Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (2014) - Hot Zone Cuba
Added 2025-10-09 03:36:02 +0000 UTCThe 1970s have shaped up to be an incredible decade for Big Boss. He’s doubled, perhaps even tripled or quintupled his bodycount (sexual). He’s marginally added to his other bodycount (people he has killed). He has come up with a completely baffling reason to decide The Boss actually sucked that will allow him to pretend like he isn’t completely haunted by what happened in Tselinoyarsk. And now, fresh off the heels of an exciting battle with a naked adult orphan, he is cashflow positive for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, this is owed to a line of work so morally corrosive that he sounds like Coleman Francis after only a year in business. But fret not: our hero may now sound like a bored, morally ambivalent sleazeball, but he’s still game to rescue the helpless from the clutches of evil. His mission: enter the American blacksite at Camp Omega in Cuba, and rescue Chico and Paz.
Ground Zeroes may be the greatest overpriced game ever made. It’s slightly offensive that they charged people $40 for this in 2014, but it was the best the series ever looked and played. The “campaign” is just a single mission that will probably only last 40 minutes if it’s your absolute first time playing and you include the cutscenes, but what an incredible mission it is. It also marks a high point in Kojima’s abilities as a director, with the opening cut scene perhaps being the best start any game has ever had. Most impressively, it nails a grim, often upsetting story and tone without ever losing its “Metal Gear-ness” in the way MGS4 so often did.
Loathe as we are to call any piece of entertainment “brave,” we’d be remiss if we did not mention what a lonely stand this game took in 2014. It was inconceivable for a hotly anticipated title in a megapopular series to feature ongoing American crimes against humanity so boldly and so directly. The industry is not exactly courageous now, but this was the era where inserting pseudo-Occupy gobbledygook into your open world sludge was the farthest anyone would go.
Strap on your non-licensed firearm, make sure your military Walkman has the right batteries, and tell Morpho to grab you a Kaluha and brandy (this is the type of shit Big Boss would drink in 1975). We’ve got approximately 5,000 Marines to tranquilize and hurl off a cliff.
Art by Josh Lynch. Theme song by Brendan James, inspired by the work of Tappi Iwase, Kazuki Muraoka and Norihiko Hibino.
Comments
They know that, they’re talking about peace walker where you have to listen to them in the menu
Nat
2025-11-05 18:40:40 +0000 UTCI hate how mad I got at Felix calling the Jak and Daxter games “second tier”.
Tyler Simpson
2025-11-04 09:33:44 +0000 UTCPlaying the series alongside the podcast has been incredibly fun...The Players Club was a great idea
EXN
2025-10-18 15:50:47 +0000 UTCWord of the episode is "scuzzy"
LetTheDawgEat
2025-10-17 23:26:14 +0000 UTC*moves away from the mic to hit the blinker*
R
2025-10-16 23:27:19 +0000 UTCExactly.
K H
2025-10-15 16:10:42 +0000 UTCI have your gun Harry
RFK'S BRAINWORM
2025-10-15 15:25:51 +0000 UTCYou guys….if you start playing the tape then just hit the middle thing to close the UI entirely….the tapes will just play….
Hardcore Virgin
2025-10-14 20:26:14 +0000 UTC“Don’t do this.” - Me when I got to the outbreak/quarantine bit
Meatwad Cosby
2025-10-14 14:22:35 +0000 UTCThe tpp episode is gonna be incredible. I believe tpp is a genuine exercise in trying to create a video game that drives people insane.
SocialistSappho
2025-10-14 08:03:59 +0000 UTCNot sure if this is intentional but 1:56:30 after Felix says "and he is culpable" there's a 10 second silence. Not sure if that's intentional or an error, like some line got cut accidentally.
Heavy Wings
2025-10-13 14:06:58 +0000 UTCPP taught me that the only way to fight child soldiers is have your own child soldiers
Ed Millibunz
2025-10-12 14:34:35 +0000 UTCFiddles are actually quite hard play
Ed Millibunz
2025-10-12 14:29:53 +0000 UTCThat's how it's pronounced in the episode.
sonowthen
2025-10-12 05:00:07 +0000 UTCTo be fair to Splinter Cell Blacklist, I think while the game at least tries to portray Guantanamo Bay as a terrible place, Sam Fisher is just meant to be a giga deepstate spook that genuinely believes this shit to be useful and all of his pals are kinda the same. Funnily enough, checked the game wiki to see if there's any info that states otherwise, but not only do they say that he's not a sadist (which I don't really buy) but that he does ignore direct orders when he feels like he has to, which kinda points out even more that he doesn't give a shit about these people. So it's not like people at Ubisoft think GTMO is all hunky-dory (though there probably are some) it's just that Fisher is a real piece of work.
