I can't stop watching this.

In case you were wondering, this isn't canon. What's going on here is a common mod trick of replacing a character model with another one. Weird enough when you're swapping out one human being for another, but nightmarish when you throw animals into the mix. In this case, someone's swapped out D-dog for Revolver Ocelot.

To be fair, I'd rather Ocelot humped my leg than a dog did.

Speaking of Ocelot, have you heard of the Hawkeye Initiative? It involves artists drawing Hawkeye—and occasionally other male characters—in poses usually reserved for female characters in comic books and movie posters and the like, in order to shake up our ingrained cultural misogyny and demonstrate how ridiculous these poses are.

It turns out model-swapping mods make for a great video-game version:

Credit to Kotaku for spotting this one, which has Ocelot stand in for Quiet this time. Watch the original, named by its uploader the "Best Quiet Scene", if you can't believe that such a scene exists. Alternatively, see what it would be like if Quiet were a dog.

Of course, you could also use model-swapping mods to swap out Snake, maybe so that you can play as Quiet, though I can't find a video of that that doesn't involve zooming in on her boobs so you'll just have to try it for yourself.

Want to give model-swapping a go? Nexus Mods has a tool for that. Don't forget to back up your data first.

After a mission, when I m covered in blood and filth, there s nowhere I d rather be than Mother Base. Located in the crystal blue waters of the Seychelles, it s the offshore headquarters of hero Big Boss and his mercenary army, Diamond Dogs. As you play The Phantom Pain you build it up from a single platform to a sprawling city on the sea, and watching it grow over time is one of my favourite things in the game.

Except for a few key story moments, you don t have to visit Mother Base. But I spend a lot of time there. It s the eye of the storm. A place where I can relax, take stock, and refresh before returning to war-torn wherever. The more I play, the more the place has started to feel like home. When I fly in by helicopter, the sight of its twinkling lights is strangely reassuring. I m back. I m safe. Everything is fine.

There are a few reasons to spend time there between missions. Rough diamonds are hidden around each platform, which earn you GMP—the game s currency—when picked up. You can take a shower, which not only washes the battlefield grime off your clothes, but restores your mental well-being and makes reflex mode last longer. But mainly I visit to torment the staff. I mean, boost their morale.

There s nothing a loyal Diamond Dogs mercenary likes more than seeing Big Boss on Mother Base. Any soldiers you capture in the field and convince to join your side can be found here, and they salute you when they see you. To bolster morale, spend some time manhandling your troops. You can punch them, choke them, slam them against walls, or knock them out with tranquilizer darts—and they love it.

Thanks boss! one says breathlessly after I throw him off a ledge. It s an honour to be held in your iron grip! another yelps as I choke him unconscious. You can brutalise your staff mercilessly and they ll adore you for it, such is the reputation of the legendary Big Boss. Just make sure you aren t up too high, though. Train with me, boss! one guy said, and I obliged, throwing him. He fell off the side of a platform to his death below. Game over. They like pain, but not death. They re funny like that.

I also use my Mother Base staff as guinea pigs for any new gadgets or weapons the R&D department have developed for me. I got the hang of a non-lethal sniper rifle by climbing to the top deck of the command platform and picking off wandering Diamond Dogs in the distance. And by messing around with the decoy balloon—which they salute, confused, bless them—I discovered that if you inflate it while someone s standing on it, it knocks them out. It s a place to experiment without getting shot at.

When you arrive on Mother Base, a line of saluting soldiers waits for you at the helipad. This is the perfect opportunity to equip the cardboard box, press the stance button to stand up, sprint at them, and hit the dive button. Snake will use the box as a makeshift toboggan and knock them all on their arse. I do this every time, and I will never get bored of it. Ever. And they get a morale boost, so everyone s a winner.

When I m not engaging in unorthodox team-building exercises, I m hanging out with animals in the zoo. Yes, that s right: my offshore military base has a zoo. When he s not saving the world, Big Boss is rescuing animals from war zones, and I m building quite the collection. I ve got a few bears, some donkeys, and many, many sheep. There s even a gerbil in there somewhere, but I can t find it. I ve developed two obsessions while playing The Phantom Pain: collecting cassette tapes of 80s pop hits, and extracting endangered animals. Video games are the best.

It s also a good place to listen to the tapes you amass as you complete missions. You really should listen to these, because it s where the bulk of the story in The Phantom Pain lies. It gives important context to everything, and it s where Kiefer Sutherland does most of his talking. I listen to them as I roam Mother Base looking for diamonds, or sometimes in free-roam mode while gathering medicinal plants. Be careful, though: there are no checkpoints on Mother Base, and any diamonds you ve gathered will be reset if you fall off the side, which will happen. Return to the ACC to save.

Mother Base is a wonderful thing. Big Boss s motivation in the Metal Gear saga is creating an independent nation of mercenaries, free from the meddling of governments and the outside world—and Mother Base is an interactive expression of that idea. It feels like it s yours, even though your mate s is probably identical, and offers respite from the danger of the rest of the game. The Phantom Pain is an emergent sandbox of possibilities, but sometimes you need a break from all that.

A quick PSA for those of you playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Konami has just released a brief statement about a game-breaking bug that they've discovered. If you take the sniper Quiet with you on either Mission 29 or Mission 42, there's a possibility that your save data will become corrupted and unusable.

The current advice for avoiding this possibility is obvious: don't take Quiet with you on either of those missions. Hopefully the "further announcements" Konami promises in the statement will include an actual fix. After all, I imagine a fair few people will be merrily playing through without bothering to read updates like this. And Phantom Pain is a long, long game. Corrupted save data could set a person back dozens of hours.