VIDEO Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

If its this or "Free to play" I'm pretty okay with this. These games are expensive to make. They have to get paid for somehow.

My favorite thing in metal gear games has always been playing around with the mechanics to see what you can make the game do. And for that, this works fine.

 

Creating strong DLC later down the line is a good way to make extra revenue, and if you made a good game, people will likely buy it. Releasing the first level of the game for $30 separately is horrifically bad practice, and I have no idea how your response can possibly be "they have to get paid somehow."

If the FOX engine cost too damn much for their company, and it's causing them to rip off their so-called fans, then maybe they shouldn't have spent so much making the game look pretty. Substance over eye-candy. That's the reason I like Metal Gear at least. For it's deep campaigns, great, if wacky, storylines, and awesome mechanics. While Ground Zeroes does have awesome mechanics, it's hard to appreciate them when it's obvious they were designed for a much bigger experience i.e. The Phantom Pain.

Ramza's probably right, perhaps I give this industry and it's consumers way too credit. If we're in a situation 5 years down the line where nearly every story-based AAA title has a $30 prologue, you'll only have yourselves to blame.

Let's just say The Witcher 3 looks pretty impressive graphically, but I doubt we'll see them trying to pull off such crap.

 

I think I'll be fairly happy if you can still get story based AAA games in five years. And if that means I have to somehow pay my share of what it costs to make them instead of getting them used for five bucks, I find this way less offensive than some of the others.

 

AAA games aren't going anywhere, it's the middle-ground development houses that are disappearing. The rise of the Indie scene means that the purpose of those smaller, but still fairly high budget games isn't as needed. If you want production values, AAA, you want innovative gameplay and unique experiences, Indie.

The only way AAA games will disappear is if each and every AAA publisher keeps shooting themselves repeatedly in the foot.

In terms of F2P, that model works better on MP games anyway, where you easily charge for cosmetic items that other players will see. There's not nearly as much incentive to buy loads of skins in a SP game. Still, the demand is there when you look at how well games like The Last of Us or BioShock sell, so supply will be created to meet that demand.

 

BioShock is the one whose studio just closed down right?

Obsidian have just announced a free to play World of Tanks competitor. Square Enix are refocusing on mobile. Nintendo are doing their Quality of Life thing which looks suspiciously like something that isn't video games.

Games that take years to make having a $30 tech demo/prologue part way through the development cycle seems to me to be fairly low on the scale of evils that could befall us.

If nothing else, Ground Zeroes oozes production value.

 

Irrational Games didn't shut down, they were radically resized at the whim of Ken Levine because he wants to make smaller games on a smaller budget. It was a move revolving around an artist's vision, not financial issues.

I'm not understanding what the point you're trying to make is here. Nintendo are making their Quality of Life project because they're reeling from the lack of sales of the Wii U, not because they haven't sold their games in chunks. Obsidian games have, until recently, always been underwhelming when it comes to sales and broken at launch. As for Squuenix, their games still sell incredibly well when they put thought and effort into them, such as Bravely Default. The problem they suffer with their core franchises is that they've dragged the good names of their IPs through the mud, and no one wants to know anymore.

Long story short, selling their games piece by piece wouldn't come anywhere close to solving each company's respective issues.

Prologues aren't anything new. The Gran Turismo games have been getting away with this strategy for years. However, unlike MGS:GZ, previous prologues gave the player a reasonable price/content ratio. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero's $5 for roughly 3 hours of game content is far more reasonable than the single solitary hour of content I got out of the new Metal Gear for $30. That's the problem here. Not that there's a paid prologue, but that they charging so much for so little.

What Konami are doing here isn't recouping losses, it's sheer greed. If they're in that bad a shape over the development of a single game then that's just incompetence on their part, and certainly not something that should be remedied by abusing a previously reasonable business model and gouging the wallets of the consumer.

 

Ken Levine's just a jerk, not an artistic genius. Splitting off from Irrational to work on smaller projects = following his artistic passions. Rendering the majority of Irrational employees jobless so he can do his own thing = **** move.

As for Ground Zeroes, I dunno, I can see it from both sides. It's a product that they've made and it's understandable to want to make a buck on it. Is $30 an acceptable price tag? I don't know. Probably not. But people would still be complaining if it was $20 or $15, I suspect, because that's what people like to do. I think, also, that breaking down video games by a cost-to-hours-of-game metric doesn't do anyone any favours. The first question for a game should be "did you have fun?" Was that fun worth the money you paid? If not, well, then you've got a problem. Certainly if a game promises X number of hours' worth of content, it should deliver on that front, but then we get back to the problem cost-to-hours-of-game metric. Not everyone is going to get X hours of fun out of a game, are they? Skyrim can be beaten in probably nine or ten hours, depending on how you play. And if you want a game to last a certain amount of time at least, then are you truly playing a game, or are you simply sitting on a very pretty and engaging railroad track?

