Metal Gear Solid

[PSI Wind]

What? That's not even $30 worth!

[Marcello]

Well, you can get the game for $20.

That said, I'm waiting. I can't get the PS4 right now anyway, so once I can this'll be cheaper.

[Doctor MK]

A game that takes less than two hours to beat normally, and can be beaten in 5 minutes in a speedrun? Blimey... I know Metal Gear Solid games are known for basically being interactive movies but that's just ridiculous. They may as well have just made it one long ass cutscene and put it on a DVD.

[SuperStingray]

Kojima says there will be a focus on side missions, freedom of approach and time trials, so replay value certainly is going to be a thing.  I agree that play time is a much more important metric than clear time, but whether it's worth the asking price is a question of if it actually is fun enough to warrant play beyond the main mission.

 

Either way, it's not the wisest of prices for what is essentially a prologue.  At the very least the boxed version should come with a discount on Phantom Pain or something.

 

Also I wouldn't count speedrunning as an indicator of anything.  You can beat Ocarina of Time in under 20 minutes.

[Marcello]

A game that takes less than two hours to beat normally, and can be beaten in 5 minutes in a speedrun? Blimey... I know Metal Gear Solid games are known for basically being interactive movies but that's just ridiculous. They may as well have just made it one long ass cutscene and put it on a DVD.

 

Only people who have no idea what they're talking about would call them that.

 

Kojima says there will be a focus on side missions, freedom of approach and time trials, so replay value certainly is going to be a thing.  I agree that play time is a much more important metric than clear time, but whether it's worth the asking price is a question of if it actually is fun enough to warrant play beyond the main mission.

 

Either way, it's not the wisest of prices for what is essentially a prologue.  At the very least the boxed version should come with a discount on Phantom Pain or something.

 

Also I wouldn't count speedrunning as an indicator of anything.  You can beat Ocarina of Time in under 20 minutes.

 

I remember a Konami rep on NeoGAF saying they were looking into giving physical buyers something extra, so there's at least that (maybe).

[Doctor MK]

Only people who have no idea what they're talking about would call them that.

 

Well I fully admit that I'm someone who has no idea what they're talking about when it comes to Metal Gear Solid, I'm just basing it off over-exaggerated generalisations that I've heard haha

[Marcello]

I didn't mean you. I saw the "I know (...) are known" =P

[Law]

Hey, you guys bought Sonic Generations for $60. Ground Zeroes is twice as long and only half the price.

[Marcello]

Generations didn't go for $60, I believe. I think it was $50 or so.

 

Metal Gear Rising was pathetically short, though, and that did go for full price. Longer than GZ, but still very short.

[TheOcelot]

MGSV: Phantom Pain is going to have replay value on a massive scale. It's open world with at least 100 hours of gameplay. This is the game that everyone is looking forward to, whereas Ground Zeroes feels out of place.

 

Kojima has previously said that he wanted to release Ground Zeroes years ago on last-gen (PS3) but it didn't happen. GZ is clearly a very short game and is designed to set-up TPP, but GZ story could easily have been added to the end of Peace Walker. This would have made more sense considering the the events of GZ take place almost immediately after PW in terms of the time line.

 

Now, Kojima has pretty much said that GZ has been been designed to ease players in to open-world gameplay, and that it's an experiment to see how fans react. Lets be honest we've all played open-world games so it's a mute point, and as for GZ being an experiment? Pffffffffft. Kojima has already decided what he's going to do with TPP. It's coming regardless of how GZ does.  

 

Why not just release GZ & TPP together as all one game. Fans would happily wait until 2015 when it's released.

 

My point? Forget about the price, GZ could end up doing far more harm than good to the franchise if the gameplay isn't good enough. I haven't forgotten how disappointed I was with MGS4 and I don't want that to happen again.

 

I'm pretty much going to get GZ on PS3 and then TPP on PS4. 

[Nintendoga]

....Still day one for me.

Length of game doesn't matter to me so much, more so how much replay value there is. And knowing Metal Gear, I'm gonna be trying to speedrun this for months.

[SuperStingray]

Playing Ground Zeroes for two hours will get you 8% completion.

[TheOcelot]

Konami has confirmed:

 

The PS4 version will run at 1080p and 60fps, an improvement on Xbox One, which will run at 720p and 60fps.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions will run at an upscaled 720p and 30fps.

