Best single player campaigns for PS4 and XBone

[digiram]

I will tell you guys right now what the best SP game is so far this gen. Ori and the Blind Forest. This game is gorgeous, fun, challenging, emulates the Metroidvania formula, and contains elements of some really good 2D platformers like Mario or Rayman. No QTE, no long cutscenes, no bullet sponge bosses, waves of enemies, etc. Just pure gameplay fun.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Ori is also available on PC as well as XOne. So if any PS4 owners have a gaming PC, they don't have to miss out on that game. It was pretty good.

 

[sxr7171]

I feel I should mention Metal Gear Phantom Pain. Just ignore all online aspects. It truly was an adventure playing through it.

 

[digiram]

I'm sure many people agree with you on this, but I personally haven't enjoyed an MG game since the MGS 1. I tried MGS 2, and could not get into the game in the 3rd person perspective. Then MGS 4 got all these rave reviews. I was excited to try it after picking up a PS3, but it turned into 10 mins of gameplay and then like 30 min - 1 hr cutscenes. And the mech with the sexy legs?? WTF? So, I'm probably not gonna give the phantom pain a shot at all.

 

[HOOfan 1]

I'm sure many people agree with you on this, but I personally haven't enjoyed an MG game since the MGS 1. I tried MGS 2, and could not get into the game in the 3rd person perspective. Then MGS 4 got all these rave reviews. I was excited to try it after picking up a PS3, but it turned into 10 mins of gameplay and then like 30 min - 1 hr cutscenes. And the mech with the sexy legs?? WTF? So, I'm probably not gonna give the phantom pain a shot at all.

I tried playing MGS3: Subsistence after seeing people rave about it, but I ran into the same problem. 10 minutes of gameplay-45 minute cut scene-10 minutes of gameplay-30 minute cut scene. I stopped playing after the first mission

I've seen gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid 5 though, and it looks more like a Far Cry game than a traditional Metal Gear Solid game.

 

[sxr7171]

I'm sure many people agree with you on this, but I personally haven't enjoyed an MG game since the MGS 1. I tried MGS 2, and could not get into the game in the 3rd person perspective. Then MGS 4 got all these rave reviews. I was excited to try it after picking up a PS3, but it turned into 10 mins of gameplay and then like 30 min - 1 hr cutscenes. And the mech with the sexy legs?? WTF? So, I'm probably not gonna give the phantom pain a shot at all.

I hear you. I mean I played the first metal gear on NES. Then my next was MGS2. I couldn't stand it. Every 5 minutes some stupid interruption.

I mean is this guy trying to make a game or a movie?

Then with Phantom Pain the same thing. I was so pissed about it. But that was really just the first level. If you can get through that level (it's bad enough that I wish I could pay someone to do that level for me) there's actually a real game in there.

And also after that level there are no big cutscenes. It's open world and there may be some very short cutscenes that are mostly boss introductions.

I even posted a pretty big diatribe about Phantom Pain and Kojima. I really thought at first this was going to be like MGS2.

See if you can get a younger sibling or someone to get through that first level. Because that thing was excruciating.

 

[sxr7171]

I tried playing MGS3: Subsistence after seeing people rave about it, but I ran into the same problem. 10 minutes of gameplay-45 minute cut scene-10 minutes of gameplay-30 minute cut scene. I stopped playing after the first mission

I've seen gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid 5 though, and it looks more like a Far Cry game than a traditional Metal Gear Solid game.

Basically yes. Phantom Pain is like Far Cry. Open world and lots of stuff to do. There is a little grinding but only if you care to. But seriously walking around on your base at sea and flying in and out just cool. The weapons you have blow far cry out of the water. You can call in strikes and watch the effects from the ground.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I hear you. I mean I played the first metal gear on NES. Then my next was MGS2. I couldn't stand it. Every 5 minutes some stupid interruption.

I mean is this guy trying to make a game or a movie?

Then with Phantom Pain the same thing. I was so pissed about it. But that was really just the first level. If you can get through that level (it's bad enough that I wish I could pay someone to do that level for me) there's actually a real game in there.

