and their are so many interesting tid-bits of lore and story, I rarely felt bored and logged over a hundred hours in the game. Better yet I have yet to see any added content so I know I will spend even more time in this gorgeous world. I like how the tale dipped into the legend of Leonidas and the 300 soldiers who fought against the Persian Empire. Some of that kinda gets lost in the story because it is so long, but I was happy with their depiction none-the-less.

The games graphics look very similar to AC Origins. Which I am not complaining about. Origins was a breathtaking game, and Odyssey is no different. I think Origins was a little bit more solid and fluid but Odyssey is larger by a fair degree. Altogether the small glitches and rough spots were easily overlooked next to the beauty and detail everywhere else in the game. I also appreciated the music. As I explored the gorgeous scenery between objectives beautiful female voices echo and twangy sting instruments play serene little riffs that took me to the rolling hills of the Mediterranean.

There were a couple of glaring little things that kinda made me chuckle or were kinda annoying but these ended up being kinda charming, such as the glitchyness of Skyrim. None of these things are game breaking but hard not to notice.

The NPCs dive directly into my horse when I am riding through populated areas. I feel like people stayed more out of the way of my horse in Origins.. but maybe it was just as bad. It’s not a terrible glitch it’s just funny when people are yelling at you to “watch where you are going” as they dive into your horse as it passes them. It happens a lot too.. not just every now and again. I think there is some small timing or spacial issue but I don’t know anything about the technical side of bugs or glitches..

I thought the inventory Menus are kinda clunky as well. I think there should be some kind of fast dismantle option or a way to highlight and sell all of your junk weapons and armor with one button press instead of Ka-chunking through every single piece of worthless armor you collect throughout the game, and you collect a lot, so I found this kinda annoying.

I felt like sneaking and being stealthy was easier than it has ever been. Especially once you power up some of your assassination perks, you can quite literally skip through some of the bases without ever alerting anyone. This is cool and all but I feel like the Enemy AI could have been a little bit better in the hearing and noticing disturbances department. Otherwise I liked how the game kinda levels up with you so when I went back to do missions that I had long passed they were still somewhat difficult and not just a waste of time. I felt like the pacing of the game was pretty good overall.

Lastly, I thought the story was a little bit Convoluted. I ultimately got everything and understood everything but there were some twists that were kinda random and some times in the game where I was like WTF? I feel like they should have gated a couple of the Cultists of Kosmos so that when I got to a certain place, I hadn’t already killed the leader and thus make all of the missions in that area pointless.. This game is so massive that it would be impossible to make it flow without a couple snags. It’s worth noting that most AC games are a little weird when they try to explain themselves.. so it wasn’t too hard to overlook the strangeness of some of the events or pacing issues.

All in all I feel that this is a strong game in the Assassins Creed franchise. I really enjoyed it. It was refreshing to have some RPG elements combined with the glorious action and stealth in the Assassins Creed style. Overall this is a great game for anyone who enjoys big open worlds and lots of exploration. The game was engaging throughout and I still have more to return too and I will. I played a lot of video games this past Holiday season and am just barely now getting to the reviews.

You may not like this game if you dislike long games with Massive and complex stories. There is lots to read and do and can get distracting from the main missions. There is also a degree of grindyness to this game that may turn off some gamers. I don’t mind a bit or repetitive grinding, as I said earlier they give you so many options that the game can only be boring if you play the same way for the whole time.

Definitely recommend Assassins Creed Odyssey.

Video Game Review – Spider Man

I played this game in it’s entirety on the Playstation 4 standard system and got a platinum trophy. Gamer tag SL_Blank

I would highly recommend this game for anyone who liked the Batman and Arkham games. The fluid fighting mechanics are faithfully re-created to make you a web-slinging bad ass after just a short while playing. Definitely give it two thumbs up. I will go over some pros and cons but will try not to spoil any major story points.

One of the most memorable things I liked about the game was the freedom of movement that felt genuinely… well, Spider-Man. After an opening sequence and tutorial for the mechanics, from the very onset of the game, you can do all of the favorite movements. After some practice you can effortlessly re-create your favorite scenes from the movies including vaulting over buildings and doing graceful back flips between every web swing. The game captures the movement and essence of Spider-Man really well.

