OXCGN’s Vanquish Review

Space Marines on ‘Roids?

by : Belgavion

©2010 Gav Ross

Japanese development house Platinum Games have followed up 2009′s over-the-top action outing Bayonetta with a third-person shooter that, if you can believe it, is even more of an overload on the senses. It’s the final game from legendary creator Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil, Devil May Cry) while associated with Platinum, as he has since left to form a new studio.

Taking place in the nearish future, Vanquish is a story of complications between the United States and their enemy, the Russians, as both nations attempt to alleviate Earth’s dwindling resources by using space stations to harvest energy from the Sun.

In a move that makes the pettiness behind the Cold War seem laughable, Russia’s dictator and the game’s leading villain – Victor Zaitsev – encourages his forces to take control of an American space station, point it at San Francisco and blow it up with a ray of pure solar energy!

• Vanquish Teaser

Enter Sam Gideon – a gusty marine equipped with a high-tech suit and even higher-tech weapons. Gideon must work with other over-zealous special forces veterans to rescue a scientist on board the station when it was hijacked.

What ensues is team-based exploration between space stations and other volatile environments for firefight after firefight.

Even with such a serious plot, Vanquish never takes itself too seriously. Cut-scenes are full of amusing quips from Sam and his soldier cohorts as they converse with their superiors over a suit-integrated comms system.

Using the Havok engine, Vanquish is a visual treat. Sam himself is housed in an outfit called an Augmented Reaction Suit and he looks like a shiny, futuristic Boba Fett.

When swapping weapons, the guns literally morph in Sam’s hands, as if they’re holographic projections.

The colour palate is fairly limited with stark whites and muted greys and this helps in spotting the game’s robotic enemies, most of which wear red armour and bear slight physical similarities to Halo’s Covenant.

Yet it isn’t Halo that comes to mind when playing through the first Act. There’s no denying the similarity in feel between Vanquish and Gears Of War: the same third-person camera angle; a similar cover system; big, burly companions who look like they’ve taken too many muscle enhancements.

It’s nowhere near a facsimile of Gears, but you can see where Platinum have taken some inspiration from.

The fact that the core of the game seems to be made up of traipsing through a level, watching a short cut-scene of enemies emerging, engaging in a large battle and then moving onto the next one over and over means you shouldn’t be expecting incredible variety.

There are occasional moments of diversity – such as escorting a tank through a large underground tunnel and protecting it from a host of exploding adversaries – but they’re not often enough to break up the monotony of gun battle after gun battle.

Vanquish really starts to showcase some rewarding, in-depth battles when it comes to the bosses. The first major confrontation is a doozy that takes place only halfway through the first Act, and it involves a monstrous, transforming behemoth of a foe. It’s arduous, intense and draining, but it’s satisfying when finally completed.

However, when you finish that fight and begin thinking about how amazing bosses further into the game must be, it doesn’t take long before the same (or very similar) boss shows up again, canceling out any hopes for variety.

Vanquish is a ‘busy’ visual experience, to say the least. At times it seems that there’s just far too much happening on screen, and the movement speed of the characters only emphasises that. After a short period of adjustment, however, it simply becomes something that adds to the tension and it isn’t too much of a distraction.

• Vanquish Game Trailer

Rather than replicating Gears’ ‘roadie run’ – where the camera follow the main character, as if they’re in a warzone being followed by a CNN crewman – Vanquish has invented its own unique way to allow Sam to get around faster.

Attached to the boots of his suit are two high-octane jet packs that allow him to perform what looks like a baseball power-slide at super speed. It’s a handy mechanic to have when needing to get out of trouble.

Another useful tool is ‘AR mode’ – which is really just a fancy name for bullet-time. There is a tendency to over-use it, however, and it can feel like a cheap way out of a tough battle after a while.

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Many would say that getting intro trouble during Vanquish’s campaign is a rare occurrence, and if they were playing on any average to low difficulty setting this may be true.

By blasting through all of the Acts and not getting stuck in any areas, the game could probably be completed comfortably within 4-5 hours. Start on one of the harder difficulties, however, and you’ll find that the world takes a lot longer to save.

Much like Bayonetta, it can be a fairly challenging game to complete on Hard or above and it’s more than likely some levels will take multiple attempts to complete.

The decision to not shoe-horn any kind of multiplayer mode into the game is something Platinum should be respected for.

It’s interesting to wonder what a competitive mode, or even co-op, might have been like, but too often development teams sink resources into this area just to satisfy publishers or pressure from gamers.

As a whole, Vanquish is a highly-polished shooter with a visceral edge that’ll knock you out of your seat.

“7.5/10

©2010 Gav Ross

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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, PS3 Reviews, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews Tagged: | bayonetta, Boba Fett, Cold War, Devil May Cry, GEars Of War, Halo, Platinum Games, Resident Evil, Shinji Mikami, Third-person shooter, United States, Vanquish