The Social Satire of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a much more thoroughly straight-forward in its satire than its sister title Metal Gear Solid. Despite this, its themes are no interesting. After the somewhat overwrought dissection of the War Economy and Media Control in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance returns to a more grounded reality. Well, a more grounded reality with cyborg ninjas and hundred-foot-tall mechanoids.

    The heart of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the question of violence and its necessity. What level of violence is need to solve the world's problems, if any? It's an old question based around a fundamental problem with no solution. How does one solve the issue of violence without violence? If one side is willing to use violence and the other side isn't, does that mean the side which is willing will win automatically? History shows us examples from both sides.

    The Metal Gear series is decidedly anti-war but the games long struggled with the fact you were encouraged not to kill opponents while, nevertheless, still being a soldier. Revengeance's protagonist  is a character who fully embraces his role as a killer. Throughout the game, he gives various justifications for his violence ranging from "they chose this" to "I am a killer, so this is what I do."

    At the start of the game, he discusses the concept of deterrence and how a sheathed sword can prevent others from being drawn. I.e. the threat of violence is more important than the actual use of it. Likewise, he talks about the idea of killing one man to save many. The game dissects this question from multiple angles, pointing it out as both hypocrisy which favors the morality of killers and also as a truth of reality.

    Raiden saves many lives by killing villains but he's also confronted by the fact that the people he kills are usually employees, not evil themselves. Those who do evil deeds are unlikely to be intimidated by threats of violence against their minions. In short, deterrence is difficult unless you're willing to strike at those who make the decisions.

    Throughout the game, we have Raiden serving as the so-called "sword of justice." The gameplay encourages us to view combat as a ballet of swordplay, combos, and finishing moves. In contrast to Metal Gear Solid, which is filled with a largely melancholy instrumental score, the game is filled with Devil May Cry heavy metal which encourages you to enjoy the violence going on. As Raiden is cursed with "Jack the Ripper", his alter-ego who loves killing, so do we experience his blood-lust in a positive manner.

Raiden is not your ordinary hero in many respects.

     Yet, the strongest scene in the game is undoubtedly when Raiden is forced to confront a set of cybernetic policemen who have been brainwashed into being unable to retreat. Raiden is forced to kill them despite having their electronically recorded thoughts projected into his brain. He and we are forced to hear how terrified they are of fighting Raiden and how they have no idea what's going on.

    It's a brutal moment that calls into question the philosophy of war where one man is evil but to stop him you may have to kill ten thousand good ones. What about if said evil man was going to kill ten thousand and one or a million? The game gives no easy answers. Instead, it invites you to think about the serious consequences of going to war.

    The game's harshest criticism, in-fact, is of individuals who go to war for stupid or ill-considered reasons. America receives a rather brutal slamming in the game not for being the world's sole remaining superpower but having a military policy based on public opinion. The idea of going to war to raise public morale and industry is ruthlessly slammed. The game attributes this to the "toxic meme" of American exceptionalism.

    During one scene, Raiden literally pauses in the middle of a battlefield to surf the internet. He discovers that America is going to go to war with Pakistan because a group of mercenaries trying to assassinate the President have been killed (by Raiden). The nuances of the situation are completely lost in favor of the fact Americans have been killed on Pakistan soil.

    Unexpectedly, the villain of the piece, Senator Armstrong is repulsed by the typical attitudes of his fellow Americans. He loathes the greed, materialism, self-satisfaction, and lack of ideals amongst stereotypical US citizens. In a time when people have no religion or philosophy (a gross overstatement but reflecting feelings in some circles), being born in a specific place is no substitute for ideology. Unfortunately, his substitute is to try and replace it with an anarchy he believes will foster an environment of the strong.

    I think Kojima is being unfair to Americans in this respect. Americans are one of the most religious people on Earth and many others have secular ideologies. There is a strong undercurrent of materialism in the country but it is, by no means, the defining force behind our politics. Instead of accurately trying to deal with the issue of American exceptionalism, the game just ascribe Social Darwinist theory to its villains. They are all killers and believe the strong should rule the weak.

