Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Preview for Xbox 360

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Preview for Xbox 360

Metal Gear: Bayonetta?

About once every ten or fifteen years, the Metal Gear franchise adds a new word to its name and dramatically shifts its gameplay focus. In 1998, plain old “Metal Gear” became “Metal Gear Solid,” and the gameplay shifted into 3D. In 2012 will come the first installment of “Metal Gear Rising,” subtitled “Revengeance,” and the move is guaranteed to be controversial.

The problem isn’t that anyone expects Revengeance to be a bad game. Metal Gear kings Kojima Productions will be involved, and they’re teaming up with Platinum Games, makers of Bayonetta and Vanquish, two of the best games of the past several years. Rather, the problem is that the stealth aspects of the series have been shunted aside, and Revengeance will focus on hack-and-slash action. In other words, Revengeance will have the Metal Gear name on it, but it won’t be a true Metal Gear title. To a hardcore fan, Metal Gear without stealth is like Mario without jumping—starting a new sub-franchise called “Rising” doesn’t change that.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

That said, you have to respect such a gutsy move. Back when the game was called Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the plan was to make it a blend of action and stealth—something that could satisfy the series faithful while attracting new players. But instead of settling for half-measures, the powers that be canceled the project, brought in Platinum, and resurrected the game with a new name and a complete devotion to action.

And fans of action games have a lot to look forward to. You will control Raiden, a cyborg equipped with katanas that are capable of cutting through just about anything. Whereas Solid Snake has to lurk in the shadows and figure out clever ways to take out big enemies, Raiden goes toe-to-toe with an army of Metal Gears and comes out alive. The fluid, fast-paced, stylish fighting we saw in Bayonetta is definitely present in Revengeance’s trailer. No, it’s not what the Metal Gear name is supposed to stand for, but it’s still awesome.

A major new feature of the gameplay is its free-form cutting system, called “free-slicing mode,” which will allow you to control Raiden’s every movement as he hacks items into little bits. You’ll be given a targeting reticule to guide your strikes, and virtually everything in the game’s environments will be destructible. There’s no word on whether this system will support Kinect or Move, but I, for one, would not mind some motion-controlled savagery with a sharp blade.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

Another innovative element will be a change to how you take items from fallen enemies—you’ll have to cut them out of their bodies. There will also be other standard action features, including bullet time, a fast dash in the style of Vanquish, and the ability to carry weapons besides Raiden’s trademark katanas (a dagger, for example).

The aesthetics of Revengeance will be a change from the rest of the franchise as well. Raiden has a bit of an emo vibe about him, including a feminine face and a stupid haircut. He even says things like “Let’s have some fun!” before his rampages. Metal Gear has always been a little cheesy, especially in its dialogue, but I usually got the sense it was unintentional. Here, judging by the trailer, almost everything the characters say is self-consciously silly.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

But even Metal Gear fans who aren’t crazy about the new direction might want to play Revengeace to follow the story. Revengeance will add to the series’ ridiculous, convoluted plot by explaining Raiden’s backstory and adding to his lore. Raiden was a feared child soldier, known as “Jack the Ripper,” during the First Liberian Civil War. Today, he lives by the code of the samurai. (In keeping with Metal Gear tradition, we will probably learn about his childhood and philosophy through some incredibly long, incredibly awkward cutscene conversations.) Revengeance’s plot will explain what happens to him after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, though the exact details have not yet been released.

Also, while Sony has done a decent job of keeping Metal Gear games tied exclusively to PlayStation consoles, that bond seems to be breaking. The recent HD Collection brought most of the classic games to the Xbox 360, and a remake of the collection’s biggest missing piece (the original Metal Gear Solid) has been long available for Gamecube as “Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.” Revengeance will continue this trend—Xbox 360 owners will be able to pick it up right alongside their PS3-owning friends. Maybe this is a sign that we could one day see Metal Gear Solid 4, too.

No doubt, Revengeance deserves skeptical glances from the Metal Gear faithful. It’s virtually guaranteed to be a Metal Gear game in name only. But given the sheer amount of talent that’s behind this title, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t work extremely well as a hack-and-slash action game. We’ll find out if I’m right next year.

