Board 8 > Which Metal Gear game did stealth gameplay mechanics the best?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not 3 or V

KCF0107 posted...

Not 3 or V

v did it well. why do you say no?

Absolutely V, from a gameplay perspective the game was an unrivaled mastercraft. None of the others come even remotely close.

3 is still a strong second, though.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Absolutely V, from a gameplay perspective the game was an unrivaled mastercraft. None of the others come even remotely close.

3 is still a strong second, though.

yeah i completely agree with you. Are you the user who is like the biggest mgsv fan on this board? i thought i remembered you.

Biggest, naw, I mean I donstiol like the presentation and story, but it's never going to have the same "Magic" of the other MGS games, despite being so much stronger in the gameolay department.

At least that's better than PW, which has neither the Magic nor the gameplay. Easy last place.

The game that was just VR missions.

Never played 5. Out of the ones I have, 2.

3 by far. It has a pretty steep but short learning curve, and after that it's just pure joy as you get better and better and discover more nuance and tricks to go faster. The learning curve is required to give it much more depth than 2 and 1 (which are still super fun).

It's hard to overstate how important the overall presentation is to the feel of the stealth gameplay too. V's structure is mindless, so nothing in the gameplay really sticks with you other than the mindless tag-tranq-fulton loop. The numbered games have such varied and interesting contexts to each scene, that it encourages more memorable use of the deepest mechanics.

Mgs2 for sure. Only one of the series where it feels like Im neither battling nor exploiting mechanics to just watch soldier routes and sneak around them.

Haven't played 5 but seeing the 5 fan posting saying 3 is a "strong second" makes me feel confident I don't need to

Octocamo was a great gimmick

You just...don't need it after Act 2

3 always felt like it had the perfect balance of variety & tools to play around with, but everything was tight and refined as well. The level design was purposeful.

V may have felt like the best controls and has a massive sandbox of course, but in terms of pure "stealth" gameplay, it never truly felt satisfying I feel. Level design is a huge part of stealth.

V was very fun to play...as a third-person shooter. I don't think that it was particularly good with a stealth approach. Part of that was because of the control scheme to me. You couldn't re-map them, and none of the pre-made options were very intuitive to me.

Yeah, if we're talking just about stealth, the answer isn't V. The answer might be MGS2 because your margin for error is low.

Its easily V. Still one of the greatest stealth action gameplay systems ever made. And the beauty of it is that you have all of these options and systems, but you can also just use the reduced down watching enemy paths and so on, or play it as a shooter (but why would you). Ground Zeroes also has the mechanics at that level and is stripped down to just focus on the stealth mechanics.

Actually yeah, it might be Ground Zeroes if there were more to the game.

KCF0107 posted...

Not 3 or V

this

prob 2

i'd say V followed by 2

3's camo system was painful

I've barely played the series but I thought of 2 first, that seemed like the landmark stealth game at the time, more sneaking around corridors and such. V looked more open world-y.

I voted 4 as I found sneaking through Big Boss Extreme one of the most thrilling and intense gaming challenges ever. Can still remember the chills when completing the boat in Chapter 5. I'd put 2 second - the enclosed environments create a lot of natural tension unlike 3's open areas, even if everything after the Harrier is very barebones/simple. In fact I think I found sneaking through Extreme on 3 mostly easy (to the point of hardly needing retries, other than the section where you have no gun early in Op Snake Eater... oh, and guarding Eva). V is weird; on some missions I found sneaking excellent and intense, but much of the time I just tranq -> fulton'd or had a (very enjoyable) firefight. Being open world and so big I wanted to play time-efficiently rather than stealth, even if it was well designed.

V for sure

Depends on exactly what you mean. 3 is the most fun for me to play, but it sort moves a bit away from stealth, and I also think a lot of the appeal of 3 has more to due with the setting and the atmosphere than strictly the mechanics.

I ended up voting for 2. Never played 5.

UltimaterializerX posted...

5, and this is not a debate because Kojima said as much.

Kojima also said Liquid is bad at genetics to cover for his superior/inferior genes story from MGS1, so I wouldn't consider everything he says about the series as gospel.

But liquid being bad at genetics is the only thing that makes sense

pjbasis posted...

But liquid being bad at genetics is the only thing that makes sense

The problem is that the fans wanted everything to make logical sense

That's why the answer to everything in MGS4 is nanomachines instead of Vamp just being a cool vampire or Liquid actually possessing Ocelot through his arm

Lean into the absurdity imhotbqh

"nanomachines" is actually more absurd than there being a canon vampire. Same with the Ocelot reveal.

there's a difference between accepting something not real as real, and presenting something that is real incorrectly!

Really it's just that dominant vs recessive thing is like the very first thing you learn about genetics, like stuff that's been known since the 1800s. Too much man!

foolm0r0n posted...

"nanomachines" is actually more absurd than there being a canon vampire. Same with the Ocelot reveal.

In the sense that it was just the standard explanation for everything, I agree, especially since it's being used to explain away seemingly supernatural things in a series where supernatural phenomena clearly exist.

But like if you have miracle nanomachines, then it should be fine to have genetics where they can actually control your genes.

