When comparing Assassin's Creed Unity vs Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the Slant community recommends Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain for most people. In the question“What are the best open world games on Steam?” Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is ranked 14th while Assassin's Creed Unity is ranked 35th. The most important reason people chose Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is:
Metal Gear Solid V gives players multiple choices on how to approach a mission. You can choose to use stealth, taking out enemies only when it's absolutely necessary. You can run in guns blazing, killing everyone on sight. You can get on a high vantage point and take out everyone with a sniper rifle. Or you can call in air support to do all the work for you. The choice is up to you and the game doesn't penalize you for sticking to a single way. This helps keep the gameplay fresh for a long time.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Crouch walk finally implemented
Assassin's Creed Unity has finally added in a method for players to crouch-walk, allowing them to remain hidden going from cover to cover. It makes the stealth controls much more fluid, giving you the freedom to stalk your target from a closer distance instead of relying on you blending in with the crowd or staying on a rooftop. This was an often asked-for mechanic and is now finally implemented into the game series.
Pro Four-player online co-op
Assassin's Creed Unity features up to four player online co-op. You can join up with three other friends or get matched with others to play through certain assassination missions together.
Pro Intuitive stealth gameplay
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are.
While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again.
Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Pro Impressive recreation of Paris to explore with buildings to climb freely
The city of Paris is beautifully done. The level is massive and dense with detail, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, religious buildings, and recognizable landmarks. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed Unity feel like a true period piece set in Revolutionary Paris.
Pro Wide range of customization
There are lots of options to customize your character. You can change your weapons and your appearance, down to the individual hood that you prefer to wear. The sheer amount of things you can choose from is pretty impressive, helping you feel like your character is really your own.
Pro Freedom in approaching a mission
Metal Gear Solid V gives players multiple choices on how to approach a mission.
You can choose to use stealth, taking out enemies only when it's absolutely necessary. You can run in guns blazing, killing everyone on sight. You can get on a high vantage point and take out everyone with a sniper rifle. Or you can call in air support to do all the work for you.
The choice is up to you and the game doesn't penalize you for sticking to a single way. This helps keep the gameplay fresh for a long time.
Pro Allows players to create their private military company
Throughout the game, you will be trying to rebuild your private military company.
Your base of operations is the "Mother Base", which is a giant structure similar to an oil rig. You can expand it and add new facilities such as Research and Development.
You'll also be managing your personnel, allowing you to recruit (capture) enemy soldiers and assign them work in their area of expertise. This can be research, development, various upkeep tasks around the base or earning resources out in the field.
All of these things truly make you feel like you're running a PMC.
Pro Reflex system helps you stay unnoticed
Time will slow down for a short time if you're spotted by an enemy. This allows you to take them out before they can sound the alarm or alert other soldiers. This is quite refreshing compared to other stealth games, where messing up means an immediate end to being stealthy.
Pro Enemy AI adapts to your playstyle
The enemy will pick up on your habits and react accordingly. For example, if you use tranq darts to knock enemies out, they will try to wake up their comrades at first. Do this for a couple of missions and they'll immediately run to sound the alarm when they spot someone knocked out. This way the game expertly keeps you out of the comfort zone, having the later missions feel as tense as the first.
Pro Large assortment of weapons and tools
MGS V has a lot of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and sniper rifles. There are both lethal and non-lethal variants, allowing you to find something suitable for any playstyle.
There are also many tools such as the Fulton device, which allows you to capture enemy soldiers and animals, sending them to your base. It's a ton of fun experimenting with new gadgets.
Cons
Con Generic premise of a revenge story
The revenge story has been done to death, and Assassin's Creed Unity doesn't really add anything new here. From the beginning of the plot, you see some of the major cliches that often pop up in these types of tales. And while Arno's cause is just, it's hard to care on an emotional level about his mission to kill Paris' high-level templars. But if you're not one to care too much about stories in games, then you probably won't even notice that anything's off.
Con Unsatisfying ending that ends on a lame note
While the story itself is passable, the ending may leave a bad taste in your mouth. After a a generic final boss and an unnecessary and frustrating character death, things just end abruptly. There's no closure, and there isn't a real sense of satisfaction at the end of your journey.
Con More of the same
The gameplay of Assassin's Creed Unity is just more of the same from previous titles. If you've played one Assassin's Creed up to this point, you've pretty much played them all. It's the same type of revenge story of an assassin seeking out the templars, the same bloat of icons and little things to do across the map, with the same type of stealth gameplay, and the overall same structure to the missions. Aside from the new crouch mechanic, the customization, and the location in Paris, this is too similar to other games in the series.
Con High learning curve
MGS V can feel really overwhelming at the start. First the controls have various nuances such as different ways of crawling. Then you get a bunch of mechanics thrown at you, such as stealth, base managment, etc. It will take quite a while until you can fully enjoy the game.
Con Micro transactions make multiplayer pay-to-win
You can buy bundles of in-game currency, which can be used to gain an advantage in multiplayer. This makes multiplayer not fun for the players who don't intend on spending extra money. It also makes it boring for the ones who spend the money. Both of these things negatively impact the longevity of the multiplayer.
Some of the bundles go for $79.99, which is more than the game's price. It's sad seeing Konami milk their fans with microtransactions like this.