Zero Punctuation: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - $40 Demo

[DEAD34345]

It's not supposed to be fun or comfortable. Well, that's nice. The franchise that had metal gear rising in it is finally ditching fun for the same shit every game feels it has to do nowadays.

Next thing you know pac man will have child soldiers in it. I was never into metal gear, but this change probably won't sway me. Maybe this game, like spec ops, is more suited to people who don't watch the news and therefore don't get their fill of violence and rape before the morning is over. Me? I see enough of this stuff in the news already. I guess I'll be playing some more The Orange Box.

Um... what? Child soldiers have been in the Metal Gear games since Solid 2 at least, and the first Metal Gear Solid game was also pretty damn dark. The overriding theme in every Metal Gear Solid game actually is that war is really, really shit (maybe it was the same in the original 2D Metal gear games too, but having never played those I can't say). Also Rising was a spin-off that intentionally had a pretty different tone and style to the Solid games, and as far as I'm aware it was made by different people. I really don't know what point you're trying to make here. That media shouldn't depict violence and rape at all?

OT: Bad things happening in a video game is not the same as bad things happening in real life. As several people have wrote above me, the game does not endorse the horrible things that are done in this game. The entire point of these horrible things in fact is to make Big Boss (and company) so obsessively mad that they too will commit horrible atrocities and become terrible people in order to seek revenge. The story is about his journey to becoming a villain.

Besides which, the game is set in alternate universe Guantanamo Bay. I'd have been more offended if the prisoners weren't horrifically treated.

The only truly disgusting thing about this game as far as I'm concerned is the price tag.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

Just watched the video of the tape, didn't find it that horrible, although as far as I'm concerned any impact was lessened by Snake sitting off to the side puffing on his cigar emotionlessly, as though he were just listening to the cricket scores instead of his comrades being physically and psychologically tortured.

I agree with what other people have been saying, MGS has always had some pretty grim themes running through it, it's just that this time they've decided to do away with the subtlety. For me, it's the same as those over the top sex scenes you get in films and tv sometimes. The ones where you think "That's good and all, but you could've just shown them getting into bed together, and then cut to them waking up in the morning, and it would've still got the point across."

Also, and again this is just me, but I'm not sure "It's supposed to make you uncomfortable" is that good a counter. It may well be true, but it doesn't invalidate the grievance. If I was in a restaurant, complaining that my meal was cold, being told that it was deliberate would not make me any less pissed off about it.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Just watched the video of the tape, didn't find it that horrible, although as far as I'm concerned any impact was lessened by Snake sitting off to the side puffing on his cigar emotionlessly, as though he were just listening to the cricket scores instead of his comrades being physically and psychologically tortured.

I agree with what other people have been saying, MGS has always had some pretty grim themes running through it, it's just that this time they've decided to do away with the subtlety. For me, it's the same as those over the top sex scenes you get in films and tv sometimes. The ones where you think "That's good and all, but you could've just shown them getting into bed together, and then cut to them waking up in the morning, and it would've still got the point across."

Also, and again this is just me, but I'm not sure "It's supposed to make you uncomfortable" is that good a counter. It may well be true, but it doesn't invalidate the grievance. If I was in a restaurant, complaining that my meal was cold, being told that it was deliberate would not make me any less pissed off about it.

The entire point of GZ is to make the player and Big Boss feel utter hatred towards Skullface and Cipher. Which leads into TPP which has the point of blind revenge turning people into cold-hearted, child-murdering villains. There's not really many other ways to show Big Boss' downfall into a child-soldier-training, maniacal warlord that don't involve some dark shit.

And I'd argue that the rape scene, whilst not being subtle in itself, is still presented to the player in a subtle way. In MGS3 the rape was shown in a very subtle way, but seeing as GZ doesn't have the mechanics or context to do that there's really no other choice than putting it in one of the optional tapes you can collect. And let's face it, a lot of people would've got their knickers in a twist if it stopped with Skullface going "Don't bother fighting, you can't stop it" or something, a lot of people just have very reactionary views towards rape in video-games.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Well... it could have been more. It was gonna be 40 USD, but they decided to lower it by 10 bucks at the last minute because paying 75% of the game's price for 10% of the experience would have been too far. It's solid gameplay, but it's just a means to release something for the Japanese PS4 owners near their launch, and as far as I can suspect a means to pay off their new expensive engine.

I don't think Australia got the memo about changing the price. It happens a lot over there.

No they got it, they just put in the filling cabinet with 'stop abusing foreign brown people', 'gay marriage', 'women's rights' and 'climate change'. Then Rupert comes in whining about how nobody buys into his crappy Television service, so he pleads with the Prime Minister (with his big bag of cash), to loop us around the same DRM noose as America.