    Social Darwinism is a theory which has mostly been discredited (with good reason). However, Metal Gear Rising examines an element of it which relates to the eternal conflict between militancy and pacifism. The majority of Metal Gear Rising villains espouse a doctrine of "might makes right." However, repeatedly, Raiden is confronted with the fact that high ideals mean nothing against his opponents until he's strong enough to oppose them. In short, might doesn't necessarily make right but the right NEED might to enforce it. In short, violence is a tool that those who seek peace need as much as those who profit from war. I appreciated this point.

    The game also addresses, though not at length, the use of mercenaries and the problem of vagrant children. While both are issues in the real world, the game argues the real struggle is against human apathy towards them. Both continue to be a problem because people don't care enough to involve themselves. I'm not sure this is true. In my opinion, the larger social-political-economic issues are a great deal more complex than the game indicates but it, at least, made the effort to say the issue deserved more attention than it gave it.

    The main villains of Metal Gear: Revengeance are a PMC which has become so large and prevalent, it has started using advertising to brand itself as a family-friendly brand every American knows. This, despite the fact the PMC has nothing to offer most Americans. It has become normalized to the point it's nothing more than another company. After all, why not? America is a democracy and appoints the leaders which employ private military contractors. I feel highlighting this issue drew attention to the wrong questions to be asked about any company which profits from war.

    Yet, unlike previous games where the PMCs are demonized unilaterally, the game also shows Raiden's own military outfit as fairly moral. Raiden points out that most Private Military Contractors are just security providers and treating them all as mercenaries or war profiteers is unfair. It's a nice bit of reality in a game series which has, until now, treated all PMCs as instruments of evil.

    Its moral ambiguity on the subject is thrown away, however, with the PMCs use of child-soldiers. Thankfully, this is a subject we can all agree is universally bad. However, the game doesn't just stop at child soldiers but talks about poverty in general. The world is filled with abandoned or vagrant children who are either easy prey for criminals or unable to receive the kind of education which would pull them out of their circumstances. I consider education, alone, not enough but that's a conversation for another time.

    Metal Gear: Rising talks at length about how the problems with homeless children are manifold but have been ignored because it is too difficult a subject for most to tackle. The game forces the exploitation and suffering of the defenseless into your face and comes up with an imperfect but workable solution for the individuals involved. Raiden can't save the world but he can possibly save a small number of its citizens.

    The economics of both war and the failure of nations to care for children are both dealt with in the game. No one, aside from the cartoonishly-evil Desperado corporation, wants to hurt children. However, no one wants to foot the bill for their recovery either. A major subplot of the game is the attempt by the Maverick PMC to find a cost-effective solution for the care and education of the victims they find in Mexico and later Colorado. The end result seems to be putting the cost on the children, themselves, who must pay for the cyborg bodies which were cruely ripped away from them. "An imperfect solution for an imperfect world" indeed.

    In conclusion, the game is extremely effective at conveying its ideas of violence. Overall, I think the game comes down on the idea that violence is both necessary but also something not to be trivialized. As a student of the martial arts, however briefly, the first thing I learned was fighting was meant to be a last resort. The game taking the simple philosophy that violence begets violence but one should be prepared for it is a good one, especially when coupled with the knowledge it's something to be avoided when possible.

    More games should have this attitude.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

    I love the Metal Gear franchise in all its iterations.

    I can't play them worth a damn, however.  

    Metal Gear has one of the most entertaining storylines ever created for a video game. In a game world which starts in the 1960s and moves up to the near-future across numerous continents, the plot of the franchise is labyrinthine and bat**** insane (but in a good way).

