{"id":62760,"date":"2014-03-23T12:58:35","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T10:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=62760"},"modified":"2014-03-23T13:02:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T11:02:31","slug":"metal-gear-solid-5-ground-zeroes-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/reviews\/62760-metal-gear-solid-5-ground-zeroes-review","title":{"rendered":"Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I bought my PlayStation 2 back in the early-2000&#8217;s I was not what you would describe as a rich man. I was a typical high-school student living off Christmas and birthday gift money.<\/p>\n<p>This lack of fiscal prosperity left me with two choices once I had the console box under my arm: buy the Sony 8MB memory card and try borrow games, or forsake saving my progress and purchase a game I would not mind starting afresh each day.<\/p>\n<p>After 10 seconds of internal debate, I picked up my shiny new copy of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and headed home. It was one of the best decisions I have made to this day.<\/p>\n<p>When our media copy of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes arrived on 20 March, I thought back to my youth and the countless hours I spent replaying the tanker section of Sons of Liberty over and over again. Like every gamer I had read about how Ground Zeroes was pitifully short and was not worth even the reduced retail price. I hoped they were wrong, I hoped Ground Zeroes would be my modern day tanker episode. It wasn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59880\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-screenshot-11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59880\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59880\" title=\"Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes\" alt=\"Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes\" src=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-screenshot-11.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-screenshot-11.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-screenshot-11-267x150.jpg 267w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-59880\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes<\/p><\/div>\n<p>From first taking control of Snake, restarting at different checkpoints after being spotted by guards, trying out the AA guns, and taking the armoured personal carrier for a ride, the game took 89 minutes to complete.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it is short, but we knew that.<\/p>\n<p>I also knew that\u00a0Kiefer Sutherland would be voicing Snake, but it still made me sad not to hear David Hayter&#8217;s deep rumblings when Snake speaks. I am sure Sutherland is a wonderful guy, but I don&#8217;t like him voicing Snake.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the 89 minute length and Sutherland&#8217;s voice, the game was quite enjoyable. Visually, it is superb. The detailing in cut scenes and during gameplay impressed me, and Hideo Kojima cannot be accused of skimping on the detail.<\/p>\n<p>The rain running off Snake&#8217;s back, the glare of searchlights as you hide behind detailed sandbags and concrete barriers, the face of a guard as you stab him in the throat &#8211; it all looks great.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_52362\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52362\" class=\"size-large wp-image-52362\" alt=\"Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes\" src=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5-600x337.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5-600x337.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5-267x150.jpg 267w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5-625x350.jpg 625w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-The-Phantom-Pain-screenshot-5.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-52362\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The gameplay itself was smooth and very easy to get into, and players will feel comfortable taking control of the world&#8217;s greatest mercenary from the get go. I also found myself wanting to complete the game as stealthily as possible, which saw me restarting several times at various checkpoints until I got it right. If a game can take you in like that, it is doing something right.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, on normal difficulty it is far to easy to shoot yourself out of a situation if you are discovered &#8211; especially if you are near an AA gun &#8211; and \u00a0I would recommend playing on hard from the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of writing this review I had not played any of the side missions unlocked after completing the game &#8211; which might redeem it somewhat &#8211; but my initial foray into Ground Zeroes left me wanting a bit more.<\/p>\n<p>Ground Zeroes is definitely a Metal Gear Solid game, but it lacks the grittiness and emotion that made me fall in love with MGS and MGS 2. Maybe The Phantom Pain &#8211; which is advertised in a cut scene at the end of Ground Zeroes &#8211; will provide that, and maybe I have a romantic memory of MGS that can&#8217;t be matched in 89 minutes, but as it stands, I felt a little let down by Ground Zeroes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More gaming news<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/62720-sacred-3-details-and-gameplay-video-released.html\">Sacred 3 \u2013 Details and gameplay video released<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/62662-annoying-game-over-screens.html\">Annoying \u201cGame Over\u201d screens<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/xbox\/62758-xbox-live-gold-free-weekend-announced.html\">Xbox Live Gold free weekend announced<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Phantom Pain &#8220;prologue&#8221; &#8211; yeah, that works for me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":62761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21,575,1269,1005,12176,9988,457],"class_list":["post-62760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-headline","tag-hideo-kojima","tag-konami","tag-metal-gear-solid","tag-metal-gear-solid-5-ground-zeroes","tag-metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62764,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62760\/revisions\/62764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}