POSTED 9/4/14


METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES

Kojima Productions/Konami

Right, let’s see if we’ve got this straight.

You’re the Dude. But you sound like Jack Bauer. Rather than just hanging out with Walter and Donny at the bowling alley though, you’re actually a crack covert ops, erm, dude. Something, something, Bruce Springsteen. Something, something Paz and Chico. The latter is not a South American comedy duo.

Look, fans of all things Metal Gear will know enough of what’s going on without us offering shitloads of exposition, for there isn’t a lot here to expose. How so? Well, if we exercise our cynical side we’d say that Ground Zeroes is essentially a demo for what’s to come in The Phantom Pain. If we’re more generous then we’d say it’s a prologue for the big event. An extended trailer. But a playable one.

The classic control scheme has been tweaked to place even more emphasis on stealthiness – utilising binoculars, radio and your own personal Blackberry-like doobrie. Of course, if you’re fucking bonkers you can go in all guns blazing instead – and be deaderised so quick that your head would spin were you not actually all dead and stiff and stuff. But you’ll have fun doing it.

Sure, it all takes place in one single, solitary Cuban pre-Guantanamo prison camp-type dealie, and if you romp you’ll get lucky if you manage two hours of play, but on the positive side there’re also several side missions which add value should you choose to assail them, and it bears a smaller price than a full-sized game.

Anybody who’s played anything by him knows that Metal Gear overlord Hideo Kojima is quite a twisted puppy, and MGSV:GZ underlines that. We’re torn between dribbling spoilers everywhere and mentioning how utterly sickened we were by certain events which transpired.

So, reluctantly, we’re taking a page from Buffy’s playbook in summing up. Fire bad, tree pretty...

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!