Quote from: AvatarIII on Jul 27, 2010, 08:20:16 AM
wow, so it's at least twice as long as any other MGS game? that's impressive.
Well the actual main story missions can probably be beaten in about the same time as the first game on a second playthrough (everything unlocked, no need to replay extra missions or worry about building your army, mother base etc). But on your first playthrough doing extra ops, sending out your troops on outer ops, building your R&D teams, medical teams, mother base etc, is essential. If you dont, youre going to struggle like hell with the bosses later on. Plus the whole development thing, is part of the story (especially the outer heaven chapter) and as you develop further, wether that be new weapons, a metal gear of your own, or acquiring new vehicles for your army, you unlock the main story missions that tie in to them (again especially true in the final and extra chapter, outer heaven).
Unlock Portable Ops, these extra additions never feel like a chore and it really does feel youre building outer heaven. oh and the final extra chapter after the credits....WOW.
Dont read on if you dont want to know.
Spoiler
Throughout the main game you fight a series of AI controlled mechs. as you defeat them, you can salavage parts on them that you didnt damage and you can assign your R&D team to start building your own Metal Gear. By the time you finish the main game, youre likely not very far along with this particular task and so this is where the extra chapter comes in. You basically carry on doing extra missions which could be anything from fighting tanks or helicopters to rescuing POWs still trapped. as you do so everything progress as it has always done in the game. Every so often after a few extra ops, you get a codec call to say that one of the characters that you took prisoner at the end of the main game has escaped. You must hunt him down and recapture him. This happens several times and a plot starts unravelling that there must be a traitor living and working on mother base who keeps helping him out. Eventually after after you have met certain parameters like expanded the mother base to a certain level or got your metal gear up to spec the real ending kicks in. One of the characters on your team turns out to be a traitor working for Zero and they try and steal the bases very own Metal Gear. Thats why it only triggers once youve finished developing it. You basically get another final boss, this time fighting your own metal gear on the roof of your base and you get to see the real ending.
all that has now taken me about 40 hours and if i want to complete the game properly and unlock everything, max out my weapons, get all my teams to lvl 99, extend motherbase to its maximum, then I reckon ive got another 20 hours at least. Its just so engrossing and the story is a fantastic sequel to MGS3. Infact im going to start a rerun (you can replay any mission) of the main story without doing any of the extras.
