Vanquish is an intense sci-fi third person shooter that can be defined in one word - epic!
Contains: Frequent Strong Violence, some Bloody, Language and Intense Action
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Vanquish is an epic third-person sci-fi action shooter from the critically acclaimed game director Shinji Mikami.
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STORY - 3/5
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The story of Vanquish takes place in the near future where the population of Earth has risen to over 10 billion, and there is a lack of consumable food and energy for the ever-growing population. Because of the numerous wars that broke out because of the depleting natural resources, fear and uncertainty for the Earth's future forced America to place their hopes in the skies with the SC-01 Providence space colony, harbouring a solar energy-driven generator to provide them with an alternative source of fuel from the sun. However, the government of the Russian Federation on Earth has been overthrown in a sudden, illegal deposition of government by ultra-nationalist forces calling themselves the Order of the Russian Star.
Russian forces capture this space station and divert its harvested solar energy into a blast wave that devastates San Francisco, aiming to force the US into a total and unconditional surrender. The main antagonist, known as Victor Zaitsev, demands that the American government surrender or he will choose New York City as his next target.
In a steadfast refusal to cooperate with the aggressors, President Elizabeth Winters instead takes Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Burns, a decorated war veteran, and puts him in charge of a newly-commissioned task force called Bravo Company. This team consists of several space-faring Special Forces, veteran Marines, and the remnants of the defending US forces on board the space station. On top of that, she also gives them the game's protagonist and playable character, Sam Gideon, with a military strike order to annihilate the invaders and take back the colony.
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CHARACTERS - 3/5
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Protagonist Sam Gideon is a researcher for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) who was in charge of designing the Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS) system, a cutting-edge mechanical suit outfitted with a vast array of functions, including jet boosters attached to both arms and legs, a stronger-than-steel toughness and barely perceptible weight, that gives the wearer increased mobility, endurance and firepower out on the battlefield. Sam accompanies the army to test his battle suit design, but secretly has been drafted to rescue Professor Candide who is a chief researcher at DARPA. Consequently, his hidden agenda leads to constant clashes with the mission's commanding officer, Marine Lt. Col. Robert Burns, a decorated war hero who is endlessly driven at continuing the fight in hopes of honouring the soldiers he has lost under his stewardship with victory, despite losing his arm and replacing nearly half his body with bionics. The person tasked with providing logistical support in the current operations to Sam is Elena Ivanova, whose superior analytical abilities and hacking techniques guide Burns, Sam and the rest of the team towards mission objectives with the courage of progressing them further in their mission.
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GAMEPLAY - 5/5
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Vanquish is a breathtaking blend of intense, non-stop action and over-the-top style sequences, and the key aspect for the unfolding, chaotic set piece battles is the unique ARS advanced battle suit system. This cool suit provides you with increased agility to manoeuvre around the battlefield by sliding on your knees utilising built-in jet boosters on all limbs, so you can shoot while navigating at high speeds away from danger or boost closer to enemy formations situated before your objective location. The ARS suit is designed to trace, anticipate and enhance the movements by monitoring physical joints, myogenic potential and brainwave activity, and among its key functions is AR mode which shifts the game into slow motion allowing you to precisely target enemies weaknesses with a barrage of accurate shots as the target explodes into metal fragments in a slow motion visual effect. AR mode can be activated when exiting cover, boosting or evading, but can also be automatically triggered when it detects your health is in imminent danger. High levels of noradrenaline and dopamine are released that heighten awareness, reaction time, and pain resistance, giving you the greatest odds of immediate short-term survival and give the impression of renovating in slow motion. AR mode lasts a limited time before the suit overheats and automatically shuts off, requiring a brief time for the temperature gauge to cool down, but overheating can be prevented if you cancel AR mode manually, when you have initiated a number of sufficient and satisfying attacks upon enemies.
