Zone of the Enders HD collection coming out next week

The HD collection for anime mecha simulator Zone of the Enders is going to be released in India next week. The HD collection, coming to the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, will cost Rs 1,999, and will include the demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which is set to come out on February 21, 2013.

The first Zone of the Enders game was released on a PlayStation 2 in 2001. It was about a boy named Leo Stenbeck whose colony was attacked by a group of rebels seeking ‘Jehuty’, a very powerful mecha that Leo ends up piloting. Most of the game revolves around Leo attempting to deliver Jehuty to the UNSF forces on the other side of the colony.

While the game did sell well, it could mostly be attributed to the inclusion of the demo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The parallels between the releases of the first Zone of the Enders game and the HD Collection in this regard—both featuring demos for games where Raiden is a prominent character—was probably intentional.

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Ready to pilot Jehuty?

The sequel to the first game, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003. The pilot for Jehuty this time around is former soldier Dingo Egret. Again, he must fight the rebels and ends up in their main command ship. Plot twists occur and many fights are fought. Both the games have become cult favourites and Hideo Kojima has expressed interest. Earlier this year, Kojima had revealed that a sequel is in development.

Earlier this month, Konami had released a new trailer that showed some of Raiden’s moves. One of the standout features of Revengeance is the ability to slow down time and pick the angle of attacks. This can let you slice and dice up enemies and objects like pillars of a building.

Back in November, Konami revealed the pre-order bonuses and the limited edition version of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The Limited Edition comes with a 30 cm figurine of the main protagonist of the game—Raiden—in his cyborg ninja form. The pre-order bonus has a steelbook cover and a DLC that unlocks Raiden’s Inferno Armour, which increases the number of throwing weapons he can carry.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is set in the near future where cyborg technology has become commonplace throughout society. Three years have passed since the collapse of the Patriots system that had been secretly controlling the global power balance from the shadows. However, peace remains elusive. The dissemination of cybernetic technology has triggered instability and conflict as those who control the trade gain increasing power. Furthermore, large ‘Private Military Companies’, or PMCs that had been supported and controlled by the Patriots have collapsed, spawning countless rogue entities with origins to larger criminal organisations. These renegade PMCs employing cyborg technology have become increasingly more disruptive, shifting policy and power at will. As a member of the peace-keeping PMC ‘Maverick Security’, Raiden lives by the mantra of protecting and saving lives. But as the world plunges further into asymmetric warfare, the only path that leads him forward is rooted in resolving his past and carving through anything that stands in his way.