Defenestraight out the door
2025-10-12 03:56:09 +0000 UTCIt's "synecdoche" not "Schenectady." Schenectady is a city in NY State. Confusingly there's a Charlie Kaufman movie called "Synecdoche, New York" which I believe was an intentional pun with Schenectady.
Roger Lord
2025-10-11 19:40:43 +0000 UTCJust finished phantom pain and I’m so excited to hear you guys thoughts on it cause god damn I cant help but walk away with the impression the game needed more time to cook, especially after having to force myself to finish chapter 2, it really does leave you with a phantom pain, I wish the fan boys that threatened Kojima to make mgs 4 had gone after Konami
Wyatt the Wallaby
2025-10-11 05:00:30 +0000 UTCI forgot about the Quiet is Chico thing lol. Real "The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish" hours.
veni
2025-10-10 22:30:37 +0000 UTCThe thing about licensed guns in games is that EA already won a lawsuit years ago over a Helicopter in one of the Battlefield Games, so legally nobody has to pay for licenses to depict military hardware. The connections between the industries is unfortunately too deep for that to matter much, unfortunately.
Vivian Irby
2025-10-10 17:35:24 +0000 UTCEhhhh, I feel the opposite of GZ. It got ripped out of PP and isn't completed because of that.
Red
2025-10-10 15:13:09 +0000 UTCi want to point out that brendan’s impressions this season have been top notch. really good stuff he does a great otacon
Tanner Robbins
2025-10-10 13:53:28 +0000 UTCOnly way to edit out vape bong rips
Degrassi Knoll
2025-10-10 13:09:50 +0000 UTCjak is really lame. jak and daxter is a very fun little psx style platformer that you can 100% in like 5 hours
bruce
2025-10-10 10:37:10 +0000 UTCHe’s not but Ocelot genuinely is
Tvvvv
2025-10-10 05:50:30 +0000 UTCKiefer is a little Hunter-esque, if you really think about it
Chapo Bath House
2025-10-10 02:56:59 +0000 UTCQuiet is chico.
Jesse DeStasio
2025-10-10 01:40:25 +0000 UTCWith this to my knowledge being the second to last episode, I’m hoping you guys do a little bonus episode for Revengeance. I know it isn’t directly canon, it is still a really neat addition to the series with a very interesting development cycle from being a story to cover what Raiden did in between MGS2 and MGS4 (freeing Sunny from The Patriots) to being cancelled to then rebrought on by Konami and shipped off to Platinum to just salvage what was there and make a unique game. Would love to hear your guys commentary on it!
BizarreJelly
2025-10-10 01:15:12 +0000 UTCKojimas my dad and he told me he did it again
Wawaweewa
2025-10-10 00:45:58 +0000 UTCHere's to you Nicola and Bart
Andrew Nicholas Bianchi
2025-10-09 23:33:03 +0000 UTChell yea to 80s-90s tech, Felix
Chuck Skooch
2025-10-09 23:22:42 +0000 UTCI wouldn't mind seeing a new Metal Gear Solid series that is updated and a bit more grounded. I'm kinda hopeful that is what the next Kojima game is secretly, mended fences with him and Konami. They sure were quite happy to put his name all over ∆, that's for certain. A Shadow Moses survival, stealth action game would be pretty sick.
Jacob Jones
2025-10-09 23:13:27 +0000 UTCI'm one of those people who went straight into Phantom Pain without playing GZ (or indeed ANY of the Peace-walker/MGS3 stuff) and all I can say is that for the first half of the game before you get yourself orientated I was a little... lost, lol.
