Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – Review (PS3)

Ok before we get started, in the interests of full disclosure I must state I didn’t (or more accurately couldn’t) finish Metal Gear Rising. I made my way through 99% of it but after 90 minutes of trying I admitted defeat on the final boss.

Set 4 years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, Rising sees you take control of Raiden once more – though he has changed somewhat since the Metal Gear Solid 2 days 🙂

The most glaring difference, as seen during some cut scenes in MGS4, is that Raiden is now mostly machine – a cyborg, fitted with an exoskeleton and lots of nice weaponry just waiting to be upgraded.

Metal Gear Rising is not a stealth game like previous Metal Gear Solid titles – the few stealth sections in Rising feel a bit out of place in my opinion. This is a game all about destroying your enemy rather than avoiding them. And you have lots of ways to dispatch your foes.

Raiden’s main weapon is a katana which he can use to slice up his opponents, especially satisfying during ‘blade mode’, where time slows down and you use the right analogue stick to swipe your sword through any other cyborg in your way. It can also be a big help – a red box will appear on enemies while in blade mode, hit it with your katana and nail the circle button prompt to absorb your foes’ energy – refilling your life bar.

You can also parry enemy attacks by pressing square and pushing the left stick in the direction of the attack. Enemies give off a red light before they attack but unfortunately that doesn’t indicate when to parry, just that they are going to attack.

It makes it overly difficult to judge attacks and from what I understand on easy you only have to press square to parry, which sounds like a better option for these lower (easy/normal) difficulty settings. It just meant more frustration for me as I could parry some attacks but not others. I felt Platinum Games nailed the parry/attack mechanics in Bayonetta and Vanquish so it’s disappointing to see what they’ve delivered for Rising.

Couple this with some big difficulty spikes and it’s a recipe for trouble. When you’re having to spend almost two hours fighting the same guy (Hi Monsoon *waves*), even if it is over two battles, on Normal difficulty then I feel the game is doing something wrong.

Graphically the game looks a little rough around the edges at times and I noticed a distinct stutter and frame rate drop during some of the scripted Codec calls. However the cutting in blade mode is stunning and it’s amazing to see your damage rendered in real time.

The story is focussed around PMCs (Private Military Companies) and how they benefit from war, or even just the threat of war. Raiden uncovers a sinister plot that one of the PMCs is carrying out and vows to stop them. It’s not really anything spectacular but serves as a nice back drop while you’re chopping up cyborg soldiers and massive robots.

There is little mention of Raiden’s past (beyond him being a child soldier) or much else linking back to other Metal Gear games but there are a few things fans of the series will pick up on and the return of one character in particular had me smiling.

As I said at the outset of this review I didn’t actually finish the game. I was stuck on the last boss and sadly Metal Gear Rising doesn’t give you the option of changing the difficulty at all. I can’t remember the last time I failed to make it through a story-based game. I sunk a lot of time into that last boss and wasn’t making any progress at all so decided that my time could be better spent elsewhere.

It would’ve been nice to have had some middle ground with the option to drop the difficulty down while playing bits you were having trouble with. It’s the lack of flexibility that killed the game for me. I do like challenging games but being stuck on the same boss/area for an hour at a time isn’t fun. While some people might get off on finally beating that part, I just felt drained.

And to be honest that kind of typifies my experience with Metal Gear Rising. For the majority of the game I was comfortable, in control and having fun. Then I would hit a crazy difficulty spike and just end up frustrated. My advice, unless you love a hugely challenging experience, would be to just play this through on Easy first time out and enjoy the ride. Rising is a fun and over the top action game, I just didn’t enjoy playing it.

Rating 6/10

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – Review (PSP)

 

Peace Walker is set in 1974 in Central America with Naked Snake returning – this time running a mercenary group called the Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF).

It’s a similar scenario story-wise, track down the latest Metal Gear iteration and destroy it before the bad guys have a chance to launch a nuclear attack.

You can recruit enemy soldiers and volunteers to help in the ‘fight’ and apart from coming on actual missions with you, they can also research new weapons/items or be sent on covert ops of their own to earn you cash.