But I digress. Konami's going to attract a lot of heat for this price point because of how short the actual "game" is. That said, it was widely reported up until release that the game wasn't much more than 2 hours long, and the price was announced well in advance. So regardless of what it means for the industry as a whole and the ever-widening rift between consumer and producer, there was at least forewarning and information about what you were getting. That's a nice change, even if it's sort of a Pyrrhic victory.

So on the one hand, yes, this is totally endemic of what's going on with the industry as a whole these days, but on the other hand, I don't see it as being any worse than any other example out there today. At least in this case, consumers were informed (or, well, hopefully they were). And at least in this case, there's a bigger release on the horizon. I guess what I'm saying is that this could've been much much worse, and given the state of the industry, I'm surprised it isn't worse.

 

Well, having played Ground Zeroes, I'm going to say that it's a very good game and I think the $30 price tag is ridiculous. I can understand the industry is in a weird place right now, which is why I generally approve of DLC as a way for game developers to reimburse themselves even if it's often of questionable versatility.

I think $15 is a more reasonable price tag for the time and quality of the work involved. Which means it's overcharged for but not so much it isn't worth purchasing.

I will say, though, that the game gets NASTY and WEIRD in places I don't usually associate with MSG.

 

Have people considered the advantage of this almost certainly not becoming yet another game sitting unfinished in your backlog?

 

While there's a benefit to the money lining the pockets of the game developers (specifically, for the game developers), I tend to think that Metal Gear 5 is an odd game to say would sit unfinished.

 

Tell me about it. The ending was rather horrifying to say the least.

 

Here’s the Red Band trailer for Metal Gear: The Phantom Pain which more or less explains the premise of the game. So, warnings, if you don’t want to be spoiled you might not want to watch this or read my comments. Take note, though, this isn’t spoiling how the plot DEVELOPS-only the premise of the game and what characters we’ll be seeing.



A discussion of what we see in the trailer starts with the fact we see Big Boss escorting a now (legless and armless) Kaz Miller from where he rescues him in Afghanistan. Kaz has decided he wants revenge on the Patriots (still called "Cipher") and is willing to do whatever it takes to do it. We also see Skullface, Revolver Ocelot, the new girl Quiet, and Otacon's Dad.

There's lots of child soldiers and we see blood diamonds getting mined, so presumably we'll be seeing some commentary on Africa's situation. Ocelot tortures Quiet and Otacon's dad in the trailer with Master Miller being just to the side, so it's quite likely Big Boss is going down a moral blackhole though it's also likely he doesn't know about any of this.

Oh and we also see the horrific removal of the bomb from Paz's stomach from Ground Zeroes. The game has been stated to be about XOF vs. the Diamond Dogs.

I'm pretty sure that "Eli" is also Liquid Snake.

 

Kojima man. For better or worse the dudes an auteur.

 

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Way back before the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the Sons of Aryas, in the year 2001, there was a teaser demo for a game called Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. This teaser allowed you to play as Solid Snake on an oil tanker which was secretly carrying a Metal Gear for the United States government.

Solid Snake, the avowed enemy of all things Metal Gear, was going to take some pictures of it in order to expose the government's violation of international treaty. Things went pear shaped and fans eagerly bought up the demo (even if they had to pay full-price for Zone of the Enders to get it) and were disappointed when they found out the main game was about newcomer Raiden rather than Solid Snake.

I am reminded of this story when I play Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, which is the hour to two hour long first mission of Metal Gear V: The Phantom Pain snipped away from the main game and released as an independent $30 release.

This is actually half of what the original price was intended to be and only at the bidding of Hideo Kojima the developers. This, despite the fact that most of these sorts of demos are free and the equally long Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, only cost $5.

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Camp Omega is a vast open-world level you can take from any direction you want.​

Now, there's reason to argue that selling this two-hour-preview is worth more than Case Zero. The graphics are top-notch, Metal Gear is a much-much bigger franchise than Dead Rising, and the gameplay is far more intricate. You could even argue with rising Triple A game costs, it's necessary to release DLC and separate discs in order to defer costs.

I agree, which is why this game should have probably cost $15. Either that or they should have thrown in enough levels to make it a four to five hour experience and charged the same. As is, the game is incredibly overpriced and better as a rental or "buy and return" from Gamestop.

The later which, honestly, I consider crooked. So, fans of the game, I suggest you pick it up used or when the price goes down if you want your money's worth. Still, I've wasted 15 bucks before on much stupider things than this so you CAN buy it if you want. I'm just saying the price is an issue.

