Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (part one)

This review was comissioned by @Baron Ouroboros.

Metal Gear!

Metal...Gear?

Metal Gear.

It's one of those bigtime longrunning console game franchises that was born in Japan in the 1980's and has lived through all kinds of highs and lows, hibernations and heydays, over the decades since then. The pitch is that you play as a vaguely...well, he's most obviously inspired by Snake Plissken, but there's plenty of James Bond in there as well...inspired specops dude named Solid Snake (though later games eventually included other protagonists) trying to prevent the proliferation of nuclear-armed mechs called metal gears. Historically, Metal Gear is notable for popularizing stealth mechanics in games (though it didn't invent them), and for having one of the catchier and more recognizable 8 bit era soundtracks to not come from Nintendo.

Since then, it, uh. Well, the games got pretty plot heavy once they went 3D. Very plot heavy. On one hand, the Metal Gear series' voluminous cutscenes have contributed more to memedom than almost any other game short of StarFox, so that's fun. On the other hand, series creator Hideo Kojima a) is a bad writer, b) thinks that he is an extremely clever writer, and c) has always managed to keep a coterie of absolutely insufferable teenaged-to-twenty-something fans convinced that he is the cleverest writer who will ever live.

On the other hand, I've never heard anyone complain about the series' gameplay. And, as aforementioned, I've always enjoyed the series' soundtrack from the 1980's onward. It should also be taken into account that while I've seen roommates play through some of the games and cringed through the cutscenes from across our dorm living room, I've never actually played one myself. In other words: I've been exposed to the bad story, but not to any other aspects of the games that could potentially make up for the bad story, so I know that my bias against Metal Gear is based on incomplete information.

Anyway, that brings me to this particular game, the (very) comically titled Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

What do I know about this game, aside from it having been named by the PowerThirst guy? A few things. One, that it's much more action focused than the other stealth-centric instalments. Two, that you play as occasional recurring protagonist Raiden, a cyborg commando, as he tries to take down a powerful PMC. Three, that the boss of this PMC achieved memetic infamy by basically being buff cyborg Donald Trump. All the way down to running for president of the United States under Ronald Reagan's old "make America great again" slogan. The game came out in 2013, which definitely made me rethink my low opinion of Hideo Kojima's writing ability (or at least his political insight) a few years later. Granted, since then I've also learned that Kojima had much less to do with Rising Revengeance than he did with the rest of the Metal Gear series, and that much of the gameplay and story were outsourced to third party developer Platinum Games. So, maybe he deserves credit for that bit of prescience, or maybe someone else does.

Anyway. This will be my first video game review for this project. I'm not sure how long it will take me to play all the way through MGR:R (I like video games, but I'm not terribly good at them, and I'll be playing on Normal rather than Easy), so this Let's Play may end up continuing in instalments intermixed with other reviews for quite some time depending.

The menu theme is cool. It's got the series' original main standby mixed into it, which always wins points with me.

Being bad at videogames, and having not played a third person action game like this one in quite some time, I started with the tutorial. Our allegedly heroic cyborg Raiden pays a visit to the holodeck, and Herr Doktor (who is literally named that, as far as I can tell :p) talks him through game mechanics.

Perhaps the high speed movement mechanics would feel more natural if I were playing with a controller rather than mouse and keyboard, but I don't have a good controller right now so oh well. That said, regardless of whether the unnaturalness is my own fault, the game's fault, or my mouse's fault, I'm impressed by just how kinetic Raiden is. On top of his fairly high baseline moving speed, he has a "ninja dash" speedboost that accelerates him to near-hedgehog proportions, and he has pretty insane jumping ability that you can combine with the dashing for extra-strong directional launches.