    It's beautiful, thought-provoking, and proof video games can be a form of art. They're also damn difficult for people who don't like Stealth gameplay. Which, unfortunately, includes me. So, automatically, I'm going to give Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance a lot of credit for branching out. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an action game. You slice up lots of enemies and I do mean lots.

    The game really does an excellent job of making you feel like you're an invincible cyborg assassin--which is a pretty hard feeling to instill. It's not a perfect game, though, its flaws hampering a great premise and fun gameplay. The usual bat**** insane conspiracy theories which are a mainstay of the series have been noticeably mainstreamed (I hesitate to use the word "dumbed down") while the plot is absent the usual twists. Worse, there are parts which flat-out do not make sense with what we know of the setting.

    Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is also rather short, clocking in at about six hours to complete. It has a New Game Plus mode, which allows you to restart the game with all of your upgrades after beating it but this is a poor substitute for what should have been a few more levels. Finally, the game has more than a few plot-holes, a quality which was surprisingly absent from the convoluted series until now.

Yes, a cyborg ninja is fighting a robot wolf. It's that sort of game.

    The premise of the game is that Raiden, the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2, has taken up work as a Private Military Contractor for an unnamed African country. Unlike most depictions of mercenaries, he's actually doing the job they're allowed to do in the real world--which is being is a bodyguard. No points to you for guessing his contract is killed and Raiden decides to get revenge.

    Hence the title.

    The plot later becomes focused on the use of child soldiers, cybernetics, mercenaries in conflicts, and American exceptionalism. Unfortunately, the game is too short to delve into these topics too much. There's even a serious plot hole where the villain explains his plan in detail at the end, only to never explain how the previous actions he'd taken benefit it in any way. Indeed, several actions done by the villains make no sense except to get the main character involved.

Is it wrong to chop up hordes of faceless mooks with your super sword? Does anyone care once the bullet time begins?

     The gameplay is completely the opposite of Metal Gear Solid, involving the character of Raiden slicing through literally hundreds of foes with his cybernetic sword. With the use of a Bullet-time mechanic to slow down enemies, you are capable of using your sword to slice foes into literally hundreds of pieces.

    There's an option to stealth through the game but it is actively discouraged by sections of the game getting "blocked off" until you have killed all of the various enemies who have spotted you. Really, you're much likely to have more fun by killing all of your foes with your high-tech sword. At least a couple of commentators have mentioned this game is a spiritual successor to the old arcade game Strider (where you play a cyborg ninja with his robot dog) and I can see their point.

    In a nod towards the franchise's well-known pacifism, the game eventually takes a rather dark turn which highlights that Raiden's rather cavalier attitude towards killing. I won't spoil this section but it's exceptionally powerful and the only moment I really felt like this game was a worthy successor to its predecessors. That doesn't mean it's not fun, however, just a tad underwhelming.

The game's tagline is lightning bolt action. It delivers, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it gets a bit repetitive in places.

      I like Raiden's new look, attitude, and character development. The confident, dangerous, and somewhat insane character of this game bears little resemblance to the awkward newcomer of Metal Gear Solid 2 yet perfectly fits with what we know of him. I think the absence of Raiden's wife Rosemary, always a somewhat questionable addition to his story, helped matters somewhat. Rosemary  needs serious retooling if she's going to be an entertaining love interest.
  
    Raiden's supporting cast is entertaining in this volume, consisting of the mercenary company which employs him and a couple of surprising additions. I suspect some people are going to have severe problems with George, the Guyana war orphan, since his accent is bound to remind some people of Jar Jar Binks. I, on the other hand, found the kid to be quite entertaining and surprisingly courageous. None of the characters have story arcs as memorable as Naomi Campbell or Major Zero, however, which means the codec conversations aren't as entertaining or portentous.

     I like Raiden's new look, attitude, and character development. The confident, dangerous, and somewhat insane character of this game bears little resemblance to the awkward newcomer of Metal Gear Solid 2 yet perfectly fits with what we know of him. I think the loss of Rosemary, always a somewhat questionable addition to his story, helped matters somewhat. Raiden's wife needs some serious retooling if she's going to be entertaining.

