Victory Game Center

http://www.konami.jp/mgs5/
VGA 2012 Debut trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kav2t0spyE
GDC 2013 trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm6AeNT0Jqo
English E3 2013 trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMyoCr2MnpM
English E3 2014 trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pPXuFNGEr8
English E3 2015 trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJVxPAiB7as

I saw Sony's E3 2014 conference in theaters. When the trailer for Phantom Pain came on, a guy in the back was screaming. Trying to get the audience to scream with him. Failing, he yells, "Yo! Why is nobody shouting?"

The whole theater had been transfixed.

And not because they were a quiet audience. The theater practically exploded in screams when Hotline Miami 2 was announced.

Launch trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alxN1i1GagM

This is the view overlooking the outpost from the first mission after the prologue. Miller's being held in there somewhere. Find him. Get him out.

It really is a great start to the game proper. It evokes the very best of the Far Cry games while still heavily demanding proficient stealth. Engaging the enemy is fool-hardy and dangerous. Even more so if you've a target to protect. But if you've been playing enough Ground Zeroes prior to this, you should be well prepared. Kojima said somewhere that The Phantom Pain would be easier for players who struggled with Ground Zeroes because it would be much more open with many more opportunities to retreat and hide off somewhere. Unlike the Ground Zeroes camp, which left little room for error on its little island.

It feels like a far more mature Peace Walker, with many of its ideas expanded and refined to more appropriately fit both the theme and the platform. For example, between every mission in Peace Walker, it was implied that a chopper picked you up and took you back to Mother Base. This sometimes felt wildly inappropriate, but it fit within the bite-size mission constraint of the PSP. Now remove those limitations, give it an open world appropriate for 2015, and now you can stay out in the field for as long as you want, and manually request a resupply whenever you really need it. There's no need to go home after every mission (though it is unwise to stay out there too long). Just open up your iDroid if you want to manage Mother Base or accept a new mission. It feels so much better and goes a long way toward making this feel like one of the best open world games ever made.

As last year's Thief made clear, open world plus stealth make for a killer combo. Even Dying Light understands this, with many of its finest moments taking place at night, when evasion becomes your primary tactic. The Phantom Pain shines just as bright, if not brighter. I've just played a mission that had me blowing the communication dishes off the top of three structures in an enemy outpost. I infiltrated it at night, carefully planted C4 on all three dishes undetected, moved outside the perimeter of the outpost, called my horse, blew the charges, and galloped off into the night like I was never even there. It was one of the most awesome little moments I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a game like this. It was like one of those TV shows or movies, where the bad guy's have somehow secretly planted explosives all over the place despite the security detail. It felt just like that.

I'm happy to say that every moment of the game so far has been absolutely golden.

Botching an infiltration really feels devastating. Your options are to either break off the engagement, hide, and try again later, or break out your guns and brute force your way through. Let me tell you, the brute force option never leaves you feeling good about yourself afterward.

First boss fight of the game is against the Skull Unit that appeared out of the mist during the Miller extraction mission. They freaked me out big time back then, because I wasn't able to avoid them, and they relentlessly pursued me across the desert as we galloped toward where I thought the LZ was. They were so aggressive and fast, I could barely even open my iDroid in time to verify I was heading in the right direction!

The second encounter was no less intimidating. What a great battle though, an intense fight against a fearsome foe. Having one of the Skulls warp in front of you while wielding a blade overhead, and quick diving out of the way as he swings it down at you was so awesome. I love the dive. You've then got to scramble back up to your feet, get some distance on them, and try shooting back. Eventually the mist descends, and you're running around blind against them. At which point, you pull out the Honey Bee rocket launcher that you retrieved earlier in the mission, aim into the mist, and hope to lock onto something. And when you do, fire away!

My capture of the second commander in the Red Brass mission - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmuZT2Ygvl8&t=4m13s

I love the idea of the commander standing in his room, surrounded by soldiers, thinking he couldn't be safer, and then having Big Boss crash through the window to abduct him in the middle of the night.

Going back and listening to David Hayter's Snake makes me really glad they've gone with Kiefer Sutherland for the English voice.

I naturally prefer infiltration missions at night, but then I'd be missing out on all the day-time beauty of the Afghanistan desert. So now whenever I accept a mission, I always choose to depart ASAP, leaving the black uniform behind.