Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain

  • Thread starter Ddrizle
  • 3,057 comments
  • 157,972 views
Kind of funny how we apparently don't even need to share the Metal Gear Online trailer. I wonder if it can even slightly play anything like that, though?
 
Is ground zeroes worth buying? Please don't give me a fanboy answer.
 
I just bought it, I think that makes it the first game I've owned on three different platforms... It's only 2.9GB but I think Steam's servers are under a fair bit of load right now, it should only take about an hour to download but it's telling me 2 hours remaining after the first 300MB.

Edit: Downloaded it and played through Ground Zeroes in 14 minutes. It took a bit of getting used to, playing with a keyboard, but I think I prefer it... And man, those graphics. My PC (factory OC GTX 680, i5 2500K at stock 3.3GHz, 8GB) runs it no problem with everything maxed and yeah, mmm. So nice. 1080p at 60fps. Sadly it wouldn't run at 5760x1080, though, but that's hardly surprising.
 
Last edited:
Well, saw it for 14 bucks on Steam and since I've played all previous main titles in the MGS series, I figures, why not. Can't do much wrong, given the price.

And yeah, graphics are quite awesome indeed. I'm surprised how well it runs and how good it looks.

@neema_t, you said you finished GT in 14 minutes - do you mean the first mission or the entire game? :confused:
 
Luminis
Well, saw it for 14 bucks on Steam and since I've played all previous main titles in the MGS series, I figures, why not. Can't do much wrong, given the price.

And yeah, graphics are quite awesome indeed. I'm surprised how well it runs and how good it looks.

@neema_t, you said you finished GT in 14 minutes - do you mean the first mission or the entire game? :confused:
Click to expand...

Oh nice, that's a good price. One more sale here. I just picked up MGS4 again for $12 a few days ago, so it fits the theme of the holidays for me. :)
 
Luminis
@neema_t, you said you finished GT in 14 minutes - do you mean the first mission or the entire game? :confused:
Click to expand...

Ha ha, I'd been having a heated debate about this with some people from RPS right before I started playing... I meant just the Ground Zeroes mission, one A-rank playthrough, which accounts for 9% of the entire game. I played for over 30 hours on my PS3 and over 10 hours on my brother's PS4 and never 100%ed either version, so there is plenty of replay value IF you're into that sort of thing. If you just want to play each mission once then yeah, it'll probably only last maybe 6 hours, if you take your time. If you speedrun each mission once using a guide or something you'll probably do it in two hours.
 
^ :lol:

It took me the whole evening completing GZ mission.

So much to see, so much to sneak, or dare I say "snake"

At 33% on release date, it was insta buy. Don't think it gets discounted a lot more during the sale. The Forrest never got above 15% last sale.

Graphics are good, though I hoped I could squeeze more out. But it looks so good. Incredible for 3gb. Fox engine is really neat
 
neema_t
Ha ha, I'd been having a heated debate about this with some people from RPS right before I started playing... I meant just the Ground Zeroes mission, one A-rank playthrough, which accounts for 9% of the entire game. I played for over 30 hours on my PS3 and over 10 hours on my brother's PS4 and never 100%ed either version, so there is plenty of replay value IF you're into that sort of thing. If you just want to play each mission once then yeah, it'll probably only last maybe 6 hours, if you take your time. If you speedrun each mission once using a guide or something you'll probably do it in two hours.
Click to expand...
Nice, thanks for the heads up 👍

I must've put a good 100 hours into Snake Eater, I think I'll find some stuff to do :lol: The open world approach is a great new spin on the MGS formula that gives me even more freedom to mess around 👍

Ibonibo
Graphics are good, though I hoped I could squeeze more out. But it looks so good. Incredible for 3gb. Fox engine is really neat
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's a good bunch of games that do look a fair bit better (like, say, Crysis 3; still unmatched, imho). But for a game that's primarily designed for consoles? Impressive stuff, I'd say.
 
Omnis
Is ground zeroes worth buying? Please don't give me a fanboy answer.
Click to expand...
That's a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, it's extremely short. It does have a few extra missions, and each one plays very differently, but it's still not the kind of game that you will keep coming back to.

