So I just finished Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes..
Normally I give a first impressions before I give a full review, but unfortunately the time I spent completing the main mission in MGS V was less than that of a typical first impression. Yes, if you have been following any news about this game, you likely already know that it is embarrassingly short. There is NO way to justify $60 or even $40 for this game given the regular game length. Had this been released for $10-$20, Konami would likely have been praised for this decision to release a "sample" of MGS V like this as a way to entice players to then want the full Phantom Pain version later. But sadly that didn't happen and we got a very overpriced game. Hell I mainly got it on Gamefly because I wanted my PS4 to justify it's existence.
Gameplay-wise, it's similar to MGS 4 unsurprisingly. However, if you're like me, and you haven't played a modern MGS game in over 5 years, then a good part of your early experience will be getting your mind adjusted to the awful unintuitive controls of MGS. Lack of truly customizable controls hurts yet another game, as I would never imagine configuring my controls like how MGS V does. Eventually your brain will degrade itself enough to play this thing. Once you get going it's not bad, but if you didn't like MGS IV or any other game in the series, I don't see this game changing your opinion.
In typical Hideo Kojima fashion, if you can follow the plot of this game you deserve an honorary induction into MENSA because it means you operate at a higher plane than the majority of people. That's not to say that the plot is that sophisticated, but it's presented so badly that it proves you have a great deal of critical thinking skills and ability to think outside of the box. Then again, anyone who has played other MGS games (and I've played all the major ones) knows what to expect with games in this series. Excluding all the other bullsh*t that the game throws at you, your mission in this game is to infiltrate some base and extract two children who appear to be in some sort of army that Snake has built. Excuse me? Recruiting children as soldiers? Has Snake become some sort of African warlord or something? Anyways once you do that the game is over. They throw some cutscenes to make the game feel longer but it really comes off as feeling like padding.
This edition of MGS truly emphasizes stealth more than the previous games. Killing enemies is heavily frowned upon, and getting spotted is often an invitation to just reload your last save point as this base seems to house about 1,000 soldiers in it. Don't expect to shoot yourself through this experience. Believe me I tried, and that went about as well as justifying a side in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Along with the stealth being more emphasized, eventually I said, "I'm getting spotted a whole lot. Is this game hard or am I just sh*t at this game?" Well it seems to be a bit of both. If you're not big into stealth this isn't going to be a fun experience for you. If patience doesn't entice you then you'll be seeing a game over screen very often.
Finally, it is a little weird to see Snake voiced by a new character, with Konami abandoning David Hayter in favor of Keifer Sutherland. Yes, Keifer does a fine job from an acting standpoint, but if you're like me and are a big 24 fan, it's IMPOSSIBLE to not think of Jack Bauer, as Snake is basically that character when you think about it. It also doesn't help that Keifer did motion captioning for this game. I'm sure when Phantom Pain comes out people will be making numerous videos with cutscenes spliced with a 24 style clock.
While my game experience was likely less than 2 hours, GZ does try to add to game length by throwing in a lot of hidden items and various game modes that unlock, but if you're like me, suave and sexually virile, you won't give a crap about extra playthroughs just for the sake of doing so. If you ARE a completionist you will likely find more life beyond just the main story of this, but a full release game like this should not be forcing the player to make their own fun because of the short campaign time. All that being said, I am looking forward to trying out MGS V: The Phantom Menace.. err.. Pain, but don't feel like you HAVE to jump into this game first to get the full experience. And definitely do NOT pick it up at full retail price. Anything more than $20 for this would be an act of lunacy. Too bad Hideo didn't think so as well, but as we all know, great editing is not his strong suit.
It's definitely not the worst Metal Gear game I've played, but it also sure as hell is no Metal Gear Solid 3 (Which in my opinion was the best of the series.) I give it a B.
Oh yeah... I apologize to all of you that have been kept awake at night wondering what the status of my PS4 was. Well, I brought my console to Gamestop, and of course, it worked perfectly fine. However, one thing that was different was the fact that my console was place horizontally, as opposed to vertically which it normally has been since I received my stand. I placed it vertically because it's actually on a mantle above the fireplace and when placed horizontally there isn't good air flow. I know for a fact though that it isn't a case that my laser is broken as I was able to run MGS V (Gamestop's version, not mine) and CoD: Ghosts (which has one of the WORST introductions I've ever played might I add) without any issues. So basically I'm going to see what happens with the next game I receive and try to play it vertically. If that doesn't work I'll be calling Sony to complain, as the console should be able to be played vertically without any issues.
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