Ground Zeroes is Only Worth What You'll Pay For It

[SonOfVoorhees]

Games can be short and fun. But MG:GZ isnt a standalone game, its an introduction to the main game. Thus the reason people feel annoyed at the cost of this demo, if anything it should have been free. Fans loved it, and thats fine, i just feel that they took advantage of the fans.

 

[rasputin0009]

I really don't get it. How can finding hours upon hours of entertainment in Titanfall be worth less than finding hours upon hours of entertainment in Skyrim? Sure, Skyrim has a fuckton of story content compared to Titanfall, but Skyrim lacks competition with the greatest variable of content; human players. Well balanced gameplay mechanics that rely on that one variable seem like a whole lot of content to me.

 

[Ham Blitz]

This was an interesting article and all, but damn it, I lost like 40 minutes googling that Chris Chan and reading the Know-your-meme history about him. That was a really weird story.

 

[Lazule]

Busted up laughing at the Chris-Chan part. Ahh he is a classic of the internet, good times. Its impressive how much "assburgers" a person can have.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Going from "endearing" to "creepy"... Yeah, that about sums up Metal Gear Solid for me at this point.

Spoiler: Lots of truth.

I fell in love with the series based on its rather cheesy, yet moderately serious, save-the-world scenario straight out of Michael Bay (they even used the same composer as "The Rock" for the sequel). It was wacky, tongue-in-cheek, yet played just straight enough to be intense and partially gripping. It was a blockbuster game that felt like a blockbuster movie.

Well, we're far from "The Rock" and we're far more into "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Hurt Locker". I'm not having "fun" like I used to. It was only a few short years ago that Snake was skateboarding, backflipping off rockets, rubbing elbows with Pikachu and Kirby, and wrestling with robot ninja best friends and evil clone brothers, all with the amount of shock a man typically reserves for being told he has to wear a tie to work.

Now we're dealing with gang rape of underage girls, extremely graphic torture, and villains shoving explosive devices up a girl's wazoo.

Hideo Kojima may be many things, but someone with the maturity level and competence to tackle legitimately disturbing, brutal, and sensitive topics like that he really isn't qualified for. To paraphrase another journalist, it's shock value that doesn't feel earned in a series that hasn't proven it's capable of dealing with these issues in a mature way. It still parades its women around in cleavage-bearing jump suits (in the ARCTIC)... I don't expect it to tackle the issues it raises with any level of competency.

We used to have Silent Hill for that, before Konami ground that series into the dust. It was a dark, DARK series that dealt with all these issues... but it did so with such shocking maturity and sympathy that it earned my respect. It never made something as serious as child abuse, rape, suicide, depression, or torture something that merely existed to shock and "motivate" the player to get revenge... it was elements that helped inform the entire plot and became integral parts of each and every character and their personal journeys (either towards redemption or damnation).

Silent Hill dealt with those issues by saying so little and doing it well... more so than Metal Gear Solid ever did in any 50 minute-long cutscene.

As a Metal Gear fan, I can't really disagree with any of what ya said. As Jim put it, one of the reasons we love Kojima so much is because he's a brilliant idiot.
However, he has been slipping lately.

Spoiler: Also, you're a bit off on what happened in MG:GZ. Still pretty bad though.

Paz (the girl in the camp) is apparently in her 20s. However, there is child rape.
After she is raped by her capters in front of another prisoner, Chico, who is 13. They then force him to rape her. Saying that if he doesn't, he'll be next.

At the end of the audio tape reviling this, they also have Pas coming on to Chico after all the rape while they're still in jail. So we got a bit of pedophobia to top it all off.

Though, based on how Paz looks like she could be 14, I don't blame people for making this mistake. In the end, it's all still pretty terrible.

with no one to challenge Kojima's creative decisions and his deeply disturbing sexist pervert tendencies because they've deluded themselves into thinking he's some kind of storytelling master.

Oh sure. Lots of people challenged it. And every single one was shot down for being an sjw warrior, a no-fun loon, or "not getting" Kojima.

