Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes – Game Review

So, I should admit upfront that I am a die hard MGS fan. I’ve been a fan ever since I stumbled across Metal Gear Solid at the Five Star Video Rental down the street from my house growing up. I lost countless hours to that game on the PSone. I don’t know what it was about this stealth action game that really drove me nuts. The cool characters, the scope of the game, the absolutely RADICAL boss fights, I couldn’t tell you. This was the first “adult” game I ever played, a far cry from the Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games that occupied my shelf. It sort of shaped me into the gamer I am today. I still like to play 3rd person games with incredible set piece boss battles over a first person shooter any day. Moving on though.

This game is not long, its main campaign is probably only a couple of hours and that’s if you explore A LOT. Hideo Kojima was very open about how short this was going to be. It’s effectively an appetizer for The Phantom Pain which is coming out Q1 2015.  That being said I still think it’s a better gameplay experience than some of the full games that came out this year. Once you’ve completed the main mission you also unlock secondary missions that take place on the same island and continue to show you what this game engine is really capable of.

This is the first image you’re treated to when you throw this game into your respective console. (Xbox One, PS4, 360 or PS3) I played it on my PS4 and was blown away with how incredible it looked. The opening cinematic was stunning! I was just put the controller down and sat their in awe. This is by far the best looking Metal Gear Solid anything we’ve seen yet. The wind, rain, the atmosphere everything really just came together for a solid gaming experience. Gameplay wise this is a pretty big departure from the norm for any Metal Gear game. Traditionally the games are pretty linear, controlling Snake, or Big Boss through a series of areas with the ability to go back to those areas later in the game. Metal Gear Solid 3 was the most notable departure from that formula by simply giving you different ways of traversing the level ahead, MGS4 expanded upon that as well. This felt like an incredibly more fleshed out experience than both of those games.

Gameplay is incredibly solid. It’s easily my favorite feeling MGS game to date. The game is a much faster feeling stealth game. Instead of constantly crawling across the ground like in previous games Big Boss moves more seamlessly from prone to sprinting, and from sprinting to diving prone. You feel like a bad ass. What’s interesting about this game is that its the first Metal Gear game to take away the active radar on your HUD. Instead you have to use binoculars to tag enemies and then they show up on your iRADAR, which is a cool little holographic map of the area. Tagging the enemies highlights a little emblem above their head and makes it easy to keep up to date on their movement and patrol. This does two things, it keeps you looking at the game moreso than the radar, and it lets you plan out how you’re going to get from point a to point b. This is also the first MGS game that felt like a really capable shooter too. They added a new mechanic where if you get spotted you go into a slow motion “reflex mode” this gives you an opportunity to take out whoever saw you before they get a chance to call for back up. In the off chance you end up in a full blown fire fight with the enemies the controls don’t hinder you from quickly and capably taking out down your foes. Older Metal Gear games have been more along the lines of “avoid combat you idiot or you’ll die.”

This game achieved its goal admirably. It sucked some money out of my bank account and got my mouth watering for Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. I didn’t feel ripped off with the relatively high price for such a short game, but I’ve played it A LOT. I’ve gotten more enjoyment out of this “demo” than I have other full releases this year. If you don’t want to pay full price for a demo, then get it second hand or used. Chances are you have one of the 4 non Nintendo consoles sitting in your house right now. GO GET THIS GAME. I wanted so badly to give this a 5/5 star rating the only thing stopping me was how short it was BUT I AM NOT REALLY COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS GAME IN ANYWAY.