My name is Lightning Bolt… hmm, no that isn’t it… Jack the Ripper?… wait a minute… Raiden! There it is. You killed my prime minister. Prepare to be sliced into hundreds of bloody cubelets.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is nearly identical to the Princess Bride if you take a moment to imagine the film with deadly ninja cyborgs, massive evil robots, copious amounts of blood and gore, and packed to the brim with deliciously cheesy rock ballads. Okay, fine, maybe they’re not technically similar, but they do share the common value of being completely hilarious. The good kind of hilarious, mind you.
Let me start off by saying I am not any sort of die-hard Metal Gear fan. I’ve played a few games in the series, but I won’t pretend to understand half of what goes on in them. I won’t be going into any deep discussions about game lore or back-story. However, I will say that I had a hell of a lot of fun playing Revengeance despite its inconceivably ridiculous title.
This game is about one thing: using your cutting edge, high frequency sword to slice apart anything that looks at you funny. It does this very well. And when I say slice apart, I mean that literally. In Revengeance, enemies and objects you attack can be bisected precisely where Raiden’s sword cuts into them. Is that warhammer wielding brute giving you a hard time? I bet he’ll be much less hostile if you remove his arms. Need some refreshment? Borrow a cyborg’s synthetic healing organ. He’ll forgive you for cutting him in two to get to it.
Aside from the endless entertainment of evisceration, the actual combat system is solid enough. Two buttons correspond to light and heavy attacks and alternating between them in different patterns produces different move combinations. Once you’ve sufficiently softened up an enemy, or you’ve successfully completed a QTE, you can enter blade mode to wantonly hack and slash your foe into bite-size pieces. In terms of defense, parrying is pretty much all you’ve got. It requires you to press a button and flick your control stick simultaneously in the direction of the incoming attack. It can be tricky to get the hang of and you might have a rough time until you get it down. The only real gripe I have here is that the game tends to forget to explain how to perform many of the important moves.
As you may expect from a metal gear game, the visuals are gorgeous and the cutscenes are superbly done. Raiden fills the boots of lead protagonist well, but how can you really go wrong when you’re a state of the art killing machine. The voiceover quality varies wildly. Occasionally they’re excellent, but in most cases they induce involuntary bouts of eye rolling. Some might say that’s part of metal gear’s quirky charm, though. The ambush moments of off-the-wall humor indicate that special charm is still alive and well.
There’s not much more to say about Revengeance other than it’s a concentrated dose of pure, unadulterated fun. It reminds me greatly of Asura’s Wrath in that respect. There are a decent amount of collectibles to root out and a couple dozen virtual reality missions to try your hand at, but the main event only clocks in at around five hours. And while the game is a genuine hoot to play, I can’t recommend paying top dollar for such a short storyline. It’s a definite rent, but if you’re dead set on owning it I’d advise waiting until the price comes down.
You also might have noticed that I don’t score my “reviews”. It’s not something I do. I think slapping arbitrary numbers on things to express my personal satisfaction is pointless. Everyone has their own way of seeing things, so I figure the best I can do is document my feelings and let you fine folks make your own decisions. Sound good? Good.