And also after that level there are no big cutscenes. It's open world and there may be some very short cutscenes that are mostly boss introductions.

I even posted a pretty big diatribe about Phantom Pain and Kojima. I really thought at first this was going to be like MGS2.

See if you can get a younger sibling or someone to get through that first level. Because that thing was excruciating.

The thing about Metal Gear is that Kojima was basically making a movie narrative out of them and there was a lot of political references. A shadow organization that controls everything, proxy wars and private armies working on contracts, biological weapons that can target specific genes in people, using brainwashing on kids and advanced medical testing to create super soldiers(basically trying to make another Big Boss), behind it all was a group called the Patriots who's goal was to keep America on top but nobody knew that the Patriots was actually just an AI program now that learned how to make the most profits...the war economy. Constant war made the most money and the cycle never ended. The goal of Solid Snake was to break this apart so people could just be left alone. No intervention from a shadow government disrupting people's lives. Before that, Big Boss wanted to create an army outside the boundaries of any Nation. He was tired of soldiers doing the dirty work of politicians and not asked for their opinion. Ultimately he was wrong, doing that only made him and his men a bigger target from all sides.

There's some smaller stories about individual characters weaved into it(Big Boss, The Les Enfants Terrible project, Dr. Emmerich, Raiden) but my guess is that Kojima felt the best way to explain the greater narrative was with cut scenes.

With MGS4 the whole series was wrapped up in the ending. With MGS5 they went back to explain what happened before Metal Gear 1 on the NES. It's actually quite interesting if you have followed the story along all this time how it went down. Things you thought you knew turned out to be false. You could write an entire book or series with the amount of info and characters in these games. I think that's the problem for many people, there is just too much to keep up with and it gets lost.

 

[Stg-Flame]

That's one of the things I loved about the MGS series. MGS4 was more of a movie than a video game in some parts, but if you followed the story (Snake Eater was my favorite for backstory), then it didn't break the flow of action.

 

[zerocool84]

The thing about Metal Gear is that Kojima was basically making a movie narrative out of them and there was a lot of political references. A shadow organization that controls everything, proxy wars and private armies working on contracts, biological weapons that can target specific genes in people, using brainwashing on kids and advanced medical testing to create super soldiers(basically trying to make another Big Boss), behind it all was a group called the Patriots who's goal was to keep America on top but nobody knew that the Patriots was actually just an AI program now that learned how to make the most profits...the war economy. Constant war made the most money and the cycle never ended. The goal of Solid Snake was to break this apart so people could just be left alone. No intervention from a shadow government disrupting people's lives. Before that, Big Boss wanted to create an army outside the boundaries of any Nation. He was tired of soldiers doing the dirty work of politicians and not asked for their opinion. Ultimately he was wrong, doing that only made him and his men a bigger target from all sides.

There's some smaller stories about individual characters weaved into it(Big Boss, The Les Enfants Terrible project, Dr. Emmerich, Raiden) but my guess is that Kojima felt the best way to explain the greater narrative was with cut scenes.

With MGS4 the whole series was wrapped up in the ending. With MGS5 they went back to explain what happened before Metal Gear 1 on the NES. It's actually quite interesting if you have followed the story along all this time how it went down. Things you thought you knew turned out to be false. You could write an entire book or series with the amount of info and characters in these games. I think that's the problem for many people, there is just too much to keep up with and it gets lost.

I bought Metal Gear 5 on day one and still haven't finished it. Not because of the story, but because of game play. I didn't like the move to open world. I enjoyed the linear nature of past games. Today, everything has to be open world and I'm getting sick of it. I'm a huge MGS fan and even my PSN name is Solid Snake but I just didn't like the open world part.

