Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Play it on: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows (Steam Deck: N/A)
Current goal: Try my best
Buy it from: Amazon | GameStop

When something irrevocably changes my life, I try to honor it first by crying for as long as possible (I managed to produce 18 hours’ worth of tears this weekend), preferably while listening to a sad, but nonspecific song (Julie Byrne’s “Love’s Refrain” remix), and then by performing an activity as insane as I feel.

In college, that meant throwing organic eggs at an ex-boyfriend’s car. Now, it means I’m going to start playing, for the first time, Kojima Productions’ action-adventure stealth game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain on Xbox 360 because I have some phantom pain, too. But at least I don’t have to wear a bikini all the time like Quiet does. That would make all the crying feel too much like a metaphor. I hear there are some specific, sad songs of the ‘80s to find on cassette scattered through the game. Maybe listening to one of them while I moodily scowl in a helicopter over Afghanistan is just what I need.— Ashley Bardhan