JoyPads: Vanquish Review

I hope you can withstand high velocity action kiddo?!

Platinum games started the year on all mighty high with Bayonetta. Before this year is finished, Platinum games will leave us with a game which will blow your mind, and give you a huge injection of action adrenaline for you action junkies out there. The Japanese development of games to mimic the western shooters have been pretty terrible. Bad would be classified as good for Quantum Theory, but with Vanquish, its a totally different story altogether. Shinji Mikami is behind this game, and he is the creator of hit horror series; Resident Evil. Vanquish is so high octane’d over the top action, cheesy and high score mad, you’ll be craving for more.

The story begins with San Francisco being attacked by this massive Ion cannon type of weaponry by a Russian group called Russian Star, which led a surprise invasion of the colony. This formidable foe demanded a unconditional surrender of the United States within 10 hours or suffer the penalty of New York wiped off the face of the earth. You play as Sam Gideon. DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) have sent you to the colony with Lt.Col.Robert Burns to recapture the colony by the order of the President, but you have been assigned to a different mission under DARPA.

The gameplay is pretty much basic for third person shooters such as; hide behind cover, lean out and shoot, jump over the cover to reach new ground plus cover. The main star attraction is the ARS (Augmented Reaction Suit) suit which enables you to perform outrageous attacks, jet around (for a limited time) and slow down time to make sure your shoe laces are done tight. The ARS suit really comes into play when against bigger foes and surrounded by enemies.

Its really great what the ARS suit accomplishes with the boosting and slow down time. Executing it so perfectly with the overwhelming speed and slowing down time, which you can see the ripples of the bullets whizzing by your head whilst you are boosting around underneath a Transformer killing machine. However the suit is limited. When holding down the boost button, the ARS suit will overheat and making you very vulnerable against the enemy. The bog standard principle of third person shooter games comes into play by doing the basics. Cover, shoot, evasive roll when the suited is overheated. Vanquish isn’t a easy game as you would be going against massive robots and loads of enemies to take care of. Once completing Vanquish you will unlock God Hard difficulty which will really taste your skills.

The AI are intelligent and will use cover and hunt you down if you are behind cover for a long period of time. Throughout the course of the game. You will be able to pick up weapons, upgrade them to boost there effectiveness and make your life a bit more easier. I had a fully maxed out assault rifle, rocket launcher and sniper rifle. I could of gone for the massive LFE gun, shotgun or the disc launcher to really spice things up a bit, but spraying the bullets is far more my cup of tea. You can only have 3 weapons at a time, but you can carry grenades and EMP grenades. EMP grenades will become very beneficial when in some sticky situations, so use them carefully.

The best parts of Vanquish for me are when you are up against a massive robot firing millions of rockets at you, and once AR mode is activated. Its a spectacle to admire when in slow motion. Just the scale of amount of rockets coming at you is jaw dropping stuff. The other good moment I practically liked was the Kreon part. This massive ship which transforms into a huge ass gun.

Overall Vanquish is very captivating and wants you to continue playing when you think you should have a break. The scenes are brilliant and care to detail has been executed brilliantly. Environment, scenery and level designs so far have been good builds, and plenty of eye candy for you to get a eyeful. The downside to Vanquish is probably the variety in weapons and enemies. I would of liked to see more different foes and different weaponry, but what the game offers is still worth the value. A very decent game from Platinum games and with Shinji Mikami behind the game. Vanquish will get a good following and probably become a very big franchise over here and Japan. The length of the game is spot on, but you could of easily added more to the game to fill a few grey areas. Vanquish is truly a fantastic game and definitely worth more than just a go.

9/10