I assume there will be gunplay eventually, since Metal Gear has always featured a lot of shooting, but for now Raiden is just practicing with his high-tech-polymer blade. Swinging it around is a lot of fun, and fighting the tutorial's holographic opponents reveals a simple but pretty fun freeform swordfight system. Basically, you have a "light slash" and a "heavy slash" button, and you can play around with the sequence, angle of attack, and choice of targets during a flurry of strikes to unlock a pretty wide range of acrobatic combos. Timing and aiming a light strike just right will also let you parry an enemy melee attack, which puts the stymied enemy in bullet time slowdown for a second while you get free hits in. I know a lot of other games have taken this approach to parry-riposte action in recent years, but in 2013 it was probably a bit more novel, and the fact that other games have also done it doesn't make it any less fun.

Overall, MGRR's combat controls subscribe to the atomic design philosophy. You have just a few basic distinct "things" that you can do, and anything more complicated requires an interplay between those autonomous things, with only a few keys and button-clicks to remember and a minimum of context-dependency. As initial impressions go, it seems to be balanced pretty well.

Anyway, on to the game itself now!

A limousine drives through the streets of a tropical city. There are some ramshackle looking old buildings, but also some shiny new ones under construction, and the streets are well-kept with nice shady palm trees growing at comfortable intervals. In the back of the limo, a pair of politicians look out at the urban renewal around them and congratulate themselves and their constituents on how much progress they've been making. Going by the accents and features, we're somewhere in West Africa.

Also present in the limo is Raiden, wearing a prim business suit over his metal-encrusted body. Credit to the artists, it really looks like Raiden is having trouble fitting into his formalwear, which is a subtle and very well thought out touch. I guess the fashion industry is still catching up to military cybernetics industry. Don't worry Raiden, I'm sure they'll get there soon.

Raiden is the leader of "Maverick," a PMC that specializes in training other people's armed forces. Raiden likes to think of them as a security firm rather than a mercenary outfit. My understanding is that IRL a *lot* of mercenary outfits prefer to think of themselves as security firms, but Maverick seems to do a better job of living up to it than most. The man Raiden is chatting with above is apparently the Prime Minister of whatever country this is supposed to be in, and Maverick has been helping rebuild the national military (and also providing the Prime Minister's security detail in the meantime).

This security detail is fairly extensive. An external shot shows the limo being escorted by large intimidating IFV's, manned by Maverick employees with varying levels of cybernetic augmentation. The PM talked about how order is quickly being restored, but clearly he isn't confident that the regional bad actors are all under control just yet.

The conversation turns to the philosophy of armament, with the PM being overly impressed by Raiden having an elementary understanding of deterrence. Okay, now, see, THIS is where the absence of Hideo Kojima from the scriptwriting reveals itself. As it is, this is just a dumb writing moment that treats the audience like they're kindergartners and then passes on by. If Kojima had written it, the PM would have given Raiden a dumbfounded openmouthed stare and asked him to explain it again, and then Raiden would have gone into a fifteen minute speech rephrasing the concept of "if people know you can defend yourself, they won't want to fight you" thirty different ways while dropping in barely relevant and poorly researched historical tangents, all while soulful violin music plays and the camera rotates around the limo like it's the climactic scene of Raiden's life drama. And then there would be a bunch of multi-hour videos on YouTube of people breathily explaining all the nuanced character depth and mindblowing political insight on display in this one specific cutscene out of the many others much like it throughout the game, and I'd come just a tiny bit closer to committing a felony.

Well, anyway. The conversation is cut short when the convoy suddenly stops. A smug-looking foreigner with a full-replacement cybernetic body like Raiden's has walked out into the middle of the road in front of them. The guys in the forward IFV demand that the obstructor get out of the way and stop interfering with state business. The cyborg looks even smugger, and pulls out a high-tech sword of his own. The Maverick soldiers just sit there dumbly behind their weapon mounts and repeat their instructions.

Really, guys? Really?

Really. I don't think you can blame me for not having too much sympathy for them when the thing that was obviously going to happen happens.

The prime minister's limo tries to pull back to a safe distance while the Maverick troops try to deal with the cyborg. It doesn't appear to be going so well for them, though. While a bunch of them are clearly cyborgs themselves, they don't have anywhere near the same kind of augmentation as Raiden or the bad guy.

