Many months ago, I wrote an article on the latest Metal Gear title. This one will feature Raiden, the whimp turned bad ass. There was much speculation about the game play,many thinking it was going to be a more action oriented title rather than the stealthy game play of it’s predecessors. I envisioned a Devil May Cry type of game. Now it’s a year later and another E3 is upon us, along with the first in game footage of the game since the teaser from 2009′s E3.
The trailer opens up with a foot stepping onto bullets. You see a machine solider roaming around with a gun arm, looking for something. The soldier is reminiscent of the FROGs from MGS4, with the same style mask and gear of the feet, which were the same that Vamp had as well. Walking in a factory setting, the soldier then sees a shadow from above and starts shooting and that’s when it is greeted by none other than Raiden. It is not a greeting I would want as Raiden quickly slices the gun arm, then slices the soldier in half, actually revealing that the thing is a machine and to finish it off, reaches into it’s waist, pulls out the spine and crushes it with his hand with glowing red eyes. And that’s just the beginning.
The trailer goes on to show some game play which makes alot of use out of the environment, being able to cut down stone pillars to collapse buildings onto enemy soldiers (of the human kind). Another neat feature is the use of the Sony MOVE controller. With the controller, it allows you to cut in any direction you wish. The game has a system to set up the cuts and see what would be affected in that particular slice. In one scene, Raiden flips a soldier in the air, making several cuts to cut off the limbs of the defenseless solider. The cuts are aligned with a blue sphere of sorts, much like the sphere used to aim grenades in the past Metal Gears.
The game system is called “zan datsu” which is translated to “cut and take.” This equates to cutting enemies or objects and being able to take key items from these. Such as the first scene of Raiden ripping out the spine of the cyborg soldier, it’s as if he absorbed the energy from it. He could use items to regain health, ammo if guns come into play and maybe some information from wounded soldiers or cyborgs’ CPU’s. This adds a whole new level of game play where in the past, you had to hold up soldiers to get these where now you just take it from them after horrifically mutilating their bodies.
Pretty much anything in the game can be cut. Scenes of Raiden slicing through a parked van and the end scene of slicing watermelons are just examples of the free slicing system. The system is partnered with a type of “bullet time” to make sure that precise cuts with the help of the blue sphere or geographical planes if you want to get a bit more technical, allowing for a maybe a bit more strategy than one may think for such a game. I’m thinking maybe a perfectly timed “bullet time” moment with a precise cut could help to disarm (both weapon and/or actual arms) the bigger enemies.
I’m eager to learn more about the story line which from the rumors I hear, it involves Raiden and a fourth clone of Big Boss. Maybe gamers will get to see how Raiden got to be so bad ass and just what he went through to become like this. I like the fact that he gets his own game because like Snake, Raiden surely has ghosts from his past that the game will surely reveal. Hopefully he’ll also have a great supportive cast such as Otacon and Colonel Campbell. With no real information given except for some minor game play tid bits, it’s all open to speculation. Still waiting on a release date, time will only tell if this Metal Gear first, both in game play and first without Kojima in the director seat (though he is still a producer) will be as successful with series fans as it’s legendary predecessors.
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