Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (pt. 18)

More upgrades for weapons, health, and stamina. I put a couple more points into the cuckstaff's firepower as well as Raiden's main sword, since I'm seemingly sticking with it. Sundowner's big machette still doesn't look all that interesting to me, and I didn't get anything from Jetstream except a sword I'll need to get Doktor to hack or something in order to activate.

I also have a LOT of holodeck minigames in Raiden's playroom now, and it's been a little while since I last gave any of these a try. So, before launching to Pakistan for what I assume will be the endgame, I'm going to try a few of these out. It turns out there's a lot of variety to these later-game-unlockable VR missions, and many of them are a lot more engaging than the first couple dozen you can find. Including an entire little genre of Mario-esque platformers where you play cuckball.

The devs really made clever use of what was already in the game. For instance, by playing with fixed versus dynamic camera angles and/or locking some of the movement buttons, they were able to make both 3D platformers a la Mario64-onward, and classic sidescroller levels.

Normally, when you beat a VR level, Raiden does this tryhard pose with his sword before dramatically sheathing it like a total nerd. When you beat one of the cuckball levels though, it does a cute little dance. Which, when you remember that Raiden is remotely controlling the thing, means that Raiden is choosing to make it do a cute little dance.

Which, let's face it, is just beautifully in character for Raiden.

The fightier minigames where you stick to Raiden's own body also start getting more interesting, thanks to both the increased enemy variety that the late game has to offer, and just more inventiveness when it comes to objectives and obstacles. Things like navigating a sprawling 3D maze to kill a bunch of small, elusive targets while avoiding hovering explosive mines. Or fighting through a murky battlefield full of soldiers with the objective of collecting every single one of their nano-canisters via zandatsu.

Also, Monsoon's sais really come into their own when you have a bunch of flying enemies or rooftop snipers to deal with. It's too bad I didn't spare the points for them and their associated tractor beam before the World Martial tower, because that's where they'd have really helped. Tractor-beaming onto a slider and zipping toward it for an instant zandatsu - a split second combination of offense, healing, and rapid forward movement - feels amazing. And, unlike eg the missile climb you can do with the hammerhead choppers, you don't need to initiate a QTE to do it. It's just right there in the gameplay, without any interruptions or special button functions. Including being interruptible by other enemies at any point in the process, so you need to be smart bout WHEN to use it as well as how.

Definitely want to try replaying that level with a different loadout now...

...oh. You can switch secondary weapons mid-mission.

It doesn't let you change body mods, so after being told that I figured that everything in the character customization menu had to wait for between levels. Didn't think to check.

Alright then. Noted.

Anyway, the one thing that I'd say is still holding the VR content back is the boring visuals. It really makes you appreciate how much a good-looking landscape and textures do for videogames as a medium when you play through the same style of (very good) gameplay without them.

Speaking of which, it's time to resume the story campaign.

Raiden arrives at the Solis facility at...night? It looks like night. Did he somehow spend fifteen hours getting to here from where he fought Sam? Actually, come to think of it the lighting in that duel looked much more like sunset than sunrise. And frankly, it looked like the sun had already risen back in Denver during the filler level before.

Did Raiden collapse of exhaustion a mile outside of Denver, sleep all day, and then sheepishly get back on his motorcycle and pretend that the president wasn't already dead and world war 3 already in progress? Or did the developers hastily reorder some events right before the game's release without having time to redo all the lighting and atmosphere effects for that boss fight and this cinematic?

Hmm. I think the first one is more likely. Yeah. Definitely the first one. Nice going Raiden, you doomed the world.

There's a humorous little bit where the guard at the Solis gatehouse has been told to expect Raiden, and initially mistakes Pochita for him. Also, this is what the guard was reading before he heard them approach:

It's the "so kawaii" stinger that really nails it.

