Yes, I'm talking about that thing to the left. Let me get this straight: while I wasn't exactly thrilled that you only got to play about 30 minutes as Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, I didn't hate Raiden. He played just like Snake and allowed a different perspective on the Metal Gear universe. Sure his conversations with Rose made me thank the heavens I don't have to live with a woman but I still liked the guy.

This wasn't the opinion of the "Internets" though. They pretty much hated him from being blond, whiney, androgynous looking and most of all for not being Snake.

From this point, I thought, well to each his own Kojima will just drop the character and return to Snake which he did with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater but then came Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and much to my surprise Raiden was back... well kinda.

He shows up as a modern day Robo-Cop, half-man half machine and proceeds to execute a huge group of Gekkos (who somehow bleed but that's not important right now) in a very over the top manner. While I know the intended reaction was something along the lines of "Wow Raiden is so badass now!" all I could think of was that Kojima was trying too hard. I was completely turned off by it, I could almost hear Kojima screaming in the background "See! I told you Raiden was cool! Look he can bounce around and slice metal like butter, now do you love him? DO YOU?!"

Of course, then you resume playing with your character, Old Snake, but now he suddenly looks like a worthless cripple with a bad mustache compared to Mr. Jawless Ninja. All of it left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

So there you have it, my dirty little secret: I don't like Mecha-Raiden at all and I think he's a lame attempt at redeeming a character that was not appreciated by the gaming community.

Am I alone?

I think his redesign-ed exo-suit thing looks cool, but I have always thought the heels were...out of place. Overall I don't think he is cool, but I don't hate him.

Also I like how your OP is formatted.

No, no you are not alone.

It's like Kojima's excessively strange love child to fulfill his inner fantasies.

And now he gets his own game...

Nope, it's all me.

I think you mean was no liked by some western gamers.

In MGS 4 he was cool.

I was so confuse with him in MGS2, first he was a new recruit having annoying calls with rose. Then his somehow a child solider. Then his girlfriend was a fake who actually fell in love with him. Then his the son of Solidus Snake who was a clone of big boss. So that makes him Solid Snake nephew.

i've always wanted a game like this. but you are not talking about the game, just the character. Raiden is cool in my book.

and Mortal Kombat is awesome, though it could be better.

Nah he's kool but I think he has a bad voice actor.

I agree with the last paragraph. MGS4 Raiden was a "You WILL learn to love him!" thing.

They tried to make him the new Grey Fox. Everyone loves Grey Fox because well... Hes cool. Hes a cyborg ninja that makes Otacon piss his pants. He saves you from REX and was even in the original 2 Metal Gear games where once again hes a pretty cool guy. Didnt he also make an appearence in Portable Ops?

On top of this, Kojima once even said he wanted to make a game focused on Grey Fox.

In MGS2 "he" comes back for a short while. In MGS2: Substance you can dress Raiden as Grey Fox. In Rising you can dress him as Grey Fox.

I think Kojima realised he killed off a really popular, unique (at the time) character. He screwed up and Raiden was his way of "fixing" that.

Good point, there's definitely an attempt to mirror the coolness of Grey Fox with MGS4 Raiden but like a lot of things in MGS4 it's done in an half-assed way. Grey Fox had mystery surrounding him, a great build up from hearing guards speak of someone killing many other guards, to the moment he slices Ocelot's hand off, to the corridor full of dead guards to when you discover why he knows Snake and who he really is. With Raiden, you don't get to witness his transformation so it feels forced and cheap.