Metal Gear Revengeance - Evolution of Raiden

                              Metal Gear Revengeneance - The Evolution of Raiden

     First I'd love to say what a fan of the metal gear series that I am, I have loved it since back on NES when Metal Gear came out for it.  It was beautiful to get the Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation, and it has just built up to be a greatseries from there in my book.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

     I love the character Solid Snake, a complete bad ass who has always been my definitive guy I would love to be.  Hell he even made a mullet look bad ass.  In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty we were introduced to a new character, Raiden, who was met with a very mixed reaction for obvious reasons.
     Raiden was played in the US Version by Quinton Flynn, who has done alot of voice over work including: Mass Effect 2 & 3, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy and many others. 
     The way he was introduced definietely didn't help him, trying to sound like Snake, but sounded like a little boy trying to do the deep voice of Solid Snake (played by David Hayter).  He didn't have the attitude that Solid Snake possessed.  No matter what Snake had been through he was always tough as ever, Raiden on the other hand you would feel like he was trying to be, but he would complain to much.  Not exactly a fun time when most of the codec conversations with Raiden and his girlfriend Rose are about the problems they are going through, or have had with eachother and their relationship.  Kind of a snooze fest there.
     And we all would say the part where Raiden is running around naked and refuses to to do any grappling (but for some reason has no problem doing a cartwheel while still holding his junk is a little ridiculous) 
     The character of Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 left a lasting impressions with fans, but it just wasn't a good one, and a lot of heat was received to Hideo Kojima for that surprise into the game.  Which they rectified with the fans into the next Metal Gear game.


Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
     Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater even sought to make fun of the character Raiden, with the similar character who looked like Raiden, whose name was "Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov", funny enough.  And you would play as Big Boss, codenamed Naked Snake.  Snake and Major Zero would have conversations that would poke fun at the character, since the Raiden character wasn't as well received as they hoped, and nobody seemed to like the secret of playing almost all of Sons of Liberty as a different character then Solid Snake.  As you can see in this video they had no problem poking at the charcter for the fans

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

     We would see the actual character of Raiden reappear in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with a complete makeover.  Raiden made out as a ninja, in a complete cyborg look (sort of like what Deepthroat and Mr X showed in the first two Metal Gear Solid games on the Playstation and Playstation 2)  Made to look like a complete bad ass in the series, taking down these huge Gecko with ease, taking down multiple ones at the same time.  In the trailer he is shown fighting Vamp, and it is an great battle between those two, culminating to some bad ass moments in the game with the character.  Though he wasn't in the game much in Guns of the Patriots, the creator Hideo Kojima wanted to portray the Raiden character as bad ass, while not overwhelming him into the game causing more issues with Raiden being thrown into our face again.
     Helping Old Snake along the way, he proved to be a viable asset throughout different parts of the game, coming along to help whenever Snake really needed it and showing up at the perfect times to be one who was protecting Old Snake from what appeared death numerous times in the game.  I know the game has been out for a couple of years, but I don't like to give away anything, so SPOILER FREE:   Raiden along with everybody's story seemed to wrap up at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.  So when I heard about a new Metal Gear Solid game starring Raiden, I was skeptical, thinking that it would take place in between Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
     It has been revealed that the story takes place 2 or 3 years after Guns of the Patriots, so I'm wondering how well the character can go when his story seemed completely wrapped up with nothing else to tell after the end of the game.
 
Metal Gear Rising    
     When the game was first announce it had the name Rising, which I believed showed an decent amount of action, but at the beginning with him jumping from the shadows I believe i could have shown a decent amount of stealth within the game too.  One thing the Metal Gear series has always been known for is its stealth element  As you can see the trailer of Rising from E3 2010

     Metal Gear Rising was into production, and it seemed like it was going good.  The game news started to give issues, and I didn't hear much about it until the game had changed devlopers to Platinum Games (which has made games like Bayonetta).  The game was formally changed to Metal Gear Revengeance (Revence and Vengeance together)  http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2012/08/18/kojima-productions-explains-choosing-platinum-for-metal-gear-rising/ is a quick reference for me to why Hideo Kojima explains why the game was handed over to Platinum.

Metal Gear Revengeance
     The game still stars the Raiden character, but has had a complete makeover as to how the gameplay is.  The stealth that I believe was shown before has completely been taking out, starting as a action-stealth game to a hack-and-slash style game.  I'm not sure how I feel about this, because the Metal Gear name as I said is known for its stealth, which has been taken out of this game and replaced with just slashing at any enemy that can be seen.
     While the action seems very intriguing, I am hoping it will be able to keep me entertained, but I am sure in the back of my head I will be missing Solid Snake.  I will admit that when I played Metal Gear Solid 4 I wished to be able to play as the cyborg ninja Raiden, but I have my doubts on the game right now, but hopefully they will be wiped away once I get some hands on with the game myself.  The way I am approaching the game is I am in now way thinking of this as a Metal Gear game, in my mind I have even taken out the Metal Gear completely from the title, so i call it Raiden - Revengeance.  (As long as you know the character you don't need the Metal Gear name in there, but I understand they kept it, because while it is a spinoff, it still has the character from its Metal Gear series)
     As seeing the new trailer for Revengeance, you can see how the gameplay is going to be, and it does look exciting and I can't wait to see how well it plays

I am looking forward to the game to play as Raiden, but I think no matter how much they do to the character he will not match up with the legendary Solid Snake.

 This Raiden does still look like a bad ass.  With Cyborg suit and all (which it has been said in interviews that through the majority of the game Raiden will appear in a black cyborg suit.  Different from the one of Guns of the Patriots which seems like it could not just give the darker look to the character, but maybe the darker feel.  Time will tell and I can't wait to get some gameplay in myself to see how this game turns out.  So Raiden, let's see if you can completely kill the look that plagued you after Metal Gear Solid 2, and now cement yourself into the series, standing next to Solid Snake.