Snake: Weapons and equipment OSP (on-site procurement)?
Campbell: Yes. This a top-secret black op. Don't expect any official support.

MGSV’s musings on the ceaseless war economy, linguistic colonialism, and imposter syndrome come across as scattershot and for the grander duration of the title left me feeling completely hollow. promised as the world’s foremost tactical espionage title, the game’s tightly choreographed mechanics felt as though they had been slotted into a vacuum devoid of meaning because the series’ layered gameplay replete with a diverse selection of choices dissipated in the face of subpar and artificial level design, suggesting once and for all that a game should perhaps aim to be more than the mechanics that prop it up. the usual directorial gratuitousness of the franchise all but vanished, replacing its slick and controlled craftsmanship with boiler-plate camerawork and storytelling that lacked emotional drive even at its most off-kilter. rote base management mechanics returned from peace walker, only now larger in scope, more pervasive, and entirely less enjoyable. when everything in the world became a harvestable resource, fuel for your well-oiled war machine, the conscription of personnel became necessity and thus the game’s sense of freedom became shackled to optimal and highly exploitable gameplay loops designed not with stealth in mind per se but rather with efficient accumulation taking the helm, for which only a few tools became necessary. it’s this ambition to do more, have more, and create more that led to one of the most complicated releases of the decade, a game in which the vastness of it all dwarfed the hitherto established intimacy of the franchise to such an extent that communities became completely and totally fragmented over just how much of this mess was authorial intent or not – whether or not their ‘phantom pain’ was intended.

whatever the case, there is as much of MGSV that points to this reading being an intended success on the part of its author as there is evidence to suggest it really wasn’t; further fuel to the fire was added by the revelation of deplorable behind-the-scenes working conditions alongside missing content alluding to an entire chapter torn out of the game which seemed to suggest one of the medium’s most celebrated auteurs was ruthlessly disrespected and his work was severely compromised. if i had to do away with the hackish pseudo-academic veneer of this essay for a second, i would say that you really had to be there witnessing this unfolding narrative to understand its essence. MGSV was one of the most hyped games of its generation, kojima appeared to be on a tear with the revival of silent hill as an ip, and in one fell swoop silent hill returned to dormancy and kojimas professional career (and perhaps even, for a time, reputation) was shattered at konamis behest shortly following the release of MGSV. it seemed unjustifiably cruel, maybe even nonsensical considering the extensive relationship between auteur and company in addition to the guaranteed success he was capable of generating. understandably, people once again began investigating to see the subtext behind the material – they reinterpreted PT as a title that predicted KJP’s oblivion, they came to see optional ground zeroes missions as suggestive of konami erasing kojimas legacy. whatever it was that could be pored over was. i would put forward, however, that even amidst the deluge of scathing reports regarding konami’s corporate culture, the hazy details of kojima’s termination, and the constructing metanarrative that found foothold in forums and messaging boards, the moment that cemented konami’s legacy as the industry’s number one heel was barring kojima himself from attending the game awards in 2015, which geoff keighley seemed visibly perturbed about. no one likes to see a diamond dog kicked while he’s down.

a cultural context can be a powerful thing. by and large, this is what made metal gear survive destined for failure on the day of its announcement. making matters worse was just how derivative the experience seemed to be, not just in its reuse of MGSV’s assets but also in how it seemed to desperately ride the coattails of the uninspired and in-vogue survival movement, using the pristine fox engine to deliver on…zombie action that you’ve almost certainly seen elsewhere. kojimas lack of involvement, the genre from which it takes its inspiration, the strong emphasis on its multiplayer, inclusion of microtransactions, always-online DRM, and the pervading industry context prior to release were all signals that portended doom, the kind of game that releases straight into the ninth circle of hell – speaking personally, i was so disillusioned by MGSV that i hardly paid attention to it even as the engines of the youtube pseudo-critic mill roared to life to bludgeon a dead horse into unrecognizable paste. this games life and MGSVs failure were inexorably linked, so divine punishment needed to be meted out by the community and evidently, the calls for this game’s crucifixion exist to this day – i mean you’re right here on backloggd, which is only an infinitesimal slice of the internets demographic, and you can see how many 0.5’s this thing’s racking up, the grand majority of which i’ll infer haven’t even played it. this title’s only real contender as far as ‘worst average on backloggd’ goes is alien colonial marines, leaving aside vaporware like yandere simulator and titles like superman 64.

