Why Does Metal Gear Rising Keep Getting More Popular?

If you're disappointed I didn't cover a specific topic, there's a very good chance Harper and I discussed it in the Nebula-exclusive companion video. Get 50 more minutes of Metal Gear Rising talk, right here! nebula.app/videos/jacob-geller-revengeance-never-e…

Metal Gear Rising is a fantastic counterpoint when people say that gamers “Don’t want politics in their games”. It’s both very clever and dumb with that basic premise at the same time.

The two things that still impress me about this game are 1.) how a Japanese studio managed to design an American senator that looks more like an American senator than real American senators, and 2.) how every single song in the soundtrack goes so fucking hard.

“Revengeance knows writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards” is one of my favorite jokes about this game

I love how it could literally be Powerade in there spines, the game says that there electrolytes in the spines that heal you

My favorite thing about Metal Gear Rising is how utterly sincere it feels. It's consistently ridiculous but also 0% self-conscious. It just wants to do its thing and this sincerety only makes its themes shine brighter. Armstrong might be the pinnacle of final bosses and he could only exist in the most direct of games. I love MGR

Revengeance being a musical is a generation defining epiphany I can endorse.

The most insane information I received here is that Early in the video it’s said the campaign is five hours. During the senator section it’s said the fight goes on for an hour. 20% of this game alone is therefore, fighting senator Armstrong. That tells me so much yet I’m not sure how to put it into words.

The funny thing about Armstrong is that he is quite possibly the most stereotypical American you can possibly think of. Aside from his name (which is incredibly stereotypically American in its own right), he’s a huge, loud, bombastic man without a hint of subtlety, is utterly insane, and loves his country with every fiber of his being, but loves freedom even more so. You almost admire his sheer confidence, but regardless of whether you agree with him or not, you know he’s gonna live in your head rent free, not only because of how memorable he is, but also because Americans hate paying rent and taxes.

I’m going to go out in a limb and say because of how shockingly accurate it is, “memes” being both the funny images and also the very ideas and ways of life we live blurs the line between funny sword game and deep commentary on America.

There's a few reasons: - The gameplay is great. - The plot isn't greedy, it's batshit insane. - The memes are exquisite. - The music is pure FIRE. - NANOMACHINES, SON!

I think one of the coolest metaphors the game builds is that when Armstrong is still bullshitting and not telling you what he actually believes, he's in the machine. But once that machine, that big ominous thing turns out to be a comparatively easy to defeat farce, his lies break away like the mechanical shell protecting him, and you begin to fight him, as a person. You begin a battle with ideology, not fake twisted pragmatism. And I think that's a beautiful metaphor. The world is fucked up, not because there's some big scary unstoppable system that seems propped up by those who believe it can actually be used for good, but because there are people who straight up want what's worst for others, if they think it'll put them on top, or just because they're crazy.

the final chapter of this essay is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever. "then you rip out his f**** heart" gives me chills

"And then you rip out his fucking heart." Careful Jacob, this sounds like a call to action.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the line: “You’re not greedy... You’re batshit insane!” What Armstrong represents is not taking more than he needs, it’s burning everything down in a shown of pure superiority. He cares not for anyone, even himself: it’s his goal. Nothing will stop him from achieving it because he’s already removed his biggest obstacle: his humanity.

Raiden embraced his violent 'Jack' side by the end of the game because MGRR is about atrocities passing on the 'memes' of trauma and violence to everyone in contact with them. Atrocities, like finding out a modern PMC warlord is using VR to make child soldiers, damage and radicalize everyone they come into contact with, from the secondary trauma Raiden's support team has to process when learning about it, to Raiden himself experiencing trauma directly by being pushed into a situation where he has to resort to incredible levels of unlawful murder just to stop the atrocity, to the kid soldiers themselves being the most directly swept up in it and being taught that violence is the only path possible in their lives. As we get farther out from the epicenter the end effect gets better— the support team's radicalization manifests as taking action against this horror, going on to do activism/research that will help prevent more violence (setting up programs for cyborgs to get jobs outside of mercenary-ing, etc). Raiden, however, ends up in the center of the atrocity in his attempt to fix it, and his radicalization has Armstrong's social meme of 'violence is the only solution' being passed to him completely. He goes off the radar at the end of the game to continue dealing out violent justice because that's what he's learned is the necessary solution. This is tragically a fulfillment of Armstrong's world where everyone brutally fights to enact their own views on the world. The game tells this story over and over by being littered with people who have become radicalized by violence— Mistral was orphaned in the Algerian civil war and then found and killed those who did it, Dolzaev (guy who blew up the plant) supported Chechnya becoming independent from Russia but the movement was crushed by Russia and he went on to become a terrorist, Sam's father and sword-fighting teacher was killed by one of his other students and Sam trained to kill the student back and then went off to become a mercenary, etc, etc. The lyrics in the final song It Has To Be This Way are 'violence breeds violence' and that's the whole point of the game. Raiden falling victim to that is a tragedy, but hopefully the important social work his support team went on to do and the effort to rehabilitate the child soldiers Raiden saved will prevent them (the next generation) from following him. I just think MGRR is neat

I loved the juxtaposition of having this vast conspiracy that was revealed to be something so banal as trying to start wars for money. Jack was left confronted by his relationship to violence and it all came down to just another jingoist trying to live out their genocidal dreams. That moment where the cyborg ninja was confronted by the nano-machine-enhanced United states senator, he said probably the most sincere thing I’ve heard a character say in a piece of fiction: “You’ve got to be fucking KIDDING ME!” It’s ludicrous, the characters know it, but everyone keeps going because it is what it is.

A big part of Revengance’s immortality is how, being so direct, the process of cutting it up into so many tiny pieces (as the internet does) hasn’t destroyed its messages and themes.

As a side note: While I don't think Raiden himself is the most compelling or interesting character in the game or the MG series, I will say that his 'arc' in this story is kind of.....different from other game protaganists. He wants to be a 'warrior' of justice, to fight for honor and not killing for killings sake. However he is forced to abandon those ideals and embrace the side of him that enjoys pain, killing, and the sadistic side of himself. Yet he decides to accept that side of himself and move forward with trying to do what he feels is right despite that. We don't usually get a protaganist who 'embraces his dark side' and yet stiill remains the hero of the story.

2 things: 1) this is the video that finally got through to me with the concept of what a meme really is, so good job 2) MGR and Bayonetta coming from the same creators explains a lot about both games