Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is the Raiden spinoff/sequel to the ever masterful Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots. The game takes place some time after Snake's final mission and puts you in control of Raiden, the unwitting girly hero of Metal Gear Solid 2 who has now been given a badass upgrade courtesy of his new cyborg body. This focuses less on stealth and more on letting the player do a lot of the crazy stuff you see Raiden do in MGSIV as a cyborg ninja. Now onto the important stuff - How does the game do as an action game and as a Metal Gear game?
Metal Gear Rising Revenageance is slick, fast-paced and above all else difficult game. Raiden is given a small assortment of weapons and combos to use that he can use to lay waste to enemies. One very fun mechanic is when you hold L1 to enter a sort of slow-mode and you can slice apart enemies with pinpoint precision. This is used to slice out enemy spines which Raiden can grab and crush to regain health and energy for the slow-mo meter. For the most part the controls work well. Movement attacks are easy to pull off, but the game does a very poor job of properly conveying a few features. For example, it took me some time to realize that my inventory was in mapped to the d-pad which pauses the game and slows down the action. This allows you to use weapons like grenades and rocket launchers which have some use but are meaningless for the most part due to the power of Raiden's sword based attacks. The other issue is parrying enemy attacks is the square button (which is already your light attack button) plus moving the stick toward the enemy attacking you. In easy mode this is far more automatic but it's tough to pull off in the more difficult modes. I feel this should have been mapped to a button. There are some elements of stealth with Alert Mode making its return but is far less significant as the game constantly puts you into high action situations. Stealth kills are satisfying though, so it pays to use the old stealth action approach whenever possible.
The story is just plain wacky. Raiden comes across a variety of bizarre characters including a cybernetic dog, a man who can split his body into dozens of parts, a woman with a million arms and so on. All of this starts with a plot involving Raiden rescuing children's brains from being intitiated into some weird cyborg program and devolving into Raiden rediscovering his "Jack the Ripper" persona that was hinted at in Metal Gear Solid 2. For the most part it's entertaining but forgettable, all minus the final boss who provides some particularly awesome hilarity. Codec calls still play a role in the story and cutscenes, though while not as long as usual Metal Gear tradition, are lengthy and progress the plot effectively. People who are fans of Raiden in MGSIV as oppose to MGS2 will feel right at home here, if not even more pleased.
Sound in this game is definitely a treat, particularly for heavy metal and rock and roll fans. In the midst of all of the combat and particularly during boss fights, the soundtrack sports mostly metal music with chugging guitars and fast paced solos that blends rather perfectly for the hardcore action in the game. The sound design such as the weapons swishing, guns firing and deflecting all sound fluent and believable. And of course the game has the classic Alert sound. Can't have Metal Gear without that.
One interesting aspect of the game is its ranking system. Every battle will score you on your performance, such as the amount of hits you dealt, whether or not you took damage or initiated Alert Mode, etc. This can provide players incentive to increase their skill and replay levels for higher scores. There is, in true Metal Gear fashion, also VR missions to further expand the gameplay. So there is a large degree of replayability. The game is fairly short. You will beat the story mode in a around four to six hours and the DLC story missions within an hour or two.
Overall while the experience is brief, it is very fun and very replayable. Learning combos is fun to do and the world and story is entertaining enough to ant to bask in its insanity. The whole thing was a joy and I do hope to see Platinum and Kojima do a sequel in the near future and expand further on Raiden's abilities.
Before your elbows turn to dust, let’s take a look at some PlayStation 3 games that have stood the test of time the best.
no beyond 2 souls or heavy rain god of war 3 uncharted 2 3 should got a mentioned
I think all PS3 games are still looking good to this day!
God of War Ascension, Uncharted 3, Killzone 3, LBP, Beyond 2 souls, Sly thieves in Time.. other day i played Start The Party.. unbeatable fun
I think all of those games got remastered which really makes them forgettable on the base PS3 as everyone always jumps to the PS4 iteration
Whoever prepared this. Thanks for writing something meaningful for a change instead of the clickbait crap others do.
Ridge Racer 6 on the Xbox 360 played a lot better than Ridge Racer 7 on the PlayStation 3, which included Ridge Racer 6 tracks. Ridge Racer 6 was the last quality game in the series.
Both are good games, RR6 looks very slightly better, but this post is not about that.
Yes, this deserves a re-release. I am surprised it hasn't been brought forth again.
@stonetitan it was like a love letter to the original legend of Zelda. I get it probably wasn't for everyone but it's a great game.
Game was overlooked by a lot of people it took me back to the 80's playing the legend of Zelda on the gold cartridge for the first time. My kids I their twenties now actually brought it up the other day. I need a ps3 again my last one went out completely. I have so many ps3 games just sitting in a bookshelf. Still got that one up there too. I heard it's worth a lot now or at least was a few years ago, saw some article on it.
Replaying kz2, kz3, r1, r2, r3, kens rage 1 & 2, 3d dot game heroes etc. and they all aged beautifully. Also, playing these games in the hardest difficulty reminded me of how hard games were on the PS3. How I had such a love & hate relationship with these games.
I'm replaying kz2 on emulator at the moment purely because I want to remap the buttons outside of this it floors me just how good kz2 was on real hardware
Unfortunately, kz2 crashes for me on rpcs3 around the level where the helghast talks about raditz executing a soldier for poor uniform ethics. When I try and go up the stairs it keeps crashing. I haven't found a workaround yet. Every other game I'm playing works fine though.
If you consider yourself a sucker for games with good combat systems, these curated recommendations are just for you.
You might not be able to believe this, but Dark Souls is a pretty tricky game on the PlayStation 3.
funny. currently playing this game myself and enjoying every second of it. boss battles are intense.
I totally love the soundtrack to this game. The boss tracks are no small part in making those fights feel sweeping and epic.
But yeah, I'm also hoping for a sequel. There's so much they could do and push forward.
music is crap had to turn it off
finished the game once never gonna play it again
it shouldnt be called Metal gear,shame for the franchise