One of the very first trailers shown at E3 2010 was a teaser for Kojima Productions’ newest game: Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Although Hideo Kojima himself took to the stage at Microsoft’s Press Event for the game’s official unveiling, he very swiftly handed presentation-detail over to this game’s Creative Producer, Shigenobu Matsuyama. Even though Hideo Kojima is not at the helm this time around, it appears from the trailer below that this a true Metal Gear game in every way.
Matsuyama-san explained the the key principal within Metal Gear Solid: Rising, ‘zan-datsu’, which in Japanese means ‘cut and take’. He then let the trailer explain the zan-datsu premise for him:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI2pTjDK9QM&hd=1
As I’ve already mentioned, this looks, sounds and feels like a Metal Gear game in every way; and the franchise is clearly in very capable hands.
Metal Gear Solid: Rising marks a departure from the adventures of Solid Snake/Big Boss and instead follows the adventures of Raiden, the main protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and also side-character in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. If you’re not familiar with Raiden, trust me when I say there’s simply too much back-story to cover in order to explain who he is. Suffice to say he is a quasi-futuristic samurai cyborg, and his sword slices through pretty much anything, including robots and buildings.
Although Metal Gear Solid: Rising is still a stealth game at its core, Raiden’s swift mobility will be the focus of the stealth, rather than the disguises, body-popping and misdirection tactics employed by Solid Snake.
In addition, the core swordplay promises a level of depth and sophistication we haven’t ever seen before - at least employed in a melee weapon like this. The trailer conveys two distinct styles of slashery. The first is a free-cutting style that the player performs at-will and in real time, stacking up combos and bouncing between antagonists in a very fluid and brutal manner similar to that in Ninja Gaiden. The sheer spectacle of Raiden careening around at speed, slicing and dicing his way through brick columns, robots, guards and cars as though they were hot butter is jaw-dropping.
The second style of swordplay is a more meticulous and strategic method that slows down the action on screen to a bullet-time crawl and overlays a 3-dimensional aiming ‘disc’ across and through your target. This disc can be rotated and moved at will, allowing you to specify exactly what body part to slash, and where. It appears as though you can continue cutting bad guys in this way for some time before the bullet-time expires.
Being a still-infatuated lover of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, I have to say my initial doubts about this game’s switch from ‘Tactical Espionage Action’ to ‘Lightening Bolt Action’ left me a little cold after last year’s E3. That all changed with the showing of this trailer, though. Metal Gear Solid: Rising is now one of my most hotly anticipated multi-platform titles for 2011, and it should be one of yorus too.
The question is this, Ranters: Did the zan-datsu slice your watermelon?
Metal Gear Solid: Rising is in development for Xbox 360 and PS3. A release date has yet to be announced.