Funny Creepy story about people telling Kojima no. There are some, (or at least there use to be), according to this fast facts about MGS4.


I love Metal Gear, but Kojima could use a few more editors.

 

[Nieroshai]

The reason why I'll never play an MGS game -

No matter how many times people discuss MGS, no one ever, ever talks about the gameplay. In my opinion, this is almost certainly a game not worth playing.

Same thing happened with Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Gone Home, etc. I played them, got bored out of my mind, and it's only recently that I recognize certain patterns regarding how people discuss these titles.

You thought the gameplay was bad in those games.

I'm sorry.

I'll go play my shit games now, with their shit stories, in my shit house. And love it. Now where did I put Skyrim?

EDIT: If that came off as confrontational, the friendly version: no one talks about the gameplay because only bad gameplay is worth discussing. No one complains about a door that doesn't squeak or a used car that actually runs kinda nice and doesn't suck.

Good gameplay can also be worth discussing. But if the story is all that people talk about, it's fairly clear which aspect of the game got the better treatment.

Plus - the other games I mentioned have decent stories. MGS doesn't even have that from the sounds of things.

From the sound of things? Well, I'm a long-time fan, and could go on for hours about the story, but my opinion is tainted by said fandom. I love the writing personally. I just wish David Hayter was a more convincing voice actor.

 

[Sarge034]

Titanfall's "campaign" can be completed in one hour? Uh, the game shipped with 16 maps according to one poster in its thread, and seven of them are part of the standard story campaign according to the official wiki [http://titanfall.gamepedia.com/Campaign_Missions]. If you can get through all of those in an hour, those must be some damned fast rounds. What, is it like playing each of seven Counter-Strike maps exactly once, as only one side?

It is exactly like that. You play through the maps twice to see the campaign from both sides, but you can't hear 85% of the dialog because you are actually trying to play the game. You could technically get through both sides in an hour if one side was absolutely dominating.

OT- Anyway, I think the value of entertainment is difficult to peg, personally I base the value on my overall enjoyment. Some of my favorite games of all time have been low content, nonexistent story, and full price (L4D, Portal, CoD4 multiplayer, ME3 multiplayer). While I have bought high content, story driven games at varying prices and felt disappointed (DA2, Deus Ex:HR, Dragons Dogma). I'm one of the people who enjoyed RE6 for the most part too.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Oh sure. Lots of people challenged it. And every single one was shot down for being an sjw warrior, a no-fun loon, or "not getting" Kojima.

In all honesty, it's more with the dev team than anything. Thing is Kojima DID make some great games with MGS 1-3. As over-the-top as they were, they did seem to have legitimate things to say about war, manipulation of information, and what a soldier is in a sort of James Bondish manner. 4 was more of that, even if it had gotten sillier. It's only with Kojima refusing to just END the series that things have gotten odd. The rape scene is where things got weird because it comes off as him being desperate for attention because it's just so WEIRD and out of place. It's like he's doing it for shock value and nothing else, like he's trying to be another Suda 51 but he lacks Suda's inherent eccentricity.

 

[StriderShinryu]

As for the content of the MGS games, I think they are definitely falling way beyond Kojima's flailing grasp. There is some real meaty subject matter found in the series that could make for some very interesting and challenging games, but Kojima is just too lacking as a director and designer to make those games. It's kind of like giving your obnoxiously drunken brother the chance to say a few words at your wedding rehearsal dinner, and then asking him to do it again at your wedding simply because, hey, he's your brother. Any endearing sentiment is thrown out the window, and then it's really only on you when you ask for a repeat performance.

As for multiplayer only games, I disagree completely. Multiplayer games are built around the multiplayer experience, just as single player only experiences are built around the single player experience. Using the argument that multiplayer games somehow need a compelling single player experience is asking developers to split their resources in order to add something that, at the end of the day, adds little value at all to the game. Should single player only games be required to have multiplayer added because, hey, lots of people like multiplayer despite the fact that it adds nothing of real value to the experience? We all know how well that argument goes... *coughUncharted,TombRaider,Bioshock2,Etccough*

 

[Darth_Payn]

I love Metal Gear, but Kojima could use a few more editors.