At least we have the beac-... oh look at all the nice Box Jellyfish.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I think a lot of people are missing the point in regards to the games length vs price. The game has quite a lot of content in it. Some people are saying it takes 40-80 hours to get 100% completion. If you're the kind of person who plays a game once through and doesn't touch it again, then don't buy it.

People who are really big into Metal Gear Solid in general don't play the games once and that's it, they play it multiple times through. This is essentially a game made for the fans who want to go through all of it over and over and complete the content.

I played Meta Gear Solid 3 and 4 almost a dozen times through, even thought I did the EXACT same things every time. With the exception if MGS3 where I went through the entire game without a single kill or alert, including bosses.

And to be fair, every MGS game you can finish in about an hour if you just sprint through everything and skip cutscenes, so I don't see how this is anything that new.

 

[UberGott]

And to be fair, every MGS game you can finish in about an hour if you just sprint through everything and skip cutscenes, so I don't see how this is anything that new.

You can speed-run Ground Zeroes in about 10 minutes. At best, it's comparable to the "Tanker" Demo for MGS2 - and even that ended with a boss battle. No matter how you slice it, Ground Zeroes is ridiculously tiny.

The fact that Konami is charging $30 for a "short" game isn't the problem. The problem is they're charging half-price for something that's probably an eighth of the game.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

to be honest i won't be surprised if Paz Makes a Return in Phantom Pain, as either a cyborg or as the original Paz and the one we saved from Bizzaro Guantanamo was a body double or clone. because that's the thing i have come to expect from this series. I haven't unlocked everything so far, the final mission is still locked for me, no doubt behind an " S-Class all Missions" requirement like there was in Peace Walker

 

[Flunk]

No body buy this...

Or every single new Metal Gear game is going to be this short. Seriously, that's what buying this will cause.

Cola Cubes sound good, is that a real product?

 

[Waaghpowa]

And to be fair, every MGS game you can finish in about an hour if you just sprint through everything and skip cutscenes, so I don't see how this is anything that new.

You can speed-run Ground Zeroes in about 10 minutes. At best, it's comparable to the "Tanker" Demo for MGS2 - and even that ended with a boss battle. No matter how you slice it, Ground Zeroes is ridiculously tiny.

The fact that Konami is charging $30 for a "short" game isn't the problem. The problem is they're charging half-price for something that's probably an eighth of the game.

I also said that the game has quite a lot of content aside from the main story. So if you don't care to play the game beyond the one play through, then yes, it's tiny. If you have a problem with that and have no desire to play the game beyond that, then don't buy it. It's simple.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

The tape that everyone is talking about:

I swear if Kojima pulls a "lol t'was out of context they actually were eating lollipops" I'm gonna punch something sentient.

Edit:

Don't forget the child rape, as in forcing a 13 year old boy to rape his 25 year old friend.

Then mentally crushing them both to do it willingly.

Then more rape. And a bit more, and more..

And so on and so on.

Well gee, that sound like it would be awful if it occured in real life.

Hm. Deceit and deception make her a real woman. Pretty clear rape start into crying aftermath with a cut for the "actual" bit, as everyone supporting this is so keen to point out. Showing her off to the other prisoner. Talk about a taste test. Take her or you're next and then he's to have at her - which apparently results in him talking and invalidating whatever horrific crap she's just been through ? and an I don't know what the hell ending. The whole while Snake's just standing there listening to the tape, zero reaction, smoking a cigar.

I saw an interview Kojima did about being jealous of what Breaking Bad could do and I guess I should have expected something, but damn.

I don't want this. I wish I hadn't clicked on the vid I sure as hell don't want to play the game it's from. I'm actually a little nauseated that the price tag for content is the apparent focus in the community when there's this in the same basket.

Yeah. No. Sorry - call me whatever you want - I'm out. Done. Not getting this, not playing the longer version which will presumably have more of the same or worse. Done. Forum flame commence or whatever, don't bother, I don't care. My decision, make your own, but leave off trying to change mine before you even begin, because I'm not interested in changing any of yours.

Just watched the video of the tape, didn't find it that horrible, although as far as I'm concerned any impact was lessened by Snake sitting off to the side puffing on his cigar emotionlessly, as though he were just listening to the cricket scores instead of his comrades being physically and psychologically tortured.

I agree with what other people have been saying, MGS has always had some pretty grim themes running through it, it's just that this time they've decided to do away with the subtlety. For me, it's the same as those over the top sex scenes you get in films and tv sometimes. The ones where you think "That's good and all, but you could've just shown them getting into bed together, and then cut to them waking up in the morning, and it would've still got the point across."