Yes, he's jumping from missile to missile to attack a giant robot. Why have you not bought this game!? Ahem, sorry.

     I'm of mixed feelings towards Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's villains. All of them are quite good with Mistral, Jetstream, Sundowner, and Monsoon being perfectly serviceable bosses. Jetstream Sam, in particular, is a character I'd love to see more of. I also felt that the final Boss was hilariously over-the-top but in a good way. Unfortunately, none of them relate back to the other games in the franchise and I'm not sure we'll see them built on like we did with the Foxhound unit in Metal Gear Solid. As a result, they sort of feel a bit insubstantial.

     The game's soundtrack also bears special note, being composed of almost pure heavy metal. While not all of the tunes are great to listen to when you're not in battle, they're excellent accompaniment to the combat on screen and rarely distracting. I was particularly fond of "Has to Be With This Way" which plays during the final boss fight. So kudos to the developers for coming up with some excellent music, I usually don't compliment the soundtracks during reviews.

     Is the game fun? As mentioned above, yes, it is. Unfortunately, the game feels almost half-done. It's not only short but the plot feels like it had additional levels and content which were dropped so the work could be released early. It lacks many of the flourishes which made Metal Gear Solid and its sequels great. There's still plenty of great stuff here and it's definitely worth the purchase cost, especially if you trade it in for store credit at Gamestop thereafter, but there's not much here to keep me occupied indefinitely.

8/10

Tomb Raider (2012) review

    I confess, I've never played Tomb Raider until this game. This is due to the fact the games just didn't look that interesting. I was a big fan of Indiana Jones but I didn't really get my Xbox360 until Dragon Age and Mass Effect were out. It was impossible not to be aware of Lara Croft, however. She was an icon for a short-while, located in everything from game magazines to movies. I love the Angelina Jolie films but they fill me with a silly sort of guilt. I mean, the developers thought she wasn't well-endowed enough for the part.

    Angelina Jolie.

The Hunger Games parallels are unintentional. Probably.

     The shift of Lara Croft from kickass female adventurer to gamer sex toy is a well-documented phenomenon and rather tragic. It's one of the reasons the series desperately needed a reboot. After one failed reboot already, I was leery of this game but heard good things during the development. So, deciding to pick it up at Redbox, I gave it a whirl.

    It's a great game.

    Tomb Raider takes a somewhat Batman Begins approach to Lara Croft, creating a backstory where she's forced to live the "Green Arrow" origin  of being trapped on an island where everything is trying to kill you. Actually, with a bit of re-writing, this might have made a decent Green Arrow game. Lara Croft, in the tradition of Katniss Everdeen, spends much of the game using a bow and arrow to annihilate her enemies. It's, by far, the most iconic and useful weapon in the game.

    The plot of the game is deep and multilayered. It also is one of the few I will say actually benefits from no spoilers. Several times, I thought I had a handle on what was going on only to be pleasantly surprised when the game threw a twist at me. It was only by the midpoint of the game where I realized what was really going on.

    The game borrows heavily from Lost and has a similarity to Far Cry 3 at the beginning. There's a lot of mysterious goings on and the island definitely has a Bermuda Triangle-esque feel despite being nearby Japan. What's going on? Who are these people? Why are they doing it. All the answers come in time and some of them are quite surprising.

    Despite this, the oddities of the island never actually get in the way of the world-building. It's one of the first games to explain why you might find ammunition around an old tomb (because it's being used by the scavengers around the island). Rhianna Pratchett is very good at making the island feel like a plausible place despite its wonders.

    Lara Croft in the new game shines as we meet with her before she's killed anyone, explored any tombs, and seemingly right out of her first two years of college. She's the daughter of famous archaeologists but hasn't made any sort of mark herself, so she's latched herself onto a television crew. The game highlights the amount of punishment, pain, and personal loss she has to go through in order to become the badass character we know from the original games.