Here, I think "editor" would be the guy what Kojima wrote for a story, slap the papers out of his hands, and say "Have you gone completely insane?! Are you trying to outdo Sec Ops: The Line in horrifying your audience? Don't do Spec Op; do Metal Gear"
But seriously, what Yahtzee described in his review of the game-that-shouldn't-have-cost-$30 is just gruesome.
Also, I never go by the "estimated" pay times of games. I lie to take my tie, explore, try things in the game, you know, not rush it.

 

[Roofstone]

The scenes themself doesn't bother me that much to be honest. It is just that it is the wrong game to put them in.

Metal Gear is the series with bisexual vampires that block bullets by dancing fabulously! Not.. Pedophilia rape.

Edit for more OT: The price I can't actually complain about, since I got it on xbox life for the equivelant of 7 bucks. Dunno if it is a region thing or not.

 

[Vault101]

Busted up laughing at the Chris-Chan part. Ahh he is a classic of the internet, good times. Its impressive how much "assburgers" a person can have.

...really?

OT: its hard to define a game's worth because there is a subjective element...but it kind of worries me if they think they can get away with charging full price for something like Titanfall


I'm kind of interested in Evolve (...but sad its more like left 4 dead and not Borderlands 2..I need to have a clear sense of progression in my games

 

[Quellist]

Nice to see Kojima called out over this shit. Personally i had major doubts with MGS2 and by the time Snake eater rolled in i'd given up. It always amazes me how people keep throwing money at this talentless hack and his weird-ass shitty games.

Personally i wouldnt buy Ground Zeroes if i found it for £1 in a bargain bin

 

[Steve2911]

The reason why I'll never play an MGS game -

No matter how many times people discuss MGS, no one ever, ever talks about the gameplay. In my opinion, this is almost certainly a game not worth playing.

Same thing happened with Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Gone Home, etc. I played them, got bored out of my mind, and it's only recently that I recognize certain patterns regarding how people discuss these titles.

Bull fucking shit. So many people love the gameplay of the MGS series. They love it because it's as weird and quirky as the surrounding madness, while still being an incredibly solid gameplay experience.

And they talk about it all the time. Just because a casual observer will only hear about the 9 hours of cutscenes in MGS4 or the batshit ending to MGS2, that doesn't mean the incredible gameplay of the series isn't discussed. Dig deeper. Saying you'll forever ignore the series because you haven't heard much about its gameplay is just a massive shame.

MGS3 is lauded as one of the best games of the PS2's generation, and it still would be if the story and cutscenes were completely removed. It's a wonderful game.

 

[electric method]

Yahtzee is actually on to something here. "...It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it." Here's the thing, older gamers can remember a time where $60 got you a game that had 20-60 hours of single player content that may, or may not, have a multiplayer suite. As time has gone on, we've seen that devs/pubs have increasingly gone down the road of giving us short, shitty single player experiences with multiplayer suites that are the "supposed" main feature of the game. What is worse is those exact same devs/pubs have had the balls to charge $60 for truncated content on the faulty premise "That multiplayer offers hours of content." This is a demonstrably provable fallacy.

The idea of MP suites being the main focus and offering hours of content is trash. The reason for it is that experience is completely subjective to the individual player. How long will each person take before they realize they are a rat on a wheel and get bored? Or, it's a matter of you are a dog chasing it's tail... how long until one realizes they are just chasing their tail and not experiencing anything different?

The reality is that devs/pubs have shortened up games, continued to charge full price and offered it to us like they are doing us a favor by doing so. What absolute bullshit. This can only occur if people are stupid enough to continue to blindly buy into this as "..It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it." Stop being sheep and buying reduced content, multiplayer only games and the devs/pubs will have to start making games that aren't BS. You know, how supply and demand works. If we don't make the demand they won't make the supply.

 

[hermes]

with no one to challenge Kojima's creative decisions and his deeply disturbing sexist pervert tendencies because they've deluded themselves into thinking he's some kind of storytelling master.

