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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an odd creature. Coming from a cutscene and story-heavy series that relies on stealth and patience from players, Revengeance throws that out the window with fast action and sword slicing. Raiden's portraying has evolved radically since his introduction in Metal Gear Solid 2, and the newest incarnation of the infamous hero might be the most impressive one yet.

For those who are not familiar with the Metal Gear Solid series, the first time players took control of Raiden, he was a frightened moron running around without clothes on, flipping through the air while covering his genitals to dodge oncoming bullets of fully clothed soldiers. With that in mind, the recently released tutorial video for Metal Gear Rising is all the more impressive.

The focus of Revengeance's action is Raiden's sword, which appears to be able to cut through just about anything. The tutorial begins by focusing on Blade Mode, where tme slows down and the player is able to position surgically accurate slices to disarm (either figuratively or literally) opponents. When Raiden runs out of human fodder to amputate, plenty of cars and watermelons litter the environment, just waiting to be split into 2 (or 32) pieces.

Next in the video is combat training. Combat, as discussed in our E3 preview, is fairly standard button mashing until the finishing move. Once an enemy has been incapacitated, Raiden must enter Blade Mode to remove the cyborg's nano-repair unit so that it will be unable to heal itself. During the short fight, we see a Wide Attack, Strong Attack, a combo of some sort, and blocking/countering as well. Metal Gear Rising should be set in the dynamic battles department.

Now that we have seen how the game will function, we can only hope that the story will be just as convoluted and ridiculous as the rest of the series. Until then, we'll just have to settle for more watermelon slicing.

So Ranters, how do you feel about the latest video of Raiden slicing and dicing? Is Revengeance a worthy successor to Metal Gear Solid 4, or would you rather see Snake than Raiden? Let us know in the comments below.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be out for PS3 and Xbox 360 early next year.

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Follow me on Twitter @JacobSiegal.