Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

War has changed further.

In the late twenty tens, Jack is further enhanced and embraced by nano and cyborg technology after one of his missions failed while collaborating with PMC Maverick. Deciding to return to the battlefield to live up to his nickname, Jack goes after Desperado to initiate his revengeance.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a spin-off from the main series where you play as Raiden, a controversial main protagonist now turned into a cybernetic and futuristic cyborg ninja armed with nanomachines to combat empowered foes.

Played out as a 3D hack and slash game, it is a fastpaced adventure of moderate length where you fight foes not only for plot reasons, but currency and health reasons as well. Being able to absorb the nano core of others lets him replenish for instance.

A distinct mechanic is simply called Blade Mode, where Jack will go in slow motion in his surroundings, but burst his own movements in order to truly frantically hack and slash away at enemies.

You will need to upgrade your attributes, weapons and body if you want to consider surviving the tougher adversaries, which is mostly Desperado, another PMC working in secret for an American Senator dealing with evil actions such as organ trafficking.

The gameplay can play very satisfactorily if you understand the fundamental way of progressing efficiently. This means that you must learn to parry and dodge your way around if you truly want to tackle the tougher challenges.

And this game is hard, even on Normal Mode already. The interesting and challenging boss battles are excellent designs that each come with their own different personalities and motivations for battling with Jack.

The regular ones are very impressive, but the last battle is simply so amazingly over the top for it features one of the manliest final bosses I ever fought, and I mean this with all of the good intentions. It is both a true challenge and extremely unregular, but Metal Gear Solid seems to tackle extreme seriousness with extreme humor all the time, especially when looking at their secrets and easter eggs.

There is one more thing; the kickass and badass soundtrack to be found here made me a heavy metal fan for the first time. This mostly comes from the lyrics to be found in the tracks that embody the feelings of the antagonists.

I am extremely glad to be able to appreciate this addictive ride, and I definitely wouldn't mind a sequel towards Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. From a gameplay perspective, it's a very fun experience with good pacing and diversity.

Rating: 8.4