Vanquish is the type of game that at first glance will make your head hurt and your eyes bleed, but once you play it and all of the pieces start to click together you'll feel like an unstoppable wave of destruction. At the start of the game the comprehensive tutorial will show you everything you need to know to survive but when you have thousands of bullets flying at you, a giant mech trying to crush you into paste, and an army of robots gunning for your head that's when it will all come together.
You see Vanquish isn't your slow methodical third-person cover shooter, while crouching behind a wall is your bread and butter in other games in the genre, in this game it's more likely to get you killed. Even on the standard difficulty enemies are decent shots, and to make things worse there can be dozens of them shooting at you at once, so if you try poking your head out from behind cover for more than a second, it'll usually get taken off.
Speed and movement is your best friend, Vanquish forces you to use it's boost function to get everywhere and anywhere in combat because if you don't you'll see that Game Over screen time and time again. The game also gives you a dodge function which is pretty useful, but if you aim your weapon at the end of the roll that's when things get really interesting. Like Max Payne, Vanquish has a bullet-time function which is crucial for landing headshots and weak spots on bosses. Once you learn to use all these different tools in combat you'll find your self dodging bullets like Neo from the Matrix, rocket boosting past missiles, and slowing time to headshot 3 enemies while they're trying to shoot you from behind cover. It's satisfying as hell and it makes you feel like a super badass every time.
There's a good variety of weapons at your disposal too, everything from your basic machine guns, to a weapon that fires out a giant saw blade to take out multiple enemies, and a rocket launcher that puts all others to shame. You also get a variety of grenades, but being precise when throwing them is tricky without a lot of practice. Weapon inventory is limited though, allowing you to carry only 3 weapons at a time so choosing which ones to keep and which one to swap out can be a bit of challenge. All the weapons are upgradable too, killed enemies sometimes drop straight upgrades for an instant damage and ammo boost but if you pick-up a dropped weapon already in your inventory it will add to the weapons rank and eventually upgrade it.
The surprising part is that the game not only plays well, but looks incredible and graphically is on par with games like Resident Evil 6 and Gears of War. The art style of the game is unique using a lot of white in it's environments and vibrant colors for it's characters, setting it apart from the hundreds of other gritty shooters that are out there. Character models are highly detailed in both cut scenes and gameplay, and the enemies you fight are varied and all have very distinct looks so the second you spot them you know exactly what to expect when fighting them and what their abilities are. The engine is solid and holds it's frame-rate flawlessly whether you're in an empty hallway or a wide open area filled with hundreds of enemies and explosions you will never see the game stutter.
Sadly the game's story isn't the greatest, even though it's delivered through beautifully done cinematics it still didn't drive me to figure out what was going wit the plow, wanting to get to the next big firefight and epic moment was the real reason I kept playing. I really wanted to like it too because the environments and characters are so different from everything out there, that I wanted more background and depth explaining the rest of the games universe but it never delivered. It isn't a very long game either, clocking in at around 5 hours most people could finish it over a weekend and there isn't much of a reason to come back unless you're the type to chase that high score.
Vanquish is still one of my favorite third-person shooters and the fact that I can finish it in a weekend is actually blessing for me since I can sit down and play for a day or two, finish the game, and feel completely satisfied with my experience. So if you are looking for something like Gear of War or Binary Domain on crack check out Vanquish, you wont be disappointed.