shipwreck (I see you reading this right now)-- you and the other hosts are so wrong about Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. You're mainly parroting uninformed opinions on it by other people who haven't played the game.
I think you and Cheapy need to put your money where your mouth is (or "Play this bitches!") and put down $30 and play it on PS4, and then come back next week with your opinions on it.
In terms of my experience-- the main mission was about 2.5 hours long. This whole 1 hour thing is ridiculous. Maybe it was a little longer for me because I turned off Tagging and Reflex mode immediately in the options because that's not really what I want from my Metal Gear experience-- so it was probably a little harder for me to get through. My clear time said 112 minutes, but that doesn't include the 30 or so minutes that I played and died before hitting the next checkpoint in various spots nor does it include the 10 minute intro or the 10 minute outro sequences.
The whole thing about this being an FMV was also ridiculous-- as I mentioned there's an intro and a couple of outro cutscenes and that's it. This game is 95% gameplay. After you beat the Ground Zeroes mission you unlock 4 extra missions, and there's an additional 1 secret mission you get access to (on PS3/4 it's the MGS1 Deja Vu mission) by collecting the 9 XOF patches scattered around the map.
I've played 2 of the extra missions, and while they are on the same map, they are definitely different than the main mission. One of them is a pretty fun mission where you're in a helicopter chase and then get on the ground where a boss fight sort of ensues (something which isn't even in the Ground Zeroes mission). I spent close to 90 minutes playing through both of these missions.
The map is pretty dense, there's a lot of stuff to do which is why it's great to have multiple things to do on it through the different missions.
And most importantly, the gameplay mechanics are GREAT and the way this game is structured gives you a chance to experiment with the mechanics to the fullest and have a lot of fun playing around with the AI. I know if I was just dropped into Phantom Pain without a prologue like this I probably wouldn't let myself experiment with the mechanics so much and see what the different play styles I could use.
There's at least 4 solid hours of gameplay here, even going through it on normal difficulty, and only once through. And if going through it again in harder difficulties or experimenting with the sandbox appeals to you, then there's even more here.
edit: also reason why people can speed run the main mission in like 10 minutes is because once you know how to beat the game you don't have to go through the process of exploring the map to figure out what to do. You're not going to do that first time around.
- Curufinwe likes this