Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance

Xbox 360 Demo
Played 02/05/13
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Platinum Games
Game Release Date: 02/19/13

This Konami game is coming out in a couple weeks, but the PS3 and the Xbox 360 have free demos available. I played through the 360 demo on Tuesday and had a great time. I’m really excited for this game’s release, even though I’ve never played a Metal Gear Solid game before.

For those uninitiated, Revengeance stars a cyborg named Raiden as he cuts and parries his way through terrorists, evil AIs and gorgeous landscapes. There seems to be a long complicated back story for Raiden. I’m sure previous games explain why the only biological part of his body that exists is the upper half of his head and why this game is using a hysterically Engrish-y name like Revengeance. Since I’ve never played them, I’m just rolling with his crazy character design and the title. Raiden is fascinatingly morbid though, a stylish mechanical skeleton with an energy katana capable of cutting through everything. No, seriously. Everything. Flesh, wood, metal, stone. Half the fun of the demo was seeing what Raiden can slice in half. The other half is learning to parry everything instead.

“Cutting stuff” is the mission statement for this game. Beginning the demo, our friendly neighborhood Russian intel-agent, Boris, drops Raiden into a VR training simulation to teach him (and you) the basics of cutting stuff. The instructions are clear, the cutting system easy to learn and the visuals are stylish without being intrusive. The VR training lets you practice on watermelons, poles and cardboard cutouts of terrorists holding hostages. But don’t stop there! Cut everything. Cut the stone pillars holding up the bridge over your head. Cut the bridge. Cut the tables and the crates. Cut things just to see if they cut. It’s wickedly fun!

Once you’re out of the VR training simulation, the game gives you a charming, cut scene and explains the main points of the gameplay and story. Raiden is some state of the art skeleton-looking cyborg that drains spinal nano-yummies from his enemies to keep up his strength. The creepy “Doktor” who handles the maintenance of Raiden’s body is also building a gruesome collection of left hands, because left hands are convenient data storage units for the enemy and contain useful info. This is all delivered with smiles and bright sunny explanations, but I think in general, the gritty details of cyborg-biology combined with Raiden’s unlawful good alignment (“I’m good with crunching on terrorist spines because terrorists kill people and deserve to die.”) is disturbing. I like dark worlds and broken characters so Raiden being some gruesome tech-vamp at least has my interest.

The cut scene ends. Boris, the good Doktor and the twins dump Raiden onto a gorgeous beach. Try out the rest of Raiden’s abilities here. Combinations of the X and Y buttons will give you different combos. He can jump and has a ninja run, where you run straight towards something and Raiden will auto-jumpfliproll his way to the top or over whatever obstacle in his path. Just remember: Stairs are for pussies. Cyborg ninjas bound up the walls.

The other half of Revengence is the parry system. The biggest mistake in this demo is that there was not a VR training environment to teach the parry system. It’s such a big part of the combat system that, as is, Revengence essentially only teaches you how to play half of the game. I would have loved an explanation and a practice environment. Having an enemy attack so I can parry without penalty would have been nice. While Raiden does not have the ability to dodge, all enemies can be parried. It’s incredibly empowering to parry instead of dodge. You don’t get out of your enemy’s way; you cut your own path through them! I went through the entire demo using only parries and it was a blast.

Here’s how a parry works. The enemies’ eyes will flash red when they are about to attack you. That flash lets you know that you should pay attention to them. Then, they will attack. The first three guys you meet on the island will throw grenades if you’re farther away or kick, punch or try to stab you if you’re near them. Watch them. Click forward on the left analog stick and press the X (weak attack) button at the same time they attack. If you completely botch it, they’ll hit you. If your timing is off, you’ll block with a really cool energy wave visual. If your timing is good, you’ll catch their attack and counterattack with your katana. From a successful parry, press the left trigger to enter “blade mode” (from your VR training) and slice through the red square target that appears. Once the red target is cut, you’ll be prompted to press the B button for normal enemies or the Y and A button boss-type enemies. On normal enemies, the B button will send Raiden into an animation that rips the spine from your enemy and crushes it in his creepy cyborg-skeleton hands, filling your health bar. On boss-type enemies, the Y+A buttons will send Raiden into an extravagant finishing move animation.

Parries are incredibly rewarding. They do a lot of damage and turn all normal enemies into juicy spinal health recharges.

The intricacies of the story are at your disposal without being intrusive. Besides the occasional cut scene with Boris and co., the game play rarely stops except to introduce a new enemy or a boss. At anytime, you can press the back button, and speak to any member on your team. They have interesting things to say, background on your environment, information on the enemies you’re fighting, updates on the tech you’re using. One of the benefits of jumping in on a long established series like Metal Gear Solid is the world building is expansive. Being new to the world and story, there’s no shortage to interesting ideas or characters. If you like clever combinations of sci-fi and political intrigue, no one does it better than Metal Gear.