 

 

 

 

 

PlayStation 3® & Xbox 360®: $19.99/£19.99/19.99 (Download), $29.99/£29.99/29.99 Euro (Retail)
PlayStation 4® & Xbox One®: $29.99/£29.99/29.99 (Download)

 

 

So jealous I haven't bought a PS4 yet. PS4 is clearly the console to get.

[PSI Wind]

Call me crazy, but I still think the game looks great on the PS3. PS4 is obviously the best version but if you have a PS3, you'll still get a good looking game. The framerate is the only part that sucks.

[TheOcelot]

Here is a video comparing the different versions of GZ.

 

[Sami]

Here is a video comparison of the different versions: 

 

I have no idea why these things are posted on YouTube. Compressing the video practically negates the whole point of a comparison to begin with - PS4 looks almost twice as detailed and crisp as everything else, which is a huge difference you can't see on a compressed YouTube vid, and the PS4/XB1 versions both look way smoother than the others. Too bad you can't see because YouTube has a 30fps limit anyway. ._.

PS4 version looks really great. About what I've come to expect of a PC version of a PS3 game really. 1080p/60fps is the sweet spot.

It also has dynamic weather (you can see the sky looks different on PS4 only, it seems the XB1 version just has a normal skybox) and better lighting/shadows. Cool. I'm excited to play it.

[TheOcelot]

Hideo Kojima interview about MGSV.

 

I've put it in a spoiler tag as it's quite long.

 

Terrible things happen to characters from the Metal Gear Solid series. Sometimes they die, come back to life, or lose an arm in the case of Ocelot. At the end of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Big Boss got set on fire, people lost limbs. Ever since the early games, amputation and lost limbs has been sort of a theme. Is that something you’ve always wanted to come back to now that Big Boss has lost his arm?

 

As you can tell from the title, The Phantom Pain, I want to kind of depict how you come back from war, and even if you make it back you won’t be able to make it back unscratched. You might be injured, you might lose a limb, you might lose a friend, a superior. Even if you come back, there’s some pain with you. I tried to depict this in my games. One way to do this is by my characters losing limbs, that’s something I did want to put in the games.

 

 

Big Boss is in a coma between Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain. However, Liquid Snake reveals in the first Metal Gear Solid that Big Boss was in a coma when the Les Enfants Terribles cloning program started, which was years earlier. How many times has Big Boss been in a coma?

 

There’s only once he’s in a coma, and to explain that you need to play towards the end of The Phantom Pain. There it will come together. You’ll be like “Oh, that’s what happened!”

 

 

The XOF unit seems to be the primary group of bad guys in Ground Zeroes. What is their relation to the US Marines?

 

There are Marines in the base, and they’re not necessarily working together with XOF. They’re just there because their superiors commanded them. They’re working there, and they’re not the same as them [XOF]. Skull Face comes there with XOF, and him and his guys are doing these tortures and whatnot. The guys who are originally in the base are regular Marines just doing Marine duties. Ideally, Snake would only go there and wouldn’t shoot the Marines, he would just put them to sleep because the bad guys are only the XOF guys. But that will be up to the player. You can also put them to sleep and throw them off from the cliff.

 

 

By the time The Phantom Pain takes place, the Patriots are fully formed. Will you be revealing any of the Patriots’ formation via flashbacks?

 

I guess the only thing that I can say is that there’s Skull Face, there’s Major Zero – the relationship between them will be portrayed. That’s as far right now as I can say without spoiling.

 

 

Is there a chance that The Phantom Pain might finally close the gap between the stories of Solid Snake and Big Boss?

 

Like I said, you will put things together. Please don’t look me in the eyes because I’m so tempted to tell you and I shouldn’t. What I should say is that there is a specific way for the games to put things together.

 

 

We already know that The Phantom Pain will be much larger than Ground Zeroes, but are there core gameplay differences?

