Metal Gear Solid

[turbojet]

Okay serious post time.

 

Guys, game length is not synonymous with value of the game. It just isn't. If a game had 70+ ours of bullshit and you carried on through it felt nothing for anything, would that mean the game is worth the price(Final Fantasy 13)? No. It just wouldn't. Like I understand what I am implying gives credence that developers give give anything and put a price on it, but I am just stating that game length should not be the measure. Saying a game is too short is ot really a criticism at all even if the game allows you to explore and have fun. If someone like Discoid can play the same game and find through amusement with it for 14 hours out of a game that can be beaten for an hour by someone who is not even trying to explore it, whose validation of experience should lend to the credibility of the game? 

[Tornado]

Oh, and the problem with "Don't like it, don't buy it" if this trend continues is that I'll be out of the loop in terms of story.

If you're talking about importance to story rather than amount of gameplay provided, you open up the floodgates for every series that has ever had a sidegame or expansion pack whose entire story is simply to further explain how everything came to be between main series titles. That means Metal Gear (with Peace Walker and to a far lesser extent Portable Ops), Resident Evil (too many examples to count, half of which tend to have been made non-canon anyway), Halo (Wars, ODST, Reach), Kingdom Hearts, Killzone, God of War, Half Life, Grand Theft Auto (the GTA III era and the GTA IV era), what have you.

 

That was a Racing game with no story whatsoever and GT5 took years to release.

Which isn't a rebuttal to the fact that the idea that "$30 Prologues are okay to sell" was more likely cemented 6 years ago when a company did exactly that and people lined up to buy it more than any other game on the system (including MGS4, by almost 2:1) rather than people being outraged that they can beat a Metal Gear game in 10 minutes if they skip all of the things people buy Metal Gear games for. And the time between Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes is longer than the time between GT4 and GT5: Prologue was anyway.

[Urban Flow]

Honestly Ground Zeroes is really just for fans like you and I. Do I think its fair to charge 30 bucks for a prolouge? Not really, however, its true, if you play Metal Gear just to play it and have no mind for the story, characters etc, then its kind of waste for ya. I played all of them and know the story leading up to 5. I haven't even played GZ yet, but I am so psyched to do so.

[goku262002]

In other words, What I've boiled down in this is if your not into metal gear enough then don't bother with this Mini Game. It'll probably come bundled with TPP anyways somewhere down the line dispite what they say.

Wait for a price drop.

[TheOcelot]

Over the years the length of the main story of a MGS game has varied. You have games like MGS3 which take a long long time to complete, and MGS2 which can be a surprisingly short playthrough. Now the main point of MGS games isn't to speedrun or to go around killing everything whilst alerting an enemy soldier to your presence. Whilst there is nothing wrong with playing the games like that, it's missing the point of what the franchise is about:

 

A SNAKE. Sneaking! A silent predator who kills it's prey without being seen and avoids detection by blending with it's terrain. Now, with that kind of approach a playthrough will take time. The more you play the game, the quicker your playthroughs become as you learn the stage layout and enemy patrols, and master the boss battles. MGS games are built around an experience which tries to give the player different options on how to tackle a task, and punishes the player if they make a mistake, but also gives you a chance to survive an attack, run, hide, heal your wounds and try again. That slow methodical gameplay is exactly what I look for in a game. This and crammed with extra content and secrets, which rewards exploration to help keep you interested. It's exciting and tense. When I first played MGS1 I struggled to get past the very first warehouse section (before you reach the lift) until I learnt how to sneak and be patient. Then I became addicted and have loved the franchise ever since.

 

Replay value - for me - is very important when I judge a game is value for money. I'll admit that the price of Ground Zeroes did seem a little steep, but I knew GZ would be a game rich in content that I would want to play it again and again. Yes you are travelling across the same vast area in each playthrough of the main mission, but I enjoy the challenge of trying not to be seen and staying alive so much, that the main story of this prologue (it's not a fucking demo) doesn't need to be long to be value for money. That, and GZ has excellent cut-scenes, graphics and an engaging thought-provoking story, nice music with some decent voice acting.

