Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

Quick and clean. Well... quick.

Solid Snake is deep in a complex story of sabotage, espionage, and infiltration.  In Ground Zeroes, he must rescue two prisoners and extract them without getting killed.

Get in, get out, and you're done.

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Recommended Age Minimum Age Available On... 14 12 PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 Overall Fun Length Frustration   Violence Sexuality Substances Gambling 5 2 3   6 5 1 0 Mods Religion Anti-Law Community Sports Magic Miscellaneous 0 0 0 0 1 0 4

1.     Gameplay

• Overall Fun - 5

Maybe I was biased when I started this game.  I generally don’t like stealth games, but my friends all told me how awesome Metal Gear Solid games could be.  Especially the boss battles.  They told me about how the writers and designers did an amazing job breaking the 4th wall and coming up with crazy ideas that no one had ever tried before.  I was told about the one boss battle where the player had to move the controller from the P1 port to the P2 port so that the boss couldn’t read his mind and predict his moves.  That’s what I came into Ground Zeroes expecting.

Boss, Big Boss, Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, Toilet Snake, T-1000, etc. etc.

With those expectations, this game was a complete disaster.  The mechanics are smooth and the visuals are awesome, but the entire “game” is a single campaign mission and a few side missions that all take place in the same medium-sized worldspace.  It’s a single military base, that’s it.  Stealth is a heavy component, but there weren’t any interesting boss battles or mind games or puzzles or anything.  It was simply “infiltrate the base, rescue two hostages, extract on a helicopter”.

Side mission: Rescue more prisoners, DURING THE DAY! Exciting!

My friends told me that this wasn’t like Splinter Cell.  Some of the stealth mechanics were similar, but overall the twists and turns that Metal Gear took made it a significantly more interesting experience.  I did not see that anywhere here.  In fact, the ridiculously complex ball of characters, names, locations, and events that I researched prior to playing this game was basically meaningless.  I expected to have to know who Liquid Snake was, who The Boss was, etc.  I didn’t need to know any of that, which is fine, except I have no idea what I just played.  Why was I here?  What was I setting up for?  Who did I just rescue?

Is this really an American military base?

Save your money, don’t get this.  It’ll get lumped in with the real MGS: V that will eventually come out.  This was a disappointment on so many levels.

• Length - 2

This game is short, almost insultingly short.  The main campaign is one mission.  There are a number of side missions the player can attempt, but these are all in the same level just with different insertion points and times of day.  It wasn’t nearly enough to keep me interested for more than an hour or two and it certainly isn’t worth the price tag.

• Frustration Factor - 3

The problems I had with this game weren’t really mechanical.  My biggest frustration comes with the sheer complexity of the story and the characters.  This isn’t a detailed, intricate storyline like Lord of the Rings, where warring factions have their own individual histories that can be explored for greater knowledge about their motivations.  This is a ridiculously difficult to follow twist of names and events that, even after spending hours researching the history of the series, I’m still pretty clueless as to who certain people are and why they’re important.

And unfortunately there’s no real way to fix this.  The game includes page after page of history so that new players can get familiar with what’s going on, but even these did little to explain what happened and it certainly didn’t help that none of them had images or videos.  Seriously, how difficult would it be to put in a 10 minute movie to help visualize this mess of snakes and bosses.

Excluding all that, the mechanics were smooth and I never felt frustrated even while I was deep in combat.

2.     Parental Notices

• Violence - 6

Violence in this game is mild, but is definitely the most prominent factor.  There game discourages lethal violence through a point system, but lets the player choose whether to be lethal or non-lethal.  Lethal rounds from almost all firearms will result in a small splash of blood on impact that quickly dissipates.

I wasn't very stealthy with this kill. Meh.

Sometimes this blood will pool onto the ground.  I’m not sure if the enemies will react to this blood, but it did go away after leaving the area and coming back.

Nobody will notice this discarded weapon or unmanned truck though.

But I found myself relying on the tranquilizer darts, since they were a non-lethal ranged weapon.  Hits from this gun will not result in any blood and will not kill the target.