And if the explanation was really meant to be "Liquid is bad at genetics," then why doesn't resident geneticist Naomi Hunter ever say, "by the way, that's not how genes work?" Instead, the moral of the story is that you aren't defined by your genes.

Naomi was bad at it, that's why she had the opportunity to have that revelation in the first place.

I guess Ocelot and Solidus are bad at genetics too since they talk about "the inferior one" winning in the stinger

In a world where no one knows anything about genetics because the gene helping you understand genetics has been conveniently filtered out

For the record I easily accept that the limits of Kojima's knowledge shapes the actual metaphysics of the MGS world.

At the end of the day, what's important is that Liquid is his shadow.

Leonhart4 posted...

And if the explanation was really meant to be "Liquid is bad at genetics," then why doesn't resident geneticist Naomi Hunter ever say, "by the way, that's not how genes work?" Instead, the moral of the story is that you aren't defined by your genes.

I mean that can still be the moral of the story even if Liquid is bad at genetics.

I always thought the story of MGS1 was, and this is not due to anything Kojima said:

- Liquid is genetically superior to Solid
- Thinks he's inferior due to his recessive genes (because he doesn't understand genetics)
- Solid wins in spite of being genetically inferior
- Moral of the story works

I always thought Liquid ranting about flawed recessive genes was just him being a heel and not actually how we were supposed to interpret genetics actually working-- I mean does anyone in the story really acknowledge FLAWED RECESSIVE GENES or is it just Liquid ranting and raving?

Lopen posted...

I mean does anyone in the story really acknowledge FLAWED RECESSIVE GENES or is it just Liquid ranting and raving?

The missile that Solid jumps on.

I thought it was more the idea that Liquid had been lied to about being the inferior one to motivate him, but I guess that could be it, too.

It still seems kind of lame to boil down a villain's motivation to a misunderstanding of basic science regardless.

Lopen posted...

- Liquid is genetically superior to Solid
- Thinks he's inferior due to his recessive genes (because he doesn't understand genetics)
- Solid wins in spite of being genetically inferior
- Moral of the story works

I thought this was uncontroversially the story, and it was clear in the delivery in-game too. The only way it could be confusing is if you think all fiction characters are reliable omniscient narrators. But that's the average gamer literacy level I guess.

Leonhart4 posted...

It still seems kind of lame to boil down a villain's motivation to a misunderstanding of basic science regardless.

Doesn't this describe every single techno-thriller villain?

Liquid can understand the SUPER BABY METHOD but not basic genetics

And Snake has plenty of opportunity to say something to Liquid and doesn't

It's just weird that nobody acknowledged in-game that Liquid was way off base

I think its 2 but The Big Shell is kind of a lame environment. 3s forests are much better but I dont like camo or food too much.

It's V and it's not even close. That gameplay is perfection.

Bitto posted...

I think its 2 but The Big Shell is kind of a lame environment. 3s forests are much better but I dont like camo or food too much.

Yeah, I think this is my take on it. Big Shell feels way too sterile and same-y, but the layout is really good for stealth gameplay. I love the jungle setting in MGS3, but I think it was just a little too open and too easy when it comes to stealth.

The urban settings were the most fun in 3 but the jungle areas are very underrated. I think most people ruined it with the Subsistence camera. They complained about how the static camera was too difficult and how much better (easier) the dynamic is, but it was actually perfectly difficult and the level design relies on it.

The jungle is also far more about the environment than the AI, which is really cool. The first time through you're getting destroyed by traps, leeches, animals, random guards, while searching for food and dealing with camo. But it's easy to learn the levels and sightlines, then you can run through the whole thing no problem without touching camo or food. It's less deep than dealing with AI but it adds a nice dimension that the other games don't have.

I might pick V

4 was good when it was there, though maybe the auto camo was too broken? Don't remember

I'm actually surprised at the number of people who have played the whole rest of the series saying they've never touched V, especially with how often it's dirt cheap/free.

Is it spite? That's not me denying the validity, I think spite is a fantastic motivator and excuse to both play and and ignore a game.

A lot of people just drop off franchises as they keep going. Of course MGSV made up for it by being many more peoples first MGS and would go on to become the highest selling MGS game.

V, easily. In terms of pure gameplay mechanics, it's nearly perfect. I wish there was more map(s) and map variety, but c'est la vie

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Is it spite? That's not me denying the validity, I think spite is a fantastic motivator and excuse to both play and and ignore a game.

Probably lack of appeal

Also I bet a huge % of players did not get past the 60 minute intro

V wins for being able to trick guards from checking a toilet if you play the recording of the soldier having diarrhea.

foolm0r0n posted...

Probably lack of appeal

Also I bet a huge % of players did not get past the 60 minute intro

I mean thats just video games. Loads of people boot up games they get on sale and never finish them whatever the game is. Looking at the Steam trophy stats, 89.4% finished the intro, and I wonder how many of those 10.6% even started a new game!

Regardless, V is the most successful Metal Gear to date.

Edit: For contrast only 66% finished the prologue in The Witcher 3.

LightningStrikes posted...

Edit: For contrast only 66% finished the prologue in The Witcher 3.

I didn't even get that far. I walked around for five minutes and went "I can't play a game where the character controls like this" and uninstalled.

And that was AFTER the patch to make it better that the director hated so much.