When I was a wee lad, I had an epiphany while playing Mega Man 2 for the first time. Obtaining a boss enemy’s weapon after defeating it was the most perfect style of skill progression for a game of its genre. Not many games then or now employ a similar mechanic, but Metal Gear Rising is bringing it back in a limited capacity.
The latest trailer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance reveals that Raiden will be able to obtain boss enemy weapons after defeating them. The weapons shown off in the trailer include a pole arm, a pair of sai and massive pincers. Each provide their own advantages and disadvantages while allowing players to craft their own strategies as they take on enemies large and small.
Unlike Mega Man, I doubt that Metal Gear Rising will make certain boss weapons effective against future boss enemies. In that way, it loses a bit of the novelty, but the game still has plenty of punch as one of the most exciting action games to be released this year.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance slices its way to the PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 19. As for a potential Wii U release, Platinum Games says its all up to Konami and fan demand.
He’s not the thunder god you may be thinking of, but Raiden has officially joined the cast of Sony’s upcoming PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. The younger special forces agent from the Metal Gear series of games will grace the fighting game with his cybernetic armor and sword.
The announcement came in a gameplay interview given to Gamespot by Seth Killian, the lead game designer at Sony Santa Monica, and Omar Kendall, game director for PlayStation All-Stars. In the video below they describe Raiden’s play style, moves, and some of the design concepts behind the character.
Raiden’s character will be an up-close, combo-style fighter . His level three “super” involves stunning the other players inside cardboard boxes. The character’s look appears to be modeled after his upcoming appearance in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – a game set to debut next year, in which Raiden is the main character.
In other PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale news, the European beta test of the game is set to begin soon. Over on the European PlayStation Blog, Gavin Russell, the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe producer for PlayStation All-Stars, announced that a limited public beta test will take place from September 11 to September 18. Those who wish to participate will need to register at the PlayStation Network Beta website. The game was recently delayed until late November to allow further polishing and beta testing.
Gamescom is sometimes like a really bad sequel to E3. Some of the announcements seem rushed or they just show the exact same footage that we saw just a few months ago at E3. This year, Gamescom has been different. It’s like a good sequel that expands upon what we loved in the first, but gives us more.
Following that trend, the Gamescom 2012 trailer for Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is everything that was awesome about the E3 trailer and then some. It features some of the footage from the E3 trailer, but what you should care about is the new gameplay footage. Platinum Games have truly outdone themselves with this one.
In short, Raiden is still the amazing badass that he was in Metal Gear Solid 4. He’s just even more amazing as he chops up helicopters, Metal Gear Geckos and other baddies into tiny bits. If you’re looking for the action game of 2013, Metal Gear Rising will probably be that game.
As for the new content in the trailer, it only brings up more questions. We’re shown a robot that looks suspiciously like Sniper Wolf from MGS4. We’re led to believe that it’s a remote controlled robot this time around and that its main mission is to kill Raiden. With a chainsaw on its tail, it might just succeed.
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance will launch on the PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 21, 2013 in Japan. It’s unknown if that’s the same date for the U.S. and European launch. It’s a fair assumption since the localization seems to be mostly done.
I will be the first to say that I was skeptical when Metal Gear Rising was first announced. I didn’t know if Kojima Productions had the chops to make a full-out sword-based action combat game. It turns out I was right as the game was quietly shelved only to be picked up a few months later by the absolute genius team over at Platinum Games. Now that the team that brought us Bayonetta and Vanquish are in charge of the project, it’s looking to be one of the best games of next year.
For those who aren’t aware, Metal Gear Rising is an attempt at broadening the scope of the Metal Gear franchise. Previously, the series only focused on either Solid Snake or Big Boss. Rising is all about Metal Gear Solid 2 protagonist Raiden. It isn’t the whiny in a constant state of existential crisis Raiden that has taken up residence as Rising’s main protagonist though. It’s the amazing cyborg ninja that even the haters came to love in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
The new trailer obviously wants to focus on the story that Kojima is probably involved with in some capacity. It seems the game will be exploring Raiden’s past as a child soldier who was then raised to be a test subject in Metal Gear Solid 2’s Solid Snake Simulation. None of that really matters, however, when the trailer goes over to the gameplay.
You’re going to have to see it for yourself, but trust me, it’s absolutely amazing. It seems that Platinum Games have mashed together the best parts of both Bayonetta and Vanquish into one future soldier action game that could only come from the greatest Japanese game developers.
The main gameplay hook of being able to direct your slices in any direction is still intact and even better than before. Just watch Raiden cut a helicopter into 10 different pieces and try not to get excited. It seems that Raiden has picked up a few new moves from the last trailer as well including some awesome stealth kills.
Konami has a hit on their hands here and I hope it does well. Platinum Games deserves far more respect than they’re given and it might give Sega a push to bring Anarchy Reigns, Platinum Games’ arena shooter, over to the West.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be out on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in early 2013. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wii U got its own version later on.
