Xbox 360 Review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

After the final boss lay dead before my feet, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that no videogame has ever given me before. My hands were gripping the controller so tight that there was actually some pain in my fingers – a reminder of the well-timed parries and attacks that made my time with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance a success.  

This is not the stealth-action game that fans of the series are used to; instead Rising Screenshot 1Rising is a fast-paced, sword-slashing actioner from beginning to end, one that is more of a parody of the Metal Gear franchise than a legitimate entry. Yet, as one of the biggest fans of Metal Gear on the planet, I absolutely loved it.

Metal Gear Rising is a ridiculous game – and it knows it. In fact that’s part of its appeal. The franchise is no stranger to unusual characters, but Rising takes them to an all-new level. I thought when I met my talking A.I. dog companion that it couldn’t get any weirder – but I was wrong.

You will meet bizarre villains along the way, and you’ll carve them all into pieces after some of the craziest battles you’ll ever see. There is something about ripping off the leg of a giant robot and smashing the metal monster over the head with its own limb that just forces you to have fun.

Rising takes the most unbelievable parts of Metal Gear--like cyborg soldiers and nanomachines that regenerate limbs--and takes them to a point that gives new meaning to the phrase awesomely-bad. Players take control of the cyborg-ninja, Raiden, who is on a mission to rescue slave children from an evil corporation who is using their body parts to make other cyborgs. It is a tongue-in-cheek plot that serves to push things forward nicely, with a tone that's self-aware of how ridiculous this premise really sounds.

Aside from some small stealth areas, gameplay typically follows a simple pattern: you’ll enter a series of small areas, kill all the enemies, then fight a boss at the end of the stage. The action will occasionally be interrupted with codec calls and some cinematics, but even those often contain QTE sequences to keep the player engaged.

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Article Author: Chad Michael Van Alstin

Chad is an award winning opinion columnist with a background in mass communication. He likes movies and videogames more than his nonexistent children.

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