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| Kojima's latest effort is an ill-advised cash grab that's not worth the cost of entry |
That being said, I have a number of complaints about the game. I finished in 4 hours. It's absurdly short, more a demo than anything.
In a lot of ways this franchise hasn't changed much since the second game, which is admittedly fine in some areas. I consider myself a longtime fan of the franchise -- Metal Gear Solid is probably one of my single favorite games of all-time. Fans of the series love the exclamation points, the cardboard boxes, and the weird, preachy stories. I'm no different. I love all that stuff, I eat it up. And it's important that the series doesn't lose its identity for the sake of progress. But there are some features of the series in this game that just plain haven't aged well, and that's where most of my complaints come from.
My biggest issue with the game comes from the foolish way checkpointing is laid out. Imagine you carefully and meticulously move halfway across an open yard of tents, taking care not to be spotted, only to slip up near the end due to hitting the wrong button. Now your last checkpoint forces to restart a football field (about 100 meters for our European friends) away and retrace your own steps. You also get to hear the same introductory codec message every single time, too. Not good.
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| Ground Zeroes runs exceptionally and has a drop-dead gorgeous lighting engine |
Checkpointing is a holdover from older games that really does a lot to damage the experience here. There's no reason a semi-open world stealth title shouldn't have a save anywhere feature. Hell, the option to save via a codec message isn't even present in this game, so why even have checkpoints at all? It doesn't make sense to use them over a manual save function. This isn't even a question of save scumming, it's just a matter of modern convenience that Kojima seems to have forgotten. I have the same issue with the Far Cry series. It's 2014. There's no excuse for these games to use checkpointing when they'd be far better served by utilizing a dynamic save system. Bad checkpoints are some of the most frustrating things in gaming, and it puzzles me that developers still use them when there are obviously better systems available. Seriously, checkpoints are down there with escort missions. Game developers: Kill them immediately. Please. I despise them in games, especially in stealth games.
I had some serious issues with the camera as well. There are times when you've got a roof or some kind of structure far over your head, and the camera needlessly zooms straight into the back of Big Boss's head. Why? It's nowhere near the ceiling. It doesn't work well with cover, either. It was frequently a pain to me when I would be creeping between small spaces, such a between cargo boxes or tents. I'd stop at a corner, move up into cover, and try to get a peek around the corner to see if a soldier was there. And more often than not, the camera would refuse to comply, just sitting closely behind Boss's head. They obviously knew that this was an issue because they included a shoulder switching camera mechanic, which rarely seems to do much. I was detected a few times simply because I was frustrated with the camera and decided I was sick of fooling with it, so I moved out. It's ridiculous to me that the camera is an issue in a game these days. I can't remember the last time I even had camera issues in a game at all. A poorly controlled camera is an issue that belongs 20 years ago in the N64 era. Not in a modern, next generation game. It's inexcusable.
Another holdover from the old games that seriously bothered me was the control scheme. There are menus within menus within menus when you've got a guard grabbed or when you want to customize weapons. You're holding a bumper, or flicking a stick, or pressing some random arbitrary button that just doesn't feel natural. The worst part about these menus is that there frequently is just no need for them. Games like Blacklist have featured the same types of things but made them vastly more simplified and intuitive. I find myself having to check the controls screen multiple times per session because I can't remember how to do something. That's a sign of having an unintuitive, overly complex, poorly designed control scheme. Movement, furthermore, is hampered by having a weird crawl/crouch/stand system, including a weird button to dive to the ground, which I didn't really understand or ever feel any need to use. Then there are a bunch more controls for when you're crawling. You can roll to the left. You can roll to the right. Hold a button to crawl more quickly. It's all just needlessly complex, and it feels tacked on when it's not really necessary.
There's no free climbing in this game like there is in other stealth games of the past few years -- And I'm not saying that it needs it. But movement in open-world or semi-open world stealth games like Blacklist, Dishonored, or Assassin's Creed, for example, has way more dimensions than it does in Ground Zeroes due to the distinct verticality in the form of climbing (or blinking, in Dishonored's case) up to platforms or roofs. It's nearly always present no matter where you are, and you know so intrinsically how to accomplish it that you don't have to think about it. Dishonored teaches you to blink once, and you've got it down. Assassin's Creed teaches you to free run once, and you remember. In Ground Zeroes, you can only really move up or down when there's a ladder present. Otherwise, you're moving simply on the ground, back and forth, to and fro. It doesn't have the verticality of those games. So why are the controls so damned complex and involved? It's how it's always been in the series, but with the advent of newer games with great traversal systems, Ground Zeroes' controls feature so many aspects that just seem totally unnecessary, and it only serves to muck everything up. I can't help but feel a simpler approach would have been far more successful here. Having an intuitive understanding of movement and being able to act without thinking is absolutely paramount in stealth games where being seen can lead to a very quick death, and I never feel like I have that down when I play this game. It's something that would come with practice, sure, but why should I have to practice at something that I can intrinsically pick up and do in pretty much every other game in the genre?
