Vanquish
Producer: SEGA
Release Date: October 19, 2010
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
The Sleeping Giant
Written by Mike Lowther
An unexpected surprise came at the end of this year’s 2010 holiday season. Normally, I’d take one look at a game like Vanquish and skip right over it. You know, another run of the mill third-person shooter, probably imitating Gears of War. But given 15 minutes of gameplay, I began to smile profusely. In a world where great games need both brains and muscles, Vanquish has muscles. Nearly all muscles, but who cares?
Okay, try and imagine Armored Core meets Gears. Badass mech products cover your human body in a futuristic world, while third-person shooting and covering is used to push through hordes of robotic enemies. What makes this different is the use of fast movements with occasional slow motion events where bullets whiz passed you and let you forcefully take solid aim at your enemy. Absent of expectation when I popped Vanquish into my console, I skipped the tutorial to dive in. Reluctantly, the controls are very simple to pick up as this happens to be a straight-up action shooter. Though this is an action title, I’ve never heard a game say “fuck” so much; I truly think they say it just to say it. Numerous one-liners made me giggle. I enjoy it.
Explosions, lasers and huge robots take the helm. The HUD is futuristic, solidifying where your weapons are and providing an easy navigation on the radar. After pushing through waves of enemies, occasionally you’ll be granted with an upgrade for your weapons. Dive in shooting with an assault rifle and shotgun, but welcome new weapons like a disk launcher that fires spinning disks constructed of carbon nanotubes. The rocket launcher is a solid deal; use it to lock on and take down huge enemies. All of the bad guys are robotic, meaning they’re extremely vulnerable to electric shock. Some weapons like the EMP emitter make enemies immobile temporarily. Also, you have a booster that lets you slide around the field. It’s a great way to maneuver around enemies and find cover. Though the slow motion aspect comes in handy when you’re taking heavy damage, it’s impossible to know exactly how much life you have left with the lack of a visual health meter on the HUD.
Vanquish strangely looks like a Capcom title on the outside, but deep underneath you can feel SEGA all throughout. Straight up, this game is non-stop fun. The cinematics are crisp, proudly displaying epic depth of field. The overall graphics aren’t anything to write home about, but they do the job in maintaining an excellent gaming experience. Really, the true grit of this game is incorporated in the gameplay. I recommend this as a rental, but if you’re an achievement whore, Vanquish is a sleeper that should be added to any action gamer’s collection.