 

Value for money depends on your own personal taste in games. I can appreciate that casual fans, and fans new to the franchise might not appreciate GZ quite as much as hardcore fans do due this games structure.

 

Now, Ground Zeroes was designed to ease players into open world gameplay... apparently.  Kojima also said that as he knew TPP would not be releasing for some time (probably March 2015 at the latest) that he wanted to wet fans appetites. Hence we got GZ. Personally, I still think GZ should have been the proper ending to Peace Walker, with TPP being the next full game. The mission structure in GZ/TPP (building your mother base, recruiting soldiers) is an idea taken from PW, so I guess you could call TPP 'Peace Walker 2', but I digress.

 

On another note it's good to see quite a few members of SSMB getting into the MGS games recently.

 

 

Sorry if I've not made much sense, but when it comes to MGS games nothing makes much sense. You just gotta enjoy the ride...

[MegasonicZX]

So I guess this game is a bit like MGR where unless you plan on replaying it, it won't be worth your time (granted MGR is longer and from what ive heard this game is pretty short. Big fan of MGR just to get that out of the way), I guess the 30 dollar price tag doesn't sound too unreasonable then, I mean yeah the game is pretty short but if you play it through all the way you will get your money's worth and more. Needless to say im somewhat interested in this game but since im not much of a metal gear fan I'll just wait for a sale (since im not really sure if I even like MG or not, never felt much for the games).

[Sami]

 

So I guess this game is a bit like MGR where unless you plan on replaying it, it won't be worth your time (granted MGR is longer and from what ive heard this game is pretty short. Big fan of MGR just to get that out of the way), I guess the 30 dollar price tag doesn't sound too unreasonable then, I mean yeah the game is pretty short but if you play it through all the way you will get your money's worth and more. Needless to say im somewhat interested in this game but since im not much of a metal gear fan I'll just wait for a sale (since im not really sure if I even like MG or not, never felt much for the games).

 

Gameplay wise I'd honestly say it's the pinnacle of the stealth genre - there's seriously such a vast amount of creative freedom given to the player as a result of it's open-ended design. For example:

 

*slight spoilers for a Side Op*

 

There's a mission where you have to eliminate two specific enemies. You are provided with photos of them and two large areas outlined on the map to give you a general idea of where to look, and it's up to you to take them both down however you see fit. You can:

 

A.) Sneak into their general vicinity, find and tag them with your scope, stalk them and quietly immobilize the guards around them until you get a chance to silently slit their throat or shoot them with a suppressed gunshot, then hide the bodies so nobody finds them until you've already escaped the mission area either on foot, in a vehicle, or by calling in your chopper. The two targets are located far apart from each other, and it's up to you to decide who you go after first. This method is sure to get you an S Rank provided you aren't seen by anyone or take too long.

 

B.) Sneak into the one of the small storage buildings and find a sniper rifle, then climb up onto a watch tower (one in particular is placed in precisely the right spot to get a good shot at both of them) and snipe them from afar. The rifle is, of course, very loud, so it's up to you to decide if you want to immobilize (either tranquilizing or holding up at gunpoint) the guards close enough to hear the shot and see you first, or just shoot both and run while everyone's shooting at you.

 

C.) Kidnap them via your chopper. You can knock them out (as well as everyone close enough to them to see you) and carry them one by one to the chopper extraction point. This method, again, is sure to get you an S Rank provided you don't take too long and aren't seen.

 

Sounds great, right? That's not even the half of it. Say you choose option C - well, how do you decide to sneak up to them in the first place? Do you...

 

A.) Crawl and crouch walk past guards silently, immobilizing the ones that are in your way until you get to the targets?

 

B.) Use an explosive or your chopper to cause a diversion and sneak past the enemies while they're trying to handle that situation? 

 

C.) Hold up a guard at gunpoint, have him call his friends for backup, and then run in another direction, clearing the path as the guards that had previously been standing in your way have left their posts to help the first guy?

