I love the Metal Gear Series. I think I once spent a whole hour trying to read one of the really huge documents in Sons of Liberty. I remember seeing the first ad for the original game on the back of a comic book and geeking out at all the gadgets you had. Binoculars, sweet. Mines, cool. Night Vision Goggles, omigod!! Metal Gear is where stealth games basically started, the way I see it. Guns of the Patriots was the reason I bought a PS3 and it’s nearest competitor, Splinter Cell was the reason I picked up my first original Xbox. I’ve played every main game.

To go over the entire story of Metal Gear is a project in and of itself. For the sake of the trailer below, understand that Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots was the last story for Solid Snake (known as Old Snake in that game). This game focuses on his father, Big Boss, who was the hero of my favorite game in the series, Snake Eater. This time, Big Boss is brought to Afghanistan via Revolver Ocelot to rescue someone named Miller, among a million other things. I’m under the impression that this perhaps was the Miller from the original Metal Gear Solid (though I think maybe he’d be much younger here if that were the case).

You’d think that a new MGS wouldn’t have much to bring to the table, and that they covered just about everything. The new open world sandbox format is very different from the linear set up of all the other games. Even Guns of the Patriots, with it’s huge maps was still confined to something of a smaller space. And man does it look fantastic. Basically, what you have is Red Dead Redemption in a Metal Gear Universe.

I have no idea what The Phantom Pain refers to, though I’m already curious about the cast of characters in this one. I was hoping for a cast that was a bit more over the top in nature. Also of note is that it doesn’t appear that David Hayter is voicing Snake anymore, with Konami pulling a Ubisoft and going with a total changeover in the same thread of Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Ubisoft dropped Michael Ironside for a new vocal and motion capture talent.

Either way, MGSV is shaping up to be interesting.