After years of teaser trailers and the whole Moby Dick Studios thing, the first bit of “Metal Gear Solid V” has finally been released in the form of “Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.” Since its release, people have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how exactly to classify “Ground Zeroes.”

For all intents and purposes, “Ground Zeroes” is the prologue to the highly anticipated “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.” As such, it’s a very short experience. Going from my own playthrough of the game, it took me around two hours to complete the main story mission, while achieving only a 9 percent completion rate.

But before I get into the whole debate over length, let’s talk about the story. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I’ll try not to mention major plot points from more recent “Metal Gear” games as much as possible. “Ground Zeroes” takes place roughly a few months after the events of “Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker,” and follows legendary soldier Big Boss, aka Snake, as he seeks to recover returning characters Chico and Paz from a military base in Cuba. Since this is a “Metal Gear” game, Snake is sent in alone to rescue both Paz and Chico from the base that’s apparently the headquarters for the mysterious XOF.

Unfortunately, that’s about all I can explain so I don’t spoil what happens at the end of the game. But I will say that you find out exactly what caused Snake to both lose his left arm and end up in a coma for nine years, something shown in the first trailer for “The Phantom Pain.”

The gameplay of “Ground Zeroes” is an evolution of “Metal Gear Solid 4’s” gameplay. The controls feel much more refined and intuitive, although at times it seems easy to forget which button does what. This is the first time in the long history of “Metal Gear Solid” games that the control scheme has been entirely overhauled. It takes some getting used to, but when you get the hang of it, it feels great and makes sense.

The triangle or Y button allows you to perform contextual actions Square or X serves as the dive button, circle or B is the reload or carry button, and cross or A is the change stance button. The top buttons are used for aiming, shooting, hand-to-hand combat, using binoculars and calling Snake’s second-in-command, Kazuhira Miller, for advice. Granted, most of these buttons can be switched around to different control types, but the functions are all the same.

With that being said, “Ground Zeroes” accomplishes the extremely difficult task of blending stealth gameplay with action. Although many will disagree about whether or not the “Metal Gear Solid” series has the best stealth gameplay, it certainly has a competent system. If you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you’ll be spotted and shot multiple times. However, if you stick to the shadows, move deliberately, avoid spotlights and tread lightly, you’ll easily sneak past all of the NPCs. Of course, should you knock out guards with your tranquilizer gun or straight up kill people, you’d better hide the bodies, because the guards get easily freaked out.

“Ground Zeroes” is a fantastic game, but it suffers from a lack of length and, as such, is the subject of intense ridicule. As I said earlier, the main campaign is fairly short, but I have to say I didn’t do everything available in the game. In addition to the main story mission, there are five additional “Side Ops,” one of which has you playing as the classic PSX version of Solid Snake from the first “Metal Gear Solid.” Those missions, combined with the collectibles hiding throughout the map, boost the gameplay length to around five to eight hours depending on what kind of player you are. Of course, if you’re a “I don’t care if I’m spotted” kind of player, things will go much faster for you compared to the slow-and-steady pace of stealth players.

Does length really effect how enjoyable a game is? Well, it’s a matter of personal preference. The length of “Ground Zeroes” doesn’t bother me at all, but that’s because I’m a huge “Metal Gear Solid” fan, and I own multiple copies of the older games. It does, however, get me really hyped for “The Phantom Pain” and whatever else might come next from series creator Hideo Kojima.

In any case, if $20 to $30 is too much for you to buy a short game like “Ground Zeroes,” don’t buy it. Save your money for “The Phantom Pain” when that comes out in the future. Otherwise, I recommend playing “Ground Zeroes” if you’re a fan of the series and are dying to get your hands on anything “Metal Gear” related.

“Ground Zeroes” is out now for Xbox One, Playstation 4, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

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