Look, I don't want Metal Gear to become Splinter Cell. I'm not saying that at all. But the step forward that Guns of the Patriots made in 2008 was excellent, and it breathed new life into the gameplay of the series and really saved it from becoming too dated. Gunplay was far better in that game. It was always wonky and unintuitive in the older games, with its weird go-to-first-person-and-then-aim thing. It never felt natural. You always felt like a bumbling idiot when you were trying to shoot somebody, and Solid Snake was supposed to be an expert with a firearm. Guns of the Patriots completely fixed that. They updated their gunplay to a more modern, third person shooter type system, and it worked fantastically. That is the type of step Kojima needs to take with things like movement and checkpointing. Ground Zeroes, unfortunately, doesn't take that step. It just feels like a way prettier Guns of the Patriots. Which is certainly not a bad thing, and don't get me wrong: This is not a terrible game.
If you're a Metal Gear fan, buy it. You'll like it. But if you're just looking for a stealth experience, I'd heartily recommend Splinter Cell Blacklist over this game.
I had some serious issues with the camera as well. There are times when you've got a roof or some kind of structure far over your head, and the camera needlessly zooms straight into the back of Big Boss's head. Why? It's nowhere near the ceiling. It doesn't work well with cover, either. It was frequently a pain to me when I would be creeping between small spaces, such a between cargo boxes or tents. I'd stop at a corner, move up into cover, and try to get a peek around the corner to see if a soldier was there. And more often than not, the camera would refuse to comply, just sitting closely behind Boss's head. They obviously knew that this was an issue because they included a shoulder switching camera mechanic, which rarely seems to do much. I was detected a few times simply because I was frustrated with the camera and decided I was sick of fooling with it, so I moved out. It's ridiculous to me that the camera is an issue in a game these days. I can't remember the last time I even had camera issues in a game at all. A poorly controlled camera is an issue that belongs 20 years ago in the N64 era. Not in a modern, next generation game. It's inexcusable.
Another holdover from the old games that seriously bothered me was the control scheme. There are menus within menus within menus when you've got a guard grabbed or when you want to customize weapons. You're holding a bumper, or flicking a stick, or pressing some random arbitrary button that just doesn't feel natural. The worst part about these menus is that there frequently is just no need for them. Games like Blacklist have featured the same types of things but made them vastly more simplified and intuitive. I find myself having to check the controls screen multiple times per session because I can't remember how to do something. That's a sign of having an unintuitive, overly complex, poorly designed control scheme. Movement, furthermore, is hampered by having a weird crawl/crouch/stand system, including a weird button to dive to the ground, which I didn't really understand or ever feel any need to use. Then there are a bunch more controls for when you're crawling. You can roll to the left. You can roll to the right. Hold a button to crawl more quickly. It's all just needlessly complex, and it feels tacked on when it's not really necessary.
There's no free climbing in this game like there is in other stealth games of the past few years -- And I'm not saying that it needs it. But movement in open-world or semi-open world stealth games like Blacklist, Dishonored, or Assassin's Creed, for example, has way more dimensions than it does in Ground Zeroes due to the distinct verticality in the form of climbing (or blinking, in Dishonored's case) up to platforms or roofs. It's nearly always present no matter where you are, and you know so intrinsically how to accomplish it that you don't have to think about it. Dishonored teaches you to blink once, and you've got it down. Assassin's Creed teaches you to free run once, and you remember. In Ground Zeroes, you can only really move up or down when there's a ladder present. Otherwise, you're moving simply on the ground, back and forth, to and fro. It doesn't have the verticality of those games. So why are the controls so damned complex and involved? It's how it's always been in the series, but with the advent of newer games with great traversal systems, Ground Zeroes' controls feature so many aspects that just seem totally unnecessary, and it only serves to muck everything up. I can't help but feel a simpler approach would have been far more successful here. Having an intuitive understanding of movement and being able to act without thinking is absolutely paramount in stealth games where being seen can lead to a very quick death, and I never feel like I have that down when I play this game. It's something that would come with practice, sure, but why should I have to practice at something that I can intrinsically pick up and do in pretty much every other game in the genre?
Look, I don't want Metal Gear to become Splinter Cell. I'm not saying that at all. But the step forward that Guns of the Patriots made in 2008 was excellent, and it breathed new life into the gameplay of the series and really saved it from becoming too dated. Gunplay was far better in that game. It was always wonky and unintuitive in the older games, with its weird go-to-first-person-and-then-aim thing. It never felt natural. You always felt like a bumbling idiot when you were trying to shoot somebody, and Solid Snake was supposed to be an expert with a firearm. Guns of the Patriots completely fixed that. They updated their gunplay to a more modern, third person shooter type system, and it worked fantastically. That is the type of step Kojima needs to take with things like movement and checkpointing. Ground Zeroes, unfortunately, doesn't take that step. It just feels like a way prettier Guns of the Patriots. Which is certainly not a bad thing, and don't get me wrong: This is not a terrible game.
If you're a Metal Gear fan, buy it. You'll like it. But if you're just looking for a stealth experience, I'd heartily recommend Splinter Cell Blacklist over this game.
⭐⭐
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