Cripes. How do you even talk about this game?
The only way you can is
the obvious way -- by bringing up the fact that it’s a forty dollar demo. And it IS a forty dollar demo, without
question. That’s literally the only
reason it exists, even if it’s got a spiffy title independent of the upcoming The Phantom Pain. And it’s not a justified existence by any
means, believe you me. Remember, I’m the
guy who raised a stink over The Last of
Us and its DLC -- fifteen dollars for maybe an hour and a half of
cutscenes, and maybe thirty minutes of gameplay. So I can’t in good faith recommend Ground Zeroes to anyone.
And jeez, does this set
one hell of a bad precedent. Konami and
crew likely only did it because they needed to restock the war chest, and they
figured with the MGS name attached,
they could get away with it. And they did. Even if some people raised complaints, others
-- and plenty of them, by the sound of it -- spoke with the one thing that
mattered: their wallets. So I guess this
is the new standard now. I take issues
with games like Destiny offering access
to its beta demo solely by preordering the game (and “subtly” pushing a
thought-free purchase under the idea that “eh, I already preordered it, so I
might as well keep it”), but that’s a saintly practice compared to Ground Zeroes.
Now. Let’s talk about the actual game.