Ian Priest
2025-10-09 23:07:35 +0000 UTCJak and Dexter lol
REALITYMAXXING
2025-10-09 21:57:39 +0000 UTCYou guys playing the re-releases means you missed out on the sponsorships that lets MSF R&D create Doritos, Mountain Dew and Axe body spray
Kevin C
2025-10-09 21:23:39 +0000 UTCTHEY PLAYED US LIKE A DAMN FIDDDALLL
Axels Pizzas
2025-10-09 21:15:54 +0000 UTCJak and Daxter III was a masterpiece
king_von_diesel
2025-10-09 20:46:30 +0000 UTCKeifer was too serious for dumb lines like “Kept you waiting, huh?” Kinda glad there wasn’t that much VA in GZ or TPP cause Kojima really got to flex his directorial muscles. I do basically remember nothing about the stories from these games despite having played them so much more recently than 1-4. Great gameplay but really never see myself going back to them.
Richard Cochnar
2025-10-09 20:41:20 +0000 UTCPut some respeck on Daxter’s name.
Tvvvv
2025-10-09 20:03:56 +0000 UTCAbsolutely. TPP has such a drop off in hidden details and interactions. There’s a lot of little moments that are so characteristically metal gear, especially goofy easter eggs, that aren’t present in TPP. I assume it’s because the game is so big and they never got to the point of being able to build in a lot of that type of stuff, and had to focus in just trying to complete the linear progression of the game (which even that ended up having its resolution scrapped)
Jackson
2025-10-09 19:59:12 +0000 UTCAll three possibilities can be true. Kojima can love celebrities, move the character in a different direction, and have it fit the story. None of these falsify the other and seem like how Kojima pursues these kind of things. It’s both heavily thought out and impulsive. Like the very deep lore to death stranding and him kind of calling Covid months before it happened along with the delivery driver boom is coupled with him adding music to the game days before it hit shelves.
Tvvvv
2025-10-09 19:56:38 +0000 UTCHe does lmao he has the same inquisitive tinge to his delivery
Jackson
2025-10-09 19:51:01 +0000 UTCSomething I love about GZ is there’s way more unique radio calls you can get from focusing on specific things from the binoculars. In V there’s very few of these, most of the time when you call in you’ll just get a basic mission reminder or random tips. I feel like the binocular radio system in V was intended to be more like GZ, but they had to cut it down a lot because they didn’t have the time to do it for the entire game. There’s a lot of mechanics in GZ that feel like they have more depth than in V
Jackson
2025-10-09 19:49:55 +0000 UTCGZ is imo, as a contained experience, the best Metal Gear. The best developed, most cinematic of the series. This is obviously in large part because it’s so short, but every time I play it I’m left stunned at the execution and filled with a bittersweet dream of what MGSV would’ve looked like if the whole game had been as well developed as GZ. The whole opening sequence leading to the reveal of snake climbing the mountain is just without competition the most invigorating moment in the entire series for me.
Jackson
2025-10-09 19:46:05 +0000 UTCI will not have Jak slander. The edgy, dark turn from Jak & Daxter to Jak II was mostly a response to the success of GTA3, and while the serious turn was pretty absurd, the game was still very good, and an improvement on the original.
Cory Gipson
2025-10-09 19:16:02 +0000 UTCi like that Felix has the same philosophy to the eras of video games being based on presidential administrations that godzilla fans have for Japanese Emperors
Tommy U
2025-10-09 18:57:10 +0000 UTCdead silence at 1:56!
red rock breast
2025-10-09 18:32:32 +0000 UTCThat's cool we got a Tommy Douglas shout out
Chapo Bath House
2025-10-09 17:49:25 +0000 UTCHas anyone mentioned that Felix sounds like Tucker Carlson when he monologues at the beginning of the episodes?
Jackson Mundie
2025-10-09 17:44:50 +0000 UTCSomeone said scuzzy around Felix a few too many times this week
Everett
2025-10-09 17:32:23 +0000 UTCa lot of the details on this game make TPP feel like the DS exclusive followup to a PS2 game
Michael Austin
2025-10-09 17:08:39 +0000 UTCkojima did it again
gooshy
2025-10-09 16:48:29 +0000 UTCDo you have the Shut Up Juel mod toggled on?
Degrassi Knoll
2025-10-09 16:21:48 +0000 UTCThis is slander against Jak and Daxter
JBS
2025-10-09 16:13:11 +0000 UTCNot nearly enough vape sounds this ep wtf am I even paying for
Smooth Shrek
2025-10-09 16:09:41 +0000 UTCWhen devs want to make a game with a more serious/darker tone they just end up making it look like Max Payne
Timmy V
2025-10-09 16:06:03 +0000 UTCJak 3 is pretty bad, its funny that Felix doesn’t seem to know Daxter was a regular guy who was cursed into becoming that horrible ferret.
