Short, but definitely sweet, Vanquish is an awesome game not to be missed by fans of any type of shooter.

User Rating: 9 | Vanquish PS3
VANQUISH is a fantastically fun, frenetically paced third person shooter from Shinji Mikami and the same studio that brought us the equally, if not more so, fun BAYONETTA which it also draws a lot of comparisons to. Like BAYONETTA, you're able to slow time down for short periods, the controls take a little getting used to, there's a scoring system, the same type of difficulty levels and the boss battles are grand. Also like BAYONETTA, once you have truly mastered the game's controls, playing the game can become near-artiistry as you rocket-slide and flip and dodge and slow time down as you cut your opponents to shreds in a hail of bullets, lasers and rockets. But that's where the comparisons stop and VANQUISH takes on an identity of its' own. So, w/out further ado, let me get to it in my normal fashion …..

THE GOOD : Straight off – VANQUISH is pure fun. The inseparable centerpieces of the game are the abilities you have to both rocket-slide around the battlefield at a breakneck pace and slow time down to a crawl via your ARS battle suit. The two extremes playing off of each other make this game fantastically fun, because the game itself barely gives you a chance to breathe. There are brief interludes between battles as you move from one area to the next, but each area is loaded with a plethora of interesting looking robots w/ one purpose in mind : destroy you and your fellow soldiers. And they are quite effective at it. On the harder settings, it becomes quite daunting and there's a sense of realism to it all due to the robots' mechanical precision. On the easier settings it's a cakewalk and you can literally play through the whole game w/out dying once. And then there's everything in between. All in all there's a good variance in the range of difficulties available to you. As well, there are also a good variety of very fun and interesting weapons available to the player and they're all available from the start. Even the DLC weapons pack, should you decide to purchase that as well, for the $1.99 it goes for (I did and I'd recommend it as the weapons are extremely powerful and fun to use) is available right from the start of the game. All in all, the combination of interesting and fun weapons, plus the abilities to both tear like a rocket around the battlefield and also slow time to a crawl make Vanquish a must-play game for anyone who likes shooters of any kind, be them FPS or TPS. But in addition to the gameplay itself, Vanquish boasts some rather stunning and impressive graphics and sounds. The graphics are some of the more impressive I've seen as of late, as they're all quite realistic and smooth and have very polished look to them. Plus the framerate never drops once (at least it never did for me) and this is no small feat considering the level of detail and the insane amount of crazy stuff happening on-screen at any given moment. Especially when time is slowed down, you can see every bullet in the air, every ripple of the concussive shockwaves from the explosions and all the intricate detail of the surrounding scenery and robotic infantry. Add to that the enveloping sound field and you really feel as if you're right in the middle of the battle. As if the intensity of the battles themselves wasn't enough! And some of them do get intense. Vanquish isn't meant to be played as a standard cover & shoot game. You're meant to be out in the open, zooming around, dodging bullets, flipping past giant robots as they take lunging swipes at you and in general, being part of the hyper-kinetic mayhem going on. Epillepsy sufferers beware! One last small item to note that I found somewhat enjoyable, was that you can actually have your character take a smoke break while in cover, and use his discarded cigarette butt as a heat-source diversionary tactic. How refreshingly un-PC and rather funny considering your character is a former college football star who smokes his way through the game! When it's all said and done, Vanquish definitely leaves you wanting more. But that, in large part, is due to the fact that Vanquish is also a regrettably short game, which brings me to…..

THE BAD : No game is perfect and unfortunately, as fun and as good as Vanquish is, it also has a few flaws, though nothing that's a game breaker. As I just mentioned the most glaring of these is that the game is almost unfairly short. For something this fun, it's too bad it only lasts 6-10 hours through 5 'Acts', depending on your level of skill. I'm not sure the rationale for the game being this short, but I suspect it has to do with the high quality of the game itself (graphics, sound, detail, etc.) all being fit onto 1 disc. Regardless, it's too short but it's not entirely a bad problem to have. Some of Vanquish's other flaws were the story itself and the voice acting. The story is a flimsy cold-war, Russia vs. the USA throwback, that's paper-thin and as predictable as anything. The voice acting, while not as bad as some games I've played, also left a little to be desired. But since I don't play games for the literary value I'll leave my comments on the story and dialogue it at that. Something else I found wanting of Vanquish was the lack of a multiplayer mode. While I realize that the developers stated well in advance of the release that there would not be one and for the exact reason I suspected the game is so short, it's still a disappointment none the less. We all know that nothing beats the online multiplayer experience because playing against other humans always trumps playing against AI. And considering the enemies in Vanquish are all AI to begin with, it makes this flaw even more glaring. One final thing that I wasn't too thrilled about with this game, and I fully realize this is something just for trophy / achievement hunters like myself, is the degree of difficulty in obtaining one of the trophies, compared to all the others. While I know that sounds stupid considering some trophies / achievements are supposed to be harder than others, let me explain further. There are 50 total trophies possible in Vanquish, one of those being the Platinum. The first 48 are relatively easy to obtain, either by simply playing the game & getting them automatically or by putting a little effort into a specific few. So much so, you'll be expecting Vanquish to be a relatively easy 100% completion. Oh hell no. The 49th and final trophy requires you to beat all 6 of the 'Challenges' in the game, as Vanquish also has a Challenge mode, similar to God Of Wars' Challenge of The Gods, for example. And let me say that 'challenge' is putting it lightly. While not completely impossible, some of the challenges are so ridiculously difficult and insanely hard, it just seems unbalanced compared to all the other trophies. Be forewarned that if you're a completionist like myself, you will spend MANY, MANY hours just trying to complete some of the individual challenges, let alone all of them. To be fair, there are 2 or 3 of the 6 that are somewhat manageable and not a vexing as the rest but the others will make you want to scream, pull your hair out, punch walls and chuck your controller at your TV. I guess this is where Vanquish makes up for the shortness of the game itself.

THE BOTTOM LINE : Vanquish is a fast-paced, fluid and at times hyper-kinetic game that not only boasts some fun gameplay mechanics and weapons but also some truly impressive graphics and sound and is a must-play for anyone who likes shooters of any kind. While not without its' flaws and is a little too short, nothing is significant enough to detract from the gameplay itself. It leaves the player wanting more and that's definitely the sign of a very good, if not great game.