 

That is the freedom that Ground Zeroes grants the player on a fundamental level. Literally everything in the game can be approached in a variety of ways, allowing the game to unfold in a completely different way every single time. Some players like to use the vehicles to storm into the base like Rambo, and it works. The points that are deducted from them for the alert and kills can be made up for with a larger bonus for time. Some players like to sneak in and out without anyone ever knowing they were even there, and though this takes longer, they are rewarded with bonus points for not being seen and not killing anyone.

 

This applies to five of the six missions in the game - beating all of them once on Normal will probably take about five to seven hours depending on how you play. Collecting XOF patches and cassette tapes will take much longer. Beating them on Hard will take much longer. S Ranking the missions will, as you can probably guess, take much longer.

 

If that doesn't sound like it's worth $30 to you, then that's fine. But please don't try and correct me on the length and value of the game I own, because you read somewhere online that someone was able to beat the game in ten minutes after practicing (this is not directed at you, of course).

[MegasonicZX]

Oh yeah definitely, I've been around the block a couple of times to know that if a person beats something in a short amount of time it most likely doesn't completely apply for the rest of the game, as for that side mission, yeah I actually saw that one on youtube and thought it was pretty cool how the guy (derfsonic) was able to get through the whole mission by just using tranqs alone and not killing the two objectives, the game really gives you a lot to play with from what I saw.

[Autosaver]

IGN beat the game in 2 hours.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/18/metal-gear-solid-5-ground-zeroes-completed-in-10-minutes

 

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone.

 

 

I'll wait for the inevitable combo bundle or discount.

[Sami]

Got all of the cassette tapes. Man, that took forever. Some of them are really well hidden and others require you to fulfill certain requirements during missions.

 

All that's left is to unlock all the trials, and I'll have all of the trophies. From there, S Ranking all of the missions on Hard will get me to 100%. Could take anywhere from five to ten hours, it's really difficult to S Rank on Hard Mode.

[ImPantsAtThis]

Hey. I know everyone's all pumped up on GZ, but I'm here playing MGS 3 (not getting GZ 'till I get a PS 4 because reasons). Anyway, I've realised I suck at sneaking. So, any tips to make not being detected easier other than 'd-pad to win'?

[Sami]

Hey. I know everyone's all pumped up on GZ, but I'm here playing MGS 3 (not getting GZ 'till I get a PS 4 because reasons). Anyway, I've realised I suck at sneaking. So, any tips to make not being detected easier other than 'd-pad to win'?

 

D-Pad to win? There some kind of trick I'm not aware of? o:

 

And I dunno, I never had much of an issue with sneaking personally. Always crawl in grass and make sure your camo matches the environment. Try to take out guards one by one so you won't have to worry about them. Tranq'ing is a good way to do this, but if you don't want to waste your suppressor, then sneak up behind them and do a CQC slam. You can also toss snakes at them (tranquilize a snake so it'll be caged in your inventory) or check for beehives above them. 

[ImPantsAtThis]

D-Pad to win? There some kind of trick I'm not aware of? o:

 

Using the d-pad instead of the stick lets you creep with silent footsteps. You can do it with the stick as well, but you have to press lightly to make it work -- using the pad means you can't 'overpress'.

 

As far the rest of your advice, thanks. I've been trying to get some CQC in, since I've run low on suppressors and ammo more than once (thank goodness for getting items from enemies). Been doing all the camo stuff too. I suppose I'm not doing too bad (8 alerts and I'm at that mountain building overlooking Groznyj Grad), but I still feel like I'm missing something. Maybe it's a lack of practice with stealth games, or maybe I'm afraid to use tranqs. *shrugs*

 

Whatever the case, I'll get back at it tomorrow. Cheers.

 

[Also, I'd rather have a snake-shaped gun in an attaché case than throw one. Maybe Zero can help me out...]

[Autosaver]

D-Pad to win? There some kind of trick I'm not aware of? o:

 

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

[TheOcelot]

Just finished the Deja-Vu mission. Oh the nostalgia. It's a lot of fun. 