Thomas Stevens
2025-10-09 15:32:15 +0000 UTCThere’s a theory that the choice to cast Sutherland as Big Boss in GZ and Venom in TPP (and not merely the latter) is a tell that you’re not actually playing GZ in real time, but experiencing retroactively it as Venom’s ‘memory’ as a result of Ocelot’s hypnogogia. That’s how the voice discrepancy between BB and Venom is accounted for.
dshamz_
2025-10-09 15:23:33 +0000 UTCEven if you don’t like either MGS 5, it’s literally incorrect to say it killed the series. Parting ways with Kojima and deciding to exclusively make soccer games and slot machines “killed the franchise.”
Layton ONeil
2025-10-09 15:15:43 +0000 UTCI cannot abide the Jak and Daxter defamation
Michael Sullivan
2025-10-09 15:07:03 +0000 UTCKaz giving idiot advice for babies is an unintentional call-forward to Liquid impersonating him in MGS1. You just gotta know that Liquid was thinking "Right. Miller. What'd that guy sound like again? Oh yeah, a smug dumb-guy-who-thinks-he's-smart giving the most obvious useless advice possible!"
DT
2025-10-09 14:57:10 +0000 UTCI get the jab at the NBGO stuff, but how do you explain shit like this?! https://www.reddit.com/r/NeverBeGameOver/s/oxdakbj0qy It’s mind-bending stuff like this that’s the reason the NBGO conspiracies exist 😂 Has Kojima done it yet again?
dshamz_
2025-10-09 14:48:32 +0000 UTChot take: this style of control scheme was done better by Splinter Cell and defaulting to it (and subsequently the large open world) is what killed this franchise and made it uninteresting after Snake Eater.
Paul Hurdle
2025-10-09 14:31:07 +0000 UTCBig Boss is an effective altruist/longtermist guy
jsobrie
2025-10-09 14:21:16 +0000 UTCI haven't played any of these games but I've listened to every one of these eps and I just realized it's mostly to hear Felix make Brendan laugh. Endearing.
Warbs
2025-10-09 14:21:05 +0000 UTC"This pirate crackdown's a go!" 🎄 🏃🏼♂️
DT
2025-10-09 14:19:18 +0000 UTCUse the term “synecdoche” in a casual conversation about MGS Ground Zero, brehs.
Eater
2025-10-09 14:08:44 +0000 UTCI'm a dumbass and don't know a better way to reach out, but this has been my favorite sub-series Chapo has done. MGS slaps, but a critical review, comparisons to contemporary events, and giving the series the time it deserves has made this a joy
Fukes
2025-10-09 14:02:39 +0000 UTCIF YOU CAN EVEN SAY… MY NAME
NO THAT IS NOT SOLID SNAKE
2025-10-09 13:37:44 +0000 UTCthese next eps are only available as tapes you access from the menu
YearsLikeFevers
2025-10-09 13:36:02 +0000 UTCMSF Christmas party, 1974: https://youtu.be/PhB_3Jz0x_s?si=6GrjngNUA_8CEHIa
FA
2025-10-09 13:32:54 +0000 UTCPrince Kiefer should've been banished into the sugar bush for the warcrime that was 24, and the ghosts of Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland set upon him like the Furies
Toshio42
2025-10-09 13:22:18 +0000 UTCNot a fan of the Jak and Daxter slander. Not a good look fellas
Colto
2025-10-09 11:59:48 +0000 UTCLegit LOL at "Godsmackification"
Mark Murphy
2025-10-09 11:59:09 +0000 UTCIt took too many episodes to get to the Ocelot mpreg discussion.
Mountain Dew Or Crab Juice
2025-10-09 10:41:07 +0000 UTCMGSV: The Palpable Scuzz
bruce
2025-10-09 10:39:41 +0000 UTCMafia Old Country was $50 but next to zero replayability
Paul Hurdle
2025-10-09 09:44:53 +0000 UTCI don’t understand what they think is inconsistent about skull face’s character.
Tvvvv
2025-10-09 08:46:10 +0000 UTC1:54:00 Felix admitting to following the Hot Mother Base Girls Account instagram.