Anyway, porn-addled weeb guard hastily informs Raiden's contact that he's arrived. Said contact is a young teenaged genius who I know was introduced in Metal Gear Solid 4 but who I literally cannot remember anything about. I'm pretty sure she was also in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

Well, the dialogue does explain for newcomers that the girl is named Sunny, she's a child genius, and Raiden and Snake rescued her from the dumb Illuminati conspiracy last game. Which, sure. That's really all we need to know, and the game communicates that information elegantly enough in this scene.

Heh. Sunny, Solis. Is she supposed to have started this company herself, in the apparent scant few years since last time, starting at age 10 or whatever? More likely she just had to let them recruit her when approached on account of the serendipitously appropriate name. But then, this is Metal Gear, so who even knows.

Well, there's no time for her and Raiden to exchange pleasantries. She got his message and has been preparing her latest sub-orbital rocket plane for launch; it'll be ready for takeoff in just another couple of minutes, so Raiden and Pochita had best hurry up into the cockpit. We wouldn't want to be too late to stop the assassination that World Martial carried out this morning.

I was hoping we'd get some close-up shots of Raiden and Pochita huddled together in orbit like Dr. Evil with his cat, but this cinematic errs on the side of minimalism. Just some cute banter as she launches the two of them off.

It's a snap!​

Anyway, it's a cute, fluffy sequence that serves to break up the tension and show Raiden coming (ironically) back down to Earth and having normal-ish human interactions in person before going on to the final battle.

Next thing you know, Raiden and Pochita are crawling out of a landing capsule in the South Asian steppes. There's a bit of quick banter about how process of elimination determined that the President will be landing at this particular US airbase. Or at least, Kevin hopes it's the right airbase. If they sent Raiden to the wrong bit of Pakistan, well, they're just shit out of luck.

It's probably it, though. Big enough for Air Force One to make an extended stay at. Security contracted out to World Martial. Far enough from rebel territory to give the Americans at least an illusory sense of security (with Pakistan's current political climate, POTUS would almost certainly want to avoid civilian airports). It's got to be this one.

A little bit of walking brings Raiden within sight of the facility. It's definitely a sizeable one.

As is now the norm, Pochita scrabbles on down the rocks ahead to scout out the defences, with Raiden following a minute behind.

Before moving into the base and looking for dastardly deeds to disrupt, I go through the Codec. Most people just gossip about Sunny, and it mostly refers to the parts of Metal Gear Solid 4's writing that were only forgettably bad rather than unforgettably bad and thus lost to me. Apparently Boris helped Raiden rescue her from the illuminati, and this was an early bonding moment between the two men that led to Boris inviting Raiden into Maverick. That explains how that happened, then.

There's also a genuinely touching moment, after Raiden tells Boris how much happier and less traumatized Sunny seems now.

With all the shit World Martial and their cronies are pulling, it's easy to forget that the world can get better, and has gotten better. Defeating the previous villain genuinely saved some people and allowed them to have happy lives. You can't save everyone, and there will always be more bad actors putting more innocents in peril, but you can save enough people and improve enough lives that the world is still worth existing in. The victories do matter, even if there are always more battles to come.

And, I suppose, this might be part of what the game is (clumsily, but still) trying to be about. Whether the human appetite for violent struggle is a problem that needs solutions, or if it's more like a solution in search of problems. And, perhaps, whether or not the difference between those two is a meaningful one at all.

Kevin just provides more detail about the base, the likely method of assassination for someone looking to maximize the political fallout, and the general politics of the region. Metal Gearverse Pakistan is in a very weird place in terms of relations with both the US and with its geographical neighbours, and there are even more whacky nonstate groups complicating things than there are IRL. Surprisingly, there's no mention of tensions with India, or of how Pakistani events might shift the balance of power between India and China. You'd think those would be easy boxes for the writers to check off if they're trying to emphasize how bad things could potentially get.

Anyway, Kevin and Raiden both agree that preventing Air Force One from landing in the first place would probably be the way to go, so Raiden should aim to stir things up and make it obviously unsafe here before the president can begin descent. Logical enough.

Courtney and Doktor mostly just chat more about Sunny's background. Doktor does also mention that he's gotten the brains out of US airspace and into Mexico by now (heh, full circle for them) and is in the process of arranging transport to his company in Europe.

