Vanquish
Punching and Bullet Time don't mix...
Posted October 25, 2010
From the developer of Bayonetta, Platinum Games and Sega bring you Vanquish, a stylized, third person shooter heavy in Japanese design and rife with difficulty. The narrative kicks off the with destruction of San Fransisco due to an energy station in space that has been weaponized by Russian forces. The military sends out troops to take down the Russians and Sam Gideon, the player's character, is coming along to test out a battle suit as well as a secret mission of his own to rescue the scientist behind the development of all this fancy technology. The concept of the story is intriguing, but the execution fails due to poor voice acting and easy to spot plot twists. Some of the line delivery in conversations will really make you cringe.
The core the gameplay is combat though, specifically how Sam uses his suit to take down the onslaught of human and robotic forces. The ARS suit allows him to slow down time and move from cover to cover without taking much damage. You really have to use cover spots throughout the levels, otherwise it's impossible to proceed. One button locks Sam into cover so he can pop out to fire off a few shots at the enemy. Weapons include advanced energy / laser targeting devices as well as the standard array of old-school weapons like shotguns, sniper rifles and the glorious rocket launcher. There's also a weapon leveling system in place to increase their power or ammo capacity. Sam can carry up to three weapons at once, thus specing out an upgraded build will help you progress though the levels.
One balancing issue with the suit is that it overheats fairly easily when using bullet-time or popping the enemy upside the head with a well placed melee maneuver. You have to use the special features sparingly otherwise the suit becomes ineffective. Since you have to stay away from enemies to preserve suit power, sitting back from afar and picking off the enemies is often simpler. Unfortunately, this makes the game too easy when fighting the low-level enemies, unless you are playing on the toughest difficulty settings. Giant robots will often charge and force Sam out of cover, but you can counter that assuming you have saved up enough bullet-time in the suit.
The boss battle are definitely more difficult, but to the extreme. Most bosses have a one-shot kill move that they spam throughout the battle. It takes a bit of guess-and-check to learn the timing of the move and dodge it with the suit or perhaps hide from it in cover. It makes the game more frustrating than it should be, but elevates the challenge beyond popping robots from cover. Oddly, there's no multiplayer to be found in this third person shooter. Perhaps the developer didn't know how to balanced bullet-time among players. There are challenge stages to tackle after finishing the main game, but nothing terribly thrilling. The only other form of replay value comes in the form of the trophies, many of which are completing goals on specific levels. Can you get to the monorail without being spotted by the enemy in Act 3 or take down every single enemy from the transport in Act 2? Other trophies include difficulty based achievements and enemy kill achievements.
The entire campaign in Vanquish will probably run you about 5 to 7 hours, depending on your difficulty preference. Beyond the lack of multiplayer, one of the main problems with Vanquish is the lack of an entertaining narrative. The presentation values style over substance and lacks a compelling storyline with unique, enthralling characters. Instead, the game relies on the ARS suit and the cool factor of sliding around levels taking out enemies. While Vanquish isn't a poor shooter from any technical standpoint, there's little reason to purchase it due to the lack of replay value. Pick up Vanquish as a rental and knock it out on a lazy Sunday if you are a shooter addict.
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The core the gameplay is combat though, specifically how Sam uses his suit to take down the onslaught of human and robotic forces. The ARS suit allows him to slow down time and move from cover to cover without taking much damage. You really have to use cover spots throughout the levels, otherwise it's impossible to proceed. One button locks Sam into cover so he can pop out to fire off a few shots at the enemy. Weapons include advanced energy / laser targeting devices as well as the standard array of old-school weapons like shotguns, sniper rifles and the glorious rocket launcher. There's also a weapon leveling system in place to increase their power or ammo capacity. Sam can carry up to three weapons at once, thus specing out an upgraded build will help you progress though the levels.
One balancing issue with the suit is that it overheats fairly easily when using bullet-time or popping the enemy upside the head with a well placed melee maneuver. You have to use the special features sparingly otherwise the suit becomes ineffective. Since you have to stay away from enemies to preserve suit power, sitting back from afar and picking off the enemies is often simpler. Unfortunately, this makes the game too easy when fighting the low-level enemies, unless you are playing on the toughest difficulty settings. Giant robots will often charge and force Sam out of cover, but you can counter that assuming you have saved up enough bullet-time in the suit.
The boss battle are definitely more difficult, but to the extreme. Most bosses have a one-shot kill move that they spam throughout the battle. It takes a bit of guess-and-check to learn the timing of the move and dodge it with the suit or perhaps hide from it in cover. It makes the game more frustrating than it should be, but elevates the challenge beyond popping robots from cover. Oddly, there's no multiplayer to be found in this third person shooter. Perhaps the developer didn't know how to balanced bullet-time among players. There are challenge stages to tackle after finishing the main game, but nothing terribly thrilling. The only other form of replay value comes in the form of the trophies, many of which are completing goals on specific levels. Can you get to the monorail without being spotted by the enemy in Act 3 or take down every single enemy from the transport in Act 2? Other trophies include difficulty based achievements and enemy kill achievements.
Graphics
- The graphics engine in Vanquish is exceptionally detailed. You can tell the development team focused on building explosion and lighting effects that have multiple timing layers. Killing an enemy (specifically the bosses) will result in a cavalcade of explosive effects to dazzle the eye. The texture work on creating vastly detailed robotic creatures is really stunning at times. The work on the human character models isn't as impressive, but their animation is definitely fluid. I also got the feeling that the texture resolution wasn't as detailed in certain backgrounds and used lighting choices to hide the blemishes to an otherwise, graphically stellar title. I also didn't have any problems with the framerate, even with multiple characters populating the screen.
Audio
- Similar to the graphics engine, the sound work is mostly fantastic. Launching into the suit's bullet time gives the surrounding world the same Max Payne esqe track slowing effect that we have come familiar with over the years. The musical tracks also do a great job of stressing the frenzied pacing of the levels and change in tempo / dynamics at the appropriate times. Unfortunately, the voice work in Vanquish is pretty poor, mostly due to the cliched, hackneyed writing for the standard Russian / American stereotypes. It often makes the cutscenes seem silly during a dramatic scene.
Conclusion
The entire campaign in Vanquish will probably run you about 5 to 7 hours, depending on your difficulty preference. Beyond the lack of multiplayer, one of the main problems with Vanquish is the lack of an entertaining narrative. The presentation values style over substance and lacks a compelling storyline with unique, enthralling characters. Instead, the game relies on the ARS suit and the cool factor of sliding around levels taking out enemies. While Vanquish isn't a poor shooter from any technical standpoint, there's little reason to purchase it due to the lack of replay value. Pick up Vanquish as a rental and knock it out on a lazy Sunday if you are a shooter addict.
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum