Journalists have been sharing impressions of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes following a press event in Nasu, Japan. Among other things, they have been pushing back on claims that the game can be finished in two hours.
They have also pointed out that the game significantly looks better on Playstation 4 than on Xbox One, in terms of framerate, graphical detail, practically everything. It really demonstrates how powerful Kojima’s FOX engine is.
Regarding the game’s structure, it is not designed like the typical Metal Gear Solid game, split into several levels that take hours to get through. Instead, the missions are laid out between 30 to 120 minutes. Furthermore, story items are easy to miss, and so you may want to go back and seek them out for replay value.
Kojima has also reined in his propensity for length storytelling wise. Exposition has been relegated to audio tapes. Whereas players were previously held hostage to hour long cutscenes, you can have the tapes playing in the background while you keep going. Of course, the end result is a more quick paced experience.
Need a more tangible sense of how big the game is? One journalist claimed to finish the game in 90 minutes for the first time. Game completion then was only at 9 %. Of course, whether gamers care to 100 % the game is another issue entirely, but impressions seem to be that the game is satisfying enough even in the realm of a press event. Whether it’s worth the price? That’s up to you to decide.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is coming March 18 to Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.