Barry Hodgson sneaks up another review, this time of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.
Im not going to beat around the bush. Ground Zeroes is short. It’s so short, you can actually complete the main mission in 10 minutes.
I’ll let that sink in.
The average time is round about an hour to finish (it took me 50 mins). However, there is actually plenty of things to do in the mission and different ways to tackle it but for the price they’re asking for this (especially if you’re on Next Gen) it’s not really worth it in my eyes.
The style of the game has changed from previous entries and it’d be fair to say it’s got more in common with Splinter Cell now, gone is the radar a mission markers and now you’re given a map, told what your objective is and then left to your own devices on how to go about it (whether this carries over to Phantom Pain remains to be seen, but i assume it will be).
Also gone is the camoflague system of previous games, now you must simply use the environment and the light/dark to hide, a much better system and a lot less fiddly to use.
This freedom is easily the best thing about the game because it does allow for some replayability of the missions as there are a variety of different ways to go about the Objective.
Story wise, it’s a prologue to The Phantom Pain (currently scheduled for next year) and is quite light on detail. The main mission sees you being sent to Camp Omega to rescue Paz and Chico (from Peace Walker). The sub missions are all story light, and are along the lines of “Destroy 3 Anti Aircraft guns and escape” (once again, you’re left to your own devices how you do this).
Kiefer Sutherland isn’t a good fit for Big Boss in my eyes, his performance in this lacks something to me, and is a bit flat, however at least he hasn’t gone as over the top as David Hayter had in recent entries (although, given the scripts it’s hard not to i guess!).
What is there is a good sign for The Phantom Pain, and shows that the game is going to improve upon previous MGS games exponentially however, there’s just not a lot here for what they’re asking. Over 10 years ago, this would have been a free demo (See Half-Life: Uplink), now it’s a “budget priced” release, and given it’s going to sell Gangbusters by being an MGS Game it could well set a precedent.