Speaking of which, it does seem odd to me that Doktor's company never got a name. Especially since Sunny is a codec buddy now, and she has a "Solis" tag much like the first three's "Maverick" one.

Wonder why they never named his organization?

As for herself, Sunny mostly just asks Raiden how his flight was and tells him about her other work for Solis. Apparently, Solis is a company that her adoptive father and longtime supporting character Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich got involved with, so it was only natural for her to get a job there. Those experimental brain augs that the illuminati gave her during early childhood have made her a real blessing for the company. Apparently, commercial space development is really about to kick off, and Solis is on the forefront.

Hmm. Makes me wonder if the next Metal Gear sequel would have actually been set in space, had the series not pretty much died after this game and MGSV.

Pochita has presumably said everything he wanted to say about the rocket trip during the rocket trip, so now he's just talking business. Initial reconnaissance shows no sign of the baseline human noncombat personnel you'd expect. The cyborgs who aren't World Martial contractors have all been brainjacked (whether that means mind controlled by the baddies or just stunned, I'm not sure). I was a little confused about exactly what Armstrong is planning to pull here, but upon approaching the base's outer walls Raiden has a conversation about that with Courtney about it. Which leaves me even more confused.

Apparently, the plan is to make it look like they got their cyborgs hacked by Desperado. And Desperado is known to have a contract with one of the anti-western Pakistani rebel groups. Also, apparently this comes right after the USA decided to downsize its reliance on World Martial IT infrastructure, which would let Armstrong make the case that they need to pay for more mercenary infrastructure rather than relying on the US armed forces own, clearly inferior, cybersecurity.

Okay. Um. I got problems with this.

First of all, how the hell are they planning to prevent anyone finding out that Desperado is just a branch of World Martial once Uncle Sam starts paying serious attention? They had the fucking Winds of Destruction openly parading around Denver during Raiden's raid. It's been strongly implied that Desperado soldiers are World Martial employees with the corporate logos temporarily scrubbed off.

Even with its phony independence from World Martial, Desperado is an American-based corporation. There is absolutely nothing to prevent them from getting every single one of their doors busted down once it becomes known that they killed the fucking president. Even if there's some bullshit cyberpunk-dystopia law on the books that shields PMC's from prosecution for shit their employers told them to do, that's not going to stop them from being considered enemy combatants and treated accordingly. Or stop their headquarters from being a source of intel on their employers' activities up until now. And frankly, even assuming bullshit PMC protection laws, assassinating a president is the kind of thing that leads to laws being very rapidly changed or even just plain ignored. Hell, that's infamously what happened when the first War on Terror kicked off.

There's just no way in hell that World Martial isn't implicated here. I don't care how much cartoon logic this plot is running on. It's just not happening.

Well, whatever. Time to loot this base for all the supplies its worth and also hopefully prevent the president from having been assassinated yesterday. Slipping into the control tower before going load will probably yield the best results. There are a lot of mounted gun turrets and hammer-wielding heavies patrolling the hangars around that tower, so this mission calls for a stealthy infiltration.

There are a reasonable number of supply crates to pilfer scattered around the place, so that's nice.

After crossing about half of the base, Raiden sees a disturbing sight.

Damn. He's not reachable via Codec either, so he's not just paralyzed by structural damage or the like.

Granted, I don't think he's permanently dead either. His body doesn't look anywhere near as damaged as his previous one did after Raiden chopped it apart, so if his brain was recoverable then it should still be now. Wonder what got him, though. There are no soldiers around that I can see. There are some mounted turrets though, and those hit pretty hard, so maybe he got sighted by those?

Raiden advances to see what the heck happened to Pochita and if he can be revived onsite. Before he can get to him though, the ground starts shaking. Then cracking open. He just barely has time to run back out of the way before a robot spider the size of an apartment complex erupts through the concrete.

This seems like a nice break in the action to stop at. I wonder what'll happen next time.