Quick Look: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - Extra Ops

I'll admit that I laughed when they talked about Grey Fox. An enigma? Heh.

@zevvion: Could have just clicked 'quote' instead.

No, I think Jeff got somewhat irritated because he didn't feel the game justified the play time, and he got bored of it probably. He had other things to do as well. MGS has always been weird and self referential.

Giant Bomb should do an ER for Snatcher. Snatcher is a classic and its story holds up today.

As far as Ground Zeroes, thanks for the spoiling the exclusive missions, since I don't plan to own this game at all.

Did Jeff really complain about MGS1 being mostly cinematics while saying he liked MGS4?

Oh Jeff.

@dan_citi: 2 and 4 definitely have some really great stuff in them (the Ocelot fight at the end of 4 doesn't deserve to be in that game) but overall, yikes. And yeah, 2's Hot Grafix were mindblowing at the time, and I think it still looks pretty good. Its intentional blockiness in environment design helps a lot. It also helps show that even then Kojima was obsessed with billowing tarps.

@ntm: maybe, who knows what goes on in Jeff's head. I know MGS has always been weird and self referential but what I meant was that it has gone too far in that way which kind of makes it not as interesting as it once was.

@erinisadrunk: MGS4 at least had some varied gameplay though. Not that he enjoyed MGO2 which was pure gameplay either.

This got pretty cringe-worthy at times between Jeff being super, extra cranky and Brad being neurotic as hell about showing us the entire game (and getting the unlocks) in a "quick"look and then screwing up and dying more and more because of it which just made Jeff more cranky. Tension was palpable, almost felt like if Vinny wasn't there to distract Jeff with questions and chit chat, Jeff would have exploded and shoved MGS V Ground Zeroes and MGS1 up Brad's ass. Good job saving Brad's ass, Vinny.

You know normally I would be with you on a journalist missing key story elements from a series but in this case anyone who can actually explain the complete story of Metal Gear has spent way too much time playing these games. I played 1-4 only a couple years ago and a fair amount of Peace Walker and even after only those couple of years I would be at a loss to explain some of even the major plot points. The games make no sense, and by the end of 4 they had at least to me ruined virtually all of the interesting pieces of the story anyways.

I never get why people think 3 is so good. The story is horribly paced even by MGS terms. You get like 2 hours of almost straight cutscenes at the start then pretty much nothing until the final 2 hours. And in between you get mediocre stealth gameplay that is nowhere near as good as what Splinter Cell was doing at the time. Really the only highlights are the boss battles which are maybe the best in the series, but literally everything around that just is not good. MGS2 was basically all cutscenes but at least the story was interesting if nonsensical. Honestly I enjoyed it the most. The first MGS feels like it was written by a horny 12 year old so while I enjoyed the plot probably the most of any game in the series the absolutely horrendous dialogue just ruined the whole thing for me. And 4 was fine but the reveal of who the Patriots were literally ruined the mystery behind the entire series. I would rather have not had it explained at all then explained that way. The gameplay was easily the best in the series but by making it more like your standard third person stealth/shooter they just managed to show how awful the game controlled compared to your average shooter.

It's a little baffling that somebody could play 8 hours of this and still not figure out red doors = weapons.

@raven10: I'm afraid I will never agree with you on MGS3 since I think MGS3 Subsistence is just about the best console game of that entire generation (PS2/Xbox/Gamecube).

@hassun: Fair enough. A lot of people agree with you. I personally don't really see what makes MGS3 so great. Again the boss battles are absolutely fantastic but everything in between them feels pretty uninspired.

@electrictrotsky: I think MGS5's main story will have less of it, but I don't know, while the goofy side isn't what makes me love MGS, I still like those aspects. Few games have that kind of thing so I think it's unique.

I will never understand the complaints about the MGS3 camera, in fact despite playing that game about 10 times on Subsistence I never once used the rotational camera because it's not that game. MGS3 is the best game in the series because it does the best job of making you feel you are the character. There is no radar so everything has to be done by sight and being able to move the camera so crazily and see so much more than the Snake could completely broke the feeling for me.

I would love to hear someone who really reveres the MGS series have a long conversation with Jeff about it because I feel like there is never a good argument presented to him to why those games are so well remembered. Not that his opinion would or should change but hopefully he would have a better understanding of where people are coming from. (Same with post SNES Final Fantasy)

Thanks for adding the quiz show part to this. Great dedication!

Long quicklook on a kinda dull game. Thankfully three people for this!

I really like Jeff. I wish he had more time to do quick looks and stuff =(

Without Jeff I probably would have skipped this video. Made the whole thing worth it. (and the other guys are cool too.)

Fox... die.

Jeff hating on MGS1 going so far as to prefer 4. Okay.

Man, sometimes Brad being Brad is really painstaking. I know, talking while playing is tough but damn...

Also, the guys dismissing Peace Walker is annoying. It's a good game!

I'm pretty sure the comment about Rising that Kaz makes is simply because he can only read/understand the games Kojima directed. All the other games/not successful/not-canon games are unable to be read by Kaz.

FWIW: Kojima really likes Rising

@cerberus3dog: It's a great game, but a lot of the games press tends to dissmiss almost the entire PSP library off hand.

THat and while I like brad, LOOKING FOR WEAPONS AND NOT THINKING TO CHECK THE ARMOURY is kind of a huge blunder. Especially when after at least your first or at least second mission you should know that the only place you'll get new weaposn is in those weapon storehouses anyway.

It's like Brad has never played a stealth game before yet there's video, audio, and editorial evidence that proves he's played dozens of stealth games.

Brad =

Ah, I know this Quick Look is a year and a half old at this point, but all the recent Metal Gear Scanlon stuff as well as me wrapping up my own copy of Ground Zeroes had me rewatching these videos with a new perspective on the series as I was nowhere near caught up prior to MGScanlon.

It still amazes me how self-assured Brad is when people are asking/suggesting things. He's wrong quite often (Which is 100% fine, you can't know everything) but he INSISTS for much longer than necessary that he is right. Example 1 being the humans in Jamais Vu and Example 2 being the Reflex Mode in Deja Vu. A big fucking "L2" pops up on-screen, you tap it and you LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE ENEMY. Slowly rotating the camera is hilariously useless.

Again, I know, super old, completely irrelevant, MGSV about to hit, yadda yadda, but man, it's still frustrating. I don't mind the wandering aimlessly because this mission can be a bit confusing until you've memorized everything but the other stuff bothers me to this day!

But that's also why I love Brad Quick Looks, I know he's actually really good at games and always tries to rush on camera because the GB guys are convinced we're all drooling idiots that will get bored if they dare to stealth or take things slow, so they try to rush through shit and ironically make everything take way longer and look way worse on camera in their effort to make it look better on camera.

If you're on the Phantom Pain Quick Look, Brad, just remember: Chill, take it easy! We got your back, man.