Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

[HandsomeDead]

I thought since I've done a run of it I'll give some impressions.

It's just one crazy action game. Mostly its about combos, weaken the guy then cut him into tiny bits. It's actually fairly easy as an accurate strike cuts the guts out of your enemies and squeezing its juice all over yourself fills your health up so while it can get hectic you're never far away from health, and getting used to the manual slicing isn't that much of a problem.

You don't even need to use combos, you can just mash your way through the rest of it. There are Ninja Gaiden style combos to learn but it's not necessary on Normal at least. I did most of the game with the sword though can apply secondary weapons to the triangle/Y button and all I did was keep the staff from the first boss as it is good at area attacks.

I've started a hard run and I'm probably gonna dive into the combat system more to see what it's really made of.

The only issues with it are the camera (just as bad as NG2's but with the addition of some of the environments being very narrow) and the story (yes, you can skip it but there is no attempt at telling it outside of long cutscenes and longer codec conversations).

[DANGERMAN]

ok, here's what I think is going on. The war economy is over, the patriots are dead, it means anyone can use guns, which means that there's no longer any profit in war. Without that capitalist influence Africa has found some peace, even if it still requires some might. That is where Raiden and his team come in, hired to protect an African leader. Unfortunately some mercenaries have decided that they don't want the quiet life and want to get back to what they're best at, and so attack and kill the president you/Raiden were hired to protect.

What that all means is you kicking the shit out of people, the usual stuff of a normal attack and a strong attack, with combinations between the two. It's good, not as involved as say, Bayonetta, or old or new Devil May Cry. You have a secondary weapon too, this can be grenades or a rocket launcher (or more that I haven't seen), to be honest the one time I tired to use it I missed, at no other point so far have I felt the need.

Once you've done enough damage you'll be able to activate sword mode, this is where you slice enemies up up to recover health, or arms, or to destroy their armour. As sacrilege as it will sound I think Move/Motion+ would have worked well for this, you kind of flick the right stick in the direction you want to slice, it's fine but you need to combine that with moving the camera on the left stick for precision. I've also accidentally cancelled out of sword mode a couple of times, I'm not entirely sure how, but it's annoying.

The game could do a better job of explaining the controls, the tutorial is fine for what it shows, but a patronising refresher in-game wouldn't have been the worst thing. And, unless I completely missed it, it doesn't tell you that you can lock on to enemies. I didn't need to for the most part, but the fast moving animal boss from the demo kicked the shit out of me until I found it. Incidentally, if you press a direction on your control pad you can access your item menu, from their you can access any health items you have.

So far it's not quite all it could be, it feels like a game that's been rescued. But it's nonsense, proper laugh out loud awesome nonsense

[HandsomeDead]

Haha! Who negged DMAN? I'm leaving it 'cos it's mildly funny.

I don't know anything of Metal Gear lore apart from the first game which I've mostly forgotten about at this point. The story is dumb but not offensively so and maybe it would make more sense to a fan.

I've been messing about with the other weapons a bit but there is nothing that great. Your staff which I talked about is just a handy area attack type weapon that does well with the more accurate sword. I've played a bit with the dagger which is a little interesting as it's magnetic and you throw it to stun enemies and drag yourself towards them so that can be fun zipping about but there are no real combos to use with it. Then you have a big scissor sword which is slow and powerful but because all enemies have ranged attacks too there is never an incentive to use its unique charge attacks.

It doesn't have the finesse of a great Platinum Games game, it's just full of stuff that you expect from them that doesn't fit together as well as it perhaps should. It's a lot better then Anarchy Reigns, though.

[DANGERMAN]

tbf I clearly didn't look hard enough to see if there was another thread. All I want is some consistency though DC, I feel like I'm being targeted because I'm the fan favourite

[HandsomeDead]

Build them up then knock 'em down, eh?

[HandsomeDead]

I've just finished it on hard which really wasn't, as apart from maybe taking more damage it is largely identical to playing it on normal.

Though in doing so I did unlock 'Very Hard' which it really is. I can't even do the tutorial level as they throw a bunch of extra and harder enemies at you and they are very aggressive; they just all go at you at once and since the camera is terrible fighting becomes such a chore. I'm really disappointed at how badly this game plays at high level.

[spatular]

i rented this, just finished it, quite liked it, the fighting is good fun. i agree with the problems mentioned above like the camera, story, and lack of explanations. at the start i was dying a bit because i didn't realise you could equip health items playing on easy it was still tricky till i worked out the blocking a bit better too, basically just keep tapping the stick in the direction of the enemy while attacking with x and you'll block most stuff (maybe its more difficult on normal).

[DANGERMAN]

yeah blocking becomes very easy after a while, parrying is a bit trickier, but mainly because you're (I'm) being too eager. I'm really enjoying it though, I've turned it off for the night but judging by how short it supposedly is I cant have all that long left (I've just left the helicopter pad fight and 'landed' in Colorado I think).

