Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes

[Ghostsong]

Ghost how was it? I'm contemplating picking this up on either my lunch hour or drive home. For $30 my head say wait but my MGS fanboy heart says get it, and when it comes to things like this I'm usually a sucker and follow my fanboy heart lol.

The main mission is as short as everyone says. I probably took 2 hours even with multiple deaths at the end.

Once you finish there are 3 or 4 side ops plus the extra mission you have to unlock by collecting badges from around the base. The base is a nice size, and you won't see the whole thing by running though just the story mission.

The game controls are very smooth now. Putting a soldier in a choke hold gives you the option to interrogate them, knock them out, or kill them. You can bring them to the chopper at an LZ zone along with any prisoners to extract them. This can be tedious after being spoiled by the fulton recovery system. My one complaint about the actual control would be the auto cover can be suspect.

The game is quite a bit harder than I thought it would be. There's no real radar anymore. You just mark enemies though binoculars and they stay marked like AC4. Still the game takes place at night, and I was spotted quite a few times by enemies I didn't notice. The shooting mechanics are about the same as peace walker, but you'll find you're less capable in firefights because of the number of enemies.

The games a real looker, but there are moments it feels...uneven. Every now and then you'll see a texture that looks like an hd ps2 texture. Its hard to explain without seeing it.

The ending leads right up to when Phantom Pain starts. Even though I haven't finished the whole thing I wouldn't recommend to someone who just wasn't a huge fan of MGS already.

 

[xIx EDGE xIx]

The main mission is as short as everyone says. I probably took 2 hours even with multiple deaths at the end.

Once you finish there are 3 or 4 side ops plus the extra mission you have to unlock by collecting badges from around the base. The base is a nice size, and you won't see the whole thing by running though just the story mission.

The game controls are very smooth now. Putting a soldier in a choke hold gives you the option to interrogate them, knock them out, or kill them. You can bring them to the chopper at an LZ zone along with any prisoners to extract them. This can be tedious after being spoiled by the fulton recovery system. My one complaint about the actual control would be the auto cover can be suspect.

The game is quite a bit harder than I thought it would be. There's no real radar anymore. You just mark enemies though binoculars and they stay marked like AC4. Still the game takes place at night, and I was spotted quite a few times by enemies I didn't notice. The shooting mechanics are about the same as peace walker, but you'll find you're less capable in firefights because of the number of enemies.

The games a real looker, but there are moments it feels...uneven. Every now and then you'll see a texture that looks like an hd ps2 texture. Its hard to explain without seeing it.

The ending leads right up to when Phantom Pain starts. Even though I haven't finished the whole thing I wouldn't recommend to someone who just wasn't a huge fan of MGS already.

I think you sold me lol... still not a fan of the price considering the length of the game, but it's MGS so I'll spoil myself.

I know what you mean with the fulton recovery, just click and watch them fly, but between removing that and having you mark sentries with binoculars it seems like they are trying to take a very realistc feeling approach, which I'm perfectly ok with. Is there any real reason to capture enemies? Do the soldiers you send to Mother Base in Ground Zeroes carry over into the Phantom Pain?

I'm also looking forward to the challenge. As long as it's challenging and not BS then that's a good thing; I love trying to complete a tough challenge, but I can't stand it when games artifically inflate the difficulty with things like inifinite waves of enemies, pin point enemy accuracy, barrells of grenades, enemies tracking your movements through walls, etc.

I'm going to try and 100% it with the best rankings so I'm hoping that will lengthen the experience a bit.

 

[Ghostsong]

I never had anything I'd call a cheap death, but the end was real trial and error. The LZ's are rated by how far you are into the base, and how many enemies are around. So you have to decide if its better to try and brave the onslaught to get someone out, or pack them all the way across the base to a safer LZ.

One thing I think you'll love is it just feels like MGS1. The base at night really makes you nostalgic. There's a real tonal shift too. Where the old games would just talk about the horrors of war they're really thrown in you face this time.

Recovering soldiers is supposed to move them to your base on the idroid app mother base game. They still haven't appeared in mine though, so they may have not ironed this out yet.

 

[Ghostsong]

Did you pick this up Edge? I finished the main game again, and collected the xof badges last night. Going to do some side ops tonight.

Also it looks like throwing a soldier on the chopper may do nothing more than let Kaz interrogate them as they never showed up in my base.

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[xIx EDGE xIx]

Did you pick this up Edge? I finished the main game again, and collected the xox badges last night. Going to do some side ops tonight.

Also it looks like throwing a soldier on the chopper may do nothing more than let Kaz interrogate them as they never showed up in my base.

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I did actually, though I didn't get the chance to play it. As soon as I got home I started making dinner and planned on playing it after, but while I was eating I got flooded with party invites to play Titanfall lol.

I'm going to play it tonight for sure, I'll even appear offline for a couple of hours if I have to

 

[xIx EDGE xIx]

Alright, so I played through the main mission and I have to say that I'm even more excited for MGSV. The visuals are easily the best I've ever seen on a home console; the lighting effects are fantastic, animations are as realistic as ever, and during the cutscene when Mother Base is being attack it honestly looked like I was watching a live action movie with real human actors, not CG models.

The gameplay is also very smooth and the addition of a sprint button is a welcomed feature. The only knock on it is as you had mentioned Ghost, the cover system. It feels way too sensative and you feel like you're going to break cover whenever you touch the thumbstick. I also couldn't figure out two things - how to shoot from cover and how to knock on walls to make noise and attract attention. Everything else seemed to work great.

