Snaaaaaaaaaake!
I couldn’t resist. I apologize.
Today is the release of the uber-demo Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes which leads into the full game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. While the game’s length may have been a point of contention for fans, the reviews suggest that the fun you will have should outweigh any reservations you had about playtime.
Except Polygon, of course.
IGN– 8/10
“Ground Zeroes is so adept at generating tension that at times it felt like I was playing a survival horror game. While Boss has never been more flexible; able to roll and jump and shoot in line with today’s top third-person action-adventure games, enemies are smart and plentiful. In the harsh light of day – and played on Hard mode – they possess cruel 20/20 vision, and react to every little movement or shifting shadow by becoming more efficacious in their patrolling.”
Kotaku– YES
“Shortly after beginning the game, I spent a good thirty minutes just making my way back and forth between two buildings, knocking out guards, seeing how long it would take them to wake back up, trying to distract them and see how close I could get to them before they noticed me. If you’re into that sort of experimentation, you’ll find a rewarding chemistry set in Ground Zeroes.”
Polygon– 5.5/10
“All told, the titular Ground Zeroes mission took me one hour and 16 minutes to complete, including cutscenes and about eight deaths. That’s not the game clock, either. That’s real time. The mission is not only short, it’s dull. Your objectives amount to going to one place, rescuing a prisoner, going to another place, rescuing another prisoner, and then calling in a helicopter to get you out of there. Underwhelming doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Videogamer– 8/10
“It’s flexible enough to enable players to come up with their own battle plans, and once Ground Zeroes is over there are five Side Ops missions (encompassing assassination, hostage extraction, espionage and more) that take place at different times of day. Again, it shows off the pliability of the world, while also giving the lighting engine a good run out. It’s literally not found wanting come rain or shine.”
Game Informer– 7/10
“Ground Zeroes makes a fantastic first impression. It is gorgeous, from the facial capture to the environmental textures. Even the little touches, like lens flare and particle effects, are impeccable. The camera angles are cool, the art direction is interesting, and the production values are high. Snake’s mission in the prison camp is undoubtedly a feast for the eyes, but if you want meaningful content, you’re going to leave hungry.”
Joystiq– 3.5/5
“The longer you stay with Ground Zeroes and its shooter-style control scheme (for real, this time), the more you diverge from your old style of play, even if your intent is to be more of a ghost than a ghost-making machine. On one end of the Metal Gear spectrum, you drag a squirming guard behind a building and choke him into mandatory silence. On the other end, you commandeer a giant emplaced machine gun – let’s call it the “on-site procurement” that’s been encouraged since MGS1 – and blow everyone away. Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes rewards stealth purists with a better score, but trigger-happy improvisers get a satisfying body count.”
