Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series celebrates its 26th anniversary this year. It’s a party to which I had no interest in attending, figuratively speaking. Since the first “Metaru Gia Sorid” on PS1, I’ve skirted around the game. It’s no secret that I don’t have the attention span for sneak-em-ups and the thought of travelling around in cardboard boxes and enduring feature-length cutscenes was not for me. I have subsequently missed every successive Metal Gear game across all the platforms. Until now.

So why is someone like me without any interest in the Metal Gear franchise, so enthused to play Metal Gear Rising: Reveangeance? Did the flurry of media lure me on board the hype train? Truthfully, yes. Not once during the extreme frenetic trailers, did I think of the possibility of stealth and death-by-cutscene creeping into this new game. All I wanted to do was slice people up into teeny tiny hors d’oeuvres.

So how does Metal Gear Rising: Reveangeance (henceforth shortened to just “Revengeance”) play for someone who is unburdened of experiencing past Metal Gear games? The answer lies in wait, after the jump.