A Free Multiplayer Add-on that Gives More Value to MGSV:TPP
Finally, I've got to play Metal Gear Online, the free add-on competitive multiplayer content for the game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This is the third MGO, the first one is on MGS3, the second on MSG4 (by the time I got my PS3 and MGS4 I can't download it via its P2P download method) and now the third version is in MGSV:TPP. I've never had a chance to play the past two versions but they say the Versus Ops experience in Peace Walker is similar to MGO on MGS4. Now on to the review!
STORY
This is an add-on for MGSV:TPP, no story related missions in multiplayer.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay and basic controls is similar to the single player mode. And this new MGO feels more balanced than Peace Walker's Versus Ops mode. There are some stuff that makes the MGO's gameplay different than the single player campaign
You can create up to three characters, your first character is the one you made for the single player mode. Creating a new character from scratch is locked until your first character reaches level 6. I'm a bit disappointed for the lack of hairstyles especially for female characters. I guess the hairstyles are meant to be for real soldiers.
Now that you have a second (or third character) you can customize the character's appearace when you select Customize, then Gear on your iDroid. Gear is the clothing and accessories menu. You can equip/buy different gears for your character: Headwear, Vests, Uniforms and Miscelaneous. You can spend GP (Gear Points, in-game multiplayer currency) or MB Coins (real money micro-transaction points) to buy these gears. Gears are only cosmetic, no special buffs, so go nuts on customizing your character.
There are three character classes for MGO: Scout, Enforcer and Infiltrator. Scouts are long rance and reconnaisance specialists, they have normal movement speed. Enforcers are slow moving soldiers that relies on heavy armor and firepower. The Infiltrators are masters of CQC and stealth, they move fast and also die faster than the other two classes. All classes have different weapons, abilities and gear.
I'm happy that MGO utilizes teamplay in multiplayer while being a fast-paced 3rd person shooter at the same time. Because each character class' skills compliments the other classes and helps them to take on the enemy team.
There's a buddy system too. Pair up with your other team mate by saluting at each other by pressing R3. You already have a buddy at the start of the match and you can switch buddies anytime. This buddy system lets you know if your buddy is in position, on the move or in trouble. It's best that you and your buddy stick with each other during a match, it's effective that way. You can also choose to spawn beside your buddy if you got killed/fultoned.
Freeplay mode is your waiting area before selecting matches. It's like Free Roam mode in single player where you roam around on a single map. This is a good idea actually. In Freeplay, you're alone but you can play around, interact on some objects like D-walkers and gun/mortar emplacements and do some warm-up before joining in matches. You can only customize your character and loadout during Freeplay mode. The Freeplay map is only a jungle. I wish to have an option to select a map for me to hang-out with.
MGO for PS3/Xbox 360 have three up to 12-player/6 vs. 6 (PS4/Xbox One/PC have 16-player/8 vs. 8) team match modes that you can select on your iDroid. You can manually search for matches, or autosearch if you're too lazy to search or create a match. These modes are Bounty Hunter, Cloak and Dagger and Comm Control. These match modes only have two rounds and have low chance of resulting in a draw, because if both teams won a round, you still win if your team got higher points than the enemy team.
If you finish a match, you are rewarded with experience points to level up your character and GP (Gear Points). If you win a match, you are rewarded with more EXP and GP. This game is stingy when it comes to GP, probably Konami is forcing us to pay for different very expensive colors for our equipment with MB coins (real money). As your character levels up, more equipment, weapon/weapon attachments and class specific abilities are unlocked.
If your character reaches the highest level, select Ascension in the Customize screen to reset your character level to 1 in exchange for perks like class-specific suits.
Bounty Hunter is basically Team Deathmatch. You and your team must deplete the enemy team's tickets (frags) to win. The team can also increase thier ticket count if they Fulton enemies. Here's the thing that makes this mode different than any TDMs out there, as you perform better on the match a bounty point is added to your head the bigger the point the bigger decrease on your teams' tickets when you got killed/fultoned. So even if you're leading, you can still loose the match if your team member that have lots of bounty points got neutralized.