The suit is armed with an experimental weapon system called BLADE (Battlefield Logic ADaptable Electronic), which is capable of scanning any existing weapon and then transforming into a perfect replica of that weapon. Its ability to store 3 scans at a time means that at any given time you can shapeshift between 3 weapons of your choosing that are assigned to the directional buttons. Weapons and grenades can be attained at frequently found containers, and the clever ranking system means that if you equip the same weapon and have full ammo, it will rank up the weapon, and the more you pick up, upgrades will be introduced to the weapon forever within the game even if you discard it for a completely different gun, which can include increased firepower, ammo capacity and accuracy depending on the type. Defeating enemies can also reveal holographic upgrades that can be collected, which instantly provide an upgrade for the weapon you have equipped, but these are rarer to encounter than the common container of a random weapon. There are so many containers that you are given opportunities constantly to mix up your load-out within the suit, and this variety allows for lots of varied and exciting action.
The gunplay is solid and intense because of the sheer amount of enemies preventing your progress and the team of allies assisting your mission, and it's so easy to get wrapped up in the action that you'll instigate your suit's abilities in all sorts of fantastic ways that work out exceptionally well in keeping your senses heightened and your engagement intact with the events on screen. Surges of adrenaline are frequently injected and pumped into the over-the-top-style gameplay with large enemies and sometimes huge bosses, that all cause you to approach and adapt differently according to the enemies attacks and weaknesses. Exploiting an enemies weakness by rocket sliding around them or under them is an absolute blast, and the energetic action sequence that initiates on a boss shortly before they explode into a pile of robotic materials requires precision timing of the controller to exact powerful moves, which your unrivalled suit is solely responsible for, and the quick-time event is complete in awe-struck amazement as you land unscathed onto the hard, forgiving concrete metres below your peak height where agility and perseverance paid off to meet the bosses demise. Set piece battles are thrilling and completely epic, pushing the boundaries of intensity and believability but constantly keeping you on the edge of your seat for the next dramatic moment as you vanquish more and more enemies in outstanding ways that are simply indescribable and leave you lost for words when the fight briefly ends.
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GRAPHICS - 5/5
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The truly stunning visuals and level design makes the fast-paced combat even more involving, and the strange backdrop that is established in a tube-like, artistically created, geometric shape that engulfs you from virtually all angles where the colony has been created makes it seem even more futuristic than you'd believe in a science fiction setting. The stage is set nicely for the frenetic amounts of conflict you'll engage in, and the solid framerate that is steady throughout makes sure the immersion is never broken, and constantly sustained in even the biggest of battles. When AR mode is triggered, the screen will appear tinted red, and perception of time will be slowed efficiently to evade to a safer position or unleash devastating attacks onto robotic foes, all within a well presented visual effect to enforce the feeling of sliding and shooting in slow motion. A health regeneration system is enabled in the game, and while the game clearly indicates where the damage is coming from, it, unfortunately, never clearly indicates how close you are to automatically triggering the life-threatening AR mode, and can come as a surprise as to how close death is on occasions when you are obsessed with the scenes happening on screen. But overall, the presentation and graphics are of outstanding quality, which feature no technical issues whatsoever.
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SOUND - 5/5
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The sound department is reminiscent of the gameplay and graphics sections, with no problems noticeable to address or inform of warning prior to playing. It's often hard to hear the background music above all the fiery explosions, gunfire and robotic dismemberment, but you don't need to, really, to realise just how epic the effect it has on everything despite not clearly penetrating through the sound effects and audio dialogue. Voice acting is good, but sometimes it's difficult to believe the actors voicing the characters really do sound so deep as if they swallowed a load of gravel, almost making the dialogue cheesier than it should, but it's strong stuff that reflects the characters traits and characteristics and overall is not distracting from the game's overall performance.
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CONTROLS - 4/5
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A much needed and well presented tutorial gets you ready for the upcoming warfare engagements, and the controls prove tricky and awkward at first, especially where activating AR mode is concerned. Using boost and initiating that cool shift into slow motion can seem an awkward task when reactions must be fast and dispatching enemies must be a rapid succession of accurate blasts from powerful weaponry, but it won't be long into the game that you find yourself nailing the controls and the formulae to exact specific moves in tight, heated scenarios that require quick-thinking and dangerous precision.
