Review - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - A Painful Lesson in Blocking

Slashy - Slashy

The latest installation in the Metal Gear franchise is a game about Raiden, a cyborg ninja, who runs around cutting stuff up. Raiden, if you are not familiar, was first introduced in Metal Gear Solid 2 as the game's main protagonist and later shows up in Metal Gear Solid 4 as his cyborg self.  Revengeance takes place about 4 years (in the game world) after Metal Gear Solid 4 and it appears that Raiden is a lot more robotic than I remember him.  He is off to save the world after the security job he is on goes a bit screwy... pretty standard stuff.  Throughout the game we get some insights into Raiden and he, despite being mostly robot, becomes a bit more human in our eyes.  Yup that's right folks the Tin Man does have a heart after all...

Cut to pieces... yummy!

On to the game...  The game for all intents and purposes is a hack and slash game. There are some stealth elements reminiscent of the Metal Gear franchise as a whole but they are pretty much optional.  As in other Metal Gear games there is a warning meter that tells you whether or not you have been detected by the enemy it will be yellow to indicate someone is looking for you or red if someone has identified you if it is green you are incognito. In terms of combat there are a few options some new and some 'classic' to the series.  First of all you are using a sword: this is new. You don't get any guns in this game so if you don't like slashing away at robots stay away from this game. You also get special weapons from beating bosses which you can use with the heavy attack button and link into combos. Your main weapon (sword) can also be used just as effectively to make combos.  There are numerous secondary weapons such as grenades, rockets, and stealth items (boxes) which you can select from the in-game menu. Upgrades are available for Raiden by collecting points from downed enemies and item boxes scattered throughout the game.  Full upgrading takes time and multiple play throughs to maximize your score.

The bosses are well designed and although they are tough (read nearly impossible at times) the battle is eventually entertaining. There is one trick to killing every boss in the game - BLOCK.  My one axe to grind with this game is that there is no dedicated blocking button you have to hit the attack button and use the joy stick to gesture in the direction of the enemy attack. If you haven't mastered this by the time you get to the 'monsoon' boss, well I'm telling you now you are f**ked. Once you have mastered blocking the bosses go from impossible to suddenly pretty OK.

Enemies are quite varied in their difficulty. 90% of all the cyborgs you face can be felled in a combo or so, if you get bored you can go into blade mode and sever their limbs or something... whatever floats your boat. The remaining 10% are just annoying to kill if you don't stealth kill them or use your brain (this is a hack an slash game why must we think!?!?!?!?!?!?).  The flying enemies can generally be avoided and take like 2-3 hits to kill, however, they like to fly just out of jumping range as that is the smart thing for them to do and the annoying thing for them to do to you.  The gorilla cyborgs have got to be the most annoying enemy group, especially if you are dealing with more than one.  Their attacks can drain your health tremendously and the amount of time you have to escape from their attacks is minimal.  They have one weakness though... you can though a gas grenade and it mucks up their 'targeting'  that makes them flail around just asking for you to cut off limbs.

Notice the Boots... cool dog though

Character designs are a bit varied.  Bosses look stunning and have some cool maneuvers; however, Raiden looks like some kind of mechanical street walker with his metal high heeled feet.  Would it not be better to have flexible looking feet... I don't know about you all but if they were making some cyborg feet for me I'd want something a bit more sporty and a lot less... uhh... fetishy... but maybe that is just me. The normal bad guys all look pretty cool... the bug like droids are kinda creepy but fun and the dog bots are vicious but somewhat loveable.




The good:
- Story is interesting
- Boss fights are epic
- Good graphics

The bad:
- If you can't block you are toast
- Uneven difficulty
- Stealth elements are pretty much useless

The ugly:
- Raidens metallic hooker boot feet... I'm scarred for life