 

[sxr7171]

The thing about Metal Gear is that Kojima was basically making a movie narrative out of them and there was a lot of political references. A shadow organization that controls everything, proxy wars and private armies working on contracts, biological weapons that can target specific genes in people, using brainwashing on kids and advanced medical testing to create super soldiers(basically trying to make another Big Boss), behind it all was a group called the Patriots who's goal was to keep America on top but nobody knew that the Patriots was actually just an AI program now that learned how to make the most profits...the war economy. Constant war made the most money and the cycle never ended. The goal of Solid Snake was to break this apart so people could just be left alone. No intervention from a shadow government disrupting people's lives. Before that, Big Boss wanted to create an army outside the boundaries of any Nation. He was tired of soldiers doing the dirty work of politicians and not asked for their opinion. Ultimately he was wrong, doing that only made him and his men a bigger target from all sides.

There's some smaller stories about individual characters weaved into it(Big Boss, The Les Enfants Terrible project, Dr. Emmerich, Raiden) but my guess is that Kojima felt the best way to explain the greater narrative was with cut scenes.

With MGS4 the whole series was wrapped up in the ending. With MGS5 they went back to explain what happened before Metal Gear 1 on the NES. It's actually quite interesting if you have followed the story along all this time how it went down. Things you thought you knew turned out to be false. You could write an entire book or series with the amount of info and characters in these games. I think that's the problem for many people, there is just too much to keep up with and it gets lost.

I enjoyed Phantom Pain enough to read the back story. I don't feel I missed much by not playing MGS2/3/4. I read about the story of those games and I think its all pretty interesting.

I'm just of the opinion that video and cut scenes are the slowest way to tell a story. And I prefer them not to infere with a video games beyond maybe a few minutes between 30-60 minute levels. Anything more than that and I think it's more of an interactive movie.

Still I did get into the story a decent bit. I think the whole thing is pretty twisted as a story. What's shocking for me is how much story the original NES game actually had. That game makes more sense to me now. And I must admit keeping a story going for more than two decades told through video games is pretty cool.

 

[HOOfan 1]

The Last of Us is one of the best Story driven games I have ever played, and it had plenty of cut scenes, about 93 minutes of cut scenes, but they were only 2-7 minutes.

From what I understand, there is a cut scene in MGS4 that is nearly as long as all of the cut scenes in The Last of us.

IMO by the time we reached the PS3 era, having overly long cut scenes became a lazy way of trying to tell the story.

 

[cmdrdredd]

It's simply a cinematic choice and isn't lazy at all. Metal gear always used the in game engine for all the scenes.

 

[EXCellR8]

MGS4 was great though... but Phantom Pain bored me to tears. I didn't really adjust to the settings and I don't finish 90% of all the open world games I play. The last one I played to completion was Far Cry 3 in 2012, and that game was only fun up until you kill what's his face?

I don't like mindless shooters, save for the latest Doom, but I just prefer somewhat more linear games with hub-like worlds vs completely open. I just get too overburdened with monotonous tasks and repetitive encounters. I grew up on Quake and Half-Life though, so I'm definitely more old-school when it comes to level design, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate innovations and good story-telling.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I grew up with Joust, Pong, Simon's Quest, etc. and I love an open world game. The more to do the better.

 

[EXCellR8]

It's only "better" if you have gobs of time to play them... which I do not. My max is 2-3 hours per sitting and some of these open world games have so may side quests that I can't possibly get to all of them.

I'm around 40% through Uncharted 4 now; it's amazing how much of a quality title it is. Not only are the character models and animation top notch, but the scenery is unreal. I remember being wowed when I first picked up U2:AT on PS3 years ago and being impressed--but this takes it up many notches still. To me, there is no use for a super-powered console with next generation graphics unless you can play titles like this.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I played Witcher 3 for almost four months and only amassed 110 hours due to me working in the oil field pulling 26 hour shifts with 6 hours of downtime. We went five months with no days off and I still found time to load it up, do one or two side-quests, then go to bed. Just because there's lots to do, doesn't mean you have to do it all in one sitting. I prefer games that don't take only three hours to beat and instead have tons of content and rewards for exploring.

 

[Alienware Gamer ALX]

tw3 gtav

no doubt