Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes: The Complete Review

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes:  A Teaser To Phantom Pain Review

March17th, 2014, by Maya Mayfield

Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a prologue to the full Metal Gear Phantom Pain game. The main campaign is very short taking us just under two hours to complete but the time factor really does depend on your style of play and level of skill. Despite the short campaign there really is still quite a lot to do once you complete the main story, giving you much more hours of fun ahead.

Once you complete the main story, you will be glad to discover that 4 new side missions will now be available for you to access set in the same location as the main campaign. These side missions range between twenty to fifty minutes and can vary from an all battle focused scenario to other more stealthier style of gameplay. If you consider these extra bonus missions each with their own narratives and plot, you will soon discover that the two hours of gameplay can easily become six, eight or even ten hours overall.

It is however after you get through these side missions that Ground Zeroes replay-abilty does get very slim. Not to focus any more time discussing the games length, we will say there are other trials you can do after these bonus side missions that can extend your gameplay even further like enemy tag. Gamers can get their name of the top of the leaderboards by tagging enemies as fast at they can.

Despite Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes being in one location, the environment and level of detailing has been so well thought-out that it kept us engaged hours beyond our initial run-through as we went searching every nook and cranny looking for all the hidden secrets we could find.

Our mission begins with Snake arriving at a mysterious facility known as Camp Omega to rescue Paz and Chico, a group of young guys he met in Peace Walker, who since then began following the man who will one day be known as Big Boss. Ground Zeroes gives you the option of accessing the Peace Walker backstory from the main title screen, detailing a very extensive narrative summary of who these young children are and why you should care to rescue them, but if the objective of saving children is enough of a worthy cause in your mind then you really can skip this option and get right into it.

Ground Zeroes is set in an open-world environment allowing Snake to move freely within the confinements of the small map depending on your different style of play. With the main campaign being fairly straightforward to rescue two children, how you choose to achieve the objective will be entirely up to you.  One of your missions objective will be marked on your map, while the other is hidden away allowing for deeper exploration of the map and environment.

Like with previous Metal Gear games, there are tons of secret strategies across the terrain to discover that can help you complete your mission. Even after playing it for ten hours, I was still finding new ways to get around the map undetected. The new Metal Gear Soild V: Ground Zeroes design and mechanics has been minimized since the previous MGS4, adding a new sense of realism to the game. For example you no longer have a camouflage indictor that tells you how well hidden you are, instead you will have to rely on your own judgments when hiding in the darkness or within shrubs. Another mechanic no longer on MGS5 is Snake's radar, psyche or stamina meter. Players will now have to rely on Snakes trusty binoculars if they intend on tagging enemies, making them visible on the screen even if they are behind walls.

Snakes visual advantage doesn't only fall in your favor as enemies are now also able to spot you much further away, especially if they are using searchlights. Shooting from far away is much more realistic and difficult than previous Metal Gear Solid games as you now have to take distance and gravity of the bullets into consideration. To pull of tricky head shots will now require you to aim slightly in front or above an enemies forehead.

Another nice addition to MGS5 is the ability to call for helicopter extraction at specific landing zones after you have rescued the POWs, this does however present very interesting tactical strategies especially when it comes to your tactical style of play. For example do you attempt to gain control of a landing zone by killing the enemies near that location before calling in the extraction team or do you risk pushing through with the POWs and risk the chopper getting attacked. Or do you cause a distraction by planting C4's to allow for a more stealthier escape. The choice is truly up to you and Ground Zeroes certainly allows for such scenarios.

The Playstation 4 bonus Deja Vu mission is a funny side-quest adventure that requires you to redevelop photographs of locations from the first ever Metal Gear Solid game. This special side quest allows you to compare the 1998 game to the new 2014 title which we thought was a nice nostalgic moment to fans of the long running series.

One of the biggest additions to Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has to be Snakes voice, acted by Kiefer Sutherland known for his role as Jack Bauer in the hugely popular TV series 24. Snake being a man of few words is heard during cutscene dialogues through Kiefer Sutherland's soft yet raspy tone adding a nice touch of humanity to that of the previously emotionless Snake in past series.

Our major gripe about Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes was not in the games length but in the lack of closure you feel at the end of playing. We guess this lack of closure is on purpose considering this being a prologue to Phantom Pain, but we do think Kojima could have better focused on the lack-luster narratives, building towards an inspiring crescendo that the audience would be left begging for an encore.

Our Verdict

Overall we don't think MGS5 was meant to be a standalone title but merely a taster of what gamers can expect from the massively funded Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain expected to launch early 2015. Phantom Pain boasts 10 times the size of Ground Zeroes and other Metal Gear series combined. The length of gameplay however will be a major turn off to gamers considering buying Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes. Konami and Kojima had decided to recently drop the price of Ground Zeroes from $39.99 to $29.96, in consideration to consumers concerns on the titles short length. If you are willing to over look the length of play and single map location then you are  bound to find Ground Zeroes to be a very exciting demo, though at $29.96 still maybe a little too pricey for some.


SCORE 3/5