
You've got a number of weapons to lethally take down aggressive guards, but they all feel puny and ineffectual, taking four or five shots to down a single guard on the Normal difficulty setting.

This is especially frustrating given that the gameplay doesn't really hold up once you've been spotted. Also, without radar and vision cones, it's never clear when you'll be spotted and when you won't. There were numerous times when I'd carefully surveil an area, listening for guards, only to turn a corner and stumble head-first into a soldier that simply wasn't moving. I'm not sure that this more patient system is an improvement, though. The audio design in Ground Zeroes is fantastic, with every guard's footstep echoing off whatever surface they're patrolling. Without the aid of an infallible radar, you'll be sitting quietly and listening quite a bit. This marking system (similar to the one seen in Far Cry games and more recent installments in the Splinter Cell series) is useful when you've got a high vantage point. In its place, Snake can mark visible enemies with his binoculars, making them appear as visible waypoints wherever they walk. The all-important radar that showed the location of every nearby enemy in previous games is gone. But where Metal Gear previously relied on Snake's numerous gadgets, Ground Zeroes focuses much more on observation. It's still a game about stealth, of course. Ogling aside, Ground Zeroes is the biggest departure for the series since the original Metal Gear Solid. Searchlights scan the camp looking for intruders, stark white against the pitch-black sky.

Tents whip in the wind and puddles form around Snake's prone, soaking wet body. Snake begins his mission on a cliff's edge in the midst of a rainstorm, and the attention to detail is remarkable. Once the gameplay begins, Ground Zeroes remains visually impressive - there's no pre-rendered trickery.