Frustratingly, although full-body specimens are clearly regarded as their own distinct class of transhuman in-universe, there doesn't seem to be a word for them other than "cyborg." And the soldiers who have less augmentation, despite obviously being cyborgs themselves, are NOT referred to as "cyborgs." I feel like this setting needs a lot more nomenclature to describe its transhumans, if there are going to be multiple standardized types as well as a baseline human civilian majority.

Anyway, as the limo flees, Raiden tries to get an ID on that attacker, but facial recognition doesn't give them any affiliations. Also, that thought is cut short when a squad of partial-aug soldiers emerge from hiding and cut the limo off while their full-aug friend keeps the defenders occupied. This isn't a lone wolf terrorist, this is an operation. Raiden realizes that he's going to have to leave the Prime Minister's side in order to keep him safe, so he exits the limo, faces down the soldiers, and the gameplay segment begins.

Well, actually Raiden takes fifteen seconds to do this long, slow flourish taking off his suit jacket and swishing his cyber-sword around before the gameplay segment starts. I guess cyborg sword flourishes are protected by international treaty or something; no one is allowed to start shooting at them until after they've done their animoo poses.

It's an easy fight, but also a fun one, and the wide open space of this street battle gave me a chance to learn some things that the tutorial didn't highlight. For instance, when you hold down the ninja-dash button, regardless of whether you're actually moving forward or not, time appears to slow down. Not to the same bullet-time extent as the parry interactions, but enough that you can run circles around common enemies and have little trouble predicting and evading their attacks. It really makes you feel like you're playing a super-fast roboman with computer-assisted reflexes and servoaccelerated limbs.

Additionally, if you run straight toward an enemy while in speedster mode, Raiden will automatically deflect any bullets that enemy shoots at him. You can still get shot from the sides or behind, but not from the direction Raiden is moving in. It's a creative approach to letting a mostly melee-focused player character hold their own in a world full of gun-toting opponents, and forces you to think tactically even while you're enjoying the rush of being an unstoppable force. What tickles me the most about it, though, is that Raiden's schtick of being unhittable from some angles but not others and alternating between overwhelming assault cycles and more vulnerable recharge times is how bosses usually work in videogames. And, if I remember correctly, the first full-body cyborg to appear in the series (in 1998's "Metal Gear Solid" specifically) *was* a boss the player had to fight. And that, I think, plays into "Revengeance" being a different genre of game from most other Metal Gear instalments. Usually, you play as a baseline human going up against more futuristic threats, and it's a stealth game. Now we're seeing the same world from the perspective of a futuristic threat, and it's a high speed action game. It's intertextual ludonarrative synchronicity.

So, our hero has way more fun than he should chopping those soldiers to bits and then runs off to keep the fleeing limousine in his sight. Predictably, he has to jump over some obstacles and speedblitz some more bad guys to do this. The game is a little too forgiving with the time limits here, to the point where I'm not sure if it actually *has* time limits despite the characters constantly reminding me over Raiden's commlink that I need to hurry up and get back to the car right this second. Well, while Raiden is busy playing in the bullet rains and trying to see how many times he can slice up a flying enemy before its body can hit the ground, the limo gets cut off at the city's waterfront. I guess we're somewhere coastal, then? Or maybe that's supposed to be a lake, idk. The two randos who Raiden left in the limo to guard the PM do a good job fending off a small group of baddies, but then the water churns, there's a mighty splash, and out jumps a biomechanical dragon monster the size of a three story building.

I know I've seen one of these things before. I want to say it was in 2008's Metal Gear Solid IV? I remember thinking it was a major aesthetic clash with the rest of the Metal Gear setting at the time, and I still think it is now, but at least I know it's not completely out of left field. Anyway, it lands on the pavement hard enough for its feet to punch holes through the cement, and then opens up on Raiden's employees with the laser cannon built into its face. They manage to avoid it, but it turns out that the amphibious robodragon was just the distraction. As it corrals them into place with its face laser, another full-body cyborg with an even smugger expression than the last one drops from a nearby rooftop behind them and...well, let's just say that Maverick has some job openings after today.