Game Features:

  • Developed by Platinum Games, creators of Bayonetta and Vanquish.
  • A bold, new, action-focused direction for the Metal Gear franchise.
  • Free-slicing mode allows players to cut along any geometric plane with Raiden’s katanas.


  • The Return of Raiden

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is not a normal, run of the mill Metal Gear Game. Instead of stealth and espionage, the game is all about being surrounded by cyborg ninjas. Instead of stabbing your enemies in the back, you slice them into tiny pieces and rip out their spines. Instead of taking out people with well-timed headshots, you blow them up with rocket launchers and then intercept them in mid-air with a blade that is as long as your body. Honestly, I don’t know why I expected anything different from the creators of Bayonetta, and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

    Raiden has gotten a couple upgrades since we last saw him. First of all, he is incredibly fast. Simply moving around takes place at lightning speeds, far faster than Solid Snake ever moved. Raiden can even expend some of his power (a limited resource) to ninja-run, making him even faster and harder to detect. This allows him to run away from enemies easily if they are starting to overwhelm him—except that rarely happens.

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

    That’s because Raiden is more powerful now than ever, far more powerful than even the biggest mob of enemies. His two basic attacks are the quick slash and the wide slash. Quick slashes are quicker, (duh) but they tend to only focus on one enemy at a time. Wide slashes are slower and more powerful, and they hit a much wider arc around you. Combining these two attacks together will create ludicrous combos that will break through your enemies’ defenses in no time.

    Once you pound on your enemies enough, you can go into “blade mode,” which slows down time around Raiden. In this mode, you are given a targeting reticule which shows exactly what portion of your enemy’s body you are aiming at. You then use the right thumbstick to angle your slashes precisely and chop off enemy limbs, heads, and other nasty parts. This allows you to attack certain enemy weak points for incredible damage, even killing some of them in one shot. Lesser enemies are easily sliced into little tiny pieces with one precision strike. In fact, if you are precise enough, you can actually cut an enemy’s spine out of him, allowing Raiden to rip it out and regain his energy. However, a sloppy slice will sever the spine, which prevents you from collecting this bonus. Of course, you can always just chop an enemy into tiny bits before they hit the ground, which ups your combo count, which in turn ups the resources you gain from the enemy’s death. Enemies slice open in hilarious gushes of what would be blood if it weren’t bright and glowing. It’s like an amazing fight scene from a hardcore samurai anime, complete with dismemberment every three seconds.

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

    Much of the game’s combat is about how to get enemies into this vulnerable state that allows you to slice them apart. If an enemy is blocking horizontally, you can always choose to slice him apart vertically. If an enemy has a gigantic shield, you can blow it away with a firearm before running him through. Beating up enemies in the right ways will allow you to launch them in the air, then do a follow-up finisher which automatically puts you into blade mode, allowing you to slice them to bits. Not only that, but sneaking up on enemies allows you to stealth kill them in one shot without even initiating battle.

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

    In fact, you can go entirely unnoticed if you really want to, and I suppose playing this way is quite a bit like other Metal Gear games. If you alert the enemy to your presence he will call reinforcements, which will cause you to have to slice more enemies down, and although Raiden is a true god of the sword, he can be mowed down if you choose to be too reckless too often.

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Screenshot

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance doesn’t honestly feel like a Metal Gear game. It feels like a high speed anime-style action game, and I’m OK with that. It moved fast, gave me just the right amount of challenge, and constantly fed my adrenaline by giving Raiden opportunities to cut the heads off of giant bipedal walkers. It’s like Ninja Gaiden, if Ninja Gaiden took place in a futuristic war-torn world dreamed up by Hideo Kojima. In fact, that’s the only thing I didn’t get much information about: the story. The Konami rep at the booth said that they were keeping story details mostly under-wraps. They also cut the demo short, simply because so many people wanted to play. This is the same demo that you will see if you pick up the Zone of the Enders HD collection, however, so we will all have a chance to get our hands on it soon.

    Game Features:

  • Brand new characters join the roster.
  • New super moves devastate your characters and add a degree of resource management to each match.
  • Continue the story seventeen years after SoulCalibur IV.

  • To top