The base is not a metaphor, or something rendered only in menus.

Each evening, the family would sit down to watch a movie together.

Kojima wasnt allowed to go to bed till the film had finished, even if it contained sex scenes.

His experience was, he has said, the opposite of how it is for most children.

The Phantom Pain Series Of Military

This childhood ritual seeded in Kojima a deep love of cinema, which can be seen running throughout the Metal Gear series of military-themed video games that hes directed over the last three decades.

These expansive games of khaki-coloured hide-and-seek are routinely interrupted by an overabundance of exposition-laden cutscenes, something that has led some to suggest that their creator is just a frustrated film director.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain puts an end to all that talk.

This is sumptuous, deluxe, groundbreaking game making, and proof positive that Hideo Kojima is a master of the medium.

The year is 1984 and you are Big Boss, the leader of a private military contractor, primarily working in Afghanistan and Zaire, taking on freelance assignments to, for example, rescue prisoners of war from the Russians, or blow up strategic military assets.

The world calls for wet-work, says one of your companys co-founders, early in the game.

And we answer. No greater good.

The Phantom Pain Full Of Tools

No just cause. Big Boss is a crack, lone wolf soldier who carries a Mary Poppins-esque bottomless bag full of tools and toys, and who is supported by an increasingly competent support team back home.

Metal Gears familiar rhythms of commando-crawling through the tall grass, ducking behind walls, luring guards with careful taps and whistles, and popping off tranquiliser darts are all present.

Veterans of last years Ground Zeroes amuse-bouche will also recognise the pleasingly clutter-free screen and the now essential Reflex Mode, which triggers a few seconds of slow motion the instant youre spotted by a guard, offering a moments grace in which you can attempt to incapacitate your captor.

Less familiar is the vast playpen in which you operate, traversed either on foot, by horse or other means, and filled with things to do.

Unlike so many other open-world games, this field is not littered with meaningless trinkets and treasures (although, if you do find a diamond in the rough, it will contribute to your companys purse).

Rather, everything you find and harvest, every piece of information you cajole out of a guard at knifepoint, every single weapon and vehicle you commandeer works toward a unified goal: success.

Big Boss can acquire a range of buddy characters through the game one of them being a faithful canine companion Although it might not seem like it from first appearances, at Metal Gear Solid V s heart lays a business sim.

You are the on-the-ground chief executive, building a workforce who carry out research and, later, missions on your behalf from your base, an oilrig stationed in the Seychelles.

The systems are rich and intricate, and combine to form a complex yet smooth metaphorical engine, one that drives you into and through the game with even more force than its pitch-perfect sneaking and combat.

Almost every enemy soldier you encounter can be stunned or put to sleep with a tranquiliser dart.

Then, they can be parachuted back to the base, where they become the latest recruit in your private army (even if some have to spend a few days in the brig, waiting to be convinced first).

Once recruited, each soldier can be deployed in one of a number of research teams, either providing you with intel on the field, helping to develop new weapons and items, or providing medical support on the base (later, you are even able to scan soldiers to judge their various expertise, or lack thereof, helping you to become a more discerning recruiter in the field).

A soldier with a unique skill, such as the ability to understand a foreign language, will revolutionise your company, allowing you to, for example, interrogate Russian or Pashto speakers, where before you could not understand their words.

Then, when you fill each departments staff quota, you can expand the base itself, to create yet more room.

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