A cybernetic ninja and his robot dog save the world.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a part of the Metal Gear series, but where those games focused on stealth and espionage Rising focuses on fast paced action and slashing up tons of enemies. But I was surprised to find that Rising actually feels a lot like a Metal Gear Solid game, which at times I wished it didn't.
The story of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is set after the events of MGS4. You play as Raiden, who is now working for Maverick a Private Military Company. His company and himself are protecting a VIP when they're attacked. The VIP is killed and Raiden badly wounded. He gets fixed up, and in doing so becomes even more cyborg then before, and more powerful. He then begins his journey to take down the people who attacked him and then save some brains or stop an attack on the president.
The reality is that Rising has a very Metal Gear story. Its convoluted, strange and references older games constantly. I consider myself a pretty big Metal Gear fan, and I have very little idea whats happening at any given point. But I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Metal Gear story, so I still had fun watching it all play out.
I will say that while the story isn't too great the game actually has some interesting characters and funny moments. The Metal Gear series has never taken itself to seriously, and Rising is no different.Raiden can wear a sombrero, you have a robot dog as your partner, a eccentric German doctor called Doktor, and Raiden is spouting off one liners. Its a dumb game, but in a really REALLY good way.
One aspect that is disappointing is some of the ways the game handles women. Your female support agent, who handles your saving, wears a shirt half open. There are posters of women on the walls that Raiden can cut their clothes off to see their bikini, and even one of the bosses is wearing a thong at one point. It's a part of the Metal Gear series, but it's also kind of gross.Though to be fair, their are a series of collectibles called Men in Boxes, which are statues of some of the games male enemies posed in a sexy way with boxes. Did I mention this game is strange?
Luckily Rising has really fun and fluid combat, which more then makes up for the strange and overly complex story. The actual combat is focused around fighting a small group of enemies at a time, using a combination of light and heavy attacks. Blade mode is the other part of Rising's combat. At any time you can pull the left trigger, and slow down time, then using the right stick or face button slice up enemies (or anything really) .
Cutting a big cyborg robot thing up into a hundred little pieces is satisfying and looks amazing. But on console at least, I found the frame-rate to drop quite badly if I cut up to much stuff in one area. Luckily the game gets rid of those pieces rather quickly so none of the drops lasted more then a few seconds.
Button mashing random combos will usually result in success against weaker, early game enemies. But harder and late game enemies will be able to dodge and block certain attacks, or will force you to use blade mode. Strangely enough Metal Gear Rising Revengeance also supports stealth, to some degree. In a nod to the Metal Gear Solid games, Raiden can actually hide in boxes and barrels, using these to sneak up behind unsuspecting enemies. You can also avoid some combat by sneaking by enemies. Thankfully none of the stealth is forced on you, outside of one short segment where you take over a little robot dude. If you want you can just go crazy and kill everyone, which the game fully supports.
During combat you earn BP, battle points. After missions or during a mission you can upgrade Raiden and change his weapons, outfit and more. The upgrade system is a bit limited, but still has enough depth that I found my 2nd playthrough to be just as fun as my first. Unlocking new moves or weapons, upgrading those weapons and discovering new outfits all made me more excited to jump right back into Metal Gear Rising.
Throughout the game's combat sequences and boss fights I found the camera to be less then ideal. At times it wildly snaps away from where I was looking or attacking. Or sometimes the game decided to lock on to a moment causing me to lose where I am on the screen. Its frustrating, especially on harder difficulties. This became more aggravating when it caused me to miss some attacks and even cost me a few deaths against tougher bosses. It left me wishing the game had some sort of lock on.
The other thing that got in the way of combat was the cut-scenes, some which can be pretty long. I would sometimes be pumped up after fighting a few waves of enemies, and I was ready to take a whole bunch more on- when I would be greeted to a cut-scene. Some are short, but some really drag on. I usually enjoyed Metal Gear Solid's cut-scenes but in a game as fast paced and action heavy as this, I found most of them to just feel like a momentum killer. Plus, some of the cutscenes have some less then pretty visuals or effects. In particular the highway chase cut-scene in the middle half of the game looks pretty terrible, though luckily its short.
Rising itself is surprisingly short. 5 hours for me,on normal, not including cut-scenes. The game is split up into 7 chapters and a prologue chapter. The only strange thing is how some of these chapters are set up. Towards the end I ran into a chapter that was made up of only one boss fight and two cut-scenes. Though it was a pretty cool fight, it felt strange for it to be its own chapter, considering it only took me 10 minutes to beat it.
Speaking of boss fights, they are some the best parts of Metal Gear Rising. Each felt different and challenged different combat techniques I had been using up till that point. One of my favorites uses an explosive shield. You have to use blade mode to cut a certain area of the shield, otherwise you'll explode and take a bunch of damage. For me at least, I had treated blade mode as a way to just go crazy and cut dudes and robots up. But this fight made me use blade mode in a different way, and while challenging at first, by the end I felt like a bad-ass.
But the final boss felt out of place and lazy. I won't spoil who you fight or why, but the final boss is just a giant damage sponge who spams attacks randomly. It didn't feel very fun, and wasn't terribly rewarding when I finally won. Plus the camera at certain points made me want to rip my hair out. For a game I was enjoying quite a lot, it was a real crappy way to end it.
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is solid action game, with a strange story and weird characters. It doesn't take its self to seriously, which is nice. It also feels like a Metal Gear game, which I wasn't expecting. What I enjoyed about the game was the fast paced action, some stupid-in-a-good-way moments, and a satisfying combat system. But overly long cut-scenes, the way it handles the only female characters in the game, a slightly wonky camera and a rather short campaign left a sour taste in my mouth. Still Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is a fantastic and fun,but sadly short action game. If you are not a fan of the Metal Gear series you might find your self skipping cut scenes and scratching your head wondering what the hell is going on. Don't worry, nobody really knows anymore. Just go cut some bad guys up.
