Next generation consoles have been collecting dust in homes and retail stores for months now, due to its lack of games bringing out the new hardware’s full potential. But with the release of three new blockbuster titles, those game-less afternoons on $400 consoles are over.
Snake aka Big Boss, a former American spy turned mercenary, returns in Konami and Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes for Playstation 4 and Xbox One (also on Xbox 360 and PS3). The main story of Ground Zeroes follows Big Boss on a top secret infiltration mission to rescue two of his old allies from an American black site prison camp on Cuban soil.
Metal Gear Solid was known for its long cut scenes sometimes lasting as long as 45 minutes. But with Ground Zeroes, longtime fans of the series will notice major changes to this aspect of the game. Now, non-playable scenes run no longer than 15 minutes.
The franchise has also been known for its linear yet complex stealth elements that place players in a classified base ready to be infiltrated by the enemy. But in Ground Zeroes, an entire island is your playground that you can either choose to go guns-blazing or sneak by without detection. Another new edition to Metal Gear Solid’s gameplay is the use of vehicles.
No more hiding behind a vent or undetected corner. Now you can hop in a getaway car to make your cunning escape or be bold enough to steal a tank to blow your foes away. Players also have an attack helicopter at their disposal to call in as last resort. These new tweaks give the series a more open world freedom.
David Hayter, the man who had been the voice of all Metal Gear protagonists since 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, is replaced by Kiefer Sutherland, best known for his role as Jack Bauer on 24. While Hayter’s nostalgic voice will surely be missed by fans, Sutherland’s raspily dark voice compliments the darker Ground Zeroes story.
Ground Zeroes’ release was surrounded by a lot of controversy due to the game’s $30 price point. Prior to its release, it was speculated that the games main story would take just under two hours to complete. The game does serve as half-tutorial, half-prologue to the eventual full release of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (slated for sometime in 2015). Series creator Hideo Kojima stressed on twitter that Phantom Pain will be 100 times larger than Ground Zeroes.
While it is true that the main campaign takes about an hour and a half to finish, after it’s completed, another five side missions are unlocked. The additional missions add on another 3 hours of new content. At the end of each level, a rank ranging from a low D to an S is given to the player based on their skill level. Despite its length, the game does offer tons of replay value. That being said the game’s story does end with a huge cliffhanger. Unfortunately, Ground Zeroes will have to do until next year’s more full experience, The Phantom Pain, is out.
Next up is the Playstation 4 exclusive, Sucker Punch’s Infamous Second Son. Second Son is the third installment in the series and first to appear on Sony’s brand new console.
The games’ graphics are incredibly life like, combining an interesting art direction with visuals that put previous games in the series to shame. It also takes advantage of new performance capturing technology allowing the actors and actresses in the game to convey expressions and replicate movements in a ways most games are still struggling to do.
Newcomers and veterans alike take control of a new protagonist Delsin Rowe. He’s a troublemaker in a small village filled with Akomish Native Americans just outside of Seattle, WA. After a bus headed filled with super powered criminals known as conduits heading towards Seattle crashes, he gets a hold of one for a split moment. Deslin discovers that he actually has the ability to absorb and imitate other conduit’s powers after touching them. When the villagers get sick because of another conduit, Delsin and his older brother Reggie go to Seattle to find the cure because the Akomish people have a family like tradition to take care of their own.
Players get to learn up to four brand new powers, the first of which is the ability to take the form of smoke. Once in the open world of Seattle, the player can seep through smoke vents to the top of rooftops, glide through the sky, go through walls, and re-energize their power by sucking up any form of smoke that you see.
The entire city is filled with the Department of Unified Protection, or DUP, a shady organization in charge of capturing all conduits and placing them in concentration camps made to contain superpowered individuals. Delsin’s powers come in handy as you roam the streets ridding it of the oppressive DUP. Much of the game plays like a third person shooter with parkour elements. Players can shoot flame blasts and use their powers to seep through enemies and environments alike. One of Delsin’s smoke power moves has him flying six stories high and dive bombing down below laying waste to any nearby enemies.
The game takes about 15 hours to complete if you finish the story as well as a number of different side missions. Just like in previous games, players have a the choice to go through the plot as a hero or villain. As a result, the game lends itself well to at least two playthroughs to see the different outcomes.
Infamous Second Son is exactly the type of game that new hardware needs. It is a fun single player experience that is both technologically impressive and, more importantly, fun.
Related articles
