Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Text Review (PS4)

First PS Haven Review

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Review

First of all MGSV: Ground Zeroes is a hard game for me to review. One reason of it being a prologue similar to the fashion of Grand Turismo Prologue, and another being that I am a long time fan of Hideo Kojima and the Metal Gear Franchise. On the surface, the core mission is a short game, and I wouldn't recommend it for newcomers since it will throw you in right after Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and rescuing a traitor Paz and young soldier Chico. The game does come with background info but I'd recommend playing through at least MGS3 and Peace Walker since it's only the jist of the story. I think a recap video with narration would've been a lot more engrossing then a text summary which doesn't do the prior titles any justice.

Your mission objective is to rescue them, and extract them via helicopter. Unlike most modern AAA titles, the game doesn't baby you with tutorials and lets you do your own thing. This is unlike the linear progression of the prior iterations of Metal Gear. A stealth sandbox with multiple entry points to objectives. This is one of the titles strengths as it advocates emergent gameplay and isn't a wide sprawling world like say GTA or Assassin’s Creed.

The player is still rewarded to avoid all contact as a good stealth-action title should, but the game has multiple paths to the objectives as well as vehicles such as tanks and jeeps. Speedrunners may able to find the most efficient route, and manipulate the guard AI while shooter fans may take a more offensive and difficult route. The player can also take on objectives in a non linear fashion, and as a nice touch in the main “Ground Zeroes” mission the cut scenes will slightly change as well as guard patrol patterns.

The gunplay is also made a bit more nuanced with bullet drop for every firearm. The weapon that's most effected by it is the series staple tranquilizer pistol which has an effective range of 30 or so meters. This is another strength as the shooting is no longer point and click and from farther range it becomes a game of ballistics and judging distance.

Graphics are another strong suit for the next generation consoles at least. I played it on PS4 were the game has a rock solid 60 frames per second with a full 1080p resolution, and I also have played the old gen PS3 version which runs at up 30 frames with severe dips when there is a lot of activity on screen at 720p. The character models are well made, the JJ Abrams inspired lens flare is a sight to behold, and texturing is mostly good except for a rock texture here and there. The flaw I see with the graphics is the draw distance, but I think it has to do wit the size of the map and the amount of objects that are on screen.

Loclazation and acting with most of the dialogue except for a pivotal moment which has now become an internet meme is natural flowing, and feels like it was written for a western audience in mind and in my opinion, has a similar flow to the original Metal Gear Solid as opposed to the literal translations of MGS2-3 which had a few awkward lines here and there. I loved the “Don't fight it..” reference to 24 which reminds me of the allusions to Blue Velvet in MGS1. Good job, INTAC., and it's great they picked up Marc Laidlaw, one of the key people who worked on the fantastic 2009's Policenauts fan translation.

Acting is on par with prior installments as I was apprehensive with replacing series mainstay, David Hayter. 24 star Keifer Sutherland provides a more stoic and subdued performance much in line with David's iconic performance of MGS1. He doesn't over do the grit like Hayter did in Peace Walker and justifiably in MGS4, but he gives it the original's sarcastic wit, and subtlety.

Now to the main issue of it, your mileage may vary on the game. Myself has 100 percent completed the game and trophies, and took me a total 31 hours to complete. If you just want to play the main mission it'll be a 30-70 minute storyline, but once your done with that there will be 6 side ops which range from stealing intel to comically escorting Hideo Kojima with support fire via chopper. This can be completed on a average of 4 hours if you don't do the time trails, but if those are completed you will be ranked on a internet leader board which for hardcore players will enhance the replay value of it.

This makes it a good rental for people curious about the franchise, but is a must buy as its a good tease for hardcore fans. Story is also a bit problematic as lore isn't told fully as I stated before, and there is some content which involves surgery without anesthetic in a gruesome scene which will be taken aback by a few people.

There's also the much debated forced rape scene with Paz which just seems to only make the main antagonist of the game, Skullface, seem inhuman. This goes hand in hand with the dark subject matters as the location of the game is basically Guantanamo Bay with references to black-sites and 'enhanced' interrogations. Unlike the heavy exposition of the first 4 MGS titles, it has a collection of tapes similar to Peace Walker, and does give some heavy insight on the background story as with a lot of western games. This shows Kojima finally evolving from his particular taste of having information dumped on you to storytelling that requires player agency. The cut scenes are also more spaced out to allow for more gameplay which is not a bad thing.