The main mission is short, but there's a lot of the base that I still need to discover. I only found one of the nine XOF patches, and there's still plenty of challenges, side ops, and that I would like to go back and S rank the main mission, as well as hard mode. Again, yes, the mission is short and the whole thing feels like a shiny demo, but the replayability factor adds enough to justify the cost in my opinion if you are a big fan of MGS. Trying to 100% all of this will take at least 10 hours, so for $30 that's not bad, espeically considering that some full $60 games have campaigns shorter than that.

Also, what's your opinion on Kiefer Sutherland as Snake? I'm a Sutherland fan, but it just feels odd. I don't love it or hate it, it just feels different. At times I almost forgot I was playing as Snake/Big Boss and thought I was Jack Bauer. I understand Kojima's logic, he tried to spin it as Snake is getting older so his voice changes. Ok, that's fine, but if that's the case then they should have saved Sutherland for The Phantom Pain which takes place nine years later and brought David Hayter back for one more run as Snake, especially how Ground Zeroes takes place only days or weeks after Peace Walker. It just leads me to believe in my initial thought when I first heard about the replacement, that there was some sort of disagreement or falling out between Hayter and Kojima that led to the decision.

 

[Ghostsong]

I think shooting from cover is done by simultaneously pressing the aim and fire button. Not too sure as I rarely engage unless already spotted. I think infinite magazines may have taken the place of knocking though.

I was getting to the point where beating it on normal wasn't much of a challenge so I kicked it up to hard. I think that gives all enemies lasik surgery because I was constantly being spotted.

I really haven't heard enough to make a call on Sutherland. It was definitely jarring at first, but I'm willing to give him a shot. I think the whole Hayter thing is more misdirection. I think he'll show up as solid snake in the main game.

I finished Deja Vu last night and it was awesome. Just have to make that hard run for grey fox now.

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[xIx EDGE xIx]

I played a lot of this over the weekend and I honestly feel alot better about the price tag. Granted, the map size of the base is small and it's used for all six of the missions that are available, but there's a ton of replay value, especially for completionist types. I'm about 8-10 hours in and only have around 35% total game completion.

Lately, I've been knocking out some achievements and challenges (challenges are like achievements, except they are only available to be obtained for a limited time), as well as working on S ranking all of the missions. The toughest challenge asks you to S rank all missions on both normal and hard without any alerts and without killing anyone. In other words, a perfect run on every mission and on both difficulties.

So far I've S ranked the first 5 on normal, and tonight I'm going to try out the Raiden mission. The description says that I have to locate and elminate the evil alien body snatchers posing as human guards lol.

 

[Ghostsong]

I haven't managed to s rank anything. Did you extract the eye and the finger? I couldn't even begin to work out how I'd pull that off.

I have 1 Chico tape left, and the 2nd tape from the Intel mission to go. I'll probably be content with that.

I finished Deja vu on hard and got grey fox. He's supposed to have the same move set as raiden so you should have fun with that. You can literally dash into an enemy to knock them down and kick them unconscious before they hit the ground.

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[xIx EDGE xIx]

I haven't managed to s rank anything. Did you extract the eye and the finger? I couldn't even begin to work out how I'd pull that off.

I have 1 Chico tape left, and the 2nd tape from the Intel mission to go. I'll probably be content with that.

I finished Deja vu on hard and got grey fox. He's supposed to have the same move set as raiden so you should have fun with that. You can literally dash into an enemy to knock them down and kick them unconscious before they hit the ground.

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After trial and error, I actually have all of the side ops down to a science lol. Extracting both is fairly easy, especially when you know their starting locations. From the start, make your way up the mountain side and head straight and slightly towards the left (toward the cliff where you spawn for the main Ground Zeroes mission). Excluding the guy right at the start and the jeep that drives by, there should be around 3-4 enemies in your path toward the first target. On will run up the hill toward a truck where another guard is walking away from, one is in the area with the white tents, and another is roaming around and emtpy lot to the right of the first target. Just tranq them and keep moving toward that hill to the left.

Eventually, you'll see the first target talking to two other guards, and then shortly after the three of them will start walking toward a jeep. As soon as they start walking, sneak up behind them and tranq all three. Be careful because there is another guard at the end of the lot, as well as another posted in the watch tower overlooking the area where you are. Once the area is safe, grab your target and carry him to the extraction zone up there on the hill; once there, put him down for now and start making your way toward the admin building in the main base where target number two is.

While en route to the base, you may encounter another 3-4 guards. Same as before, just take your time and tranq them so that they don't alert the base. The second target is in that tall control tower that's connected to that large concrete wall; there are two guards in the tower with him. The best approach is to take that back entrance to the left of the towere that's next to where you can cut the power to the admin building. Go in there and a guard should spot you (no alert, he just gets jumpy because he thinks he saw something and will come investigate).

When he comes into the caged area where the fuse box is, tranq him, and then cut the power to the base so that the security cameras are shut down. Sometimes they will send a second guard to investigate, so hang around for a minute and take him out if that's the case. The next step is to exit the caged area and climb that ladder to the right of it that leads up to the control tower. Take your time and watch out for the guard that comes around the right side of the tower because he will overlook the walkway in which you are on. Tranq him, and then tranq the other two up there as soon as they go and investigate.

Once all three are down, call your chopper, grab your target, and carry him back to the evac zone where you dropped his buddy off. Just go back the exact way that you came as all the guards along that path should be neutralized. Put both targets onto the chopper and then evac yourself - mission complete.