 

The basic controls and core controls won’t change. There will be more things that you will be able to do, but how the game feels might change a little bit. Ground Zeroes takes place on a small island, and when you think of it, you’re in an enemy base. Every step you take, you face the risk of finding an enemy. The Phantom Pain will be a map that is roughly 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes. You will have bases, forests, paths between them, fortresses, and all of these things. There are a lot of places that don’t have that many enemies. The player won’t have that constant stress. He will be able to control when he goes into stressful situations and places and when not to. There will be more control balance. For example, in Ground Zeroes you’re in an enemy base and the design of the game doesn’t let you go outside of the base. You can’t just run away from the base. For TPP, you can go to an enemy base, they will chase you, but you can choose to go outside the base. The user will have this choice of whether to constantly have all this stress or walk away from it. Also, in this game [Ground Zeroes] world you don’t have the Fulton Recovery System; you can rescue hostages, that’s all you can do. In Phantom Pain you will have hostages and you will be able to rescue scientists and whatnot. They will be transported to the base. While you’re not there the base will grow bigger. You will have some more gaming elements.

 

 

Will players be able to upgrade their base like in MGS: Peace Walker?

 

Yeah, it will be an evolution of that. You will be able to go into the base, walk around your own base that you created, and will be able to do different things. It will be an evolution. You will also be able to walk into your friends’ bases, go to the base of people that you know online or whatnot and see their facilities. 

 

 

Will players have to settle for acquiring new recruits via helicopter instead of using the Fulton balloons?

 

Actually, in this game you will be able to use Fulton. We couldn’t put this in Ground Zeroes because of the setting. It wouldn’t make sense for you to use Fulton in an enemy base. For Ground Zeroes, depending on equipment you’ll be able to use Fulton and carry different things. Snake will have the option to go on missions without going back to his base, or return every once in a while in a helicopter.

 

 

What lessons have you learned playing other open-world stealth games that you want to inject into The Phantom Pain?

 

I haven’t been able to play that many games. I do try to watch people playing them. I want to play GTA badly, but I haven’t found the time to play Grand Theft Auto V. With that in mind, we’re calling Metal Gear Solid V an open-world game. That’s the way we’re bringing it out, but ideally I want to create a game that even people like me that don’t have too much time to sit down and play the game for a long time can play through it. There will be long missions, there will be rather short missions, there will be kind of episodic chapters like a TV series and if you have time you play these chapters. When you have time, you build up your Mother Base. Eventually your character starts developing, and when you put it all together it becomes a huge story, that’s the way I try to create it. 

 

 

Can you tell me a little more about how the player can use their mobile devices as a second screen?

 

To display a map, a radar, a game screen – I didn’t want to do that for this game. That’s the old way that games are created. What you’re seeing is actually what your character is seeing. It’s not realistic to put a map or radar in there [in the game itself]. For example, let’s say that someone that plays survival games in the mountain. There, you cannot see the map while you’re shooting. If you want to check the map, you should hide first and then check your map and then go back. That’s the reason why the game doesn’t stop when you’re checking the map. It takes away your visibility and it shouldn’t do that. With this second screen, let’s say you’re looking at your iPad or your smart phone, whatever it is. It gives you the same example if you go to the mountains. You still see the map, your tablet, or your phone while you’re playing, but you still have to look away from wherever you were looking at. It gives you that risk, it gives you a disadvantage. That’s kind of the environment I wanted with this second screen app. For example, Snake has his Walkman. When you’re playing the game, you can play tapes, you can play your own music tapes. Of course, it’s also functional within the second screen app.

 

 

In Snatcher, players could use a light gun in addition to the controls. Are extra devices something you’ve always wanted to go back to since Snatcher?

 

What I had in mind was both the fact that when you play a Codec, the game pauses, and when you’re looking at your radar or your map, the game pauses. I didn’t want to stick to that.

 

 

How will Ground Zeroes save files interact with The Phantom Pain?

 

Well, of course, you can use your save data from Ground Zeroes. If you rescue more hostages in Ground Zeroes, that will be reflected in TPP. I cannot dive into too much detail, but there will be several advantages and bonuses that people that are playing Ground Zeroes will be able to get in TPP. For an extreme example, your game records, your scores will be inherited. People will start from the same place, but despite the fact that you’re starting from scratch altogether, people that have played Ground Zeroes will have clear advantages over people that didn’t. That’s just for example, but you should see those kind of advantages. In the mission you already played, there are other hostages that are escaping. If you listen closely to the soldiers’ conversations, you will realize these hostages could be scientists or something very relevant for the future.

