Along with the Dead Space 3 demo dropping yesterday (of which you can read my appraisal here), the long-awaited first chance for players to take a crack at Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance materialised in the form of a brief demo. I'll admit to having been sceptical about the project ever since it was first announced, and must confess that this demo has done little to allay my fears that it won't live up to the hype typically associated with a game bearing "Metal Gear" anywhere in the title. Though not the unmitigated disaster many expected, Revengeance feels utterly piecemeal, though of course, there's only so much we can glean from this half-hour demo, almost half of which is comprised of cut-scenes. Of course, we expect the final product will be a little more polished (and not feature the same garish, horrendously compressed videos), but it still doesn't leave a particularly strong impression. Nevertheless, here are 10 reasons why Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance won't live up to the hype...
10. Goofy Plot
Though on the face of it, it seems pretty ridiculous to criticise a Metal Gear Solid game for its outlandishness, from the brief morsels of narrative we get a glimpse at in Revengeance, it goes far beyond the level of madness we've seen so far in the series. Set after the events of MGS4, Raiden is back in good shape, and is working for a PMC in order to...feed his family (yes, really), but that's not even the goofy part; what's more bizarre is how you appear to spend the game cutting through enemies, being instructed to sever the hands of each enemy so that you can extract biometric information from that body part, which is useful for your buddies back home. You also have to steal their "precious fluids" (which instantly reminded me of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove), and all this exposition is doled out by some horrendously clichéd, ridiculously accented Russian character, who without any sense of irony of self-awareness is named, you guessed it, Boris. Jeez.