 

 

I got nine of the ten MGS1 quiz questions correct at the end, but got the last one wrong. Curses!!! Just couldn't think of the name of the ending theme 'The Best Is Yet To Come', and MGS1 is my favourite game! Shame one me   

 

It's a lovely piece of music.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6VSTPranO4

 

The Fox-Hound flag that you can see in the mission is awesome, as was the Fox-Die reference. The bit where; you try to rescue the soldier in the location (where Paz is located in the main mission), and the screen then goes weird with lots of colours before the 'Fox Engine corrects itself' is really cool.

 

 

I laughed out loud when Kojima revealed himself as the soldier you rescue at the end of the 'Intel Operative Rescue' side op. I did wonder if he would appear in the game. When Kojima puts on his glasses and says 'what took you so long', this is of course a reference to the scene when Big Boss rescues Kaz in The Phantom Pain trailer.

 

I love the amount of effort that's gone into this game. Well worth the price. 

 

 

Having a blast with GZ. The side missions are okay, quite challenging. Although not as enjoyable as the main mission which is definitely the best part of the game.

[DocAzure]

Just finished up the last few stuff there needed to get all of Chico's recordings, and...well, I wasn't sure if people were overreacting, but listening to them myself...I understand the upset. I genuinely found them disturbing, and incredibly uncomfortable. Not something I really want in my Metal Gear Solid...hell, it's not something I want in games period. I mean, having themes like those present in a video game CAN work, but you need to handle them very well, you can't turn them into something you can just use as an excuse to make the player hate the antagonist, that isn't clever. I mean, yeah, maybe they'll expand on this in Phantom Pain, maybe we'll see how it's affected Chico, but was it really needed? Wasn't the fact that he was tortured enough for Kojima to get the point across? It's incredibly jarring too, after the little hits of humor throughout the some of the side-ops e.g the Kojima one, listening to the tapes just...feels out of place, unnecessary. 

 

Anyway, I liked the gameplay...I just wanted to get that off my chest.

[Sami]

I thought the tapes were great, actually. It's nice to see a game actually tackle some "taboo" material and handle it well. It's subtle, the writing was fine (although some lines may have suffered a bit due to it being a direct translation), and it gives a lot of insight on all three characters involved while still remaining pertinent to the plot. Good stuff.

[DocAzure]

I thought the tapes were great, actually. It's nice to see a game actually tackle some "taboo" material and handle it well. It's subtle, the writing was fine (although some lines may have suffered a bit due to it being a direct translation), and it gives a lot of insight on all three characters involved while still remaining pertinent to the plot. Good stuff.

 

I thought it was the complete opposite of subtle, I mean, it was basically one step away from straight up showing it. That's not what bugged me though, what bugs me is the fact that it's used as a tool, it's exploited, just to make the player hate Skullface. It's shoddy, lazy writing, and something that I really didn't expect from Kojima. A real shame.

[Sami]

I thought it was the complete opposite of subtle, I mean, it was basically one step away from straight up showing it. That's not what bugged me though, what bugs me is the fact that it's used as a tool, it's exploited, just to make the player hate Skullface. It's shoddy, lazy writing, and something that I really didn't expect from Kojima. A real shame.

 

How is it lazy? You're seriously confusing me on this. Looking at just the tapes we can gather that - 

 

• Paz was refusing to cooperate with Skullface despite going through extremely severe torture. This indicates that she either fears Cypher even more, feels loyalty towards Big Boss, or both. She genuinely cared for her comrades at Mother Base, and may have even felt a bit of love towards Chico in spite of what he ended up doing.
• Chico was reckless and tried to save Paz on his own, and after being captured tried to put on a brave face for her. Unfortunately he wasn't as strong as she was and broke under the pressure, revealing everything and collaborating with Skullface in the end. What makes it even more tragic is seeing what state he's in when you rescue him. He knows what he's done. He knows that it's his fault that his comrades are in danger, and that's a guilt he has to live with for the rest of his life (assuming he survives the crash I suppose). 
• Skullface clearly knows no bounds in getting what he wants done. Listening to what happened on the tapes doesn't just "make us hate" him, it tells us about who he is and how he acts. For starters, he's smart. He knows how to psychologically manipulate people and he's a brilliant tactician in how he predicts exactly what Big Boss is going to do and using it to his advantage. He's really unique for Metal Gear as he's actually very capable and very serious. I'm personally really excited to see more of him in The Phantom Pain.