I found this demo entertaining, stylish and well-made with interesting combat systems, bizarre enemy types and intriguing storylines. It doesn’t hold your hand, but lets you find your own path and I like the freedom to be creative. You could cut your way through with simple X/Y combos. You could parry every attack coming at you. You could rush the terrorists that are going to kill a civilian or sneak around and peck them off one by one or you could cut the bridge down from under them. Raiden’s philosophy is clear from the beginning: It’s all good as long as terrorists die. I get a little queasy because all of the enemies are biological to come degree. Even the non-human monsters are essentially filled with meat and powered by tech. When they’re killed, they bleed out and squish. I’m an American, who likes action flicks. I’m comfortable with onscreen violence, for whatever that says about my psyche, but because I like parrying and because I need health, the spine crunch animation is pretty constant, and it’s kind of gross. I suppose I can always look deeply into Raiden’s beautiful eyes and try to forget that his lower jaw is missing. Chicks dig scars, right? Goopy monsters aside, I’m really looking forward to this game coming out. I want to see what other enemies are out there that I can parry into oblivion.

~Allie

I’ve been getting into fighting games lately. Just one of my many interests, I guess. My boyfriend is a fantastic teacher, and I’ve been listening to his gaming logic of genre for years now. Like, fighting games have a science behind them, logic and reason for winning and losing. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from him and when I talk about this, it’s a bizarre combination of years of conversations with him and my rare personal experience.

A small group of us have been poking at Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift on the 360. Considering how quickly fighting games usually release new versions of their games, Continuum Shift is considered old, though I think it was released only a year or two ago. My sewing machine is three times as old, and I still consider it fairly new. Apples to oranges, perhaps, but I’ve been trying to play with some friends online and if they actually have this particular version of the game, they have is for a different console. So, only a small group of us have been poking at this game.

I’ve had problems picking up fighting games in the past. Every time you see someone really good at a fighting game, flashy moves combo into more flashy moves. There’s an inherit time investment needed to learn combos, so I respect those that devote themselves to something they love. Obviously, I would like to win a couple rounds now and again, too. But I run into a problem playing against others who just spend more time practicing than I do. Combo reliant fighting games can be really intimidating for new or casual players, like me.

What’s a combo? The concept is simple enough. Every time you clash with your opponent, someone will win. Damage will be dealt to the loser. Repeat. You can maximize the damage you deal to your opponent by linking more moves after you’ve won the clash. My boyfriend is better than I am at fighting games. If he wins about 4 clashes in a round in Blaz Blue, that’s enough clashes to take away all my health. It doesn’t matter if I win 6 out of 10 if I don’t do enough damage to take him out before he beats me.

Then I remembered that fighting games are an elaborate game of rock/paper/scissors. This is a concept my boyfriend has been talking to me about for years now. So I looked at the roster of characters in Blaz Blue and tried to find the characters that don’t require me to learn combos. If I can learn my character moves, I can try to “poke” my opponent to death.

“Poke”? The downside to most non-comboing characters is that they’re slow. The upside is that they’re hella strong. If my well placed ‘poke’ is similar to the amount of damage from another character’s combo, then I have a chance of winning. If I win a clash, I’m going do comparable damage, even without me learning combos.

Blaz Blue has two. Tager and Haku-men.

Tager is considered a “Grappler”. From what I understand, most of the time, this type of character is large, making them easy to hit, but they have much more defense than other characters. It takes a lot of damage to kill them. While you’re doing that, they are trying to “throw” you. By forcing you to come close to them for a long period of time, it allows the “grappler” to use the extremely close, unblockable properties of their throws, which usually yield extreme damage.

But I don’t like how Tager looks, so I chose Haku-men. Haku-men is a fairly slow, heavy hitting character, and, to me, seems to be based off the fighting principles of Street Fighter. He has a series of parries, meaning he can (very precisely) catch an opponent’s move and cause damage to them.

This is how Haku-men’s fights generally work for me. I’m consistently in a state of mind of measuring my opponent – where they are, what move will they do next, how much meter they have left, how quick they’re coming at me. Then I respond, and I try to stay away from my opponent to give me time to think. Typically, most fighting game characters are extremely aggressive. If I stay away, they come after me. And you can’t block if you’re making a forward movement. When they dash at me to attack, several options run through my head. Can I throw out a quick attack to stop their charge? Can I catch their attack when they get to me? Can I jump over them and attack from above? Should I just block and wait for another opportunity?

Haku-men is different than most fighting game “rush down” characters. They have dashing abilities to get across the stage quickly, quick firing combos to apply pressure on their opponents, preventing them from retaliating. With Haku-men, I wait for their mistakes, plan what I think they will do next, and punish them for being predictable. It’s methodical and rewarding, because when Haku-men hits, he hits hard.
Sometimes I win with him, sometimes I don’t, but with Haku-men, Blaz Blue has turned into a unique fighting game experience that I’m enjoying. That’s really all that matters, right?

And I think I want to play more Street Fighter.

~Allie