I was cleaning up some missions last night to get ready for next Tuesday and I got to the mission where you have to rescue the informer from the base. Then when he gets on the chopper and you finally see his face and it's Hideo Kojima. Such a hilarious and awesome moment! Kojima you're a mad man.

Obviously this is a representation of Hideo Kojima's last day at Konami...

@i_stay_puft: Yeah, I didn't want to read into "Kojima being rescued from prison camp" too much, but it does make you wonder if any of that was intended.

Don't forget he's also in the back of a truck in Peace Walker! I hope he's somewhere in TPP.

@quid_pro_bono: He transfers from your GZ save if you played that mission. Don't know if you can find him in TPP elsewhere.

Now that surprised me. For some reason - somehow - the glasses tipped me off in Ground Zeroes.

I beat the game upon release, but just did the Kojima mission last weekend.

It was amazing. Those fancy glasses, man...

I've really come around on Ground Zeroes recently. This was one of the things that made me realize how phenomenal it is, weirdly enough.

If you S-rank the mission, instead of saying "what took you so long", he says "that was perfect".

Yeah, I'm getting deep into GZ again as well since I can't swing buying TPP on release. I still suck at it, but it's so much fun. If every mission in TPP is as fun and replayable as GZ (and that seems to be the case), it might be a long, long time before I'm "done" with it.

It took me a while to get used to Ground Zeroes, but once it clicked with me I fell in love with it. After everything I have seen of The Phantom Pain, I honestly believe it will be the best game I have ever played!

@shagge: I'm pretty bad at it too. I've played all the other games without too much trouble, but I don't think I've quite found this game's sweet spot between stealth and going loud.

I would say that the game is significantly easier than previous games because the alert phase is far less punishing (you can run away and hide really easily unless you are in the middle of a ton of guys) and it is much easier to save stealth in reflexes mode.

If you are having trouble, I would recommend climbing the watchtower in the warehouse and picking up the sniper rifle. Also, I found out today that it is entirely possible to kill every enemy in the entire base.

@jackburtonme: Same here. Now that I know you can drive Paz out of the base (thanks, Drew!) I think I could stealth the main mission with some patience, but those daytime missions are rough. Especially the assassination one. I have no idea how to get around some of those areas without being seen.

@bceagles128 Ha, I learned that last night while doing the "find the guard with the tape" mission. I just tranqed/choked/CQCed every guard in the base, and the last one standing was the target. That was really fun.

@bceagles128: It's pretty funny if you manage to take out every guard in the Destroy the AA Guns mission. The Mission is supposed to be in a permanent alert phase, but since all the guards are taken out it keeps switching constantly between alter phase and normal phase. And the music gets all wonky.

@weatherking: Wow that's kind of crazy! Cool though. I want Kojima in my Mother Base at all times.

@shaggeI had good luck by taking out the dude inside the admin area first. Sneak in through the underground tunnel, and pick the side gate, then hide under the building with the door you can open. When he and his crew come patrol down there, you can easily shoot or tranq them all when they're climbing down the ladder. Don't forget you can shoot in intrusion mode, with very minimal chance of being seen. The other guy is way tougher, you just have to follow his car around and figure out a way to take him out. I never like getting him at the heliport because there's a trillion dudes walking around there.

@bceagles128: I'll try that, I assumed the enemies were on infinite respawn, glad to hear they're not. Yeah, I've started to notice that a good way to take care of alerts is to just run like crazy.

Here's a hot stealth tip for all you Drew and Dans out there. Go prone.

@pompouspizza: same. I played around with it a while back, liked it but sucked at it, and felt like I didn't have time to invest to get better. Then last month when my wife was out of town, I watched some videos on how to do some of the missions, picked it up again, and played for about 4 hours straight (which I can rarely do for any video game these days). I even dreamed about it at night. Cannot wait for Phantom Pain.

I think you're mistaken, sir. I've watched the entirety of the Metal Gear Scanlon video series and saw zero evidence that Metal Gear Solid games support the prone character position. I can confirm, however, that all the games contain an abundance of grenades.

@lylebot: Just the other day I watched a tutorial on how to do all of the cool CQC shit in that game. I had no idea how to do any of it apart from grabbing someone. Maybe it says more about me that I never thought about tapping R2 to punch...

I really like how the missions and the environment work together to create naturally emergent situations. It makes every play through unique and encourages the player to experiment. I was recently playing the assassination mission and the two targets ended up having a meeting near the helipad surrounded by guards. I happened to be in an elevated position with a sniper rifle in my hands. Fired off two head shots and ran for the landing zone. Final mission stats: 2 shots fired, 2 kills, 1 alert...and a C ranking.

Got this myself a few days ago when I pre-ordered on Steam. Such a fun thing to play around with. Spending an hour tagging and killing everyone on the main mission, just to get a score on the "fastest tag all" and "fastest neutralize all" is fun, even when the percentage beaten doesn't move one percent.

@artisanbreads: I tried to make that diversion on the AA-guns myself. Managed to put C4 on the one closest to the Admin-building entrance, and the one closest to the guard tower you spawn at. Was thinking about the easiest way to get close to the third one before setting them off, but I had also gotten the prisoner out. Stashed him close to the RV-zone you start near. So instead of blowing the C4 to get to the final one, I just sniped it with the recoilless rifle I picked up from one of the guards I killed. The set off the C4, and called a chopper right away. Only to have to destroy a goddamned tank as well... That forced me to reload when everything went to shit, so instead of calling the chopper right away I mined one of the intersections with C4, and blew the tank up when it drove that way. The got out with the prisoner.

Fuck, having an entire game filled with this stuff, with more options with weapons, movement, stealth and all... pretty damn great.

@jaqen_hghar: Yeah it's kind of weird how it works with the scripted business in that mission (the tank you have to fight and also that enemies are actually on alert the whole time) but you can do it in other versions you just need to find the C4 first. In the real game you're going to be able to roll around with C4 from the start so I know I will be using this tactic.

You're right about the stuff all coming together. I can't help but think this is the smallest taste of the gameplay too because as I said you'll be able to set up your equipment from the start and be in more open areas. I am imagining doing a lot of sniping and also setting up traps for enemies that pursue me and attack my position. I figure I'll snipe and slip away once they come after me in the chaos of the C4 or claymore mines. Anyways, going to be fun to experiment.

I just saw this video and wanted to post it. Some of these details I noticed and some I did not. Either way, very cool.