it’s been five years since MGSV and i knew there was a problem when i thought for even a second of returning to the world that it presented. ive put enough distance between the titles release and now that returning to reassess it seemed like it could be a prudent venture just as much as it seemed a waste of time for a product that bordered on dreck, one that i was grateful to have torrented. i was scanning online to see how cheap physical copies of the game were, i found metal gear survive for six dollars, then i blacked out and now i’m here, thirty minutes away from the aforementioned game’s finish line, writing about one of the internet’s most detested games on this platform. what transpired here was an experience that surpassed my frankly non-existent expectations and provided for some of my favourite thought exercises i’ve experienced in my time casually writing about the medium.

first and foremost: i believe auteurs are intrinsically intertwined with the art they create. they're important to the fabric of the text, particularly in jpn game development where it seems they tend to have a lot of input (though my discussion here does not intend to suggest games are not inherently intensely collaborative projects). for the sake of argument: remove yoko taro from the apocalyptic, nightmarish drakengard and you get the uncouth high fantasy of drakengard 2. diminish suda51s importance to the subversive hyperreality of no more heroes and you might wind up with the perverse, juvenile, borderline unrecognizable sequel, desperate struggle. that said, there are those rare few titles for which handing the keys over to a new party has worked out rather nicely – the evil within 2 saw shinji mikami pass the director’s seat to john johanas, resulting in an unexpectedly good work. it is my firm, resolute, and perhaps alarming belief that metal gear survive is one such game that belongs to the latter camp, making better usage of all of MGSV’s design tenets to create a more watertight title.

previously in this review i briefly touched upon my belief that MGSV is a game better understood through the lens of accumulation and resource extraction rather than through the traditional lens of espionage so that it may serve a metanarrative agenda; by contrast, what metal gear survive does is it literalizes this gameplay loop, grounding it in terms of a constant struggle against the game’s alternate dimension of dite to create a system that is far more personally affecting. MGSV’s itemization of the natural world sees even greater manifestation when you realize every time cost mechanic of the phantom pain has been rebalanced to work against you, which means time is your most tangible resource and the design throughline which promotes efficacy and planning in a manner exceeding MGSV. every second wasted means your hunger and thirst ticks down, every second spent crouchwalking or crawling expends stamina because your glutes aren’t deemed foxhound worthy (especially noteworthy because this is one small part of what makes the action/stealth dichotomy far more balanced than the game’s spiritual predecessor), almost every action in the game incurs some form of risk or otherwise depletes some kind of asset, and the flow of the game never once ceases to force your hand into action. this, i find, often throws new players for a loop – yes, the narrative of the early hours and the preceding tutorialization is rather weak because the game tries not to overwhelm its players, but it still remains surprisingly difficult once those hurdles have been overcome. one of the strongest assets of the game is its merciless nature which prevents players from having access to unearned conveniences or getting stuck in one optimal gameplay loop for too long, a problem with the vast majority of survival games (here is where i must point out that every single armchair critic who told you the game is poking zombies through a fence with a spear for thirty something hours is straight up lying to you. any dissent to the statement i just made is also a straight-up lie.) in the early game it is expected that you must adapt to your new surroundings or face immediate death – players, for instance, don’t have an easy way to obtain clean water until at least seven chapters in, forcing them to partake in dirty water and risk infectious peril numerous times. zombies might be dumb, and to a certain degree exploitable, but they are freakishly strong and unending in numbers. every chapter forces the player on further and further expeditions into uncharted territory even as they may struggle to balance effective base management and even effective self-regulation. defence units built can’t simply be recycled back into their base materials once constructed – there’s an expectation of commitment here present in every ordeal the game imposes upon its players.

