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Platinum Games
War transforms us, Snake. Into beasts.
A certain inability to walk into a normal life pervades the player’s thirst for playful violence after taking down the Patriots in the Metal Gear series. The Winds of Destruction will have to fill that void. Some, like Sundowner, claim we surround the Self with violence, because of the feeling instilled when you kill your enemies and liberate the less fortunate and able. Others maintain that we argue philosophy as a way of waking up the beast inside of the Self. Regardless of the means, these musings have persisted through the Metal Gear franchise from the beginning. With Metal Gear Rising, they mesh high and low culture together in allusions that complicate our reason for loving to play.
Metallica, Megadeth, Metal Gear?
Spinoffs can be a dicey proposition. There’s a real danger of diluting the name of the original franchise by slapping it on a bunch of games that are only somewhat related, and if the spinoff isn’t a quality game to begin with it can cause brand degradation. When a spinoff succeeds though, it can lead to an entirely new franchise that runs parallel with the source material, slicing and dicing its own path to popularity. I’m happy to say that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is just that type of game; something that can stand on its own as a great action game while still fitting into the convoluted Metal Gear universe. But this isn’t your daddy’s Metal Gear; if Solid Snake is a little bit country, Raiden is 100% metal.
In the great tradition of wonderful trash, Platinum Games nails it again.
If you’ve been asking for more from your games, then Anarchy Reigns might be just what you need. It’s got more racial stereotypes, more campy dialogue, more leotard-clad dominatrixes, and more ridiculous fighting than you could ever need. If you want to groan at the thought of all of these disgusting and tired gaming fallbacks being crammed together, take heart! The entire crazy package is a total goof and it’s pulled off perfectly in one of the greatest send-ups of video game tropes ever made that’s also genuinely fun.
A quick look at some of the challenges that Platinum Games has had to deal with in developing Bayonetta 2.
Shown in today's Nintendo Direct with a heaping help of gameplay footage.
This ain't your daddy's Metal Gear!
I was really worried about Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It was originally known as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, and was announced in 2009 as an Xbox 360 exclusive. A troubled and protracted development cycle almost ended in cancellation before the project was given over to Platinum Games. We may never know the full story about how an Xbox 360 exclusive designed by an in-house team hand-picked by Hideo Kojima became a multiplatform game developed by Platinum, but I can at least say that my worries are gone. Metal Gear Rising may not be what people have come to expect from the Metal Gear series, but so far I’d say it’s an impressive game in its own right.
Platinum Games conjures up one of the Wii U's most interesting titles.
I’m going to go on a limb here and say that The Wonderful 101 will be a sleeper hit for the Wii U. While it has garnered some noticeable hype within some audiences, it is an easy game to overlook. For those not sure about the game, it is best described as being a simple mesh of Viewtiful Joe and Pikmin. After spending some time with the game, I must say that it went from a just game that looked interesting, to game that I’m really excited about.
