Metal Gear Survive has gotten some gamers talking, especially the fans of the Metal Gear series. Off course Metal Gear Survive was developed by Konami. The beta for Metal Gear Survive has been out for a good short time. X35 Earthwalker himself has played the beta allowing us a taste of what is to come. Let’s take a look.
As you are reading this, remember that it is a beta and not a full release so things can get better. The beta let’s you select and customise to some extent your avatar, basically your character. So choose from male or female, then change the hair but restricted to short hair, following the style of the military, face, cheek, eyes etc. Hopefully we will get more options for customising our avatars in the full release. When you enter you are in this space that makes you feel like you are inside a computer. There you can organise and select your inventory, craft items, repair stuff like weapons etc. it’s like the central hub for everything. The action starts when you begin your first salvage mission.
In salvage missions your job is to plant the wormhole digger which harvests energy. The harvesting always seems to attracts the creatures. So players must defend the wormhole digger at all times. The creatures will come in waves and each wave gets more difficult with more mixture of creature types and watching the timer for the wave to end doesn’t help. The drill will start automatically so make sure to get there and organise yourself or team if playing with others. You have a good amount of time, five minutes, to actually look around the map first which is highly recommended. as you look around you will come objects that can be destroyed for materials, like drums for iron, boxes for wood plus other stuff within, trees for wood and solid energy plant like things which when broken drop energy; however those things require a heavy weapon to smash like the mallet. Collect as much as you can.
You can use whatever is in your inventory to your advantage, so build up fences, plant mines, set traps etc, whatever that will help you get through the wave. There is one horrible catch though. At the end of the wave a shockwave blasts out from the machine that kills all remaining enemies but also destroys the stuff you set up like traps, mines, heavy machine guns etc. we actually hate this mechanic. So if you get carried away and fully set up using almost everything for the first wave, you will lose it all and have nothing for the later waves. This is something we recommend shouldn’t be in the Metal Gear Survive. So please don’t Konami. What they did do right was the controls. Each d-pad direction has their own section of items or weapons. There is much things you can equip and selecting between them is very easy. Just cycle through with your d-pad and then use your action buttons accordingly. It takes only a little time to get use to.
Now in the level available in the beta, creatures can come from many directions. North, East, South and West. There is no mercy in this game either and that’s how it should be done. The creatures will all be running towards your location, all trying to get to the machine. So expect, Wanderers, Bombers and variants of the wanderers. The Wanderers are your typical zombies that we all know and hate. They can sprint but when near you they act slow and typical, swinging at you. The bombers are the biggest threats and must be handled straight away. They are pretty much always running and as the name suggests they can explode doing immense damage to players and your traps, fences etc so don’t let them get close. They can even head butt you! There are some variants of the wanderers like the armoured one who has good armour meaning attacks are much less effective. Their is another that has explosives strapped to it and will explode so watch out. By the way the weakness for a bomber is their legs, so don’t waste all your armour trying unloading on their heads. not worth it.
Metal Gear Survive makes it also that you have to be careful with how you use your weapons and items. You hand gun will never have enough ammo to handle the entire wave, you players must decide which enemies are worth using the bullets on. Should you fire to fin out a crowd, or do you use a molotov to set them on fire? Do you get melee with them using your spears, axes, and blades or do you wait until they gather and then use a planted heavy machine gun? Maybe the best thing to do is to run up to an enemy and do a powerful sprint strike with a mallet. So many decisions. It gets worse as you have to prioritise what which enemies over others, which traps to use this wave (since everything gets destroyed). Stealth killing the creatures feels really good here. just get behind them and let them have it but take into account that running creates the most noise, then walking, then crouching but going prone makes zero noise but you are slowest then. The rewards you get for passing a mission are very generous, you get a lot of stuff which allows you to replenish ammo, repair weapons and gear and get more thing. We like the rewards here.
Konami went real deep with the in game mechanics of Metal Gear Survive. There isn’t just only health, there is also your thirst and hunger. Meaning you have to make sure to have food and drink available. your stats can be seen from the main menu which looks awesome by the way. Keep track of all these things. Now when it comes to your equipment and weapon they all have weight. That’s right watching your weight isn’t just for real life but also in Metal Gear Survive. Being too heavy will cause you some problems on the field…. remember that. Straight away you can see that the graphics are excellent in Metal Gear Survive. The attention to detail is pretty cool as well like the markings and rust on some materials is all cool. Notice that when cycling through and selecting in the menu menu, your characters thumb moves as well showing that your actions control your character interacting with the device. Little stuff like that make a big difference in our books here at X35 Earthwalker. Real cool.
The rewards you get for completing each salvage mission is great. Lots of materials allowing players to replenish and gear up for the next ones and then some. So they did well with that. it makes using your traps and items that you spent resources to build not a problem as you can easily make more after missions. The side missions that appear are definitely worth completing while on the salvage missions. Diamondz L45 stayed at the base to defend while X35 Earthwalker went to a side mission and found some machines that walk, run over enemies and has a heavy machine gun attached which easily cleared out the zombies saving them in that wave. So go for side missions when you can as they make a big difference, you may get mortars, heavy machine guns and other fancy stuff.
The Metal Gear Survive beta showed many things and done it’s job right. It showed that players have to be aware of what enemies are coming and how to deal with them efficiently. It showed that weight, health, hunger and thirst are factors here. It showed that crafting and maintenance of your equipment is important. It showed the wide range of weapons that can be used. it showed how dangerous the enemy is and how merciless the waves can be. Co-op mode is definitely where it’s at, get some friends and defend together. Spend energy for support at the wormhole digger or bonuses like speeding up the digging. Timing is also important, for example if you attack an enemy but you get interrupted by an creature’s attack, your attack won’t go through. So using a mallet is powerful and will destroy all but so slow that it becomes easy to interrupt. So choose wisely and get your distance right or get swarmed by the horde. There is so much going on in Metal Gear Survive.
Overall the beta did what it was suppose to do. It gave us a serious taste of what’s to come and showed off many strong points of the game. Off course there are some negatives: destroying all our stuff at the end of the wave, the crafting system and what materials you have in and outside of missioned what in storage is actually quite confusing, you think you have enough materials but then it shows you have nothing in a mission and we think that should be made more clear. Connection gets unstable at times but ti’s a beta so we won’t stone them for it just yet. The parry ability is very clear and how it works and the timing at all. They need to make the whole ammo on person or in storage thing more clear too. Metal Gear Survive looks like a special game right now. We at X35 Earthwalker can say that we are looking forward to this game and that Konami has so far done an outstanding job. You can even choose what your character says and have emotes like in Destiny 2 but not as large selection yet. Metal Gear Survive is worth checking out. Now there is lots to do but not more than… the ‘Earth Walk!’
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