Also, and again this is just me, but I'm not sure "It's supposed to make you uncomfortable" is that good a counter. It may well be true, but it doesn't invalidate the grievance. If I was in a restaurant, complaining that my meal was cold, being told that it was deliberate would not make me any less pissed off about it.

Bolding mine. Basically this. Sure - artistic discretion, content, intention, yeah yeah. Counter? Consumer voice of disliking those decisions. I have one; I'll use it. I'm not going to start up a rally, but I'm certainly not going to throw money at this - which is equivalent to praise and support. Good day.

 

[RealRT]

Stop subtitling ZP vids, for cripes sake! If I already know whats in it, I have no reason to see it!

 

[Remus]

Look at the flowers MGS, just look at the flowers.

So glad I lost interest in MGS after the silly lazer mission in the first game. Things like this might irk my ire if I were actually invested. On a side note, have you SEEN Game of Thrones? That show literally (no I really mean it) had more dwarves than you could shake a stick at in the last episode.

 

[Racecarlock]

It's not supposed to be fun or comfortable. Well, that's nice. The franchise that had metal gear rising in it is finally ditching fun for the same shit every game feels it has to do nowadays.

Next thing you know pac man will have child soldiers in it. I was never into metal gear, but this change probably won't sway me. Maybe this game, like spec ops, is more suited to people who don't watch the news and therefore don't get their fill of violence and rape before the morning is over. Me? I see enough of this stuff in the news already. I guess I'll be playing some more The Orange Box.

Um... what? Child soldiers have been in the Metal Gear games since Solid 2 at least, and the first Metal Gear Solid game was also pretty damn dark. The overriding theme in every Metal Gear Solid game actually is that war is really, really shit (maybe it was the same in the original 2D Metal gear games too, but having never played those I can't say). Also Rising was a spin-off that intentionally had a pretty different tone and style to the Solid games, and as far as I'm aware it was made by different people. I really don't know what point you're trying to make here. That media shouldn't depict violence and rape at all?

I'm not saying that media shouldn't depict violence and rape. But when it's all that is ever depicted, it starts to get a little tiring. Like "Ooh look how dark the world is". As if I didn't already know. Even if the news didn't exist whatsoever, every game has tried to make a point about how horrible war is or how shitty and shallow us americans and our smartphones and reality shows are.

I guess metal gear might have always been this dark. Whatever.

When is someone just going to come along and make a game where I can ride dinosaurs and sharks or something? Okay, it wouldn't make a point about society or some shit. Fuck reality. I know it sucks. I'm not saying metal gear needs to. Maybe an assassin's creed spinoff? Something? Something that's not trying to be so fucking dark and gritty everywhere and isn't trying to make 86 different political points?

This is why I love Saints Row IV and Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon. They both chose to rip apart things they love. Saints Row IV loves video games and does make fun of them, but in the end it says that video games are awesome and fantasy is awesome and being a big hero is awesome, so why not just be a badass? Hell, that's the objective. Be a badass. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is very much the same thing. In love with games and the 80's and willing to let you just do awesome shit when you want to do awesome shit.

And what do they get for it? Complaints. "Oh this is unrealistic" "Oh this is too wacky" "Why isn't this making a broad point about politics and culture or the nature of gang violence or war?" "Reign it in. No more wacky stuff. From here on out, it should be serious serious serious." I hope volition doesn't listen to the people who said SR IV was too wacky. I like wacky. I have always liked wacky. I have always liked fantasizing.

When I was younger, one of the first games I remember playing was cruisn' usa. At that time I wasn't allowed to drive real cars because I was at a young age. But cruisn' usa said "Screw that, give me a quarter, and drive like a maniac you crazy bastard!". Same thing with raiden, which let me take a superpowered plane and just explode everything. And again with X-wing, which let me blow things up in space.

So it was with most games I grew up with. Star Fox and lots of various nintendo 64 driving games. And battletanx, which had full sized nukes in it. You could launch a full sized nuke from a tank and blow everyone up. This was a game that was similar to a lot of car combat games at the time, but with tanks. Imagine a full sized nuke in something like twisted metal except all the vehicles are tanks. That's what it was like and it was incredible.

Rogue squadron, same as x-wing. Here, be luke skywalker for a few hours and defeat the empire by destroying all of their shit.

The GTA series. Holy fuck is that awesome. Now you can go wherever you want and blow stuff up and skydive and do all sorts of other crazy things. Until GTA IV came along, that is. Then GTA V came along, and while the basic stuff that makes free roam fun (Parachutes, airplanes, lots of explosive weapons, fun cheats) are all there, all of the humor feels it now has to make a point about how spoiled LA people are or how liberal liberals are or how republican republicans are. No more having a nudist, a housewife, and a pastor on a talk show to discuss morality. Now it's just politicians actually being slightly more sane than real politicians. Now all of a sudden, we have to make a point.