Cloak and Dagger, is where the attacking team gets one or two intel disks from the defending team and bring them to the drop point. So it's like Capture the Flag, but way more intense, because this mode have something unique too. Attacking teams have stealth camo but restricted to non-leathal weapons while the defending team are equiped with lethal weapons. If the attacking players made some loud noise (running/sprinting) as they approach the defenders or they're sticking out in the open like a sore thumb the alarm will trigger and their stealth camos are disabled as long as they're on the defenders' sights.
Comm Control is similar to Domination. You capture and defend up to three enemy Comm Radars on the map. Attackers must capture all three radars that's already captured by defenders at the start of the round. The more stations you and your team captured, the faster the capture gauge will increase. Your team win if the gauge reach 100% and earned lots of points.
There are no Deathmatch mode in MGO, I hope it will get added soon along with other new modes and maps. I can think up of a few ideas for new modes like prisoner rescue, VIP escorting/assassination and Metal Gear sabotage missions.
There are only 5 maps in MGO at the moment. The maps are new and well designed except for a map called "Black Site". This is actually a smaller portion of Camp Omega from Ground Zeroes with lots of objects in place. Can we also have an of-shore base map, kinda like Mother Base? The maps have dynamic weather just like in single player except for day/night cycle.
There are no vehicles like 4WDs and delivery trucks to use in all maps for transport.
Joining in matches is pretty smooth most of the time, but the connectivity in MGO have some hiccups.
Sometimes I experience some lag in hit detection where I empty my whole clip to neutralize a single enemy. I also experienced lag kills. I rarely see teleporting players due to lag.
On some rare occasion, I didn't respawn for the rest of the round after my character died once in a Bounty Hunter match, also my camera stays on the spot where my character died.
Another rare occasion happened to me. Round 1 just ended, the screen faded to black and round two will start soon. Round 2 started and I got stuck at the black screen. I can still hear everything in the background. I can even hear my character being killed/fultoned by the enemy (I also can't control my character). The match ends and I still have the black screen in the results screen but after pressing the X button (PS3) so that I can go back to Freeplay mode, to my surprise, it worked. I don't know if this is a lag, a glitch, or both.
MGO doesn't have a host migration system, so if a host left the match, the match ends abruptly, you'll be sent to Freeplay mode and you have to search for new matches again or create a new match.
GRAPHICS
The graphics and attention to detail is the same in single player, you wouldn't notice that it's made by a different department (Kojima Productions Los Angeles). It looks really great, the maps are well designed.
The PS3/Xbox 360 versions run at 20-30 FPS and it's very playable. I don't experience any huge frame rate drops in the PS3 version even while suffering occational lags/connectivity issues.
There are graphical glitches like players riding invisible D-walkers and messed-up interface texts, this happens to me after a short power outage while in the middle of a match then powering up my console and opening up MGSV:TPP to start playing MGO again. This happens because of the system data/recovery process when a console accidentally/forcefully got turned off. This can be fixed by exiting and rebooting the game.
MUSIC/AUDIO
You can select a soundtrack set in the match briefing screen. These soundtrack sets ranges from the first Metal Gear game up to Metal Gear Rising, MGSV:GZ/TPP and MGO. Soundtrack sets contains a single normal music and an alert phase music for each Metal Gear title. The soundtrack sets that I frequently use are the MG1, MGS1, MGS2 (Tanker/Plant), MGS3 and MGR sets.
Gun, environment and ambient sounds are great, they echo and arrives late in your position if you're far away from the gun fight.
The radio communication voice clips sounds great too (the headphones and mic is almost unnecessary). While selecting for voice clips (press hold L2). you can change the voice intensity if you press the Triangle button. These clips sounds and feels natural when you spotted an enemy, complimenting a team mate or just by wishing your team mates good luck. You can set up different radio voice clips (different dialogues) in the system menu.
REPLAY VALUE
This section is going to be short so here goes. MGO is pretty addicting and will add more overall play time in your whole MGSV gameplay. I'm playing MGO more than the FOB missions now. Speaking of FOB missions, few people are playing it recently.
CLOSING REMARKS
MGSV:TPP is what a "Tripple A" 50 to 60 dollar game should be and Metal Gear Online is a fun to play competitive multiplayer add-on that gives more value to a game that already have lots of content. MGO is a free download and only accessible if you have a copy of MGSV:TPP.
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