Sentinel Reviews

If your anything like me and had your first “WOW” moment in gaming playing Metal Gear solid (for me it was when I betrayed Meryl because my chubby ten year old thumb couldn’t press the O button quickly enough) then you have probably looked at Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes as the end of an era. David Hayter is gone and there’s a new voice for Big Boss. Kiefer Sutherland has taken up the role and I have to say….. I think he might be better. He still conveys a gravely tone to the part but the dialogue is delivered in a more human less melodramatic way. Don’t get me wrong. David Hayter will always be

Snake to me but Kiefer Sutherland is a damn good Big Boss.

 

 

Different doesn’t mean Bad.

 

 

Ground Zeroes is basically a prologue to the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pains and we get our first look at a next gen Metal Gear. And it’s a hell of a thing.

 

 

The story is tragically short at around about the hour-hour and a half mark for the main mission. Once you complete this however you will unlock a handful of other missions to test your skills. The conditions of the game change and completely alter the way you play, but more on that later.

 

 

One of the big differences between this and previous instalments is that you have no radar or sensor. What you have instead are your binoculars. It works very well with the stealth gameplay. You will have to survey an area with your binoculars and “Tag” enemies in order to keep a track on them. This is possibly the most significant factor that will determine your play style.

 

 

There are two main play styles you can adopt during the game. The first is to play it as a stealth game. It’s unbelievably tense when you play it like this. The AI has had a massive upgrade in Ground Zeroes and they will see you from pretty far away if the lighting is right. The AI isn’t shy about calling in backup either, if someone thinks they see you they will call it in before going to check. This means that if you take out that AI he can’t radio in that everything is fine and a search team will come out to get you. You will have to choose if you want to sneak around that security camera and risk being seen by a guard or silently shoot the camera to disable it and hope you can avoid the team sent to check on why it stopped broadcasting.

 

 

Inevitably you will be seen, when you are time will slow down for a couple of seconds to give you a chance to neutralize whoever saw you to prevent them from raising the alarm.

 

 

At some point though you will make a mistake or someone that you couldn’t possibly have noticed will get you with a spotlight and you will have to go tactical. That’s where the second play style comes in.

 

 

Unlike most of the other games in the series if you decide you want to charge in all guns blazing then you are completely welcome to do that. There are a wide selection of weapons that you can chose from and the shooting mechanics are responsive enough that you can play this as a third person shooter. You can even get in armoured vehicles and start levelling watchtowers.

 

 

The game looks amazing. I love the character animations, weather, the lighting effects and it makes me even more excited for The Phantom Pain.

 

 

Ground Zeroes is designed to be played multiple times and in varying ways. It’s largely open world (as much as one map can be) and you can choose how to progress to your objective.

 

 

My main criticism with the game is how short the main mission is. Granted this doesn’t retail as a £45 game but for someone that has played the previous Metal Gear games they will probably finish it in roughly the same time as I did.

 

 

That’s not to say there’s no replay value. The additional missions send you back in with different objectives and assassinating a sniper team in full daylight is a very different experience from sneaking into a prison on a stormy night.

 

 

For me Ground Zeroes is a revolution rather than evolution in franchise. It’s an incredibly impressive game with enough innovation to keep the gameplay fresh and challenging while still clearly being a Metal Gear title.

 

 

I think Ground Zeroes caters to a wide range of games with enough flexibility to be enjoyed by almost anyone.