At least 2015’s The Phantom Pain would make that mess of a plotline feel reasonable.īy now, Raiden had been captured by the Illuminati and turned into a cyborg ninja, which I’ll be honest doesn’t entirely make sense in context (but its really cool), and he has tactical high heels that can hold a sword for some reason. Then his girlfriend faked a miscarriage (for reasons I’m not entirely clear on Guns of the Patriots was a mess), he helped an eastern European resistance group rescue a child from the Illuminati, helped finally launch that nuke into space to kill the internet (unfortunately, only the Illuminati parts), defeating the Patriots for good, after revealing that they were AIs created by the quirky radio support team from the previous game, somehow. With the defeat of a man who wronged him, and the internet safe (unfortunately), things were looking up for Raiden.
He defeated his adoptive father in a dramatic sword fight atop Federal Hall, foiling the former president’s terrorist plot to launch a nuke into the atmosphere that would destroy the internet, which I assure you makes complete sense in context. Raised as a child soldier, by a man who would go on to become the president of the United States, Raiden grew up reveling in the thrill of violence, but found himself unable to cope with civilian life, until he was unknowingly conscripted to a shadowy government organization run by the Patriots to become their next supersoldier. Our hero, a cyborg named Raiden, has seen his fair share of war. The villains were defeated, but its back to business as usual, and war is pretty good business. Now state of the art cyborg mercenaries fight each other with high tech samurai swords alongside AI controlled walking tanks and robot dogs. The Patriots (an Illuminati-esque AI) was defeated, but in the end the war still continues. Released in 2013 and set in the not too distant year of 2018, four years after the defeat of a global AI network that secretly controlled world (and particularly US) politics, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance focuses on the fallout of that major systemic change.
Post 9/11 American domestic and foreign policy as seen through things like the War on Terror….how “Freedom” as a concept is used as an excuse for oppression.the reduction of enemy combatants to The Other.de facto censorship through the use of money and power that leaves the media unable and unwilling to serve as an actual check on that power.the reconstruction of war torn developing nations being exploited by Western powers.the way the US will use any justification to go to war for oil.the unwillingness of the “First World” to care about the exploitation of the global poor.the use of military technology for civilian applications such as nursing and construction.international laws on wartime engagement.business interests being used to start armed conflict.Including, but not limited, to the following: But it has at least a little to say about a lot. Sometimes the topics it covers are tangential, almost tempting the audience to go investigate the subject on their own. The game is as subtle as a brick to the teeth, and it has a lot to say. This being applied to Metal Gear games is nothing new, but it continues to be disheartening considering just how much the franchise as a whole, and Platinum’s take on it in particular, tries to be political. Media that seeks to entertain is value neutral, and any attempt to talk about it otherwise is seen as “reading too much into it”. It’s this notion that entertainment is apolitical, devoid of any deeper meaning, especially if the media is “fun”, or even worse, “funny”. It’s an incredible example of the failure of many Gamers™ to critically engage with the media they consume, especially when that media might disagree with their existing views of the world. This is the statement that had me turn off a video praising Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and stare into the middle distance, contemplating the nature of existence, and how someone could so quickly say something so wrong. I don’t think Platinum was looking to get political with Rising however obviously it’s terrible when Armstrong says he wants the elimination of the poor and to propel the rich, although I’m going to hope that the writers weren’t trying to say that limited federal government is also just as bad, since, well, it’s not.”