 

"The basic controls and core controls won’t change. There will be more things that you will be able to do, but how the game feels might change a little bit. Ground Zeroes takes place on a small island, and when you think of it, you’re in an enemy base. Every step you take, you face the risk of finding an enemy. The Phantom Pain will be a map that is roughly 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes. You will have bases, forests, paths between them, fortresses, and all of these things. There are a lot of places that don’t have that many enemies. The player won’t have that constant stress. He will be able to control when he goes into stressful situations and places and when not to. There will be more control balance. For example, in Ground Zeroes you’re in an enemy base and the design of the game doesn’t let you go outside of the base. You can’t just run away from the base. For TPP, you can go to an enemy base, they will chase you, but you can choose to go outside the base. The user will have this choice of whether to constantly have all this stress or walk away from it. Also, in this game [Ground Zeroes] world you don’t have the Fulton Recovery System; you can rescue hostages, that’s all you can do. In Phantom Pain you will have hostages and you will be able to rescue scientists and whatnot. They will be transported to the base. While you’re not there the base will grow bigger. You will have some more gaming elements."

[Octarine]

It makes me really happy to know that Major Zero will have some kind of actual presence in MGSV. The one thing I wanted more than anything else was to see the Patriots in action as bad guys before MGS1 killed them all and their AIs took over.

 

...even knowing that he's supposed to be basically a supervillain at this point, it's a little weird to think of Zero interacting with a character as out there as Skull Face. That's one of the joys of Metal Gear, though, I guess.

 

(fingers crossed that we'll also see a little of non-Decoy Octopus Donald Anderson and psycho scientist Dr. Clark)

[TheOcelot]

Konami has reduced the price of the next-gen version of GZ.

 

"The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions have been reduced from £39.99 to £29.99, bringing them in line with the price of the digital versions, as well as the retail pricing for the physical editions for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

 

The digital versions of the game for the PS3 and Xbox 360 remain at £19.99.

 

 

Meanwhile, Konami has announced that Ground Zeroes data unlocks exclusive Phantom Pain content.

 

Those who buy Ground Zeroes early on get exclusive DLC for use in The Phantom Pain. The DLC will only be available in the first batch of the retail version and for a limited period of time for the digital version, Konami said.

 

If you buy Ground Zeroes you can unlock content within the game you can carry over to The Phantom Pain. Prisoners of war and VIPs you rescue in Ground Zeroes are added to the Mother Base staff in The Phantom Pain, providing "Ground Zeroes players an early in-game advantage". Character skins also carry over.

 

Mother Base is introduced during the events of Ground Zeroes and plays a central role in The Phantom Pain, according to the publisher."

[TheOcelot]

Here is the video Discoid posted in the status updates.

 

New GZ gameplay.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95W33p-37gY&t=0m42s

 

Also, some more info.

 

"First up, the healing regeneration only applies to minor injuries. Should Snake suffer considerable damage, you’ll still have to patch yourself up by utilizing healing sprays.

 

Despite controversy surrounding the game’s length, the publication notes that Ground Zeroes isn’t short. In fact, it notes that the average player can put 8-10 hours into the game, while Kojima Productions’ best player put in over 100 digging up all its secrets.

 

The magazine extolled the Fox Engine, stating it looks ‘simply spectacular, offering some stunning body and facial animations that are among the best in the industry.

 

Finally, players will have to be extra careful in avoiding detection. Guards can now spot Snake’s footprints in the mud and possess a better field of vision, plus carry out randomized patrol routes!"

 

 

Sounds and looks awesome.

[Chaos Warp]

Damnit I really want this game but you know, gotta play all the other Metal Gears first.....

[Octarine]

Damnit I really want this game but you know, gotta play all the other Metal Gears first.....

 

Snake Eater and Peace Walker are the only games you'll need to have played if you just want to be able to follow what's going on in Ground Zeroes, and they're both in the HD collection. Unless you're dead-set on playing the series in order of release, I'd recommend just picking that up and playing the games chronologically.

 

Also Snake Eater in particular is a great standalone game that's 150% worth playing anyway.

[KHCast]

I want this game at some point, but don't know if I should wait and pick it up for PS4 when I get one, or just get the PS3 version. So much more work and effort has been done on the next gen versions...

Also, any word in why the ending to ground zeroes is so controversial. Like details on the scene?(spoiler tag it of course.)

[Mogtaki]

Hideo Kojima interview by Egoraptor, narrated by Caddicarus.

[goku262002]

Question: are we allowed to talk about the street date being broken for MGS5: GZ? if so, is it okay we talk about the spoilers so long as spoiler tags are attached?

Street date was broken a few days ago but this place has been quiet about it.