On the other hand, GZ really taps into the potential of what an open-world game can be. It's not a case of going to a mission marker and doing a mission or two in a corner of the map you haven't seen yet. You can pretty much go anywhere from the outset, and it really feels like the world is alive - things that you do in one place have an impact elsewhere. It strikes a really fine balance between compelling you to move on when you know that you need to show restraint. There is a big risk-versus-reward dynamic at work that really creates a lot of tension.

Having said all of that, it's probably not worth it unless you can get it super-cheap. You'll knock it over in two days and won't come back to it, and I believe that it will be included with THE PHANTOM PAIN.
 
prisonermonkeys
Having said all of that, it's probably not worth it unless you can get it super-cheap. You'll knock it over in two days and won't come back to it, and I believe that it will be included with THE PHANTOM PAIN.
Click to expand...

This.

Having just played through the main mission (couple of hours or so), and looking at what's extra available to me now, I'm quite happy having purchased it for $13 dollars. It's a good amount of game for that amount of money. The content is somewhat limited, but the gameplay is incredible which makes up for a lot.

Had I bought it for $50 or whatever ridiculous price it was at release I would have been fuming. Realistically, it's a couple of solid gameplay sessions. I'm happy to pay the price of a couple of beers for that. $20 would be pushing it, I feel.

Also, I'm moderately staggered how good it looks on my fairly average PC.
 
prisonermonkeys
Having said all of that, it's probably not worth it unless you can get it super-cheap. You'll knock it over in two days and won't come back to it, and I believe that it will be included with THE PHANTOM PAIN.
Click to expand...

That's one way of looking at it, the other is I've played it for five hours since it finished downloading last night and have completed 22%, that amounts to finding the XOF patches, all the tapes that are in Ground Zeroes (the mission, not the game), completing Ground Zeroes with an S-rank, completing the intel operative rescue with an S-rank, completing Jamais Vu with a B-rank and finishing the 'fastest unlocking of all doors' trial on Jamais Vu.

If you want to just finish the missions then yeah, it'll not last long, but if you like short levels in games where you can hone your speedrun techniques - like Doom or Mirror's Edge or something similar - then Ground Zeroes has that kind of appeal. You can spend over an hour on the Ground Zeroes mission if you take your time, explore and experiment, or you can do it in about 10 minutes if you know what you're doing and want to rush it. There's a huge amount of detail that you'll likely miss on your first few playthroughs, too, like the guys who are looking for something (as I mentioned before I've played GZ for a total of about 40 hours on consoles and never noticed it beyond a brief mention) or how enemies start to panic if you wipe out their squad before them. Or how if you dive on a rat they die quite messily, the fact that you can kick guards to death, the fact that guards allegedly have unique faces and that one XOF patch that is very cleverly and hilariously hidden. I hope most people find it by accident like I did because it's so damn funny when it happens. Or even just the fact that if you aim behind you while you're prone, instead of spinning you around so you're still lying on your front like many games do, you roll onto your back instead.

But yes, apparently it will be included in The Phantom Pain. I don't think it's even slightly overpriced right now, though, with the 33% discount anyway... But I am a huge MGS fanboy so don't take my word for it.
 
I finished the Ground Zeroes mission yesterday. Took me 134 minutes in total and I ended up with a pathetic D-Rank. Going to do that a few more times. Gotta find all the patches and tapes as well, so I've got a bit of stuff to do on that mission alone... Haven't touched the side ops missions as of yet. My completion is at 6%... I'm not a completionist, but there's still a good bunch of content I'm looking forward to doing.

Content wise, it feels like a Call of Duty minus the multi player part, really. Couldn't see myself paying fifty € or whatever for either, but for less than twenty? Nothing to complain about. Thing is, the gameplay is simply revolutionary to someone who's been into previous MGS titles. It has more freedoms and options than the later titles like MGS 3 and 4 but the gameplay is more streamlined and less cluttered. If The Phantom Pain offers more of the same, it's going to be a master piece.
 
