As Raiden, it's a unique pleasure to decimate hostile cyborgs, hacking them into pieces, and ripping out their spines to gorge on their nutritious electrolyte juices. The exuberant flow of combat alone is enough to make it worth playing, regardless of your background with Platinum, Metal Gear, or character-action games. Kojima's vision for what MGS could be at that time consumed me, keeping me from loving a game that was brilliant in its own right.Īnd how brilliant it still is. I wasn't too bright, but to be fair, I was eagerly awaiting Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, which seemed to elevate the series' storytelling, focusing more on subdued dialogue and cinematography. And I know what you're thinking: 'But a WWII-era special forces soldier who can shoot bees from his mouth gets a free pass?' Setpieces like Raiden lifting a Metal Gear Ray on his own and throwing it into the air so he could cut it in half were just too absurd for me to accept-even as someone who loved Platinum's work at that point.
As an elitist, self-serious college-aged Metal Gear fan in 2013, the Raiden spin-off was too bonkers for my tastes.
Platinum's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a wonderful action game-but I'm ashamed to admit I didn't like it when I first played it.