    Truth be told, I'm not sure I wanted her to become that sort of person after getting to know the new Lara. New Lara is a likable, friendly, brainy, fun-loving sort of girl who I might have enjoyed having drinks with at her age. Watching her have to sacrifice pieces of her humanity to save her friends is a heartbreaking experience, like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. By the time she decides to continue her adventures, I'm not sure if she's become a triumphant adventurer or if she's suffering a serious case of PTSD.

    The gameplay is similar to the Uncharted series with elements taken from many other games. For example, the collection of artifacts is similar to the Darkness 2 where you're able to build a rather impressive haul of archaeological booty despite the people shooting at you. There's a few too many people needing to be killed in the game (some zombies or dinosaurs would have been appreciated) but less than in most games. This game makes a good argument we could return to King's Quest-like games without violence.

    I also applaud the developers for coming up with extremely good puzzle-rooms. As opposed to tomb raiding massive underground cities similar to Moria, you only have little small ones to explore. These allow more attention to detail and give Lara as well as the player an intellectual challenge. I hope future games are like this since I enjoyed all of the ones I explored.

Lara is still a pin-up but it's gone from "ridiculous" to "artfully applied smudges."

     If I had any complaints about the game, it's the death animations are too violent and visceral. It's one thing to see Lara Croft killed by an alligator when she's just a bunch of pixels but photo-realistic Lara getting eaten by wolves is disturbing to say the least. That's not including the number of times she's stabbed, impaled, strangled to death, or thrown off a cliff. Eesh. Still, they weren't enough to lower my score of the game.

     Less of a complaint and more of an observation is also the game has a bit of difficulty developing the characters outside of Lara. They remain fairly stereotypical and with rare exceptions, I'm not particularly all that interested in seeing any more of them. The game isn't shy about killing them off either, which saddens me because a few of them were fairly likable.

    I'm particularly fond of the characters of Alex and Sam, both who play the role of "normal" archaeologists who react to their situation with decidedly less epic heroism than Lara but avoid being useless. I also enjoyed the character of Roth, who is a friend of Lara's father and takes the place of previous series antagonist Von Croy as our heroine's mentor in adventure archaeology.

    Did I have fun with the game? Certainly. Is it a perfect 10? No, I can't say that it is. The game's visceral elements plus its padded story took away from an otherwise perfect gaming experience. Still, I had an immense amount of fun and never found it too difficult or frustrating. If there's a sequel with this Lara Croft, the human and vulnerable one, I'll definitely be picking it up.

9.5/10

Buy at Amazon.com

This Book Is Full Of Spiders, Seriously Dude Don't Touch It review

 

    This is the best remake of The Thing I've read in years. No, seriously. The thing is, it's also the best zombie novel I've read since Ex-Heroes. I'd argue it's better than Ex-Heroes but said novel has superheroes, so I'm going to have to give it the edge. At heart, the sequel to John Dies At the End is a tremendously funny book which actually manages to make a lot of dead-horse (as in "beating a") zombie tropes better.

    TBIFOSSDDTI is less entertaining than the original John Dies At the End because it's a good deal more conventional. At no point do the heroes enter an alternate dimension ruled by a man-made supercomputer formed from meat where everyone is naked or defeat a bunch of demons with the power of rock and (testa)mints. It's hard to beat the staggering weirdnss of John Dies At The End.

 

    This book, instead, focuses on the much tamer issues of deconstructing both The Thing and your typical Zombie Apocalypse tropes. The Thing elements deal with the premise of an alien parasite eating into your brain, consuming you, and re-animating you as something else. The best-case scenario is you become a horribly obvious nightmare cannibal thing. The worst-case scenario? You become a nightmare cannibal thing fully capable of appearing as a normal person for an extended period.
 