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The sneaking in Metal Gear: Ground Zeroes has a lot more options, including shooting the spotters and lights.​

The premise of Metal Gear: Ground Zeroes is that it is about a month or so after the events of Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker. Paz Ortega, the seemingly peace-loving teenage co-star, has been captured by a Freddy Krueger-looking American soldier nicknamed Skullface.

Worse, Chico, Big Boss' surrogate son and conscience tried to rescue her and ended up getting himself captured. Skullface is the leader of a group called XOF (Fox spelled backwards) and he's apparently tortured both of them as well as performed all manner of gross medical experiments.

Yeah, nice guy.

Big Boss, being the honorable guy that he is, decides he's going to recover Chico at any cost. He's not so concerned about Paz and first suggests putting a bullet in her head to silence her. Those who played Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker shouldn't be surprised by this. Big Boss is convinced to rescue them both, though, and heads to US-run black site "Camp Omega" in Cuba. Gee, I wonder what location inspired this place? There's also something about Big Boss' mercenary company getting investigated by the U.N.

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Your goal is to rescue prisoners and that's a pretty decent motivator right there. No matter what you think of Paz or Chico from Peacewalker.​

Anyway, the plot is surprisingly complex for a game which lasts a little under an hour for the main story. There's even a lengthy 11 page explanation of Peacewalker's plot available from the start screen. I love Hideo Kojima's work as much as the next man but he's learned nothing from the 9 hours of cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid IV has he? I also think anyone who hasn't watched a Let's Play of Peacewalker or completed the game is going to be somewhat lost as to who Paz is and why they should care.

The gameplay is what everyone really wants to talk about, however. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is probably the most user-friendly and multi-gamestyle capable entry into the franchise yet. After years of finding it punishingly hard to complete these games, I completed Ground Zeroes both as a "run and gun" character as well as through stealth.

There's forty or so Marines in Camp Omega and it's quite possible to kill them all. The fact the game allows you a few seconds to shoot them in a "bullet time" effect when they first spot you is a great gift for those of us who lack godlike stealth abilities. Unlike in previous entries, if you kill them, they can't call for help and gunfire doesn't automatically inform the military of where you are. I'd say this adds replay value but it's, literally, possible to complete the game in seven minutes once you know where Paz and Chico are.

Artificial means of extending the game's length include trying to rescue all of the prisoners in Camp Omega and a number of side quests you gain by retrieving XOF patches. While I feel emotionally compelled to do the former, the latter doesn't really interest me. Sadly, I think there's several more side missions which could have been performed in Camp Omega which would have made the game more interesting.

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Skullface has a face only a mother could love.​

You could have also lengthened out the existing missions by putting a few necessary steps in-between. Rescue Chico>Recover evidence about the torture going on in Camp Omega>Kill the Scientist conducting the experiments>Capture the Base Commander to find out where Paz is>Rescue Paz. Some of this is touched on in the side missions but they could have all formed a coherent main narrative.

Graphically, Ground Zeroes' Camp Omega is one of the most beautiful settings I've ever played in. The dreary, dark, and foreboding location combined with its stormy atmosphere makes it a wonderful setting for a rescue mission. The Fox Engine even allows you to "wait out" the storm so it can be daylight when you explore, though it loses some of its feel thereafter. The contrast of modern military equipment to dog kennel-like conditions for the prisoners is also a real kick in the gut.

One final warning, the treatment of Chico and Paz by the forces of XOF goes beyond the bounds of good taste. Kojima wishes to make a point about the sadistic treatment of prisoners by torturers and includes the potential triggers of sexual abuse along with a sickening placement of explosives. If you are easily offended, you should probably avoid this game. Thankfully, the worst of it is never alluded to beyond the audio tapes.

8/10

The original blog review is here: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2014/04/metal-gear-solid-ground-zeroes-review.html

 

So I'm a fairly new MGS fan (I started with Snake Eater 3D in Summer of 2012) but I've been following this game since then. I never finished Snake Eater 3D, because I picked up the HD collection, and I kind of forgot about the series for a while, but over the course of the years I've played and completed Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Planning on playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker soon (I figured with V coming out in the near future I'd complete the Big Boss story and then play MGS2 and MGS4 after playing MGS5, to still get the "Finale" effect of MGS4).

In some ways The Phantom Pain looks incredible, especially the gameplay, but I'm also pretty worried about some of the content that will be in this game. I understand that Big Boss will have to become a villain in this game, and I like that Kojima isn't making any of the "evil" scenes "interactive" at this point. But as much as I like Kojima, I'm not sure I have complete faith in him that he'll be able to use these story elements tastefully and for a good reason, after hearing about some of the stuff in Ground Zeroes that seemed to be badly handled. (Once again, not saying that upsetting issues can't be handled in a game, but from what I've heard (haven't played it yet) it sounds like it was more for shock value and the writing itself seemed to lessen the point)

So the things like the dead children being eaten by buzzards, Big Boss seemingly firing at unarmed prisoners in a cage, all of the torture scenes, etc. are just a lilttle too out of my comfort zone. I'll still probably play it, but I'll probably wait until after its release and after everyone has had time to analyze whether these things were gratuitous or if they were needed and were portrayed in a way that proves the point Kojima is trying to make.