 

The cassettes tell us a lot through conversations and vague audio. That's shoddy, lazy writing? Shit like Rosemary spending ten minutes telling us at face value why Raiden disappeared and why she's married to the Colonel was shoddy, lazy writing. Hell, almost all of MGS4 was shoddy, lazy writing. Nearly the entire script read like a long-winded Wikipedia article and the entire game suffered greatly for it. 

 

Shoddy, lazy writing would be 1975 Drebin calling Big Boss on the codec and saying - 

 

"Hey Snake. So this Chico kid you just rescued. Man, he went through some pretty messed up shit. Get some popcorn, I'm about to describe in detail how bad of a dude this Skullface guy is."

 

I understand that it's not exactly easy to swallow for everyone (I wasn't really bothered, but I guess it is very rare that I feel squeamish at stuff like this), but calling it shoddy and lazy writing seems a bit silly to me when we just got past two games worth of writing that was substantially worse than this. So far MGSV's story, presentation, and tone is vastly preferable to what we got in MGS4 and Peace Walker, in my opinion. I love the silliness of MGS1-3 but the last two games have taken it way too far for me, and I'm extremely happy to see a return to a down to Earth, serious tone.

[Urban Flow]

I mean I guess its up to the person if they can handle it or not I suppose right. On the other hand I fucking love the risk Kojima is taking.

[goku262002]

Okay this is all just going in circles so I'm going to change subjects.

 

Metal Gear Rising VR missions DLC now available on Xbox 360 in the US (Metal Gear Informer)

The PS3 VR missions were finally given to us. tell me how ass blasting hard are these compared to the normal VR missions in the game? because I couldn't even finish the original set of VR missions with gold/1st ranks. also, do any of these effect the extras at all? like taking longer to get said cyborg armor or sword if you choose to add these VR DLC?

[MegasonicZX]

Okay this is all just going in circles so I'm going to change subjects.

 

Metal Gear Rising VR missions DLC now available on Xbox 360 in the US (Metal Gear Informer)

The PS3 VR missions were finally given to us. tell me how ass blasting hard are these compared to the normal VR missions in the game? because I couldn't even finish the original set of VR missions with gold/1st ranks. also, do any of these effect the extras at all? like taking longer to get said cyborg armor or sword if you choose to add these VR DLC?

From what I heard, no the DLC missions have their own set of trophies but don't get in the way of unlockables from the original set, though you'd probably have to get confirmation of that from someone else too since I might not be right on this one.

[Gabz Girl]

So I got this in the mail today. Yep, it's time for me and my bf to finally get into this series. Only one problem...

Where do we even begin? Should we play the games chronologically or by release date? I know there's someone here who can answer this!

[DocAzure]

Well, if you play chronologically, the jump from Peace Walker to MGS1 will kinda shock you. Personally, I'd play it by release date, makes the gameplay changes so much less...shocking.

 

Also, the story doesn't exactly rely on you to play chronologically, as playing by release date will still introduce you to all the characters you need to know to understand the latest main game in that collection, Metal Gear Solid 4. 

[Nintendoga]

So I got this in the mail today. Yep, it's time for me and my bf to finally get into this series. Only one problem...

Where do we even begin? Should we play the games chronologically or by release date? I know there's someone here who can answer this!

The MGS games were meant to be played in Release order. That way you won't miss all the references and Easter eggs. And going from MGS3 to MGS1 is realllyyyyy jarring.

Play through them in this order

MGS>MGS2>MGS3>MGS4>PW

Metal gear 1 and 2 (both in the MGS3 game) are optional tbh.