The story was also a highlight and I was expecting something a little bit lighter in subject matter. This is definitely a darker and more mature exploration of the characters that have been portrayed countless times in varying media. The cinematics are absolutely gorgeous and rival the best CG films I’ve ever scene. The eyes and basic animations are pretty solid. The voices and movements of all of the characters sound pretty good and are believable. Not a single one of them are super cheesy and ruin it. I genuinely cared about most of the story issues being presented. Most people know the back story of the Spider-Man series so I appreciated that this game dove right in and gave tons of little nods to nostalgia as well as more about he characters and lore of this particular Marvel Game Universe (MGU), although I personally craved a bit more. I enjoyed learning about this MGU Peter Parker and his various friends and enemies. I wish they had have given a bit more back story over all.

There will definitely be more Games in this series. Overall the game does all the basic open world mechanics really well. Base Clearing, random pop-up events, collectables, challenges, leveling up, unlocking new skills, etc is all included. There was nothing super cutting edge that I noticed. I know by now that they wouldn’t put all of the best things in the first entry in the series. What it does well, it does REALLY well, However there was a strong desire for more, and I am not being greedy. I have read other reviews with this exact sentiment. There could have been a lot more interaction with civilians and urban landscapes. I personally would have appreciated a lot more variety in the missions and side missions. Again, this is not to discredit the great moments, but some of the time in between felt repetitive from an early stage and didn’t really abate much.

I understand this is a symptom of pretty much any game you go on to platinum. By the end you have done literally almost everything that the creators of the game put in there for you to do, so it’s bound to be a little repetitive. This overall observation didn’t negate from the fact that I had a blast traversing this accurate portrayal of Manhattan. The game lacked a definitive day and night cycle and eventually gives you the option to change the time of day at your leisure. Both day and night looked stunning from high on top of the Empire State Building. Pretty accurate, as I have been up to the observation deck of that particular building! Spider-Man can just run his happy ass up the side of the building! Screw waiting in lines!

Yep, that is pretty much my basic review, There have been a ton of other reviews discussing the nitty gritty. This is just a strait up review from a casual gamer.

Final Thoughs… Honestly at this point you can probly find it used for cheaper and even more so if you wait till after Thanksgiving. I highly recommend this game! If you enjoy being comic book characters in a fluid and seamless open world than this is a great game for you. If you like tight and cinematic combat, you’d probably enjoy it as an action game. Of course if you love spider man you most certainly will dig. It’s been a long time since a good Spidey game came out and this one was a blast to play. I eagerly await the next installments over the next year or two.

As always Thanks for Reading, feel free to comment and share your experiences!

Book review – Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Just finished “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” by Dan Millman this morning and I was surprised what impact it had overall. I was skeptical because it has been made into a major movie. For some reason I feel like books that are turned into movies are cookie cutter because they are easily adaptable, the production took a quarter of a century, so boy was I wrong. I don’t even know why it took me half of the book to really get into it, but upon finishing I realize that is the whole point of the style of the writing it is almost like a spiritual manual but played out with characters that are interesting yet pretty normal. You kinda learn what the point of everything is as you continue on into the story. All at once it became a page turner as I had do discover what the main character was seeking just as much as he was.

First a little bit about the Author. Dan Millman is a world champion Gymnast and Sports trainer who studied at University of California in Berkeley. He later taught sports, fitness, and was a trainer at Oberlin. He has traveled the world and for many years he studied different forms of martial arts, meditation, yoga, and other training pertaining to personal betterment and well-being.

I always find books, who’s authors choose to use their own name for the main character, intresting. I always wonder how much of the themselves the author puts into the character. This is a partial fiction I believe. He writes largely of his time in Berkeley and says many of the instances of his life are included in the book. Although I think the main characters mentor, aptly named Socrates, is fictional. Regardless of fact or fiction this book contained a small amount of adventure, spirituality, intrigue, and almost a form of life manual. Dan Millman’s other books are range from story books about his characters, back stories, all the way too literal Self help and Enlightened living manuals. I will definitely check out some of these as they have peaked my interest already.

