pieces then rip their spines out and feast on their life essence? Boy howdy if you answered yes to either of these questions do I have a game for you. It’s time for Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE. A good game with quite possibly one of the worst names I have ever heard. Silly Japanese.

Well you already know I like the game but let me tell you what I don’t like about it. First off the elephant in the room (as far as Metal Gear is concerned.) is Raiden. It seems like it’s split 60/40. Sixty percent of the franchise fans hate him while forty like him. I fall in the forty percent; I liked Metal Gear Solid 2. I liked Raiden in both Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4. I thought he was a sympathetic and fun character. I still claim that the majority of the hate is simply due to the fact he wasn’t and isn’t Solid Snake. All this being said, in this game he kind of gets weird. At one point in the game he goes all wacko, which for some bizarre reason causes his voice to get all scratchy. Now this would be fine if it weren’t for the fact it becomes so scratchy it sounds like a prepubescent Nolan Batman. Also he never holds it. One second he will be gravely Raiden then the next he will talk normally. Just sort of made the whole thing feel cheap and rushed. That brings me to another complaint. Metal Gear Solid titles have always been very polished (for their time). Hell, Metal Gear Solid 1 on the Playstation still holds up pretty well today in my opinion. This game however already looks a little dated. One reason is that it is multiplatform. SO that basically means they made it for the weaker platforms then kinda uptweeked it for the slightly more powerful platforms. Its why Skyrim on PS3 looks bad compared to other PS3 titles, while on X-box it looks ok. Same here—it’s not nearly as pretty or polished as Metal Gear Solid 4 which is (as I’m sure most of you are aware of,) older. Now I know that technically this isn’t a Metal Gear Solid game. It is its own entity. The fact is that to me and a lot of people out there who grew up on Metal Gear Solid games (I have them all by the way, including the HD titles) this is for all intents and purposes a new entry into the series. I understand it’s a spin off but the slight name tweak changes nothing. Its gameplay is entirely different and therefore doesn’t lend itself to exactly the same feel or the same clever level design but that doesn’t excuse its lack of polish. Metal Gear fans have a come to expect a certain quality from their games that this one sadly doesn’t quite live up to. All that being said, this game is extremely fun.

(The boss fights are fun but ultimately not as memorable as boss fights in the Metal Gear Solid franchise.)

The gameplay is ok but nothing incredibly fluid. It tries to be a DMC clone but lacks the flow of combat. It is good enough but it goes back to the polish aspect. I feel like it could have all moved better if they had spent more time on it and had stayed away from the more arcade style. The slow-mo slice mechanic is really fun. Carving your enemies into hundreds of slices, after a hard fought battle, hitting the sweet spot and ripping out there spines to heal yourself and replenish your energy, is extremely gratifying. I thought it would get old but I found myself at the second to the last boss and still loving every moment of cutting through my enemies. Mind you, you don’t really have time for it to get boring. The length issue will be brought up later though. The environments in the levels are passable but nothing special. They are fairly open with minimal environment destruction. Basically each environment is a mini arena where you fight waves of enemies. The lack of cover or corners makes the pathetic stealth system useless beyond all comprehension. I have no idea why they put it in, other than a mediocre attempt to tie this title to other Metal Gear games. I can understand that but a true stealth mechanic would have completely changed this game and possibly made it better. Instead you can “sneak” up on enemies backstab them then move on, but it’s so much more fun and easier to just murder everyone and enjoy yourself. The gameplay is very fun but with a few tweaks or more forethought it could have revolutionized the hack and slash genre, instead of simply copying a formula that technically works, and works well, but has become somewhat stale.

(Hack and Slash is a fun but tired gameplay style.)

The story is the games’ biggest shortcoming. Not only is it virtually devoid of any Metal Gear type story structure, it is also all pretty much optional. Most of the narrative and character development is done through optional Codec messages. This makes it tedious to get any form of in depth story from this game. The earlier Metal gear games did this due to technology restraints. They did away with this in later games. Why go back now? I don’t understand that. In Metal Gear Solid 4 they virtually did away with Codec calls as we had come to know them. This one felt like a massive step back to metal Gear solid 2. Fine for its time but we as a video gaming community have moved on. Then again you don’t really need any of this as the story is pretty much a straight forward stop the bad guy plot. Only at the end is any twist or conspiracy revealed and done in a nice easy to digest cut scene. I don’t want to sound overly negative; it all fits into the established lore just fine. Just doesn’t add much to it, plus clocking in at anywhere between four to seven hours its way to short.

(Without a true block mechanic the combat sometimes becomes a bit frustrating.)

Overall the game is good, I am happy to set it next to the other Metal Gear games in my collection. When I play all the others again I will enjoy revisiting this one. All that said it’s far from the best hack and slash game and far from the best Metal Gear game. So short and a story that ultimately just sits there and serves its purpose, without anything that really blows you away.

(The slow mo swordplay was a neat concept that actually worked more often then it didn't.)

My rating is a 3 out of 5. Sounds bad but I do recommend picking it up if you’re a fan of Metal Gear (unless you’re a Raiden hater). Just pick it up for cheaper due to length and underwhelming story.

Written by: Kevin Mason (AKA LempiElinika)

Edited by: Sarah Lawhorne