1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN gameplay

So, You’ve made it to number 1... That’s some fancy reading. You’re pretty good!

For you less fortunate readers that haven’t experienced Metal Gear Solid, that was a reference that’s popular among fans of the franchise.

If you liked that then you’ll be happy to know that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has an abundance of allusions like that. 

There’s plenty of references in there that’ll either put a cheeky smile on your face or just make you laugh out loud. Just one of the many reasons it’s the top Kojima game to play right now!

The Phantom Pain was released on September 1st  2015 and immediately received critical success. MGSV takes place in 1984. This means it happens nine years after ground Zeroes and 10 years before Metal Gear 1.

We follow “Big Boss” on a revenge mission after the people who destroyed mother base years ago. We also get to see the creation of a new base for the newly formed private militia called Diamond Dogs.

In most games the gameplay is the icing on the cake of a good story. It’s a part of the reason we go back and play those classic games despite the graphics being outdated. Right?

But honestly in MGSV the gameplay is just so robust that the story, while very good, isn’t all the game will be remembered for.

The smooth as butter mechanics, variety of gameplay options, and movie esque graphics make this game Fun! With a capital F! 

I personally think it’s the best in the series.

You even have a multitude of choices in the average stealth scenario of being in a crouching position behind an enemy hostile.

These choices include:

• Shooting them with a sleep dart that renders them incapacitated for a long period of time
• Putting them in a rear naked chokehold to interrogate them for intel
• Killing them
• Having your dog kill them
• Having your allied sniper kill them
• Killing them yourself to cause turmoil in the enemy camp
• Extracting them to work for you.
• And much more!

If you love an open world game that also leads you along a main story, then MGSV is the game for you. Not to mention it has a fun online mode so you can share the experience with your friends. If having a ton of options are your thing, then you should definitely make an effort to play this game.

Metal Gear Solid V allows you to Sneak up on enemies and make quick work of them in more ways than you can count

The Story in Metal Gear Solid V is nothing to be ignored. This scene with the Boss and Skullface provides amazing dialogue and a lesson that transcends videogames.

Bonus: Death Stranding:

DEATH STRANDING gameplay and trailers

What do Babies, black sludge, and men in hazmat suits have in common?

You guessed it! Nothing!

Well besides the fact that these are all present in the trailers we’ve gotten for Kojima Productions new game, Death Stranding. 

Kojima fans were all a bit confused after seeing the trailers for his newest title. And that confusion is totally warranted.

The trailers are pretty crazy and indirect. There’s only been a few trailers released to the public. And not many details have been released, so a lot of what is said about it is simply guesswork.

Luckily though, Hideo was gracious enough to share some information with the fans about it.

On his Twitter, he states that Death Stranding will come out “before the Tokyo Olympics and before the new Akira” Not an exact date but the Tokyo Olympics take place in the summer of 2020; so be on the lookout for an announcement between now and then.

Regarding the details of the game, Hideo said “I’m trying to make something different.

How to show that, how to have people see that, that’s something I’m trying to figure out… Games started over 40 years ago with arcades. When the player dies, it’s game over. You continue, and time goes back to before you die. You can die as many times as you want, but you always go back to a little bit before you die.

That was a mechanic made specifically for putting in coins, and it hasn’t changed since then.

One of the themes of this game is life and death. So I want people to realize that when they die in the game, that isn’t the end… At that point, you’re not dead or alive.

It’s the equivalent of that screen that says Continue?’ and a counter ticking down towards zero.”

Basically Hideo is making a game that changes how death has been used in the traditional video game formula. Dying never takes you out of the game. Instead it’ll take you to a world after your death. I don’t know about you, but this sounds awesome.

I’m really curious as to how it’ll be pulled off. Due to his departure from Konami, the whole gaming world has their eyes on Hideo.

Everyone is waiting to see if he’ll live up to expectations and win the Konami “breakup” or if he'll fail, proving that Konami was right to let him go.

Lots of people are skeptical but personally, I have faith in Hideo. 

And so do his fans.

Death Stranding is shrouded in absolute mystery! Will it be worth the wait? 

Death Stranding definitely isn't slacking in terms of graphics and visuals. It's only right that the gameplay follows suit.