If only every game had Metal Gear Solid 5’s Fulton system

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There’s a lot to love in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, but primarily its Fulton recovery system. You can attach a balloon to enemy soldiers you’ve incapacitated and send them back to your base, converting them to your mercenary army. Or you can attach them to animals to populate your private zoo. Attaching balloons to things and stealing them has become an obsession, and I’m still not bored of it, 40 hours in. But MGS isn’t enough. I want to Fulton things in every game. ALL OF THEM.

Tired of being murdered by Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s eerie, flappy-faced monster? Fulton the weirdo and rid Brennenburg Castle of its dark presence one and for all. Morale back at Mother Base would plummet, though, and you might have a hard time convincing it to join you. But if you do, it has an A++ rank in being utterly horrible.

Or say you’re playing a game of FIFA. The clock is ticking down, you’re losing 5-0 to someone online. You could rage quit, but you’re above that sort of behaviour. Instead, Fulton the ball—then no one wins! Or, alternatively, form your own Mother Base five-a-side team by extracting the best players for the opposing side.

If you’re playing Team Fortress 2 and an enemy sniper is making a mockery of you with repeated headshots, extract the coward and convert him to your own team. Same goes for the enemy’s turrets and teleporters. The more I think about it, Team Fortress 2 with Fulton balloons sounds like the best thing ever. If only I could mod.

Forget driving halfway across Europe to deliver that shipping container full of beans, or sugar, or whatever the hell it is. Just Fulton your cargo, sit back, relax, and wait for it to arrive at its destination. Of course, this would defeat the entire point of playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 in the first place.

If you’re trying to enjoy the compulsive shooting-and-looting in Borderlands 2, but find the incessant, unfunny banter of regular series annoyance Claptrap intolerable, Fulton him! Then slip your helicopter pilot some money to ‘accidentally’ drop him in the sea before returning to Mother Base. Aaaah, much better.

Or why not make your opponent in StarCraft’s life that bit harder by extracting all of their precious minerals? Then extract their gas refineries. Then all their SCVs. Then their entire base. Then all their units. FULTON EVERYTHING.

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.