This weekend I was luckily enough to grace the hall of Play Expo and play some very cool upcoming games. There was one booth though that instantly caught my eye as I walking through the press office; it stood there like some forbidden treasure in a gleaming aura of light. The Konami booth was in the middle of the entire event and plastered upon its walls was the badass pose of Metal Gear Rising’s Raiden.
For the next twenty seconds I felt like time had slowed down as I slowly ran towards the booth with my arms stretched out wide. It was like something out of a Disney advert where the small child goes to tackle the guy dressed as a mouse. It was only after slapping my press pass into the very friendly booth staff’s face that I finally got to experience the delicious demo of Metal Gear’s next instalment, and boy was it good.
I have always enjoyed the work that Platinum Games have produced over the years. Bayonetta and Vanquish were some very unique and over the top games, something this industry is seriously missing in terms of variety. Metal Gear Rising shows that Platinum have still got tons of tricks to pull out of their developer bag and from slicing my way through the fifteen minute demo I knew I was sold for its release.
Metal Gear Rising sees you step into the cybernetic boots of Metal Gear's reborn wuss ‘Raiden’. Gone are the days when this long haired, girly boy was once known as ‘The Rookie’ and now we see a man not only reinvented to dish out a full can of whoop ass but he finally has the aesthetic awesomeness to finish the statement.
Everything about the demo I played was sheer mouth-watering awesome. The game can be easily explained as a mix of Ninja Gaiden and a slight peppering of Sony’s God of War. Raiden can do pretty much everything from scaling walls, slicing enemies into fifty pieces and taking down bipedal mechs that talk like cattle. Speaking of slicing, the featured ‘Free Cut’ ability is something truly awesome to wield. Raiden now has the ability to enter a focused slow motion mode where flicking the right analog stick in different directions results in his high frequency blade cleaving off any body parts your target may have. This all costs energy though, but don’t worry if you think you will be draining it all too soon because once entering the free cut mode you can then choose to hit a precise point on your victims and rip out their spine for a rejuvenating burst of energy (Don’t ask me why!).
Raiden can also attack like any sword wielding bad ass would. With two different button attacks for single and wide ranged attacks, you can be sure to build up a pretty decent combo before laying down that final free cut blow to rival ninjas. Revengeance does come with a slight learning curve though as Raiden for some reason has no way of blocking enemy attacks. The developers instead felt it nessersary to give you the ability to parry incoming slashes instead but I generally found this to be a little bit of a fumble. I am sure though that this is just something that takes a while to learn, so it will be interesting to see how it helps in later battles.
I seriously cannot wait to try this game out on release. As always be sure to check back during release week for the full review of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance will be available on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on 21st February 2013
For more information, click here.