With the bodyguards dead, he then strides over to the overturned limo and hoists out the struggling Prime Minister. And then poses with him like King Kong for a while. I guess this isn't a time-sensitive abduction mission. More of a casual kidnapping.

By the time Kong starts to turn around and make his leisurely way back the way he came, Raiden catches up. Dramatic posing continues to be both a cyborg's greatest advantage and their most critical weakness.

Anyway, Raiden asks Kong what the hell he and his friends think they're doing. Kong explains that the Prime Minister has really pissed them off, stabilizing the region and making this country the hub of a potential African federation. Business is hard enough as it is without one of the last war-torn regions of the world going all peaceful on them; how the hell are mercenaries even supposed to put food on the table anymore?

A disbelieving Raiden asks Kong if that's seriously it. In response, Kong just hoists the PM higher up on his shoulder and laughs like a pirate.

Oh my god this is so Saturday morning cartoon I can actually taste the cheerios.

...

I'm not sure if Raiden should believe that explanation, though. If someone wanted to get rid of the PM without tipping their hand, hiring mercenaries to do it and pretend to be acting independently in defence of their market interests would be a good method.

Granted, if the world is so unwilling or unable to hold these transhuman mercs accountable for doing things like "openly couping a country just to keep their services in demand" that them even being willing to PRETEND to do that for a client is an option for them, well...at that point, the PMC's functionally are the government anyway.

...

Kong tells Raiden not to worry; while he'd love to slit the PM's throat, he's not going to do that until the man is no longer useful. Well, that's good to know I guess. Kong then leaps back onto the rooftops with his captive in hand, and signals his pet robodragon to cover his escape.

The voice in my earpiece informs me that the robodragon is in fact a type of metal gear.

I guess metal gears these days are built with much more biomimicry than they used to be.

Heh, you know, this offbeat combination of kiddy cartoon scriptwriting, gratuitous urban destruction, and Giger robots is actually reminding me of a completely different Konami game.

Which is funny, because I remember being told a while ago that they also made a Contra game that tries to take after Metal Gear.

Anyway, it's time for the game's first boss fight!

It gets off to a good start. The big robot has three basic attacks: machine guns, stomping on you with its feet, and the heavy laser. Whenever it runs or leaps away across the large arena, you need to carefully run directly into its machine gun fire so you can deflect the bullets while closing the distance. Once you get within striking distance, you have to hit its ankles as much as possible while avoiding getting kicked or stepped on until it runs or leaps away from you again and you need to brave another bullet storm. Every now and again you'll see it charging up the energy weapon, which you need to either strafe around (if it fires directly at you) or jump or slide under (if it tries sweeping the beam in from the side). The laser is a one or two hit kill if it manages to get you, but avoiding it is easy unless you're trying to line up a perfect screenshot for your review instead of focusing on the game itself. It's an intuitive pattern that puts the skills you've been practicing to the test, and just about the right amount of challenge for a first boss.

Unfortunately, this fight is also where I have my first real complaint about the gameplay. See, this game is a spectacle fighter, and that means that whenever something "spectacular" needs to happen the intuitive atomic controls I was praising at the beginning of this post go out the window, along with the pacing, the tension, and the visual direction. Whenever you close with one of the mech's ankles and land a couple of hits, the game puts you into this extra type of kinda-sorta-bullet-time mode. You whack it a few more times, and then it prompts you to press something else so the game can stop and go to Quicktime Event mode...only without it actually being quicktime. In response to nothing within the game world itself that I can see, Raiden launches himself into the air and just sort of levitates in front of the boss for a bit while the game gives you the exciting choice between using "vertical slash" and "horizontal slash" against the virtually unmoving mech. There's no "use it or lose it" factor here. I tried not clicking at all, and Raiden kept levitating in front of the metal gear's face for exactly as long as he does when I try clicking frantically to get in as many hits as I can.