the overarching context by which all these intertwined systems are facilitated is the dust, an overworld expanse covering the vast majority of the games maps. the dust is characterized by a few traits. firstly, expeditions into the dust require oxygen, which runs out rather quickly and can only be replenished by investing successively greater amounts of in-game currency (which you need for everything else from crafting, to base building, to upgrades) in order to facilitate productive expeditions – the designers smartly refused to allow players to upgrade this oxygen capacity by any truly convenient measure, meaning each expedition is wrought with monetary friction. secondly, the dust obfuscates the player’s surveillance by every means imaginable. the waypoint and GPS functionality of your map fizzles out within a few seconds, aside from scant few designated areas and paths where the signal is strong enough to restore functionality. the world is shrouded in a kind of quintessentially konami miasma, through which visibility is low and landmarking, route-planning, and testing player’s memory becomes a necessity. thirdly, one cannot save once they are in the dust – meaning that every expedition is naturally tense. these are the primary factors which ensure that no expedition is ever undertaken without planning beforehand or without at least some fear of the unknown, which encourages a shrewd and careful playstyle, but they also mean that the next mistake could be your last, and they also mean it is possible to become hopelessly lost which will tax players’ ability to stay steely and retain their resolve. speaking as someone who did become hopelessly lost and came close to wasting almost 25 minutes of progress while constantly, fruitlessly expending my cash to have some meager oxygen aiding my desperate search for beacons that would light the way back to home camp, the moment i stumbled on one of the game’s few oases – clean zones where your maps work again, where water and food can be cultivated, and where oxygen is no longer depleted – it felt like a small miracle that could hardly be replicated in any other survival game. here i must give particular commendation to the map design as well, which provides the illusion of an open world but is instead a smidge more linear than it lets on, allowing for divergent treks that capitalize on player exploration while always advancing the games sense of flow and progression and structuring its challenges and worldbuilding in a manner that exceeds the artifice of MGSV’s far cry-esque outposts and hubs. if we accept that both of these games are at their core actually about resource extraction, it is metal gear survive that is the more convincing of the environs in its level design and depiction of a hostile and unforgiving world which is nonetheless your oyster.

it is the inclusion of the dust which characterizes the games absolute strongest hooks in atmosphere and metanarrative, as well. metal gear survive is not hesitant or subtle in delivery – it is aware of its nature as an asset-flip project. suffice to say that there are several returning areas from MGSV that have been remixed or recontextualized and are ripe for exploring and collecting valuable materials to strengthen ones base, provide for base personnel and oneself through food, drink, and medication, add to ones collection of defence units and offensive weaponry. nonetheless, the implication could not be clearer – here you are, in a forgotten world entrenched in a deep fog, pilfering its remains for anything which might prove valuable to yourself. these are the surprising and quiet moments that had me solemnly reflecting on my time with MGSV and on my time with metal gear survive. many playing the game might see a barren overworld, but to me this is a game world that feels completely haunted in a way im not sure ill ever be able to articulate. perhaps it’s the lonesome nature of each trek, perhaps it’s the slightly removed familiarity of each environment (from which i choose to steal for my own benefit), perhaps it’s the faint creaks and drones one hears in the dust as well as the occasional barely heard whispers, perhaps it’s the promise of a world once teeming with potential for life and espionage now reduced to nothingness and including the medium’s most beaten-down enemy type in droves. to me, there’s a mutual understanding between myself and the developers that some of this feels like blasphemy, and certainly those shrewd investigators i mentioned at the beginning of the review were clever enough to pick up on such cheeky inclusions as ‘MG KIA; KJP FOREVER’ at the start of the game, but i was surprised to see none commented on how any of these self-critical and distraught narrative elements continued to resurface as a vicious undercurrent throughout the entire experience. it’s all but stated right in the opening cutscenes – the captain stands in the wreckage of his home, mother base, and finds himself transported to an alternate dimension at the behest of a shadowy organization, the machinations and politics of which he cannot fully understand. and since you’re not likely to ever play this game if you’re reading this review (if you made it this far) i can say that it ends with the captain and the survivors unable to return home, but still always looking for a way in which they might be able to and still making the best of their situation the only way they know how to. everything that happens in between those two focal points doesn’t matter – the pain of severance is irrefutably part and parcel of metal gear survive’s premise. it’s easy to make a sardonic and biting comment about the irony of this game’s title, but i left the experience assured that this was a team of developers who genuinely wanted metal gear’s legacy to survive in spite of the conditions they were forced into.

