It’s left the likes of Assassin’s Creed looking tired in its wake. The game is so thoroughly divorced from the boring story that you could entirely enjoy the game without it.
This is so far ahead of other action games-Kojima Productions retained the series’ detail and sense of humour but found more ways to convey that with unscripted moments. It’s so good that I can’t quite believe this game has been made in my lifetime. I’ve called in airstrikes on bears, stuck numerous tanks on balloons, and patted my dog for reassurance while being hunted by mechs, helicopters and soldiers. Its suite of toys starts big then just expands over the course of many sidequests, offering players more and more options with which to mess with enemies. But the time of MGS as a story-heavy series truly ended with MGS4-this is a new era of Metal Gear, one where the focus lies on user-generated stories by throwing together systems in two massive open worlds. Samuel Roberts: As a friend of mine put it recently, it was always the systems that made Metal Gear special, not the story.