It's not bad for entertainment to make points about society, but god damn, does every piece of entertainment have to make points about society? Can't one just not try to talk about politics and just let me relax and escape this hell we all call the real world? Just a few more games than I get now. Is that too much to ask?

 

[ZephrC]

snip

You act like the only reason people might not like this game's story is because they don't get it, but I'm pretty sure that the opposite is true. Heck, the writers for Spec Ops have gone on record as saying that putting their game down in disgust and never playing it again is a good reaction to it.

This game takes that and adds terrible writing and a bunch of inappropriate sexual fetishism. Of course people are squicked out and want to do everything they can to avoid that crap. That is healthy.

Now you could certainly argue that this gives the game more value even if it's not very fun, but I would argue that while maybe that worked in Spec Ops, here in this game with all its standard Kojima goofiness it just doesn't function at all. There is just to much bizarre mood whiplash for any kind of message to develop. In fact it often comes across as approving of the very things is seeks to condemn. That's a failure of the game itself, not the audience.

 

[Jandau]

"Peadophilia" he says, despite the fact she is 25. And a Prisoner of War. In a war camp. You know, what actually happens in these places. Rape is a real threat if you get captured and you're a women.

The boy is 13. He is made to have sex with a grown woman against his will. Yeah...

 

[Mikejames]

I'll just reminisce a bit on MGS1, where the level of quirky/violent/over-the-top undertones were a bit more manageable.

I loved how Yahtzee knows Metal Gear enough to point out how it keeps treating their female characters.

"Metal Gearrrr... are you doing weird things again to female characters?"
"No..."
"What's that behind your back?"

Hahaha.

Quiet's character seems like a poster child for creepy implications.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I've never been into these game and if the first page of this thread is anything to go off of (I'm not going to bother with the next three), I don't think I ever will. It all just sounds like a really awful anime that's trying desperately to be edgy. As far as the 30 dollar price point goes, when people ***** about companies regularly charging money for their tutorials in the future, I will point to this game and hope that the people who bought into this crap feel some sense of responsibility.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Ugh. You hit the nail on the head completely here - I DID like what little gameplay there was, but the fact that I had to pay for a demo for a game we have no clear release date for is appalling. Someone told me I could get 5 hours out of it if I played all of the side missions, but that was also bullshit. Repeatable missions in the same level? No thanks. Don't get me wrong, I did them, but it wasn't fun.

This game just isn't what we were led to believe it would be. Kojima said that Ground Zeroes got so big it had to be it's own game, but there's no obvious sign of that being true here. There's no reason this game couldn't have been part of Phantom Pain.

 

[Razhem]

This is fiction there really is "no line that cannot be crossed". What I do see is an incredibly lack of taste and hack writing at it's finest worthy of Kickass 2. Basically Paz being tortured in various ways could have been changed by a dog and the message would have been the same "the villian is very bad", because for Paz (must be feeling clever for calling her peace in Spanish...) it's never analyzed how this actually affects her.

Basically, this is not being "adult" or "dark", this is being juvenile and 90s comics edgy all over again just because you can. Basically, if you want to tackle the heavy stuff, you actually have to tackle, it, yes there was "torture" in MGS, but aside from not even getting the insinuation of Meryl being raped (which again adds nothing outside of "OOOH LOOK THEY SO BAD!" since physically and mentally she clearly doesn't seem any worse for wear), the torture we see is cartoon torture of being strapped to James Bond devise, after the session Snake is right and chipper so it's not like it ever had the balls to deal with the aftermath and certainly with the tone of the game it didn't seem it had to go nowhere near there.

Want to see something adult? Read the latest chapters of Attack on titan manga, [SPOILERS COMING] we had a secondary character tortured to death only to have a few chapters later, two prominent main characters torture the other torturers to get information, while being quite graphic, but more importantly, while making it very damn clear what the sequels of it for the tortured and how incredibly low hour "heroes" have sunk for it. There is also the Berserk manga where you get to see the brutal consequences on two main characters of rape, leaving tremendous mental scars on both, one becoming a violent frothing mess of a man and the other becoming a catatonic woman that can't deal with reality anymore.

Basically, if you want to add real life horrible issues, tackle them head on and to the end of it, if not, its just shock value and has no worth except for making kids feel all manly and say "I play adult games!".

As for the price thing, nothing else to add, its bullshit pure and simple, I mean, I'm glad people could enjoy it but anyone who bought it has to understand that is the reason a publishers know they can get away with this shit. We, as consumers, have to be responsible too if we want to get the best for our buck.

 

[Rtoip]

Launching Hearts of Iron to annex the sudetenland right now.