"Go stand in the corner, Raiden."​

On its face it's the same concept as, eg, the flurry rush maneuver from Breath of the Wild, but there are some key differences. One is that it lasts way the fuck longer. Another is the lack of an actual quicktime element; triggering this "free blade mode" doesn't require any quick thinking or fast reflexes, and there are no penalties for not landing hits fast enough once you initiate it besides "less damage done by the time it ends." Also, in other games with this sort of mechanic you at least have visual excitement. You can see enough of the space around your character and the enemy to get a sense of motion, and predict where the enemy's next attack might come from once the flurry ends. In this fight meanwhile, the camera zooms in so far that you just see Raiden chopping at a metal wall. And...okay, look at that last screenshot above. Do you get any sense at all that Raiden is flying through the air in a ballistic arc over a giant robot in that image? The way his body is angled and the way he's swinging the sword make it look like he's just STANDING there. It almost reminds me of a guy standing in front of a greenscreen. Like any second he's going to turn around to face the camera and start narrating a nature documentary about giant laser robots in their natural urban battlefield habitat. For extra lolz, there was one point where I triggered this critical cycle while I had a tree right up in the camera, so I was just staring at pixelated palm branches while clicking my mouse and hoping it was making Raiden hit the robot.

At the end of the battle, the metal gear tries to crush me with one of its arms, and now suddenly instead of swinging Raiden's sword clicking those mouse buttons in rapid succession makes him...um...grapple? Maybe? I see him grab the incoming roboarm, and then the game prompts me to click for a while despite there not being any visual feedback to tell me what I'm making Raiden do with those clicks. It goes on. And on. Apparently I did something right, because Raiden eventually judo-throws the giant robot into the air and then cuts it into pieces mid-descent.

What did I do?

When did the mouse buttons stop being "sword attack' and "other kind of sword attack?"

Raiden performs so many acrobatic actions in that final sequence, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which ones require a button press from me and which ones are just part of the cutscene. Then he lands in front of the disabled mech to be a cool guy who doesn't look at explosions, and I feel like I'm supposed to have a sense of accomplishment or something.

Like I said, I've played games with QTE sequences in them. I've often had mixed feelings about them, but never before have I actually felt like I'd been forced to stop playing the game by one.

I remember watching spectacle fighter boss sequences like this from similar games, like God of War or Devil May Cry and the like, and wondering what it feels like to actually play one. Are they really all like this? If so, I'm pretty disappointed. It actually would have annoyed me less if the grapple-and-judo-throw sequence was completely cinematic without pretending to need player feedback at all.

Are all the bosses going to be like this?

All the bosses are going to be like this, aren't they.

Like, the normal gameplay combat is really fun. The parts of the boss fight where I was fording through bullets and diving under lasers were also really fun. Staring at a screen-filling gray mass and idly clicking until the game feels like continuing is not fun.

Anyway, boss beaten. Time to chase after Kong and hopefully rescue the prime minister of Nonspecifica before they can saw his balls off or whatever. My faithful earpiece-voice Boris informs me that he's got the target tracked on my radar, so go get him. Running and jumping across the jumble of broken buildings, I make it up to OH MY GOD RAIDEN GRAB THE FUCKING LEDGE.

Fortunately, the fleeing villain isn't actually getting any further away, so I'm free to bash Raiden's face against the ledge over and over until he manages to grab it.

What's that you say? There was a mostly-intact staircase leading up to the same level on the other side of the lobby, and I was obviously supposed to just climb those instead of bullheadedly committing myself to 3D platformer hell?

I hear your point, and I counter it with your mother having made her name as a sex worker. >:(

After crossing the building, Raiden comes within sight of Kong again, and the chase is on! I'm actually moving through a parkour obstacle course after a moving target this time, so I think there might actually be consequences for dawdling in this case. The chase is a breath of fresh air after the mixed bag of a boss fight. You have the ninja-dash, the jump, and the dodge/slide actions, and you have a crazy jungle gym of back alleys and exposed sewer pipes to get through as quickly as possible with them. Soon, Raiden makes it up to...

Oh.

Erm. You need help there, guy?

This, uh. This is kinda awkward.

I guess this is a decent point to stop for today. :V