Anyone have a method of getting past the first tower guard on hard for the GZ level? This is the biggest run killer for me and I'm detected 90% of the time.

I suppose you could try out the ricochet strat (check out the beginning of the IL run below). You could restart checkpoint once Snake climbs up the cliff past the tower, but I doubt it's necessary. You have to time the ricochet shot at a right time at a right spot for the strat to work though.

FYI, if you plan on submitting an IL run or a full game run to the GZ leaderboard, the difficulty doesn't matter much.