    The psychological and physiological impact of all this is examined at length, surprisingly enough. It even manages to address what I thought about while watching the Thing, but the movie completely glossed over. Specifically, if The Thing converts everyone into a member of its race without even the people involved being aware of it, is it necessarily a bad thing? The book really went up in my estimation when it discussed this.
 

    Next, I loved the discussion of zombies and their role in the media. TBIFOSSDDTI points out that a lot of people are preparing for the zombie apocalypse either specifically (as a game) or as part of a general breakdown in society (militia types). It has nothing for scorn for the former when they try to apply these lessons to real life and even more so for the second group due to their lack of compassion.
 

    John and Dave are more or less unchanged from their previous appearance, sticking to the role of goof-ball and comically serious protagonist. Amy, however, has much more to do his time around. I can't say she really reads like a 'realistic woman' but John and Dave aren't exactly realistic men so that's a poor complaint. Instead, I found her entertaining and, by the end of the book, every bit as developed as the leads. I'm fond of several new characters introduced in the book as well with TJ and Doctor Tennet being amongst my favorites.
 

    TBIFOSSDDTI could do with a bit more of the series' trademark wackiness but it manages to tell a surprisingly effective and coherent monster story despite several absolutely absurd moments. 

    This isn't a spoiler but there is a moment when a villain terrifies his audience by using the visual metaphor of a honey bear. This is joined by, quite possibly, the bloodiest example of Darwin in action where a bunch of people slaughter each other because they're all carrying assault rifles in an enclosed space while thinking they're in a First Person Shooter. Oh, yes, and there's a gun that shoots beards.
 

    Yet, somehow, this is STILL more serious and less whacky than John Dies At the End. It's not a flaw, though, and I'll say that I very much enjoyed the book. 

9.5

John Dies at the End review

     This is the review of the book as opposed to the movie, which is available here. 

 

     John Dies At The End is a funny-funny book. It's also a work which could have used a tighter focus, a stronger single narrative, and a few other changes. Despite this, the book is a unique experience (in part due to its flaws). 

     The story, published by comic author Jason Pargin under the pseudonym David Wong, has a lot of first novel mistakes which help contribute to its autobiographical feel. Likewise, it's clear this book was published in a serialized form and the chapters were meant to be read individually like an old Pulp magazine as opposed to all at once. This just makes the book feel like it was written by a man out of his depth rather than a professional writer, which also helps the narrative.
 

     Still, the book sometimes feels like you're reading the writings of a man telling a long meandering story on the fly. No matter how interesting the story, you wish he'd get to the point. Many of the plots go nowhere and characters you think important are dropped unceremoniously.
 

     Fans of the movie will note only about a third of the book was used as the basis. The book has a great deal more in the way of enemies, plot, and characters. Frankly, I think the book should have been divided up a bit more or the movie too but both manage to stand on their own merits. In short, pick it up if you have the time.
 

     The premise for the book remains roughly the same: David Wong and his friend David Cheese have gained drug-derived supernatural abilities to see and comprehend the universe. Unfortunately, the universe is an infinitely scarier and surreal place than either of them could have imagined. There's monsters, demons, Shadowmen, ghosts, and Jamaican drug-dealers whose wares bestow psychic powers.

     A major subplot of the book which was excised for the movie is also the issue of identity. What makes us who we are when there's the ability to clone people, turn them into monsters, brainwash them, change their memories, and so on. Interestingly, the book provides a satisfactory answer and I'm inclined to cut it a lot of slack for this very reason alone.

     A character who strongly benefits from reading the original book as opposed to the movie is Amy. While regulated to the token love interest in the movie, she's significantly more proactive and interesting in the book. Which is surprising since she doesn't show up until halfway into the story. 

     Overall, I strongly recommend reading John Dies At The End in addition to watching the movie. It is a funny, satirical, scary, and occasionally even poignant story about two dudes finding themselves in a situation way above their pay grade (or anyone's pay grade for that matter). It's not perfect but it's an excellent work for a first novel.
 
8/10