I think GZ's biggest strength is in the way it offers you multiple pathways to your objective, and the way that those options evolve over time. That's what I mean by risk versus reward - if you knock out a guard in a stairwell, you know that way is clear later on. But if the shift changes, the unconscious guard may be discovered, so you either have to move quickly and risk reacting to a patrol, or you can take it slow through the unknown.
 
Video is in the spoiler tag, but read this first.

Apparently there is a new message behind Kojima's shirt from the Game Awards, being made evident by online retailers. The Microsoft store, as well as several other retailers has updated The Phantom Pain's release date to 2/24/15, around the time that Ground Zeroes was released. Then what about the message on the shirt, which translated to the 22nd and the sixth? Remember when The Phantom Pain wasn't known as MGSV: TPP? The "studio" in charge of development was Moby Dick studios, based out of Sweden. The words on the shirt would refer to the 22nd chapter in the 6th book from Moby Dick author Herman Melville, titled "Merry Christmas". The book in question? You guessed it, Moby Dick.

There will be a Kojima Station podcast on Christmas day, so his gift to us could be the announcement of a release date for the game.

 
One of these days, Dan Brown is going to write a convoluted conspiracy "thriller" (though I use the term very loosely) revolving around Hideo Kojima's obscure messages.
 
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the 2/24/15 date is a red herring, in other words, it is a place holder, according to a Konami rep. The good news is that the Kojima Station podcast on Christmas Day wasn't outright called an outright lie by the same rep, so it is still on.
 
Studios usually set release dates months in advance so that they can start marketing. It would be extremely unusual for a major release like TPP to have its release date announced just two months in advance.
 
Kojima has said in the past that he doesn't want TPP to release much more than a year after GZ. The whole point of GZ was to bring in money to pay for the Fox Engine, but the exercise only worked if it was followed up by the release of TPP shortly thereafter. I would therefore be very surprised if it gets a Q3 or Q4 release; late March to mid-April seems to be the best window for TPP's release.
 
Goddammit, Kojima. Your games are cryptic enough already. Why do you have to make it so hard to even understand the release date?

Anyways, I'm thinking - maybe they're trying to keep things hush-hush on purpose. Kojima himself said TPP is going to be a very controversial game, and if GZs is a taste of things to come he's going to deliver hard. So, they may have decided to release the game quietly, without much fanfare to avoid excessive attention from non-specialistic (read: ****-stirring, censor-calling) press and sell GZs to make it up for the lost day one profits.
 
Companies have a name for that business plan: it's called a terrible idea.

TPP is the first (full) title of a flagship series launched on eighth-generation consoles and PC. A major release is unavoidable, and the marketing to date has been geared towards that. Trying to downplay the release and turn a profit on an episodic prequel that represents about 1% of TPP for fear of bad reviews is asking for a disaster.
 
Kojima Station Podcast starts in roughly 40 minutes. I will edit this post for all the goodies, but if you prefer not to wait, here is a live blog of the event:

http://www.thenasian.com/2014/12/24/kojima-station-christmas-episode-translation-liveblog/

Expected events on the agenda:

1. Special message from Satoshi Mikami (Ocelot's Japanese Voice Actor)
2. Christmas present for the audience (if this is from the aforementioned The Game Awards shirt, I don't know)
3. New Phantom Pain info
4. A present from "That person" (referring to another guest star or Satoshi Mikami)

Live Blog: (all times are in Eastern Standard Time)

