Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance PS3 Demo Review 6.5/10

    For starters, the Metal Gear Solid series is my number one favorite game franchise. So when Metal Gear Rising was announced at E3 in 2009 I was really excited, but at the same time really apprehensive. I was excited for a story involving Raiden again, but a sequel to Guns of the Patriots didn’t sound like a good idea. As the game developed and was handed off to Platinum Games more details arose that made me even more wary. I’ll be honest, after seeing the first few trailers since Platinum took over, I wanted this game canceled. Especially when they unveiled the subtitle: Revengeance. Although, surprisingly, revengeance is a real word despite the redundancy of it. I was afraid that this title would sully the Metal Gear franchise with a game that went too far away from the original feel and style of game. But I opened my mind and decided to give this demo a try.

    The demo starts you off with a tutorial exclusively for the free cutting system. Its a short and fun tutorial that shows you how to use the slow-motion, slicing ability Raiden has at his disposal. The tutorial seemed great at the time in that it was simple, to-the-point, and, most of all, brief. In hindsight however, I wish it had been more in depth but I’ll get to that in a moment.

    The rest of the demo takes place in a segment sometime after the beginning of the game that is prefaced with a brief explanation of what happened at the beginning of the story. This was the first clue I had that this demo would not impress me. It somewhat verified my suspicions that the story would not be the driving force of this game like it had been in previous MGS games. Although this may not be the case, this was the idea that I got from this design choice.

    First off you watch a cinematic cutscene explaining your mission: to go into some African nation and deal with a terrorist PMC organisation. Raiden is dropped off in the outskirts of an urban city and, not a moment too soon, is attacked by a group of stealth-camouflaged cyborgs (after trying valiantly, but to no avail, to defeat a feral cat). This is where you get your first taste of combat. During combat, you are limited to a certain area designated by a red forcefield which you cannot cross. I found this annoying especially when you get backed up against the force field and have nowhere to go. Since all you know how to do is use the blade mode, the rest of the combat controls are told to you via vague, on screen prompts. And since I wasted my blade mode gauge fighting that damned cat, I had to fight these soldiers the old-fashioned way: attack combos. Raiden has a fast attack and a strong attack that I hope can be strung together because that’s what I was doing. I never felt very effective, but i was able to defeat the cyborgs. When combat concludes you are given a rank and score. I received a C explaining why I felt so ineffective.

    After the battle you follow your radar waypoints and proceed through the city where you fight more cyborgs and a few Metal Gear Gekkos you’ll remember from MGS4. Along the way you learn the simplistic inventory system including the secondary weapons you can use including grenades and an RPG. I found both of these weapons extremely useless in combat since they require you to stand still for the most part. As soon as I tried to use them I got knocked on my ass. You also learn that you can backstab your foes if you can manage to sneak up behind them. The game has a similar alert system that the MGS series has had before, but in this game it seems utterly useless. You can “sneak” around but Raidens only form of movement is running around. So when you are spotted and the famous alert noise sounds, you don’t feel like you’ve made a mistake but you do wonder if you were supposed to have been stealthy. Even still, sneaking up on the cyborgs is easy because you can just sprint up behind them as long as you haven’t been seen already. You keep fighting your way through the streets until you enter a building and a cutscene plays where the building is mysteriously sawn in half while you walk down the hallway. This is when the boss steps in to to battle. This is when the demo took a turn for the worse.

    You are confronted by an AI-controlled cyborg hound with a chainsaw-tipped tail (seen above). After some pretty ridiculous back-and-forth taunting, the battle commences. The first thing you discover is how fast and agile this dog is, which made me notice how stiff Raiden’s movement feels. He can’t move with the agility we’ve seen him exhibit in cutscenes. So first you have to catch up to the boss. Then you have to figure out how to parry his attacks or you will be stunned or dead in a flash. This is something I wished they had taught you in the tutorial other than the self-explanatory free-slicing mode. After about 10 deaths I finally figured out how to block his attacks and by this time I was extremely tired of the robots taunts of my “intellect”. SoI had finally defeated the boss and then the demo simply cuts away to the main menu. I was inspired. Truly blown away. Sensing my sarcasm?

    I give the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance PS3 Demo a 6.5/10. Not to say that this game would rank that way, but the demo leaves much to be desired. Between the useless tutorial, odd story placement, and combat guesswork, I was more glad the demo was over rather than glad I had played it. I was already on the fence on this game to begin with and I knew this demo would push me one way or the other. Needless to say I will not be buying this game. That being said, I don’t believe this demo could convince a newcomer to the MGS franchise to buy this game either.

- Skye