Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Demo

Metal Gear Rising is the latest action game offering from Platinum Games, creators of Bayonetta and Anarchy Reigns. It stars Metal Gear series mainstay, Raiden, and focuses much more on fast paced, reflexive action than other installments. The demo was released originally with the Zone of the Enders HD collection, but is now available on both PSN and Xbox Live for free download.

I've poured no less than three hours into the demo, and given it's only around a 15 minute showcasing excluding the cutscenes, hopefully that says something. The  feature I -and most people- were drawn to is the "Blade Mode": a mode of attack where Raiden enters bullet time and is able to cut apart his foes from literally any angle.

While Blade Mode's fun to just mess around with, cutting up scenery into tiny bits and pieces, it also serves a good deal of use in combat. Using it, you can deal a final blow to enemies, slicing clean through them. If done properly, it exposes their cores, which Raiden can then grab to refill his health entirely.

You only fight four battles in the demo, but from what I can gather, the standard combat is based around parrying and strategic counter attacks. You can't quickly cancel out of Raiden's attacks with a split-second dodge, so you need to keep in mind the length of each attack you're about to perform, and watch the enemies to make sure you aren't left open. All your foes display a quick telegraph for their attack, and then you simply need to press square and hold the analog stick in the direction you wish to parry.

The focus on reflexive parrying is nicely balanced by the quick strategy required when Raiden goes on the assault. The attacks themselves are the expected mix of light and heavy attacks, but it's more a game about choosing when to attack than how.

As this is only the demo, and a short one at at that, it may seem a little too soon to predict the entire game, but it certainly feels like a winner so far.