The story focuses on a smart, successful, attractive, athelete type dude named Dan who seems to be at the top of his game and for some reason just isn’t feeling content in his various life situations. By random chance he stops at a small gas station close to his college campus and befriends a mysterious and interesting clerk, Socrates, who becomes his Mentor so to speak. The story builds slowly as Socrates molds Dan into what he calls a “peaceful warrior”. I instantly loved this term. My name means Peace in Latin. I have always considered myself and any great characters who fight for the better good, “peaceful warriors”.

The story overall is filled with a type of mystery about who Socrates actually is or if he is just an embodiment of Dan himself at that particular time in his life. There good but balanced humor in this book. It doesn’t have to try hard as you can feel Dan’s frustrations at the absurdness of some of his mentors teachings. I found myself laughing aloud many times at the things Socrates would tell Dan during their various sessions together.

The story blended well with my life in a way as well I read it over several months and finished the last half of the book in two nights. It slowly built up and taught Dan what he needed to live a content life. By half way through the book the various lessons Socrates tells Dan become more serious and forthright and not so abstract and whimsical. I almost felt like I was learning a little bit about the characters experiences, as any good book should. The characters definitely are pretty good all said and done, I want to know more about Dan’s journey and more about how Socrates came to be the comedic guru that he is. I think those will be fine tales, with much to learn, besides being just worth a good read.

The way of the peaceful warrior is a guide to enlightenment, or so I have come to understand, and I would like to read more of this authors books because he delves much further into these concepts and even has manuals for helping one live the way of his peaceful warrior.

Anyways, if you like based on real life stories, personal growth and discovery, or just a thought provoking adventure I definitely recommend giving this book or any of Dan Millmans other books a read. This story encourages dreams, imagination, and meditation. The reading is easy and flows well. Easy language and not very long. Not necessarily a page turner but has a nice flow to it regardless, can be read in small parts or all at once to great effect.

Thanks for reading my book review. Much love!

Video Game review – Metal Gear Survive

**May contain spoilers** I try not too but it’s hard writing a review without spoiling some things, read at your discretion. Feel free to ask questions or comment if you have something to add.

Over all I give Metal Gear Survive a 4 of 5 stars. *NOTE* I have not beaten the game yet. I will update this review if it needs it upon completion. I feel I have played enough hours to write a good review for someone who is curious about picking up the game.

Let me first say, I am a huge fan of Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid video game franchise. I appreciate how the tight mechanics, mature military sci-fi story, superb graphics, and excellent voice acting come together to create thought provoking video games with great content. I was a little skeptical after Hideo Kojima, the main producer of the series, left the game studio Konami. I have read a lot about what caused the split but that is another article entirely. I simply want to give an honest review of Konami’s Metal Gear spin off, without devolving into the Kojima/ Konami fanboy critique.

First and foremost i have read several reviews for the new game and most of them do not say if it is a good game or not. Most reviews I have read simply devolve into how it is NOT Metal Gear.. I got fed up with reading about what people think of the series or the Kojima/Konami situation. I don’t think a single reviewer, actually reviewed the game. It was more about what they didn’t like about it or the story or characters. Still most reviewers put way too much emphasis on the game not being Kojimas Franchise and a cheap cash out by Konami. Most reviews online will tell you all about this. I want to actually discuss the game and why I more or less enjoy it.

It is not a direct prequel or sequel. Metal Gear Survive is an off shoot that happens sometime between the end of Peace Walker and the start of The Phantom Pain in the main story chronology. It is a military story in proper Metal Gear fashion that involves wormholes and other dimensions, combined with infected, zombie like creatures, in a mysterious survival setting. Your character is a silent cuztomizable soldier. You do not directly play as Snake or any of the main characters that you may know. Survive is an entire side story consisting of entirely new characters and some new and old ideas.

That being said, I enjoy this game because of the many formulas at play. Metal Gear Survive is more or less a base building sim that plays a lot like Tom Clancy’s: The Division. It is a well crafted loot-shooter, that combines all of the better mechanics of Metal Gear series, with the looty goodness of The Division, and with a sprinkle of your favorite zombie games peppered in. You have certain amounts of time you can stay out in the environment and you collect materials, food, water, blueprints, and other stuff that you have to take back to a base to count as acquired. You can extend your exploration by preparing yourself with more survival gear, weapons, ammo, food, and water. This allows you to stay out in the harsh environment much longer than if you venture in unprepared. The entire game plays like one huge subsistence mission, where you are entirely un-equipped at the beginning and every single item you use is procured from the environment.

