Metal Gear Survive isn't as awful as it is forgettable

[Administrator]

Metal Gear Solid has always been a self-referential series, but this is something else entirely; a Metal Gear game that feels like an unofficial rip-off of itself. Even the premise of Metal Gear Survive reads like fanfic. Set in an alternate universe, the player-created character has been sent through a wormhole, along with other Militaires Sans Frontières soldiers and the remnants of Mother Base, to a world populated by weird crystallised zombies. It all feels strangely heartless; without Hideo Kojima at the tiller, those odd moments you'd previously write off as the eccentricities or flights of fancy of one man can now feel empty, soulless and written by committee by comparison.
There'll be an option to play solo, but the emphasis in Survive is squarely on co-operative play and 'survival action,' as you gather resources, craft weapons and ammo, fortify bases and fend off hordes of enemies with your squad. There are no character classes, allowing players to tailor their avatars to whatever play style they prefer, free of team role archetypes. During the most recent demo presented at this year's E3, three other players and I were put together for a co-op mission and, to save time, made to choose from four preset character builds - two long range, two melee, two male, two female. I chose a character equipped with a bow, some mortars, and moveable fences that you can set down to provide a blockade against crowds of zombies.
The controls are more or less identical to The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes, meaning you can perform a roll, lay prone, and perform basic close quarter combat moves. Given the sizeable shift in Metal Gear Survive from stealth-based tactical gameplay to (at times) frenzied gunplay against crowds of close-quarters enemies, these controls don't always feel entirely natural - let's face it, surviving aggressive hordes is not what the Metal Gear framework was built to do. Setting up a high vantage spot and using a bow and arrows to pick off as many oblivious enemies as I could did prove satisfying, however, even if it wasn't exactly efficient. And also, a little too easy, because these zombies are thick as mud. If I hadn't had to climb down to craft more arrows, I may never have needed to move again for the entirety of the demo.
Read more…


More...