5:20 - Blog Started
6:00 - Show started
6:07 - Introducing special guest
6:07 - Advertisment for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 3D (for 3DS)
6:10 - Retraction: New Ad for MGS 4. It went digital for PS3.
6:19 - footage of Ground Zeroes for PC will be shown.
6:21 - Showcasing the community hub for GZ.
6:23 - Now the Christmas Present will be shown.
6:26 - They are reading fan letters, and giving gifts.
6:28 - Looks like the Christmas presents for audience mentioned on Twitter were literal presents. Still no signs of any new info. That may come later though.
6:30 - Satoshi Mikami appears on the podcast.
6:33 - When asked what his schedule is for Christmas, Mikami said he's recording some stuff there. In other words, voice recording sessions are still going on, at least as far as Japanese voices go.
6:35 - Right now, they're recording all the way to the end, and then they'll be going back to check for any recordings that may need retakes.
6:37 - It was mentioned that there are things that are hard for Kiefer to say in the script.
6:39 - They are talking about how Phantom Pain is open world, people have lots of way to enjoy it, and it was mentioned that every NPC has his own face.
6:40 - This is one of the first games that Mikami has done, he was surprised to see how deep games have gotten.
6:42 - Back to reading more fan letters.
6:53 - Still at it with the letters and gifts.
7:00 -At this point, all I'm clinging to is what they said about new information being shared during the "ending" portion of this Kojima Station... but things aren't looking good :(.
8:04 - Back to the presents.
8:24 - According to JunkerHQ, there are three gifts to go as of this time.
8:34 - Nana Mizuki has been introduced in the podcast as the voice of Paz
8:35 - It is a tease that Mizuki is back in the studio to record more lines for the character, so expect Paz to return in TPP in some form.
8:37 - New TPP info incoming.
8:47 - The new chicken cap is something that you could use if you get spotted a lot. It will make it harder for enemies to spot you. It even carries over into cutscenes if you are wearing it, and has various gameplay gimmicks.
8:48 - Kojima dodged the release date question again.
8:49 - Kojima Station 31 is in the books at a length of 2 hours and 57 minutes.
 
Last edited:
Sanji Himura
The "studio" in charge of development was Moby Dick studios, based out of Sweden. The words on the shirt would refer to the 22nd chapter in the 6th book from Moby Dick author Herman Melville, titled "Merry Christmas". The book in question? You guessed it, Moby Dick.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what the fixation with Moby Dick is, unless you consider a game that truly represents Kojima's vision of what a Metal Gear title should be as being his white whale. If anything, the series has more in common with Shakespeare than Melville. If you strip back the complex mythology and Ocelot's penchant for septuple-crosses (speaking of Ocelot, I'm happy to see Troy Baker has been cast in the role; he was fantastic as Booker DeWitt and Pagan Min), then it's effectively Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare's lesser-known tragedies - Coriolanus, a general of Rome and a highly-decorated soldier, has a falling-out with the government after being sent to pre-emptively destroy a burgeoning republic. Feeling betrayed, he incites rebellion and is branded a traitor by the corrupt hegemony running Rome. Coriolanus makes it his mission to root out those at the heart of the city, coming perilously close to bringing the (known) world to war in order to do it.
 
Here's a little video I made of Side Op 1 going a bit wrong but it's still an S-rank run. Watch in 1080p 60fps mode for true PC Master Race glory.

 
Sanji Himura
8:34 - Nana Mizuki has been introduced in the podcast as the voice of Paz
8:35 - It is a tease that Mizuki is back in the studio to record more lines for the character, so expect Paz to return in TPP in some form.
Click to expand...
Since I doubt that even Kojima could bring back a character who threw themselves out of a helicopter and exploded (nanomachines not having been invented yet), I'm guessing that Paz's return will be through voice recordings, probably of her interrogations.
The Nuclear trailer contains a high-contrast image of two silhouettes standing in front of a cavern that holds Metal Gear ZEKE. One of those silhouettes is clearly Snake, but the other appears to be Skull Face. It also shows four insignia when the taglines appear - MSF, Diamond Dogs, Outer Heaven and XOF. XOF's inclusion is odd given that they were the antagonists of Ground Zeroes. With Skull Face's dialogue suggesting that he wants to find Cipher, I am guessing that the survivors of MSF and the remainder of XOF will join forces at some point, and they will use Paz's recordings to try and find him.
 

Similar threads

StoneyNUFC
Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros
Replies
10
Views
752
Carlos
Carlos
Solid Lifters
  • Locked
Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes
2 3
Replies
60
Views
25K
Alltidxx
Alltidxx
Sanji Himura
Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection Outed
2
Replies
33
Views
3K
Waheed
Waheed
GTjazzabrandy
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - PSP - June 2010
Replies
1
Views
2K
GTjazzabrandy
GTjazzabrandy
Digital-Nitrate
The next Metal Gear Solid game: Raiden?
2
Replies
37
Views
2K
Solid Fro
Solid Fro

Latest Posts

Back