Special sequences against stronger enemies are automated during the fight, and if correctly completed, result in devastating attacks that are more powerful than regular firepower and melee moves. During these well choreographed action scenes, you are required to input the controls displayed on-screen correctly within the time available (usually hardly any) in order to successfully exact your aggression upon your massive opponent. Typical controls include rotating the left or right analog stick in the direction indicated, or tapping a button repeatedly until the small, on-screen gauge is full, and each control sequences required always reflects what is happening on screen perfectly, though sometimes the controls are unexpected and can result in failure. But once you understand the options that could pop up during these scenes you'll be on your guard to complete the attack and leave your opponent in a helpless state as you witness the suit, seemingly possessed with magical abilities, complete improbable, yet compelling, actions that leave you speechless and enthralled for more.
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ATMOSPHERE - 5/5
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There's always scripted events taking place in the area around you or the sky above, and the epic fast-paced adrenaline built-up and usually sustained through intense battle scenarios is replicated in the atmosphere that envelopes the sci-fi setting around you, keeping you fully immersed as you await another scene that will satisfy your thirst for destroying enemy robotics with deadly objectives of their own. The environments you are in are usually quite large in scale to give that battle sense a much more convincing prospect, but the level design is always well varied and correctly coloured to give the illusion of being on such a strange-looking space colony in a near-future, possible dilemma.
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ENEMY AI - 4/5
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The many contests that augment between you and robotic enemies shape up for many entertaining battles, especially when stronger enemies are thrown into the equation to mix things up and tip the odds against you. But the extremely unique achievements the ARS suit has completed and proved its potential against other enemies means the present opposing force, situated between your team and the objective, may not have considered every angle of disruptive sabotage to flaw your attempts at penetrating through their vast defences and waves of reinforcements, and their losses will soon hit critical levels that will be feared when you are in the battle. The enemy variety is well varied, and the different levels of opponents and their tactical and deadly array of potential attacks make you cautious of new enemies and the threats they may pose. Smooth animations, accurate shots, and effective cover makes the more human-like enemies just as potentially deadly as the larger, less agile enemy robots, but the real intelligence is displayed from the incredibly big boss enemies, that consist of almost impenetrable armour and critical attacks that can cause all sorts of K.I.A. statistics against your squad. All enemies also show decent battle tactics and strategy when engaging in conflict with you, and despite the occasional artificial intelligence mishap, the robotic assailants prove deadly from distance and within melee distance, and make for challenging opposition for the length of the game.
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LENGTH - 1/5
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The game is split up into 5 Acts with individual chapter missions in-between, and at the end of a mission, statistics of that mission get added to the overall count and are presented on-screen for you to view before continuing with the next part. All weapons are unveiled to you within the first few levels which is a shame, but then the realisation of this act is purposeful by the developer's if you want any chance of upgrading the weapons to an efficiently powerful rank, since this third-person shooter can be easily completed in just over 4 hours.
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REPLAY VALUE - 5/5
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Fast, fluid and frenetic gameplay is the core of Vanquishes epic design as you storm into battle and experience high octane gaming at its absolute most explosive and exciting. It may be an experience that ends a lot sooner than you'd like, but it's an experience unlike no other, where action is literally non-stop, and the thrills of shooting within its sci-fi setting in an innovative battle suit is worth every reason to replay the single player campaign again and again upon completion. Vanquish is an extremely fun game, that can be defined in one simple word - epic!
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 9/10
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Good Points: Full of absolutely intense non-stop action, Epic boss fights, Truly stunning visuals and level design, Overall presentation is outstanding, The ARS advanced battle suit is really cool and unique, Sliding around at high speeds and shifting into slow motion is awesomely entertaining, Audio soundtrack and sound effects are solid, Challenging but never frustrating.
Bad Points: Can be completed in 4 hours.