JC Fletcher: What did you expect going into the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance demo? A mess? Something that reflected the troubled development? Xav de Matos: When that first gameplay footage was presented, Rising's vision didn't seem feasible. Slicing everything in the environment? That would have been a designer's nightmare. I would just cut a hole through every building and get to the end of the game! Up until Platinum was rumored to be helping on it, we were hearing the game was dead. There was even a report that it was canceled internally, right? Yes, it was canceled. And then Platinum Games took over, and made a game in which, even if you can't slice up everything, you have unprecedented freedom in your slicing. It's not the game Kojima Productions wanted to make at first, but I don't think many people are going to have a problem with that after playing. It's really fun to slice things, is what I'm saying. The slicing is good slicing. It also seems like it includes a lot of slicing opportunities, which is always key in slicing simulations. What I was worried about is that Rising would fall on the usual crutch of showing something super cool wrapped in quick-time events. I'm not down on QTEs, but that's not what I want from something featuring Raiden. I want to be in control.

The Rising demo strikes a good balance, giving you direct control of the action without throwing too many random button presses in your way to fake something badass. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was pure, precisely sliced fun. That's all you can ask for when you're given fifteen minutes to play a demo at an event like E3.