It still does feel a bit patched together to me, like the last cutscene I watched, you would have played that if Platinum had more time I reckon, it's certainly not a million miles away from some of the stufff you did in Bayonetta. I don't like that you have to refight bosses either, it always strikes me as game lengthening for the sake of it, especially as one of the fights is insanely easy 2nd time around.

the plot is kind of a nonsense and kind of quite meaningful. I've no idea what's going on with Raiden really, but the criticism of America is handled surprisingly well considering how over the top stuff is

[spatular]

what's the parrying then - like a block but timed just as the enemy is attacking or something? - i remember being told something like that at the start anyway, but didn't remember to do it for the rest of the game.

[DANGERMAN]

yeah, it should let you counter, with the early enemies I think it opens up a slice opportunity

[spatular]

cheers, yeah i probably did that without knowing what was going on

[DANGERMAN]

apparently the DLC for this is about to go free on xbl and psn this week. The game is also free on PS+ at the minute and will be getting a price reduction elsewhere

the general thinking is that this is because the PC version is out soon

[regemond]

Seeing as it's been revived... I can't decide if I enjoyed this or not to be honest. I think of the final boss and I just see red. It seriously put a damper on the rest of the game for me.

I've been talking about it with a mate in work who got in on PS+ and he deleted it after a few hours when the chainsaw dog thing kept beating him. But he also gave up on Far Cry 3 because he cant do stealth (or at least what they call stealth) so I'm not sure if his opinion counts. I played it a few months ago on Xbox and paid absolutely no attention to the story. I liked slicing and dicing and seeing how many times i could slice someone before they dropped. That was fun.

It seemed very repetitive though. Like DC, I kept the staff as my secondary weapon and didn't really have any reason to switch it up.

I also remember a set piece in an office lobby. I'm pretty sure that was a lot of fun.

I finished it, but wouldn't play again I don't think.

[Bob]

I just finished this and overall I think it could have been a better game without the Metal Gear branding, and that is coming from someone that absolutely loves Metal Gear. It doesn't really have that Metal Gear identity and at times it feels more like a parody by someone that doesn't like the series than it does Metal Gear. In fact the only time it really feels like Metal Gear is when you have people wanking on about ideologies and then there is a fight where their strength increases according to the power of their convictions. That is pretty Metal Gear.

It felt like Kojima wanted that paper monies from another Metal Gear game but didn't want anyone else advancing the story so it just treads water without looking into the deeper implications of MGS4. But of course this is all coming from someone that takes Metal Gear quite seriously and loves it for all its silliness and melodrama.

As a game in its own right though I thought it was really good. It has loads of that camp Platinum charm and the dialogue is hilariously cheesy. The way Raiden switches wildly between Raiden's voice and Solid Snake is truly baffling and overall the game and story are just a ton of fun. The Zandatsu thing worked really well for the most part, although my after game stats said I never chopped off a left leg which is upsetting. I chopped everything else off a heck of a lot but apparently those left legs just don't get the love.

I can see myself playing it again once I have gone through some of my backlog. Hopefully Playstation will make the DLC free once Rising leaves the instant game collection since it would be cheaper for me to buy the game again on xbox pre-owned than it would to buy the DLC on the Playstation store.

[DANGERMAN]

this is going up on steam for preorder tomorrow, presumably as part of the same as it's going to be $20 (£12) for 48 hours. After that it's 20% off until release, which is about $24, or £15. It's going to include all the dlc too, so that's pretty good

[mfnick]

I’ve finally made a start on this. Reached the 3rd level. I’m fucking loving it! Why haven’t I played this sooner? It’s so over the top, flashy and ridiculous. It’s amazing.

 

Struggling a bit to nail the parry and offensive dodge timings - usually too eager as others have said but I’m getting there. 
 

Camera can be a bit confused at times but not really caused many problems yet.
 

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't think I've played a single action game that's married its soundtrack with its action as well as MGR did. Platinum never hit that level again with their releases. DMC5 might be more technically advanced but it doesn't have that sense of pizazz outside of its last boss fight maybe, tho even on that front MGR's last boss is just a glorious capstone to the whole experience in a way few games will match.

[mfnick]

Not had time for much gaming lately but got back to this. Made quite a bit of progress now and it’s metal as fuck. Still loving it. Managing to keep the craziness, set pieces and spectacle to a high level. 
 

Just beat Sam, had some amazing moments like cutting a huge drone in half. Running up then flying up a tower while everything is blowing by up, great boss fights and got the Jack ability. 
 

I’ve properly got the hang of the parry and the dodge attack now and it feels fantastic. 
 

Main negative is that it’s all very grey. Lack of regular enemy variety is a little bit of a bummer too but still just as fun slicing the shit out of them now as it was hours ago. 

[mfnick]

This fucking killed me. 
 

😂😂

[one-armed dwarf]

Ironically this game became a meme shitpost generator for gen Z ten years after its release

 

Pity they couldn't have agit-propped it earlier, we might have got a sequel