Metal Gear Solid V & The Bizarre Practice of Early Reviews

Gone are the days when we could play a game without knowing everything about it beforehand. When my 14-year-old self popped Metal Gear Solid 3 into the Playstation 2, do you know what I thought? “Damn, I can’t wait to see what Solid Snake and Otacon are gonna' get up to in this game." I was in for a big shock! I hadn’t tried to avoid any information about the game, nor did I actively seek it out...yet here we are years later and some people literally cannot avoid Metal Gear Solid V spoilers when the game is not even out yet.

Select games media outlets have been allowed to play Metal Gear Solid V at length, at special review events. Holed up in a swanky hotel; expenses covered, playing the version of Metal Gear Solid V that Konami have chosen (probably not the PC version) all so they can be the first to post their review of Metal Gear Solid V and Konami can bag the most pre-orders and day one purchases as possible. There are of course, several problems with this:

1. These aren’t even full reviews.

The online components of Metal Gear Solid V have not yet been reviewed, because they have not yet been played. Some of the reviewers state they will “edit the review at a later date” or “post a second review just for the online play” yet this will only serve to inconvenience the consumer as they will either have multiple reviews to sift through from the same site, or have to look back through to see if and when the review has been updated to include what seems to be a major part of the experience. The fact that Konami didn’t allow these early reviewers to play the online component should come as a surprise to nobody; these things usually have teething problems either way but for something that might play heavily into the mechanics of Mother Base, it should be covered in a full review of the game, not just brushed off until a later date.

2. Massively increased chance of leaked information or story spoilers.

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of people who will buy Metal Gear Solid V would have done so regardless of these early reviews or their scores. These are people who want to experience the game for themselves, it’s nice to know the general score of a game but a week in advance of release? When you invite people to play your game extensively you are running an increased chance of spreading spoilers around the internet, even just hidden things people might want to discover for themselves. If someone comes across these spoilers after release then you could say they maybe should have played the game by now but before they could’ve possibly got their hands on the game? That’s just cruel.

The Kinda Funny Games Youtube channel has even been posting let’s plays of full missions. For one, I don’t know why anyone would want to potentially lessen their own experience by watching someone else play a massive chunk of the game before they themselves do. Second, barely any other Youtube channel has access to the game at this point; Kinda Funny Games has posted far more of this game than any other game they’ve previously covered simply because they know it will drive traffic to them. Usually I’d say that’s fair enough but this is not a level playing field.

3. No disclosure.

Not one of these early reviews has mentioned just how or why they suddenly have access to Metal Gear Solid V well before its release date. There is a clear conflict of interest here. When things like this are systematically not disclosed on such a large-scale, it serves to make the whole profession of games journalism seem more shady than even the music industry. Konami should be confident enough in their product to just have it reviewed normally like every other game and journalists should be confident in the quality of their criticism.

4. Limited time leads to rushed reviews.

Another game received rushed out early reviews was Metal Gear Solid 4 and as we’ve mentioned in our still ongoing review of the game, the reviewers didn’t take the time to get to know just how broken and awful the game really was. They gave perfect 10s to a game that was far from perfect and pushed the reviews out hoping to get the most traffic. While I am confident that Metal Gear Solid V will be leagues above Metal Gear Solid 4, how can we ever trust journalists who will spend a limited amount of time on a game and assume they know enough to write a full review? Especially when MGSV seems so complex.

Of the reviews I have read, I already see two massive omissions, things I would have covered in as much depth as possible are not mentioned once. First, Troy Baker as Ocelot, he is terrible, he ruins Ocelot, he sounds ridiculous and nothing like Patrick Zimmerman who’s voice is ingrained into my head. This is the man who played Snow Villiers for god sake! However, Troy Baker is great at impressions, he could have easily pulled off a similar thing to Patrick Zimmerman and it wouldn't have been so jarring for people who are so used to that character. Never mentioned once.

Second, is the enemy AI totally broken like it was in MGS4? Is there more of a military precision focus with Motosada Mori being a bit more involved like he was in Metal Gear Solid 2, where the enemy AI works together to flush out or corner Snake? Or do enemies run around a bit more aimlessly or sometimes stand doing nothing while grenades explode around them like in Metal Gear Solid 4? Never mentioned once. You would think one of these early reviews would at least give a mention to these issues.

To read more about why this is bad and wrong, check out these two articles on Deepfreeze: Quick & Dirty & The Stick & the Doritos. So what do you think? Are early reviews damaging the gaming industry or sucking a bit of excitement out of releases or do you find they give a fair representation of a game you may or may not buy on day one? Let us know in the comments below.

(Disclosure: This article was originally created for Gamesnosh.com)