

Japan's greatest devs combine forces

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Raiden's fifth helper won't join him until after the first mission. LQ-84i is a state-of-the-art AI-controlled robot built to defend Abkhazia, in a world where AI tech was perfected in the early seventies. Known as Bladewolf, the AI has been reprogrammed by Desperado and is Rising's first boss fight - the first real test of Raiden's parrying skills. A good parry, executed by pressing towards an enemy and hitting Y and timed perfectly will leave Bladewolf disabled, but an early parry will only cancel the hit and leave you in a stalemate.


When the fight is done, Bladewolf's conflicted programming convinces Raiden to return what's left of the mech to Doktor where his original programming is restored, as the demo wraps up.

"Bladewolf will be more of a support role in the game," says Saito. "He moves forward without Raiden to gather intelligence for him. He won't be in battle situations, but he will gather map information and recon that Raiden will be able to use." In a sense, he's what Gray Fox was to Snake in MGS1, what Snake was to Raiden in MGS2, what EVA was to Big Boss in MGS3, and what Naomi was to Old Snake in MGS4. It's another Metal Gear moment revived for the first in-continuity Metal Gear made outside of Kojima Productions.

"We specialise in action games," says Platinum games director and producer Atsushi Inaba. "Our dialogue is spoken in action and it's not complicated - you touch the controller and if it sucks, it sucks. But if it feels good, it's a good game, and I think worldwide, everyone feels the same about that. So whether it's Japanese or English I believe that it's all, all over the world, the same.


"Mr Kojima said only a Japanese studio could make a game about the katana work, but I think it's more than just a cultural thing," Korekado explains. "I think the katana kind of symbolises our partnership. We want to cut into a new age together - two Japanese studios combining to rock the world. It isn't just that the katana comes from Japan, it's that this weapon is our weapon. It's the focus of our collaboration and the tool we'll use to cut into something new. That's what Mr Kojima was saying, and we strongly believe that."

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