Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Demo Impression

Konami is currently in studios working on the final pieces of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Fortunately for gamers, that means that a demo has been launched to water your tastes buds now and leave you drooling by release date. But that’s simply the concept, can Konami “rise” to the challenge.

The question that ties there, is how frequently does Platinum Games let gamers down? Even their recent U.S. release of Anarchy Reign has received quite the appraisal.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance places you in the role of Raiden, a powerful cyborg who works for the militia known as Maverick Security Consulting. Before jumping into gameplay, you’ll be opted to test controls through a tutorial.

A quick visit through VR training helps Raiden, and you the player how to use his blade.

The demo opens with Raiden going into Sukhumi, Abkhazia’s capital. Desperado Enforcers are swarming the area and there’s one target that clearly gains our protagonist attention.

Metal Gear Rising is the complete opposite of what you would expect with Snake, which serves as an advantage. Raiden has the ability to hack-and-slash, however, gameplay refuses a victory to be claimed so simplistic.

Desperado Enforcers want to end Raiden by any means necessary. And if you haven’t mastered the moves quickly, there’s no rest for the weary. It’s a unique twist to all hack-and-slash games in general to not allow quick-button mashing to easily destroy every bot. Instead, you need to time every move and be very aware of your surroundings.

The most impressive use of controls in Revengeance is Free Blade Mode. When activating Blade Mode, you can manually choose how you want to cut any enemy or object with the right thumbstick. You’ll find it really works well when you have enough time to plan the attack, as most of the demo is indeed fast-paced.

Just as much excitement came from the demo, so did the unwelcoming setbacks. One, personally was the timing of the action sequences. When planning to silently take out a cyber-goon, Raiden had to be very close to complete that takedown. The distance was possibly realistic, yet very detectable.

Another huge let down was the camera angles. In combat the cameras are almost useless, leaving to you sometimes fighting blind. You have the right bumper to support your lock-on, however when performing a parry (replacing the normal dodge) or in a battle with multiple enemies, the camera tends to move slow, creating a huge disadvantage.

Metal Gear Rising focused more towards cutscenes than gameplay, but one must admit that Platinum Games has done a great job introducing characters and personalities early in the story. Graphically, Revengeance looks very crisp, not only by the character builds, but environmental as well.

A couple of tweaks and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance could escalate from good to great. It’s definitely a must play for all new comers and fans of the stealthy guy in the box. Only time will tell as this title releases February 19^th, 2013 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.