The control system has been revamped from Portable Ops and it’s definitely an improvement but the sooner a PSP arrives with two analogue sticks the better – Peace Walker is around the 15 hour mark in length and there is only so much PSP Claw one man can take 🙂

Gameplay-wise there are options for both stealth and direct action, though stealth will almost always see you through sections quicker because no back up arrives!

One new addition is the Fulton Recovery System, which is most welcome. In previous titles to recruit enemy soldiers you’d need to physically drag their unconscious bodies back to a truck at the beginning of the level and dump them in there.

While realistic it meant if you wanted to recruit you’d spent ages dragging each soldier back. Now you attach them to the Fulton, which inflates and carries them up into the sky from whatever position they are in. Totally unrealistic but for once an instance where that is completely cool with me. 😆

Peace Walker isn’t without it’s flaws though. Some of the boss battles were ridiculously lengthy and occasionally the controls did get in the way of the experience. The AI on some of the enemies was pretty questionable – although the same could be said of many Metal Gear titles.

Graphically I’d say this is above PS2 quality, though without viewing them side by side I suppose it’s tough to judge properly.

As I mentioned above Peace Walker is a full game, with a run time that would put plenty of Playstation 3 titles to shame. The story is as convoluted as ever, especially with Hideo Kojima at the helm, but that is part of the Metal Gear charm for me.

If you like Metal Gear or are just looking for a meaty game to get stuck into on your PSP then Peace Walker could be for you. Despite it’s flaws this is one of the most impressive feats ever seen on the PSP.

Rating: 9/10

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops – Review (PSP)

I actually started this game back in 2008 – don’t worry it isn’t THAT long 😆 but I got a bit frustrated and switched to something else.

I’d been meaning to get back into for ages and following GTA Chinatown Wars I played some Motorstorm, which was great but I fancied some story based action.

And I came to the right place! Famed for it’s lengthy cut scenes, and often confusing plots, the Metal Gear series still gets played by so many people because they are brilliant games.

Portable Ops is no exception and they have done a great job of squeezing everything down for the handheld platform.

Set 6 years after Snake Eater (Metal Gear Solid 3) in 1970 it tells the story of Naked Snake, or Big Boss as he is now known. The plot is at times completely insane but basically focuses around the Cold War.

One clever new feature is the ability to capture enemy soldiers and recruit them yourself – so instead of Snake being on his own he can have an entire unit there.

You still play alone but if Snake ‘dies’ one of the other soldiers comes into action, albeit from the start of the level, with whatever damage Snake has done still intact.

The gameplay is your usual mix of stealth and panic – sorry, I mean intricate gunplay. 😆 – and if you’re a fan of the series you’ll be right at home.

The controls are awkward (well, this is PSP after all) but switching attack/shoot from square to R1 seemed to help matters.

Overall a sterling effort. Very enjoyable and although not a ‘pick up and play’ title, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is a rewarding experience if you give it the time it deserves.

Rating: 9/10

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Demo Impressions (PSP)

As far as I know this is currently only available on the Japanese PSN store but fortunately a friend had it downloaded and popped it onto my memory stick.

Sadly my knowledge of Japanese is non existent so I can tell you nothing about the story or, in fact, anything that happened during the demo. 😆

What I can tell you was that the graphics were fantastic – I would say better than PS2 😮 – and that using the face buttons as a sort of ‘right stick’ like Resistance: Retribution is a great move.

It took me ages to get out of the first deserted beach area due to lack of translation – my Codec was going off consistently but I had no idea how to answer it 😆 Eventually I worked out what I was doing and moved on to the next section.

There were soldiers here and it was a case of take down or be taken down. Stealth was the order of the day but unfortunately the waiter must’ve written my order down incorrectly because a misplaced shot alerted everyone and their mother to my location. 😦

After a particularly frantic shoot out in which I knocked out every opponent non lethally with tranquilliser darts 😎

Upon finishing that area we moved to some outbuildings/warehouses in the jungle where, with my new found Snake skills, I managed to take out every guard without an alert 😎 Took me a while though 😆

Next up was a heavily guarded tank that I am still yet to defeat and I suspect it might be a part of the game that you might need to get involved in co-op with someone else.

Nevertheless after playing this Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a no brainer for me – I’ll definitely be picking up a copy when it arrives on PSP next year.