Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

What would you do if you're given a cyborg body, a sword and lots of bad guys (and mechs)? The answer is simple "cut them down to shreds!". This is what Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance offers you. This game makes you cut what you will. The game's story is set 4 years in to the future after MGS4 and stars Raiden, the whinny dude from MGS2 that everybody loves or hates that suddenly became a badass cyborg ninja in MGS4.

This game is developed by Platinum Games in supervision of Kojima Production, and I'll say that Mr. Kojima made the right decision to hand this over to Platinum Games to develop it.

GAMEPLAY

Revengeance, is a fast action hack and slash game (like DmC), but with many differences and innovations that the other hack and slash games lack. These innovations are objects that can be cut literally. It's too bad that you can't cut everything (I mean EVERYTHING), this is to prevent glitches.

Revengeance retains some of the classic Metal Gear gears and mechanics, (Codec, Soliton Radar, Cardboard Boxes, and Drums).You can also use missile launchers and throwable items by equipping them first then press the L2 button to equip /aim and R2 to fire/throw. Stealth is added too, you can Ninja Kill some enemies. But the mechanic a little weak, if one gets suspicious, everyone will get suspicious and they will run at the spot where they noticed you, and Soliton Radar doesn't display the enemy's field of vision, I hope the devs improve the stealth mechanic on the next sequel.

AR Mode is a nice little mechanic that will help you see through walls and display enemy locations and if they have something that can be obtained by cutting them. It also serves as a night vision goggle. Press Up on the dpad to activate it.

Blade Mode is the mechanic that separate Revengeance from the other games of the same genre. You can get the enemy's spine looking fuel cells to replenish your life and energy or get some body parts during this mode. This makes Raiden feel overpowered. Activate Blade Mode by pressing L1 then the L3 to aim the blade (press L3 to walk while in Blade Mode) and tilt the R3 to manually cut your enemies (or use Square/Triangle for quick cuts). It drains Raidens energy while using this mode. The manual cutting mechanic reminds me of Raiden when he received the HF blade from Snake in MGS2.

Camera can be restrictive and annoying when you're playing stealthily sometimes, because it resets to your back when enemy is nearby (especially when you're hiding in a Cardboard Box or Drum) It's a minor complaint.

Enemy AI is versatile, they will evade your attacks, they will gang up on you and beat you up, they can also flank and flush you out when you're hiding. They can kill you in easily if you're slow.

GRAPHICS/AUDIO

This is a high speed game, it runs on 60 frames per second and doesn't slow down with all those particles, explosions, debris, and body parts (that are temporarily littered), but it slows down on the hidden loading segments (mandatory codec calls). The game world is detailed but it looks boring. Most cutscenes are pre-rendered, but it's cool if all of them are in-game cutscenes so that whatever costume Raiden is wearing, he also wears it during the cutscenes.

The some objects in the game world feels like they're made of paper or cardboard after you cut them. There are no thuds, crashes when the fall on the ground... they felt light. And it's funny when you collide with the debris and they scatter easily.

The game sounds great especially the music, it really fits the high speed action of the game. It makes you feel pumped when slicing enemies. Every boss has its own awesome music theme that fits to their beliefs and roles in the game's story.

CONCLUSION

Metal Gear fans rejoice! The game is not a failure. It's a fairly long game with a very satisfying gameplay and story. It also encourages repeat playthrough to unlock more goodies for Raiden to use. And VR Training mode with more in-game unlockables that will eat up some more of your play time.