In conclusion, as I stated before, your mileage may vary with the title. It may be something from awesome rental to the ultimate vertical slice and prologue to the full MGSV experience of The Phantom Pain, and to be honest doesn't do a bad job of sating a Metal Gear fan's appetite. The story may be hard to stomach and comprehend with the lack of a good recap feature, but is short but sweet.



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Robocop (2014) Review

Yesterday I saw Robocop and was satisfied with the movie. It is a near future action movie set in the year 2028 were drones and unmanned weapons have become the United States main weapon abroad. This trend was ushered in by OmniCorp run by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) whose proposes a way to convenience the American public and congress to repel Dryphus Act which bans the use of robots domestically. The method would be to fit a human being and enhance with cybernetic prosthesis.

Enter Alex J. Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is a Detroit Police detective on the hunt for a weapons dealer Antoin Vallan (Miguel Ferrer). Injured from a car bomb at his home and planted by two corrupt cops. He is disfigured, and basically disabled. OmniCorp scientist Denet Norton (Gary Oldman) asks Alex's wife, Clara (Abbie Cornish) to sign release forms to preform surgery. After much thought she says yes, and through a gruesome process Alex is transformed into Robocop who then cleans the city of Detroit, but overrides his emotional suppression to seek out the corrupt cops who attempted to murder him.

One of the best things in the movie is the action direction who was directed by Brazillian director Jose Padilha of Elite Squad fame. Sticking true to his cinematic roots of the various set pieces are fast paced with many quick cuts. It gives you the same visceral quality as Elite Squad, but the gratuitous gore have been toned down to get a more financially viable PG-13 rating.

Another quality part of the movie is the supporting cast, as usual, Gary Oldman has a remarkable performance as Denet Norton, a scientist who threads the ethical line, and in the end exposes Omnicorp's distasteful practices to congress at the end of the movie. He views that his research should help and not hurt people. Michael Keaton does a great job as Raymond Sellars who is basically a evil version of Steve Jobs. A very marketable, yet morally ambiguous public figure. We also have Samuel L. Jackson in a small supporting role as Bill O'Reilly-esque or Chris Matthews-esque political pundit, Pat Novak. Him flipping out at the end is best monologue within the film.

I also like the subjects it touches which most of the 1987 movie's themes were there corporate corruption, the struggle between man & machine, and media control. It does modernized the mythos by adding in commentary about American foreign intervention in Iran were a ED-209 droid shoots a 13 year old kid whose armed with a knife, and suicide bombers trying to destroy the droids patrolling during a live news cast.

For the old school fans, there are some nice homages to the original. I am not going to spoil them, but when you see or hear them you'll smile. There's also some flourishes of the original's black comedy as well.

Now to the ugly parts, first thing is the pacing. This is a retooling of the Robocop series that has been modernized, but lacks the clever satire of the original movie. Instead of giving a funny but painfully true statement about American society, it beats it into your head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Funny enough, if Padilla wasn't on this project I'd imagine this would've (love his games through) been called Hideo Kojima's RoboCop. I would've expected Sellars to cough up a 15 minute monologue of how Corporatism is helping the country, but thankfully not before the final battle.

Many of the concepts in the movie are told through dialogue as opposed to the original’s showing via in movie TV Spots/Character actions, but then again this is a basic concept in movie making. I think this was the screenwriter’s attempt to convey the message to a younger audience but it backfired.

Finally and sadly though, Kinneman doesn't convey the pathos Peter Weller did in the 1987 iteration. What sold me on him was his face, but unfortunately Kinnaman doesn't emote the stoic presence Weller had. He does retain the slow stilted movement of the 1987 iteration had. Cornish also had a phoned in performance mostly due to her not having much characterization besides being the worried wife. This made the supposed emotional moments lack the intended impact.

Overall, it's a solid action movie that sloppily gets the point of the 1987 classic. A great supporting cast helps out a struggling lead, has some great set pieces, and themes for your average movie-goer to think about. The pacing does bog down, and the ham fisted social commentary get in the way of surpassing the original.

As a retooling it's great, but as a replacement it fails.