Also, I'm confused about something else. It seems like at the end of this game, there will be little chance that Big Boss and Zero are going to be pals. So then I wonder how Big Boss will become the leader of Foxhound at the time of Metal Gear 1.

 

The only Metal Gear game that I've played is Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I got 15 minutes in, to the point where you take a picture of something, and then realized that I had to sneak around the whole game and lost interest. I watched the opening cinematic for V and I found it very enjoyable, reminded me of the Last of Us a little bit. Out of curiosity, I've been going on youtube and looking for timeline videos to understand what I watched. Most of them are pretty confusing. If anyone recommends certain ones, please feel free to share. I don't plan on playing them, so the more spoilers/details, the better - thanks!

 

Or watch the various Chip Cheezum LPs, they feature one guy who's way up on the series and one neophyte so you get both perspectives. I can't feasibly recommend a synopsis because there are too many little details, Codec calls, and the like.

But seriously play the games.

 

Yeah, you can easily find full playthroughs or plain as punch "All the cutscenes and CODEC calls with only a few highlights from the game to serve as connective narrative" videos on YouTube, it's really easy.

Of course the best solution is to just play the games. You can get MGS on the PlayStation Network for like three bucks (but keep in mind it's a port of the original, not a remake or remaster), and 2, 3, and Peace Walker are available for PS3 and 360 in the HD collection (which is a port of the already-available remasters of 2 and 3, coupled with a port of the amazing Peace Walker from the PSP). The HD Collection is like $30 nowadays new.

Ground Zeroes is a pretty low price nowadays, and was free on XBL and PS+ a few months back. Now it'd probably set you back $10, which is a fair price for what it is.

As for MGSV, it's goddamn amazing.

 

As a game it's astoundingly polished, and undoubtedly the best playing Metal Gear Solid to date.

As a piece of Metal Gear lore though, I think this is one of the weaker entries in the series. I don't know who is entirely to blame for that considering it's a known fact that the ending and entire swathes of the late game were cut from the project by Konami. Though certain aspects of the main story feel cheap even with that in mind.

Spoiler

Such as the fact that Big Boss doesn't become the psychopathic 'demon' that he was supposed to at this point in the time line. Or that the character you play is not actually Snake, invalidating any character development made through the course of the game.

Also this may just be my saltiness over the issue, but I still think recasting David Hayter with Keither Sutherland is a big mistake. Keither doesn't turn in a bad performance, he nails the lines when he speaks. The problem is just how little he speaks, one can't shake the feeling that Snake's new found muteness comes down to the fact that Konami couldn't pony up the Sutherland bucks.

These aren't going to be issues for everyone. Though as someone who has always dug Metal Gear's lore-laden mythos, especially when it comes to this character and this era, I think it just removes from some of the franchise's unique flavour.

As aforementioned though, god this game is fun to play. I've put at least 80 hours into my save file and I keep uncovering new mechanics and little easter eggs.

 

I'd argue Snake is much quieter because Konami wouldn't pony up for a Sutherland. The game is brilliant, the plot even better, and

Spoiler

the twist a classic Kojima one. Do you remember MGS2? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

 

I love how Angry Joe states he's never played an MGS game and that he's never played a stealth game but he deems the latest MGS as the best stealth game of all time.

 

I'm absolutely loving this game so far. Onto Part 4 and the scale of the game is mind blowing, so much to do.

 

I'm brand new to the franchise but I'm having a blast just going through and doing side-ops for hours. I've exhausted my current list so I'm moving on to the main missions, and the next one has something to do with Bees (I think it's mission 5 or 6). I feel like there's a lot to this game that isn't obvious to a Metal Gear rookie. Any tips for a newcomer? Certain things to develop in R&D, etc.?

 

A fair number of old rules don't apply, but if TPP is anything like Peace Walker (and by all accounts it's PW to the nth) it's worth your time to develop the cardboard box line and really anything that can give you a stealth advantage. A good mixture of stealth weaponry and machine guns is also a good idea for both soft and loud missions.

 

I would suggest getting a diverse array of gear, and upgrading the Fulton as soon as possible. Also, be aware that enemies adapt over time. If you go around using tranquilizers on everyone, pretty soon they'll start wearing helmets and heavier armour. Your fists and chokeholds, however, will always kick ass.