Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is slicing it’s way to the consoles soon and this demo sets out to sharpen out skills and blade.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is coming to the market early next year, but a playable demo has been attached to the Zone of Enders HD collection. It’s a short demo that actually is a larger install than Zone of Enders, but well worth checking out.
MGR:R is the first Metal Gear game to not feature Snake, but our old friend Raiden, who was first introduced back with Metal Gear Solid 2. When Raiden was brought into the series, there were very mixed opinions on our ninja. The biggest issue people had was that he took up over half the gameplay of MGS2, and most people weren’t expecting to play anyone else but Snake. Raiden’s controls were different, and his sword, although tricky to yield, became his signature.
Back then there weren’t too many games that utilized the right analog stick. Today, the right analog stick controls the camera, but back in the infancy of 3D worlds, most cameras were fixed. Fixed cameras made the right stick useless, and only a few games like MGS2 and The Mark of Kri used the right stick for added features. With MGS2, the right stick was used to control the direction of which Raiden swung his blade. It took out the entire hack and slash feel way before every game became a hack and slash.
With today’s controls it’s understandable that the right stick for Raiden is now the camera, but his range for his actions has grown past one control. He now has a quick attack, a heavy attack, and you can slow down time to strategically cut in any direction you choose.
Raiden skipped out of MGS3 for time line purposes, but was brought back into the fold with MGS4, now as a cyborg ninja. He was faster, stronger, and most people finally accepted Raiden. In fact the biggest let down to his appearance in MGS4, was that unlike MGS2, Raiden was only a support character, and not a playable. It only seems logical that if the Metal Gear series were ever to branch out and make a spin off, Raiden would be the perfect choice.
MGR:R has certainly been plagued with development issues. The first tech demo showed off Raiden’s powerful water melon slicing abilities. After that, news died off and people started wondering what happened. As it turned out Konami didn’t know what to do outside of slicing melons and were about to abandon Raiden, until Platinum Games stepped in. With Bayonetta under their belt, they were able to envision Raiden with a clear direction, a fast direction, and maybe a few melons to slice through from time to time.
What has remained from the first tech demo is that Raiden can slice almost anything. In the demo, after your hone your skills on slicing melons, you get dropped off on a beach. I ran around and sliced barrels, trees, and then made my way up a giant set of stairs, before deciding to slice them as well. Turns out, although you can slice anything, you really shouldn’t. Since Raiden doesn’t have a double jump, I couldn’t get past the broken stairs and had to restart the level.
The only other issue I came across was the blocking controls. They pop onto the screen with a left stick icon, plus the square button. After moving the analog stick in every direction to perform a dodge/block, it turns out you can only hit up, towards your enemy on the left stick and then the square button to block. Any other direction counts as you missing your block and getting your ninja butt kicked swiftly.
Although I had heard of issues on the PS3 demo, I came across none, which may be in part due to the patch released. I do recall Platinum Games having a major issue with PS3 when they released Bayonetta and I hope they’ve learned how to work with Playstation after this much time. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s demo is a lot of fun, and if it’s any indication of how the entire game is going to be, you should start pre-ordering now.