What happens when you take the genius fourth wall breaking moments, boss design and plot of industry veteran Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series and combine it with Platinum Games talent of removing every inch of subtlety and realism from combat systems? You get something like Metal Gear Rising (MGR).
MGR is a spinoff title (hence the “Rising” and not “Solid”) that has the player taking the role of Raiden, yet again. But you won’t be doing any naked cartwheels this time around. Now, Raiden has a ninja cyborg body and he’s out to use it to stop a group of fellow cyborgs who are kidnapping children and training them to be child soldiers.
Once a child soldier himself, Raiden hopes to avoid these children of his fate, something he considers worse than death. The story begins coherently enough, but as the game moves on the game almost seems to lose focus of itself, dabbling in discussions of philosophy about the benefits of war and how it relates to the nature of man. At times it seems convoluted, but it provides an interesting context to the games real strength: combat and gameplay.
MGR is a third person hack-n-slash game with a combo-based combat system. With your trusty HK-blade you’ll be cutting through all sorts of enemies ranging fromcyborg soldiers to robot gorillas, bi-pedal mooing tanks and even robot raptors. Unlike similar games, MGR does not have a block button, but rather a parry option in which you must press X and move the stick in the direction of where the attack is coming from. If you parry at the right moment, Raiden counter-attacks and you are given what is basically a free combo — on the earlier enemies, anyway.
The other big aspect of the game that is completely unique to MGR is the “blade mode” concept. By pulling on the left trigger, time slows down, and Raiden is given the ability to make exact, precise cuts on his enemies. The player is rewarded for making precise cuts, taking off limbs of human enemies or cutting the enemy up into as many pieces as possible, as it is with the robot enemies. Those really skilled in MGR’s combat will switch from the free-flow combo system into blade mode when needed without much indication.
Sometimes, the game tries to live up to its stealth roots — I don’t know why, but it tries. If you fail, all the enemies swarm on you and you proceed to chop them up anyway.
The game also features some of the best boss fights you will play this season. While some of the bosses are larger-than-life foes that have you jumping from missile-to-missile to chop the boss up, the game truly shines when you face one of the more human bosses (despite the fact that they’re all cyborgs) and you find yourself in a one-on-one duel to the death. They are all incredibly varied, have multiple stages and are even accompanied by their own track that gives the entire fight a much more serious air. The end of these fights will have you taking some deep breaths as you lower your accelerated heart rate.
The experiences are a complete thrill ride; but how could they be even better?
Simple. Platinum games took the Megaman route and allowed for the bosses’ signature weapons be available for use by the player after they are defeated. Sadly, despite the game’s incredibly high quality of gameplay, it is criminally short. I was able to finish the game in less than five hours, which was even shorter than other runs I’ve seen online. It’s really hard in this day and age to justify a $60-dollar purchase on five hours of entertainment, no matter how good it may be. But that’s exactly where my conflict arises: those five hours are incredibly tight and really fun, especially the boss fights. Once this game hits the $40 mark, or if you can just happen to find it on sale, pick this one up, especially if you’re a fan of the Metal Gear series — despite the fact that Rising feels like an entirely different game on its own.
Metal Gear Rising gets an 8/10.
One Life Left: Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance
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