this isn’t necessarily to say that the game is a hidden gem – it is an incredibly solid game that met with an insane amount of derision, but careful scrutiny still shows a product that could, in many ways, afford to be a better title, many of which revolve around the hesitance of the designers to truly push this title into MGO levels of madcap insanity. the strengths of metal gear survive become apparent when those abrasive and frictional qualities are at the forefront. the flaws of the experience readily show themselves when their lack of confidence, or more specifically, konamis lack of confidence, manifests. inarguably the greatest stains on the experience are the always-online DRM component of the title, which is frustrating on every level and betrays konamis minimal expectations with the game, and the inclusion of games-as-a-service elements, but particularly the supply box which, every day, supplies the player with a randomized selection of three items each to assist them in some way. these are usually defence units and traps, but they also include water and rations which, if utilized, can deter from the intended experience to an extent, so they’re best ignored if one can refuse to give into temptation because i wouldn’t say they trivialize the early game but they certainly ease player stress and one thing this games design is oriented towards, and what it does excellently at times, is fostering player stress – such an inclusion is nothing more than publisher-induced anathema.

further, while the atmosphere it cultivates is strong, i wish slightly more was done with enemy management. the map design, and the way in which the dichotomy of stealth and action is better managed, is impressive, but it takes a little too long for enemy waves to be diverse, which is a shame because when they are the game becomes delightfully chaotic. these are the moments in which metal gear survive almost becomes transcendent in its design, which become more apparent around the time the second map is introduced. there are some delicious scenarios here that test player mettle in ways that completely blindsided me and which seemed purposefully designed to bait unsuspecting players, and these are excellent, but there are just as many moments where some of this chaotic streak could have stood to benefit the games systems at an earlier point in the game purely for the purpose of spurring its players into determinative action. it’s such a strange thing because the game’s progression is quite good at what it purports to achieve but just as the challenge starts reaching an even more interesting fever pitch, the game enters its denouement. i find myself at odds, simultaneously wishing it was either more compact, or that it was a longer campaign.

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the internet’s full of obstinate folks. i don’t think i can change anyone’s minds on this title, nor do i think i can blame them if they choose to give the game a miss. but i find it extremely interesting as an example of targeted hostility, disingenuous criticism, and cultural narratives informing our perceptions of a work. what i found in metal gear survive was a survival game that acted as an emotional and mechanical post mortem for the design of mgsv, as well as a good game that combines the tight responsiveness and polish of the fox engine with a genre that seemed trite and overdone even in its time of release. what other people appear to see is a work that was intentionally crafted to spite them, which seems to me droll, predictable, and totally self-centered. granted, im still of the belief that konami is an abysmal publisher, so i can’t change people’s perceptions of the game, but i can scream to the heavens what i think through my writing: that these assertions are fundamentally untrue, and that it does a disservice to kojima’s former team, who have inadvertently crafted a more engaging title than MGSV ever was. i think that we, as a culture that writes about these experiences, could afford to be a bit more clever and nuanced in our analysis – more raw honesty, more passion, more standing our ground. it’s either that, or the cultural endgame we’ve been building towards for years here – the dominance of insincerity and contrarianism, the labelling of any meaningful dissent as a hot take but also the proclivity to cynically monetize these hot takes, the inability of individuals to be truly honest about what it is that appeals to them

This game is... fine. I guess. So much has been said about it, I feel like I shouldn't carry on too long about it. Like, yeah, Lara is a pretty terrible archaeologist. She does all the usual archaeologist stuff of traveling to a foreign place and stealing all their cultural objects but then, on top of that, she also shoots whoever happens to be living there and destroys entire ancient buildings, like, come on girl, what are you even doing.

