Seeing as Metal Gear is one of my favourite series, I was determined to make an event out of the first time I played Ground Zeroes. I sat down with a plate of strawberries, joking to my friends that, knowing the series' infamously long cutscenes, I would probably have finished them before the first cutscene was over. As you can see, I make very funny and original jokes, which is why I have lots of friends and am DEFINITELY not lonely.

These were famous last words. Not only was the intro over before I had eaten my strawberries, but so was the fucking game. Ground Zeroes is incredibly short, and savvy readers already know the only story-related mission can be completed within an hour.

I'll give it this: from a technical point of view, Ground Zeroes is a marvel. The first time I played it was on a laptop that didn't even have a GPU, and it still ran like a dream. The graphics are phenomenal, bringing the nigh-photorealism we take for granted today. I remember the exact moment in the first cutscene that I realized that there hadn't been a single camera cut, and I was mindblown. This gritty, guerilla-cam directing style became a staple of Hideo Kojima games from this point onwards. The climax is one of my favourite cutscenes in any video game.

And the gameplay is superb. Ground Zeroes provides a stellar stealth action sandbox that, while not quite up to The Phantom Pain's level of 'if you can think it, you can do it,' was an excellent taster of what was to come. There are many ways to achieve your goals, and the developers thought of everything: cutscenes change to accommodate the smallest detail. Despite the low score, rest assured that this game plays very well.

That said, it's terrible value for the money. Ground Zeroes launched for the price of $40, and even today, is being sold for $20 - $10 if you buy it as a bundle with Phantom Pain. Every one of these prices is a scam. Make no mistake, this is a demo. The story can be cleared within 45 minutes, the side ops (all using the same base) lack proper stories, and score chases/collectibles aren't a suitable incentive for the casual player.

It would have made sense if Ground Zeroes had been released as a free demo, or included in The Phantom Pain as a prologue chapter. There are a few players who claim to have hundreds of hours in it, but the only explanation I can think of is that they left their PC on all night. Even if you sieve this game for every morsel of material, it adds up to a few hours at best. Unless you're a completionist, you won't get your money's worth buying this game at full price. And here's the thing: you don't have to impose these conditions while purchasing other games. It's usually bad form to judge a game's value by its length, but here it's justified.

The long and short of it is, Konami found a way to fuck it up once again. It's a shame that a game with such high production value was handled by a company whose unofficial motto is: "Where there's a will, there's a slot machine."

A game in which Metal Gear's signature isometric stealth puzzle boxes are abandoned in favor of total player freedom and synchronous control; a game in which Kojima's explicit condemnation of America's foreign policy leads you to shoot your way through colonial encampments in not-Guantanamo; a game in which military fetishism, high-fidelity 3D models, and handheld documentary-style compositions allow for comically exploitative levels of violence against women in ways this series had never and will never attempt again; a game in which you can rescue Hideo Kojima himself from captivity (accompanied by a title card for his specific prescription of Ray-Bans); a game that is not entirely a game, but a fraction of a game meant to elicit shock-jock coverage and feigned surprise from news outlets as both its content and pricing were designed to coax people into outrage. Maybe the most fascinating title released in the ninth generation, and certainly a title I have spent too much time playing given its prideful, vainglorious repugnance.

Making all of Paz's audio logs from Peace Walker available to listen to in addition to new cassette tapes recorded for this game that detail and elucidate her mindset, tensions, and ultimate conflict of self going into Ground Zeroes, only for her to be treated like a slab of meat other characters get to carve and slice and sling around is the cruelest, uncharacteristic swing that Kojima has ever taken.