Oh sure. Lots of people challenged it. And every single one was shot down for being an sjw warrior, a no-fun loon, or "not getting" Kojima.

Not people on the internet. People on the dev team, who have meetings with him where he shows them the storyboards. THOSE are the people too cowardly to say "Really sir? This is a very bad idea to include in the game. Sorry sir, but having multiple 50 minute cutscenes in this part with very little gameplay in between ruins the pacing. Also, no, we are not implementing an up-skirt cutscene cam, and you are making everyone very uncomfortable."

Curiously enough, sometimes it sounds like Kojima listens to fans and people in the dev team, but they all suck.
It has been said several times that Kojima wanted to close the MGS series with 2, then 3 and then 4, but pressure from the fans (which reached death threats levels) and Konami forced his hand into other entries. It was also said that the ending of MGS4 would be much darker

Spoiler

(it would end with the scene where Snake shoots himself)

but that ending was boycotted by the development team, that didn't want to make a sad ending. Of course, this has been stated in interviews and there is no way to validate it unless we know someone in the team, but just wanted to point out that the times Kojima let himself be influenced by other peoples feedback, the results has been at least at bad.

 

[BlueJoneleth]

I never played MGS until recently & bought the 25 year anniversary collection.

Played 1,2,3,4.

I played all these games with a stupid grin on my face, I could never take the plot seriously.

Awesome boss fights though.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Spoiler: Also, you're a bit off on what happened in MG:GZ. Still pretty bad though.

Paz (the girl in the camp) is apparently in her 20s. However, there is child rape.
After she is raped by her capters in front of another prisoner, Chico, who is 13. They then force him to rape her. Saying that if he doesn't, he'll be next.

Spoiler: Also, you're a bit off on what happened in MG:GZ. Still pretty bad though.

It's worth mentioning that in Japan, age of consent is 13.

So there (Where Kojima is from, natch), it's not underage rape. Just normal rape.

 

[medv4380]

And you don't get this in films: a rental of a brand new blockbuster movie versus the rental of an old classic will be a difference of what, two or three bucks?

You actually get this a lot in the film industry. The analogy only works when you compare things from the same genre, and then back in the day when Blockbuster existed there wan't even a difference between a rental of one disk that's 2 hours or one that's 3 hours. There is a difference if you were renting collectors editions because they had multiple disks to rent, but renters avoided multidisk renting for that reason.

For 2 screens at once for Netflix it costs 7.99 and that gets me hundreds of hours.
However they don't have all that I want.
Crunchyroll costs 6.95 a month and I get much less in terms of hours, but much more of what I want.
However, that's still not enough.
Hulu costs 7.99 and I only have it for The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Agents of SHIELD, and Arrow

Clearly as the amount of content hours goes down I'm actually paying much more per hour. Quality and Type of content goes a long way. Back in the day, prior to the Internet, Porn was fairly expensive for even a few hours, and shows why Genre of film alters the price quite radically.

I'm not arguing that we should be paying 60 bucks for multiplayer only, or 40 bucks for a demo. They do need to be very truthful in their marketing, however. People who bought Titanfall that expected more campaign content then there actually was are right to be mad. I also have the right to make fun of them because the developer was bragging about how much money they were saving by not wasting time on expensive single player content, and I could tell what the result would be based on that. I wouldn't pay 60 bucks for half a game, or the third of the game Titanfall is. However, I can see that most of the audience probably wasn't paying attention to dev interviews, and thus the marketing ended up being a bit deceptive.

The 40 bucks for MGS:V should be compared to games that do the same thing to be objectively compared. When you try to compare to things objectively that are actually for different things you end up with a subjective analysis. It's like trying to objectively measure the worth of my razor to the worth of an orange. Both have value, but their values are too different to be directly compared.

MGS:V sounds open worldy to me based on the reviews and complaints. So how does it compare to Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto V? It sounds like it wouldn't even come close to the open world nature of those two games, but at least that would be a more of an Apple to Apples comparison instead of an Apples to Oranges comparison.