The main plot feels so empty for a lot of it. The vast majority of the game is just "rescue Lara's friend(s)" and it constantly finds new reasons why you can't quite get to them yet or whatever. Pretty much everything interesting about the plot is developed via the collectible journals which sure is an interesting choice.

The puzzle solving and platforming aspects were mostly fine? It got pretty janky in some spots and the majority of my deaths were trying to make a jump and Lara not grabbing or the camera turning her mid-air and making me fall to my death but when it works it's completely competent, I guess.

Speaking of completely competent: The shooting. I liked the combat early on when encounters were very small-scale (with usually only 3-5 enemies) but once it gave me the assault rifle and grenade launcher, every fight was like a dozen dudes and it got very boring very quickly. At first I had thought this was a response to that half-joking criticism people like to level at Uncharted where they say that Nathan Drake is a mass murderer with how much dude-shootin' he does but it turns out, no, they were just slowly escalating the encounter size until I had a proper arsenal. At one point it took away all the weapons except the bow and that was awesome!! I really liked that part!! More of that, please!!

I feel like collectibles in games can be somewhat controversial but I kind of liked some of what this game did? The journals are where a lot of character and plot development actually happens (which is maybe an indictment of the actual main plot of the game) and the artifacts give nice little tidbits of actual history (that I really wish were longer). But those two gave me enough that I made sure to get all of both of those before I finished the game. There's a ton of other collectibles too, though, and those definitely feel like a waste of my time for the sake of padding out the game. The GPS Caches, for example, give a minuscule amount of experience but there is approximately eight trillion of them in each zone to find.

Lara and Sam are definitely gay, right? Sam calls Lara 'sweetie' several times and in basically every cutscene they're in, they're holding hands or putting their arms around each other and I'm choosing to read that as romantic because it being a game about a woman rescuing her girlfriend is a thousand times more interesting to me.

Fuck QTEs, always and forever. It took me, like, three QTEs to get tired of mashing a button to do a thing. And in the prologue/tutorial section, the QTEs weren't displaying properly so I had to watch Lara's skull get crushed by a boulder like eight times before the game decided to tell me what button I needed to be pushing. Luckily it seemed to just be like that for the first couple because if the whole game had been that then I never would've finished this. Not just from QTE frustration but also because I got real tired real quick of seeing all the brutal and gruesome shit they do to Lara here. From what I understand, they tone it down in the sequels which is good, but oh my god it's so awful here. Truly hate it.

And one last thing: fuck the bright white flashes that you get from almost every menu option at a campfire. I had to close my eyes every time I clicked to buy an upgrade or unlock a skill or fast travel cause that shit is so uncomfortable. Fuck off, don't do that, what the hell.

Anyway. It was funny to play this after having watched the 2018 Tomb Raider movie because that takes some of this game's plot (Queen Himiko, Yamatai, some other proper nouns) so every time I recognized something I could be like "wow cool reference to a movie that came out 5 years later".

Very middling game that was a generally okay way to spend 13 hours. I feel like at a different time I could have more venom for this game and the way it's indicative of the design tendencies of AAA games but I just don't have that in me right now because all I wanted was a cool place to runny jumpy collect things and rescue cute girlfriend and that is basically what I got.

I think folk have been awfully harsh about New Super Mario Bros. in expressing their relief with Wonder. It's largely the same thing.

Despite the suggestions I've been seeing, Wonder doesn't represent a huge shift in 2D Mario design like 3 or World did. There's no innovation on par with the P-Meter, the world map, multiple exits or Yoshi. I might go so far as to suggest that the NSMB sequels did more to revitalise the core Mario gameplay. I think those games deserve far more credit than they're given for making 2D design mainstream again after a decade of tech-driven design. I'm not sure we'd have a Street Fighter IV without them. The real value in Wonder is in the soul it injects back into 2D Mario.