It's fast acting if you hit them in the head.

Blood in cutscenes is somewhat more significant and more noticeable than normal play, but is overall a small part of the scenes.

That's a surprising amount of blood.

The player can also grab enemies.  Once a target is grabbed, the player can choose to knock the target out or kill him.  Knocked out targets can wake up again, which gives a slight certainty to killing a target (since the player won’t have to worry about crossing paths with him again).  When knocking out a target, Snake just chokes the enemy until the enemy is asleep.

Could be choking him out, could be dislocating his shoulder.

If the player chooses to kill a target, Snake takes out a knife and quickly plunges it into the enemy’s chest.  There is some blood but it quickly goes away (and many times this action is obscured by the camera angle).

Usually you're looking around you for another enemy, not looking behind you to see the action.

There were some pretty horrific acts done to the two prisoners that Snake must rescue.  These are discussed more in the “Miscellaneous” section below.  However, in order to remove a bomb that was implanted in one of the prisoner’s body, one character must literally reach inside of the prisoner and remove the bomb.  Internal organs and blood are shown in cinematic detail.  It’s not necessarily violence, but it’s still pretty graphic.

Do you think they teach "bomb removal" in med school?

• Sexuality - 5
  

There is no visible sexuality in this game.  However, in the final cutscene it is heavily implied that a bomb was implanted in a female character’s “lower region”.  However, this is never stated in a blunt enough manner to be 100% certain.  Personally, I’m not even sure this would qualify as sexuality, but I figure it would be important to mention anyway.

I wanted to end this section with that.  Unfortunately, the developers decided to throw in some hidden “gems” via the in game unlockable audio logs.  These logs are recordings of Skull Face, the presumed main antagonist, as he tortures the female prisoner that Solid Snake has to rescue.  These logs include dialog where Skull Face rapes the prisoner, has her gang raped by guards, and forces another prisoner (a young boy) to participate as well as a form of torture to get the boy to break down psychologically.

I missed this on my two playthroughs, so it is possible to completely miss this.  However, its inclusion doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t help the story, and doesn’t serve to make Skull Face any more evil than he obviously is.  If this section was excluded, sexuality would have been a very minor 1 point, but these audio logs force me to increase this rating significantly.

Huge thanks to CGBM for giving me a heads up about the audio logs!

• Substances - 2

Substances play an extremely mild role in this game.  There are only two noticeable forms of substances that come into this game.  The most commonly used is a tranquilizer dart.  The sleeping agent inside of the darts is never discussed or clarified, but I used this frequently to keep enemies from discovering my movements.

The only other noticeable substance was Solid Snake’s cigar, which he lights once you’ve completed the main mission.

Now you're just an old, beat up dude, smoking a cigar.

• Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3.     Other Factors

• Mods - 0

There are no modding tools available for this game.

• Religion - 0

Religion is not a factor in this game.

• Anti-Law - 0

While Solid Snake is infiltrating an enemy base, one that is presumably run by the US government, the acts all seem to be part of some greater international or non-national conflict.  Therefore, anti-law is not a factor in this game.

• Online Community - 0

There are no multiplayer game modes in this game.

• Extreme Sports - 1

Snake free-climbs up a sheer ocean cliff in the opening cutscene.  Other than this, which is very brief, extreme sports are not a factor in this game.

• Magic - 0

Magic is not a factor in this game.

• Miscellaneous - 4

Torture

The two main prisoners that the player has to rescue have both been tortured in horrendous ways.  One character had bolts driven into his ankles to prevent him from walking.

That's messed up.

The other had her stomach sliced open so that a bomb could be inserted.

They clearly weren't worried about leaving a scar.

Human Disfigurement

A character named Skull Face, presumably the main antagonist, is severely disfigured.  The game does not specify how he received these scars and he is only in the opening cutscene.

He was probably treated by the same doctors that sewed the bomb into the prisoner.

Interrogation

Once the player grabs an enemy, he can choose to interrogate the enemy for more information.  This is a very simple mechanic and doesn’t involve any sort of physical torture.