Take the concept of Gears of War cover based third person shooter and mix with Bayonetta’s over the top chaotic battles and you got Vanquish. The latest creation of Platinum Games shows promise of taking two games that we love and mix them into one. But is this combination well executed? Well lets find out, but first let me take a quick smoke.
The story begins with San Francisco being wiped off the map by the Russians, who invaded a high tech American space colony orbiting the earth. You take control of Sam Gideon, a researcher of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), who has a real bad cigarette addiction. Your mission is to recover the space colony and rescue Professor Candide. Accompanying you in this mission is Lt. Col Robert Burns who constantly argues with Sam. Sam also has the help of Elena Ivanova who is a lot like Anya from Gears of War. She will constantly give you instructions of where to go and about incoming enemies. The story is an absolute lack luster, mostly due to the poorly written dialogue of the main characters. The game fails to build some type of emotional feeling between the characters and the player, and because of that the story just seems more like a joke.
The gameplay is pretty simple, use your super bad ass suit to destroy everything on sight. The suit that Sam has allows him to perform all kinds of crazy tricks like sliding on the floor in a super high velocity and style, beat up enemy robots with your bare hands, and create all types of mayhem. If you start shooting while sliding on the floor, the game will enter slow motion mode (much like Max Payne’s bullet time event), which makes it easier to take out enemies. To balance out this ability the suit overheats. Once that happens you can’t slide on the floor, slow down time, or melee enemies, you will have to wait until suits cools down. Much like Gears of War you have to use cover system wisely, going Rambo on the enemies will get you killed.
Unlike Gears of War though, Vanquish has a chaotic ambiance. Explosions and bullets are all over the place, and every battle feels more and more over the top. In this one boss battle for instance, Sam jumps on top of a 20ft tall robot and begins giving a series of punches to it’s face, after that he jumps in the air starts spinning and drills a hole into it’s chest. This over the top type of combat makes the game more enjoyable to play, and helps set the game apart from other third person shooters. Plus its pretty funny.
The game however is far from perfect. Enemies and boss fights are recycled multiple times throughout the game, which makes the game look cheap and rushed. The scenario gets pretty repetitive and after while gets pretty boring to look at. On top of that the game is very repetitive. You will be going from point A to point B destroy something and repeat the process, you have no freedom to explore the map, and nothing in the game really grabs your attention (mainly due to poorly written story). While Gears of War grabbed my attention with it’s great co-op multiplayer and great story line, Vanquish didn’t, and it made the experience less memorable than other games of the genre.
The game should take you five to six hours to beat on normal mode. Besides the campaign, there is a challenge mode to tests your skills in speed running. The mode is nothing special, and doesn’t help us swallow the $60 price of admission, at it’s very best Vanquish is a rent.
If you like Bayonetta for it’s chaotic ambiance, than Vanquish is a perfect fit for you (after all was developed by the same studio). The game’s over the top insanity will keep you well entertained for the six hours of gameplay. Provided you are looking for something mindless and chaotic, Vanquish is well worth your time, but not your money.