The beginning of this game is not easy. It is a survival type game where the first enemy you encounter is the environment and elements themselves. You have to struggle to find water and keep hydrated as well as cook food. I have read other reviews that described how much of a difficult slog the beginning of the game is and I can definitely agree. I died a lot in the beginning because I was constantly starving to death, either for lack of water or food. Keep at it though because it is deeply satisfying when you start to learn how to keep yourself healthy, well fed, and watered. I was not looking for a game to hold my hand so I enjoyed this steep learning curve. However, people who don’t like slower paced action and stories in general will most likely be put off by the pace of the beginning of the game. This game rewards persistence, and learning from your mistakes.

The action plays well, definitely at a slower pace, compared to the traditional Metal Gear games. I have experienced and played with styles combining run and gun tactics, (once I finally found the blueprints to build a gun) to the quiet and stealthy strategy of the core games. Both work well and the game does a good job balancing and dealing with tension.. A great sense of panic and urgency builds as the zombie like creatures become alert and scream, thus alerting all of the enemies around you. I could feel my excitement rise when I realize a whole hill of those things turns to me and starts running toward me in a large mob. In this game you get to decide whether to take the fight or flight approach, both of which are warranted at different times, a decision which becomes crucial to survival during some parts.

I really enjoy the “Dust” aspect of the game. All around the main base is an ominous cloud called “the dust” . Most of the adventuring is done by gearing up at base and then venturing out into the dust to find, survivors, gear, new materials, or blueprints to craft new things. This brings to mind the Dark Zone of The Division. This area sets up a need to prepare and form a strategy before just casually trekking to that wormhole irregularity. The game does a great job of making the dust disorienting with only small visual clues to help you find your way around. You literally have to make note of direction and recognizable landmarks in order to keep your bearings. This gets more difficult when enemies require you to fight or take alternate routs to avoid being spotted. The lack of direction combined with the fact that you are on an oxygen timer creates quite a tense “oh shit I have to get home” feeling. I think they did this wonderfully it is a great aspect to the game in my opinion.

There is an extensive tutorial menu so every mechanic of the game can be re read to better understand or if you missed some information. I also particularly enjoy that it gives you the option of recovering lost items when you die. You can choose to start right before that last mission started before you left the base, or you can start from base and go try to recover the box full of your items that you lost when you perished. This choice greatly relieves the sense of loss when a game over inevitably happens. I don’t like games that try to waste your time, while in the game.. (that is why I play video games for entertainment). Losing everything for not preparing yourself or making a mistake kinda bugs me but this game gives you an option at least. This is not an easy game so expect to die a lot, especially in the first segment of the game, it is pretty normal, and you aren’t doing anything wrong.

I do have some complaints about the game but none of them are cause enough to make it a bad experience, just something to be desired.

I had hoped the Co-op play would have been in the main quest part of the game. So I could team up with friends to secure the base and loot for materials. For now I believe there are only select staged areas that players can take on cooperatively. I haven’t played too much in Co-op so I will probly update this section a bit when I finish the game.

The characters are decent but not as instantly lovable as the main protagonists of the Core games. Many people will be put off right from the start because you don’t play as snake or one of his colleagues. For the first several hours I found it hard to take the characters seriously, However, after I played for a while I actually kinda started to care whether this group of random characters will ever get home. Also the main conflict, why the characters are stuck in this world, is fairly thought provoking and I want to know who is behind everything and why/how the characters are being manipulated. All of these things, coupled with the inclusion of aspects from the Core metal gear series, make for a pretty compelling survival game with the soul of it’s name sake.

The Metal Gear series is known for it’s tight gameplay, chiseled graphics, and mature (sometimes ludicrous) sci-fi / military stories. Metal Gear Survive definitely embraces these qualities while giving something a bit different. Overall not perfect but pretty good in my opinion. Definitely worth a play through if you like good looking, tight playing, survival games. I highly recommend this if you desired more from The Division. This game feels a lot like that. If you are looking for another Metal Gear Solid game, don’t bother. It is a different experience overall and uses a bunch of new mechanics and other story drivers that may not satiate the common Metal Gear fanboy.

Well I hope this was informative. Please comment or share if you fancy. Much love and Happy Gaming!