Tvvvv
2025-10-09 08:04:20 +0000 UTCThe phantom pain is thinking there is more story to tell.
RAB
2025-10-09 07:05:05 +0000 UTCThe use of “Here’s to You” in the opening cinematic was so good.
Magical Drinking
2025-10-09 06:47:21 +0000 UTCThe Players club eps aren't showing up in my Spotify feed, anyone else?
Liz
2025-10-09 06:42:17 +0000 UTCreally hope they talk about the combat deployment in phantom pain where it's heavily implied u send the diamond dogs to go stop sabra and shatila
officer delicious
2025-10-09 05:50:09 +0000 UTCOne of the deluded psychos who believe that the no ending-ending is intentional here. In a simplified explanation, Kojima is being Pomo. It’s kojima doing infinite jest. It’s kojima finishing his American Cold War epic literally referencing Melville, Orwell, and the Bible saying this is the end and there is no end. Just as in life, as expressed throughout the game, there is no end. When the parasites consume your corpse and only their cells remain, you are still there. This is literally mentioned in the game by code talker. The guy who talks in code but also pure exposition. There’s also no end to the empire or the Cold War. Like the ending is the White Whale in a sense. Or the ending is the endless war in 1984. The journey is the point, not the ending. There’s also no end to the gameplay, keep being big boss. Build your empire. Take on other big boss’s The references to a possible unfinished ending are similar to the fan service ending of 4 or the hidden ending of peace walker. It’s the thing he has done for multiple games where he integrates everything he likes into it and one of the things he likes is saying “fuck you” to the fans. Also the fan blade, V shape, peace symbol, headless shadows, and moats of light are clearly all intentional subtext. You never leave the hospital. The phantom pain is never being able to leave the traumatic event that is the catalyst for the endless pain and bloodshed and imposing trauma on others. As they mention in the episode, it is literally hypnotherapy. You are playing a guy who is hypnotized. So the feeling of being hypnotized is an element of the game play.
Tvvvv
2025-10-09 05:31:51 +0000 UTCI replayed it again recently and i think it holds up atleast in the gameplay department but the episodic nature of the narrative is a bit dull and obviously falls apart after chapter 2. Overall tho still rocks cock imo
January99th
2025-10-09 05:03:49 +0000 UTCi can’t imagine how tedious putting hundreds of hours into phantom pain would have been but i was kinda checked out on games in 2015 i think
Paul Hurdle
2025-10-09 04:41:24 +0000 UTCI did have fun with this tiny lil game, but I still demand justice for David Hayter.
Tim Browne
2025-10-09 04:37:56 +0000 UTCIt would be so fuckin crazy if in the late 1970s there was an unaccountable nation with a modern military that had secret nuclear weapons. Velas interesting indeed.
Zack Burke
2025-10-09 04:31:16 +0000 UTCthank you
Spoons Too High On Wall
2025-10-09 04:07:18 +0000 UTCI'm just as hyped for this episode as I was for the release of this game
Tim Lunning
2025-10-09 03:57:36 +0000 UTC5 minutes in and loving it, but this is absolutely the most twisting Felix has had to make this game have “good” politics
David Browm
2025-10-09 03:55:37 +0000 UTCTwo hours?? I beat this game in like 40 mins
Rio
2025-10-09 03:47:47 +0000 UTCIt's a shame there are no longer a legion of dubious websites paying Felix to write articles in this voice; he was very good at it.
jack flowers
2025-10-09 03:45:31 +0000 UTCHas Brendan released the song he wrote anywhere? Also he should put agent of harm back on his soundcloud
jack flowers
2025-10-09 03:43:57 +0000 UTC(also this blowback season is the best yet. We see you, O occluded one )
JDF
2025-10-09 03:41:39 +0000 UTCslop for right now right now
Nijimura Okuyasu
2025-10-09 03:40:45 +0000 UTCThese ep descriptions are fucking priceless 💎
JDF
2025-10-09 03:39:14 +0000 UTCThese make me so happy. Thank you, boys!
Robert Parkinson
2025-10-09 03:38:16 +0000 UTCslop for work tomorrow
Xander Norris
2025-10-09 03:37:50 +0000 UTCI wish I played these
collin
2025-10-09 03:37:42 +0000 UTC