For as much as I'll defend the NSMB games, I won't deny they were sterile. You could enjoy playing them, but there wasn't much to love in them, with their sanded-down on-model characters, plastic levels and synthetic sound design. Wonder is focused on surprising and delighting its players. To "put smiles on the faces of everyone Nintendo touches". Wonder is frequently silly, strange and amusing, but kind and gentle in being so. Never obnoxious or upsetting. Even the Talking Flowers are soft-spoken and encouraging, never coming close to Omochao unsufferability. It's a game that will enthral fans, lapsed Mario players and children who are playing Mario for the first time.

It's no World, though. The focus on novelty holds back the depth of each level's appeal, and I don't really see myself coming back nearly as frequently as I would for my favourite entries in the series. With the exception of the Drill Suit, none of the new power-ups switch up the gameplay to the degree of SMB3's. The Power Badges are a welcome addition, but essentially just serve to bring back gameplay styles from more distinct entries like Mario 2. The game didn't feel like the kind of shift I'd expect in an all-new Mario game, but a post-Mario Maker NSMB sequel that had to do more bespoke stuff with its levels to justify itself. When I accept that, it's easier to appreciate the things that Wonder does well.

Within Nintendo, Wonder has been approached as an opportunity to give younger members of the staff more control within their most precious franchise, and it's clear that they've been very delicate with it, while addressing the tastes of 2023 audiences. They've clearly studied the series for inspiration, and Wonder incorporates a lot of features I haven't seen Mario touch in years. I really appreciated the funny little cutscenes after each castle, which are straight out of SMW, but they also help establish the sense that these disparate, wacky levels are intended to represent an overarching adventure. The online features are intended to encourage players who might drop out of frustrating, lonely single-player games, and I appreciate its inclusion, though it's not something I took a personal interest in. Even the concerning Talking Flowers do elevate the experience of retrying a level, with a voice cheering you on through the obstacles and enemies.

The diverse roster of new enemies and multiple playable characters really add to the game's sense of vitality. There's so much energy in their animation, and a lot of great little details. You can play as your favourite, and you're never made to feel like you're not getting the real experience if you don't choose Mario. Even the story's text boxes use a variable field for the character's name, so you can pretend this mission to save the Flower Kingdom was mainly the work of Light-Blue Yoshi, if you so choose. All the transformations are unique to your chosen character, and all of Peach's were really cute.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a really fun game, built with great care and talent. I just can't help but feel it regresses in areas that I don't expect from a new Mario title. Maybe that's the problem with bottling a beloved formula. I don't know if we're ever going to get another 2D Mario game that messes with its fundamentals as much as the new 3D ones do. With Miyamoto and Tezuka taking more hands-off roles on these projects, there's clearly a concern not to break what they established. Perhaps it would be better to follow in their sense of wild, daring creativity than to just play covers of their biggest hits. Maybe that's an unrealistic desire, though. Whatever. It's another good Mario, and I won't feel too hurt if they just make more of those.

Yeah this is the best 2D Mario. After years of stagnation with the NSMB series (and i love Wii), Nintendo comes in with this banger of a game. I won't really be stating the obvious here, everyone knows how much of a breath of fresh air this game is, thanks to the new Wonder gimmick and just generally the really appealing artstyle. But in addition to the Wonder effects and the cool new powerups, the level design benefits from simply just removing the time-limit that the previous games had. It's enough of a difference that allows levels to be a little bit more complex than they were before.

If there's one problem with the game, it's the boss fights. For a game as creative as this one, the boss fights are lacking even by Mario standards. The exception is the final Bowser fight but that's it. Actually, there's a second problem: badges. Outside of the specific Badge Challenge levels, badges in this game are wildly unbalanced. The tierlist is Grapple Vine > Glide Cap > literally everything else. Great idea but the normal level design doesn't make enough use of them.

All of that said though, at the end of the day....it's still 2D Mario. Levels are fun and creative but even with the Wonder effects, they still don't reach the heights of Donkey Kong Country. The Wonder helps set them apart and there's enough variety, even when certain gimmicks are reused, but some levels do inevitably.....blend in. Difficulty is fairly easy (Special World good challenge though).